Two-Bite Brownies - #19
Hey everyone! Bear with me as I change my newsletter naming format up a bit. I figure y’all don’t need a reminder of the date or who wrote my newsletter every time I send one out. But I do like the idea of the newsletters being a series rather than bits of detached content thrown into the ether of the internet. So I put a number on this one. It’s the 19th.
By the way, I got these Two-Bite Brownies things and they’re really tasty. They don’t have the burnt edges I like with brownies, but they’re nice and gooey in the center which I also like. Maybe I should try baking them a bit at high heat to see if I can burn their edges while keeping the goo.
Brownies are important.
What Matters
What matters in a story? In a game, a movie, a book, or comic book? It’s easy to start listing things off: emotionally rich characters, themes that are thoughtful and provocative, intense conflict, captivating dialogue, empathy-driven drama, resolution, etc. Is it a simple thing to put these elements into a list and order them by priority, though? Of course not. Some stories live and breathe through their characters and dialogue. Others thrive on conflict and action. Some trade all of the above for slow and methodical thoughtful narrative. So really, the more important question isn’t what matters, but what matters to me. And all I can think in response right now is how much I love those brownies.
I finished catching up on the ongoing and ridiculously successful Transformers comic book run last night. It’s packed full of brutal action, as robots I’ve known for 30 years shoot, dismember, and torture each other to death. It’s extreme. And all I could think the whole way through was that I didn’t feel emotionally invested enough to truly care what was happening. I should care more, but the comic moved so fast and provided no time for intimacy to be developed. I couldn’t love it. What I wanted was to care.
In contrast, I also recently finished the fifth book in the Murderbot series from Martha Wells, Network Effect. It is everything I don’t typically love about a sci-fi novel. It’s character-focused with limited points of view. While there’s a larger genre-respectful conflict, most of the book focuses on the challenges (internal and external) directly in front of the protagonist. I couldn’t not care even if I wanted to, it was so effective.
I want the media I consume to make me care. I want the writing I create to make people care. Just like I care about these delicious Two Bite Brownies that I actually nibble on so they’re more like fifty bites. Yes, that’s an ambiguous metric to judge products of creativity on, but it needs to be. There are just so many variations of brownie. One needs to be flexible. To be fair, brownies have made a hypocrite of me in the past, and will do so again.
Who Cares
Enough with the brownies. The metaphor brownies and the literal brownies. Especially the literal brownies. What’s the point of this? It’s not like this is some sort of revelation. It’s not exactly profound. That’s right! It isn’t, but it is still exactly the thorn in my brain lately. Why? Because I can’t figure out how to care about my writing.
I have plenty of ideas. The idea department isn’t an issue. Prose and productivity are issues, but for the moment they aren’t what’s killing my initiative. I can’t figure out how to care. It’s not a matter of want. I desperately want to write. Is it a matter of fear? I’m undeniably afraid of failing this, or worse creating something embarrassing. But those are things that everyone cares about. If I cared enough (or at all) about my writing, the fear wouldn’t matter — or at least would matter less. How do I find my heart for this?
I reflect on my writing over the past 20 years and I’m left lacking. A big part of why I was able to write so much, pumping out dozens of articles a week, is that I did not care. Most of what I wrote mattered so little both to myself and those who read it. Can you imagine trying to care, to invest yourself in every article? It’s not just unrealistic, it’s downright unhealthy. I wrote so that I could do the things I cared about, so that I could buy brownies. Damn, the brownies are back again.
Here we are revisiting the title of this newsletter all over again, “Relearning to Write.” I should go back and read that first newsletter to see if I’m just repeating myself. But that’s what it feels like, that I have to relearn how to write by teaching myself how to care. How do I do that? I don’t know.
The Brownies Again
Let’s make this mathematical. I care about brownies, my delicious Two-Bite Brownies, in a very straightforward, honest, and beautiful way. Does it follow then that if I write about these brownies, I care about the writing? Have my rambling brownie thoughts persuaded you, the reader, to care about these succulent chocolate discs? Clearly, I care enough to have cut through the fear of whether my Two-Bite Brownie writing will prove an embarrassment or not. That’s another point in its favor. Yet even if I do care, is caring about my brownie writing scalable in a way that it can translate to such a tremendously large effort as a novel? There are no risks writing about brownies. There’s nothing to sell. This is all so complicated. No wonder I’m eating so many brownies.
I want writing my novel to be as easy as writing about brownies, but it isn’t and never will be. It’s work. I may love it when I manage to actually do it, but it will still be work. I want to care about writing my novel in the same way that I care for writing about things that I love and that make me happy. Is that even possible? God, I’m overthinking it. I never overthink the brownies.
The one conclusion I keep coming back to, however unfair it is to myself, is that I’m in way over my head. Brownies make sense to me. Am I ready for anything more than brownies? The book I want to write requires so much planning, which I’m clearly struggling with. It’s a wedding cake in comparison. Alright, this metaphor is out of control.
I definitely have some thinking on the matter to do. My inner self keeps yelling at me to, “Just write. Start writing. Put anything on the page. Figure the rest out from there.” But that feels so much like what I described earlier. It feels like not caring, like my job. So if I’m not going to do that, well, thinking some more seems like the best alternative.
Lightning Round
Here are some shorter categories, touching on various things I’ve played, read, or devoured over the past couple of weeks.
Meat — This past week I met up with my friend Eddie for a lunch trip to a BBQ place he’s a fan of. It’s named Little Miss BBQ and it’s just south of the Phoenix airport. I ordered brisket, pork rib, and a cheddar+jalapeno sausage, and it was the most delicious meal I’ve had in ages. I’ve been dreaming about it since. Brisket is amazing, y’all.
The Power Fantasy — Kieron Gillen is one of my favorite comic writers currently working. His latest series is named The Power Fantasy and it revolves around a group of mutant-like people with enough power to destroy the world. Their Cold War-esque understanding of mutual destruction with each other is incredibly (and deliciously) tenuous. These are people beyond the concerns of people, or so they’d like to think. It’s going to be a beautiful disaster, torturously told issue by issue month to month.
The Colour of Magic — After finishing Murderbot 5, I started reading the first Discworld book from Terry Pratchett. It’s not my first time reading it, but every time I do it’s like discovering joy in a new way. Compared to later Discworld books, Colour has its issues. But there’s just something about meeting Rincewind, Twoflower, and the Luggage for the first time (all over again) that makes Discworld special.
Wrestling Newsletter — I’ve been wanting to write more wrestling newsletters, but I don’t think this is the right place. Would folk be interested in a separate newsletter where I focus on long-form thoughts on modern wrestling? I’ll let you know.
Thanks as always for reading my silly newsletter. I can’t say enough how much it means to me to have folk interested in my hopes, struggles, efforts, and failures. Thank you for taking the time. Talk soon, Rory.