2023, don't let me down
👋 Hello again! I’m writing this on Monday, January 2, the final day of a short winter break. Tomorrow I return to work, and the new year gets rolling in the...
That's a wrap on 2022
Hello, friends! We’re coming up on the end of another year. Because this will be the final newsletter this year (I’ll be taking the next two weeks off, and...
🚀The Dark Age: Fathers and daughters and time
Hello, friends! We're approaching the end of (yet another long) year, and while I'll share how my 2022 reading habits played out in my main newsletter, I've...
The Edge of Sleep
Hi, friends! Very happy to share some just-announced publishing news today... What if the whole world fell asleep...and didn’t wake up again? Dave Torres, a...
🚀The Dark Age: Escaping the grind
Hello, friends!
Enlargement over happiness
Good morning, friends! Can you believe this is the ninety-ninth of these newsletters? As I write this, it's Sunday, and I'm a little behind on my own...
🚀The Dark Age: Schrödinger’s spaceman
🚀The Dark Age: Schrödinger’s spaceman Hello, friends! The Dark Age sometimes feels to me like several different kinds of novels in one. The largest part of...
A sloppy drum solo
Hello, friends! It’s gorgeously foggy as I write this, a little past eight Monday morning. Down the slope from Hill House, roughly equidistant between our...
🚀The Dark Age: Arses, asses, and chairs
Hello, friends! In the last update, I wrote about all of my projects in a state of waiting. As these things tend to do, one of them broke free a day later....
Give it all, give it now
Hello, friends! I've been thinking a lot about deep work lately: About how difficult it can be to enter any kind of focused state when life and its many...
🚀The Dark Age: The doldrums!
Good morning, friends! I find myself in an uneasy state. When I sit down at my writing desk, I am projectless, oddly adrift. It isn't, of course, that I have...
At least I tried
Good morning, friends! I’m writing this on a Monday, the beginning of a new work week. I’ve been up for a few hours now. All summer I’ve had this reliable...
🚀The Dark Age: There goes another orbit
Hello, friends! I'm sitting here in my study at the tail end of a week's vacation. Our family's still taking COVID precautions, so we didn't travel anywhere...
Living in a van under the stars
Hello, friends! I’m off work this week, and spending that time bouncing between good books, three-hour naps, and revisions of my current work-in-progress,...
🚀The Dark Age: Science? What's that?
Hello, friends! Recently Squish has taken a strong interest in astronomy. As a result, we’ve been watching a large number of science videos on YouTube....
Only one story to tell
Hello, friends! I came across this quote, attributed to the playwright Arthur Miller, though I can't seem to track it back to its source: I’m a writer, and...
🚀The Dark Age: A completed draft
Hello, friends! I’m happy to share an update with you: The first draft of The Dark Age is complete! Ordinarily I’d let the manuscript sit awhile, then circle...
A comb with teeth missing
Hello, friends! Hayao Miyazaki is eighty-one years old, and legendary in the world of animation. There's a good chance you've seen some of his movies,...
🚀The Dark Age: Am hold you. Always.
Hello, friends! One of my favorite things to do when I like a piece of media—a book, a TV show, a movie, a song, etc.—is to go hunting for other things like...
Why aren't you faster than you are?
👋 Hi, friends! This week I'm thinking about the expectations that writers feel they must meet. I had a conversation a week ago about writing, and someone...