🚀The Dark Age: Writing the islands
Hello, friends! About a week ago, I finished a draft of the novel I’ve been ghostwriting; in last week’s letter, I talked about letting that draft breathe...
Write longhand to surprise yourself
Hello, friends! Felicia and I have just finished watching Station Eleven on HBO Max. Her first viewing, my second. The show rewards the attentive viewer, I...
🚀The Dark Age: TK CLEVER TITLE
Good morning, friends! I usually write these newsletters the weekend before they go out, or, if I'm particularly on my game, a few weeks ahead of time. Right...
The things we love become our lens for how we see
Hello, friends! I'm writing this on Monday, President's Day; it's been a long weekend, and while I've spent most of it on necessary work (preparing taxes,...
🚀The Dark Age: The writer with two brains
Hi, friends! It's been such a pleasant weekend over here. The sun's out, but it's still nice and cool outdoors. Felicia and Squish strapped on their roller...
Everyone has a library of story ideas
Hello, friends! Today I'm thinking about where story ideas originate. Right now I'm working on two projects. One, The Dark Age, weaves together a few...
🚀The Dark Age: Marathons, not sprints
Hello, friends! A few years ago, Craig Mod wrote an essay for Wired about taking a long walk across Japan. I’ve taken many walks in Japan, but this was a...
Scrambled eggs and revolutions
Hello, friends! This new year has, so far, brought with it some interesting reads. I opened the year by reading Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass House and...
🚀The Dark Age: A novel is a long walk
Hello, friends! We’re halfway through January now. Time seems to move at a rapid clip these days. I attribute this mostly to the pandemic. Our family hasn’t...
Magical solutions to getting stuck
Happy new year, friends! I don’t know about you, but I have made and plan to make absolutely no resolutions this year. I’ve never been big on resolutions to...
🚀The Dark Age: What we do in the background
Happy new year, friends! One of the most interesting aspects of writing books—and my least understood—is the way problems sometimes solve themselves as soon...
2021, it's been real
Hi, friends! This is the last newsletter of 2021, can you believe it? It’s been a very newslettery year. I’ve sent forty-five total newsletters to your...
🚀The Dark Age: Literally nothing about The Dark Age
Hello, friends! I bumped against this quote last month, though by now I can't remember where: We don't suffer these days from any lack of communication, but...
Paul McCartney and the search for the hit song
Hi, friends! Not long ago, Peter Jackson's three-part documentary about The Beatles and the creation of their 1970 album Let It Be was released on Disney+....
🚀The Dark Age: Beautiful, blobby rewrites
Hello, friends! In last week’s free newsletter, I wrote about Laurie Anderson’s method of evaluating her own projects. (I learned about this from this post...
Making art for yourself
Hi, friends! Every Friday for the last several, I've shared quotes on my blog. These are quotes I've had tacked to the bulletin board in my study for the...
🚀The Dark Age: Epigraphical!
Hello, friends! The last time I wrote, I mentioned that my other novel project had recently taken precedent over The Dark Age. Well, because writing is the...
We're all impostors
Hello, friends! Recently I read a LitHub questionnaire with novelist Ruth Ozeki. (Ozeki, as you may recall from previous newsletters, is the author of the...
🚀The Dark Age: Running in the background
Hello, friends! The last few weeks I've shifted gears. As I've mentioned a couple of times, I've got two book projects going in parallel, and the other...
The delicate art of choosing one's next read
Hello, friends! I’m on the cusp of completing Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork, a thorough dissection of...
🚀The Dark Age: Exercise 3, Exploration
Hello, friends! In the last two Dark Age newsletters, I've shared exercises created by Nina LaCour, as samples of her Slow Novel Lab workshop. Today I'll...
That mote of dust in a sunbeam
Hello, my friends! A little while back I stumbled across a Reddit thread which suggested vacationers learn not to fall too much in love with their vacation...
🚀The Dark Age: Exercise 2, Image
Hello, friends! In the last Dark Age newsletter, I shared the first of three exercises created by Nina LaCour, as a sample of her Slow Novel Lab workshop....
The world is not rooting for you
Hello, friends! By the time this letter arrives, my period of resting and resetting will have ended, and I'll have begun a fresh new job. But I'm writing...
🚀The Dark Age: Exercise 1, Structure
Hi, friends! In last week's issue, I mentioned the Slow Novel Lab, a workshop I completed last year. Before starting the workshop, I sampled a writing task...
