Hello Thursday!

Super-short newsletter this week, as I’m writing this through the haze of having gotten my flu and COVID vaccines yesterday. Even so, as miserable as I feel right now, I know it’s worlds better than having flu or COVID. If you have the ability to get vaccinated, please do so.

Things to check out online

• Reverse Outlines: “Finding” your story during revisions — Revising my writing is not my strong suit. Not by a long shot. If I find I’ve written a contradictory section, I can manage to go back and fix that, but usually I just post each chapter as soon as I finish writing it, and that if I notice a problem, I try to write my way out of it moving forward. But from time to time I do get struck with the urge to act against my better judgment and try fixing some of my writing up to see if I can sell it, which I know will require revision. And I think this is a technique that would work for me. Rather than planning your story, creating an outline, and then writing the story, reverse outlines work the other way around. First you write the story. Then you create an outline of the story you just wrote. Then you plan the story, by going back through the outline and seeing where you can remove extraneous scenes, tighten things up, and just generally make it work better. Then, using your first draft and your outline as a guide, you write the story again.

What I’ve been reading:

Since last week I’ve finished reading

• Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Seanan McGuire) — The best analogy I can come up with for this series is that it’s like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, except that you’re only given a handful of pieces at a time, and you have no idea what the final picture is supposed to look like, but you still have to do your best to try to put them together. Each new story in the series answers some questions from earlier volumes while at the same time leaving you with new questions. I’m enjoying reading each new book as it comes out, but once the series ends (assuming it ever does end — Seanan’s background in comic books has given her the ability to keep a series going forever), I want to sit down and read it from beginning to end, uninterrupted, without reading anything else at the same time, so I can thoroughly immerse myself in the story.

• Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, vol. 24 (Yuto Tsukuda) 

I’ve continued reading

• Africa's Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat (Bénédicte Savoy) 

• ArtForum, April 2026 

• The Turbulent Appearance of Brise Collier (Natalie Kelda) 

• Cozy Companion, vol. 28 

and I’ve started reading

• What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?, vol. 1 (Jeong GyeongYun, art by Kim MyeongMi)

If you missed any past Thursdays, you can access the archives here.

And as always, THIS NEWSLETTER CONTAINS 100% HUMAN-CREATED WORDS.

Have a great week, and I’ll see you next Thursday,

Jason