🚀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...