Burning the house down
Hello, friends! In the last public issue of this newsletter, I mentioned that the startup for which I’d worked was closing down, and that I was a bit...
🚀The Dark Age: Never quite good enough
Hello, friends! I'm writing this on Sunday, the 12th. Yesterday, within twenty miles of Hill House, a thirty-acre fire was reported. The most recent update...
Rest, reset, begin again
Hello, friends. I'm writing this on Saturday, September 4. It is gorgeous here this morning. Big golden sun throwing spears through the windows. All the...
🚀The Dark Age: Starved for touch
🚀The Dark Age: Starved for touch Hello, friends! The Dark Age has been going well lately. I've started writing a new part of the novel, one narrated by...
Reading for pleasure
Reading for pleasure Every book is a professor of something Hi, friends! Earlier this week, while chatting on the phone with my father, he mentioned that he...
🚀The Dark Age: Storytelling 101
🚀The Dark Age: Storytelling 101 Or, how to screw up the fundamentals Hello, friends! Thanks as always for supporting this newsletter with a paid...
The vehicle in which I live
The vehicle in which I live On spending one's life wearing a car-suit Hello, friends! (Bit of a content warning for this one; I talk a bit about bodies and...
🚀The Dark Age: A spaceship of one's own
🚀The Dark Age: A spaceship of one’s own A place to write, and many words to go Hello, friends! It’s always a happy discovery when the writing machine seems...
Low moments and difficult work
Low moments and difficult work Navigating the challenges and obstacles too few of us talk about Hello again, friends! Recently I started working on a new...
🚀The Dark Age: An excerpt of a work-in-progress
🚀The Dark Age: An excerpt of a work-in-progress Philip is supposed to be sleeping, but he isn’t Hello, friends! Today, a little excerpt of my work-in-...
When the road fails to flow under me
When the road fails to flow under me Road trips, memory lanes, and the music that fuels both Hello, friends! When our pandemic season began last year, I...
🚀The Dark Age: We all need a little structure
🚀The Dark Age: We all need a little structure Searching for the right way to put a story together Hi, friends! Writers often divide themselves into two...
Permission and practice
Permission and practice Some thoughts on the creative process, from smarter folks than me Hi, friend! I'm on vacation! Spending it at home working on The...
🚀The Dark Age: The search for stillness
🚀The Dark Age: The search for stillness Exploring our inherent need for space...without writing a pandemic novel Hello, friends! From the journal I began...
The gravity of the situation
The gravity of the situation Wherein Squish prefers movies that stress her the heck out Good morning! It's been raining at Hill House for the last few days....
🚀 The Dark Age: Three voices in the dark
🚀 The Dark Age: Three voices in the dark Identifying my main characters, their wounds, their beliefs, and their needs Hello, friends! Last summer, I enrolled...
Getting in (and out of) your own way
Getting in (and out of) your own way All the things that make writing more pleasant are also the gaps in the road ahead Hello, friendses! (Sorry about that....
🚀 The Dark Age: Strapped to a rocket
🚀 The Dark Age: Strapped to a rocket Weird parallels between this novel and the pandemic era Hello again, friends! And welcome to each of you who is newly...
Ambitious projects, long roads
FREE 05/18/21 🚛 Ambitious projects, long roads Keeping the faith when your project is measured in years, not months Hello, friends! One of the many...
🚀 The Dark Age: The delights of an epistolary novel
🚀 The Dark Age: The delights of an epistolary novel Characters in constant correspondence with themselves and others Greetings! Thank you, as always, for...
Writing in the woods
🌲🏚️🌲 Writing in the woods A place to write...and perhaps to be eaten Hello! Today I'm thinking a lot about the places that writers write. Some write in a...
🚀 The Dark Age: Mid-century modern spaceship
🚀 The Dark Age: Mid-century modern spaceship Bubbles of light, standing out against the darkness Hi, there! Look, it's the first "Dark Age" letter. Thanks...
🚀 A fresh adventure: Introducing the "Dark Age" letters
Hello again! This week I’ve got something new and exciting to share with you. A journal of a novel When John Steinbeck wrote East of Eden, he did so by hand,...
The carousel is a time machine
Hello! That’s me up there. This morning I woke up to a text from my father, who was probably feeling a bit nostalgic. He sent that photograph, and wrote: On...
Small things are important, too
Hello, there! What I’m reading At the moment, I have three books going: Weather, by Jenny Offill. I recently read Offill’s previous book, Dept. of...