New Year, New Theme (Also I wrote a book!)
Leveling Up & Resetting
Hello, it’s been a while hasn’t it? I know for me its felt like forever since I wrote one of these, but I think it’s time to return to the wonderful world of newsletters, but more on that later. It’s a new year (well twenty days past one at least at the time of writing this entry), which means it’s time to make resolutions, pick themes or words for your year, and make plans that may or may not go how you expect them to. Personally, I go with the yearly theme route, inspired by Myke & Grey over at the Cortex Podcast. Themes are different from resolutions. Where resolutions are more goal oriented, themes are framework oriented. You pick a theme (or two, or three, there’s no limit really, as long as it’s manageable) that you can plan and check yourself against as the year goes on. Grey has a great video on how they work if you want more details on how to implement them and the reasoning behind it.
Last year my themes were “getting it out there” and “focus” which were picked because I wanted to get more of my creative projects out into the wild, and I needed to focus on them with more deliberate practice. This year my yearly theme is “leveling up,” but I’m also practicing a seasonal theme of “resetting.”
Leveling up to me means focusing on what I already got and making it better. Whether it be writing more to improve my writing, improving my running pace, being a better friend, and even upgrading old shoes. It’s about focusing on what matters to me and putting more effort into making those better. Since this year’s theme is leveling up, I intend to keep up the newsletter to some extent as a means to share with my audience projects, thoughts, and other things I’m working on. It’s a way to level up my relationship with you all instead of posting random things whenever I feel like it.
Resetting is a theme with a smaller timespan, I don’t have a set hard date for when this seasonal theme will end, but it’s tentatively scheduled to end either between Super Bowl Sunday or the beginning of March. A season of reset is a way to dial back on things in my life and rethinking of how the affect me and if I want to keep them around anymore and to what extent. To practice this theme I’ve cut back on alcohol and eating out, been limiting my use of social media, and just this week dialed my coffee down to a blend of three quarters decaf.
Everybody’s brains are different, for some resolutions work better, others (like myself) themes work better. If you’re a manta-loving-framework-builder like myself then I recommend you try out a theme of sorts in your life, whether it’s yearly, seasonal, or even weekly. I know for sure that they’ve helped me a lot. Themes, resolutions, or none of the above, have a happy belated new year!
Project Updates
From the Quadrant
On My Creative Process #1: Jokes to Drama - This is the first entry in an ongoing series exploring my creative process. I personally love listening to how people work and their creative process, and since The Productivity Lab is on indefinite hiatus I decided to start up a series to share mine with you all. In the first entry I explore how a lot of my stories tend to start off as comedies in the first draft but always end up more serious with each draft. I don’t know why it is, but that’s just how my brain works I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
From the Webb
The Novel Killer - I wrote a book! I know, I can’t believe it either. The Novel Killer is an experimental dark comedy / drama. The story is told through a series of transcripts, footnotes, and excerpts from novels as compiled by the Federal Bureau of Stories’ Inter-Story Crime Division regarding the case of the elusive serial killer known as “The Novel Killer.” Although the FBS sees The Novel Killer as a wanted criminal, TNK sees herself as more an “editor” who takes matters in her own hands whenever she gets fed up with a story or wants to instill a little chaos into it. The book follows Meadow Church, a reported and muse, as she interviews The Novel Killer about her various crimes and why she edits out characters against the Plot’s will. You can get it today on Amazon.
What I’m Reading
The Accidental Time Travelers Collective - I just finished this anthology of time traveling stories the other week and I loved it. Anthologies and short story collections aren’t really my thing but I knew Jennifer Marchman, an author who was published in this collection, and I decided to check it out, and I was delighted with the stories in it. My favorite stories in it were “Field and Flame” by Jennifer Marchman, “The Titanic Time Heist” by Janet Raye Stevens, and ”Turtle Day, or Kate Malone and the Magic Calzone” by Julie Bihn.
All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami - Kawakami is my author of the year, everything I’ve read by her has been a wonderful craft of language and character. Every paragraph written by her feels like a painting, I’ve never read anything like it. Despite its name, All the Lovers in the Night is not a romance novel, instead it’s a slice of life tale about Fuyuko Irie, a socially awkward woman in Japan who works as a copy editor. It’s a slow paced novel that just goes about a year or so in her life. There’s conflict of course, but the crux of the story is really about how she grows and changes that year. It’s nothing thrilling and it doesn’t have to be. It’s just a pleasant tale that’s some wonderfully written.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein - I just started this book today so I can’t say much about it yet, but so far I’m liking it. It’s a pop-sociology book but as a self proclaimed generalist, I can’t help but like what Epstein has said so far!
See Ya in the Next Edition
Well that’s it for my first newsletter of 2023. I’m not sure how often I’ll be posting new entries but right now the plan is tentatively a new one every other week. See ya in the next edition!