Describing and creating reality, word by word
Hello, friend.
I've found myself having to assert my identity as a writer in a new way, and it brings about feelings.
Titles and business cards have always held a lot of meaning for me because words always have too. As I got older and navigated the professional world as a weird woman who rarely had any interest in doing the expected, being described accurately became increasingly important. Before I moved into tech, I fought for the title of content strategist; when my employer wouldn't give it to me, for reasons they never could adequately explain, I found it elsewhere. Later, the term engineer became very important. Software engineer and site reliability engineer and security engineer, one after the other, all chasing legitimacy since I don't and likely will never have a computer science degree.
In another area of my life, phases and worlds away, I put myself to the business of being a serious cartoonist. I've written a number of zines and three quarters of a graphic novel, three of four planned issues, and in that phase of my life, my business cards said "doer of things and maker of stuff." A friend visited me recently and mentioned that era of cards as we talked about searching for our next identities, professional and not, as we get older. "When I saw that, I knew you were seeking," he said. It was, as it still always is, startling to be seen accurately. I grew up thinking I could be invisible and came to prefer it, and reminders that I am not and cannot be remain a surprise, even after so much time.
I ordered new business cards this week because I need them for a new phase: going to a writing conference as a writer. I've gone to content strategy conferences, and I've tabled at zine fests, which I think have some things in common with what I'll find at AWP later this month. I've existed in the world as An Actual Writer, both by trade and by hobbies. But this will just be me representing this thing I love so much with no hybrids. Yes, I draw, but no, that's not what I'm doing right now. In the end, my words will have to represent themselves, naked and in black and white on a page, without the support of me in person or as a mere part of a larger strategy or braced by a drawing of a cat. It's just me and the people I create.
My new business cards will say "novelist and travel writer," because I am both.
We write words, and we create realities or reinforce them. This can be joyful and not.
I find myself sad a lot lately, but workable sad, as I think of it - the walking cast equivalent of depression. It's ok, and so am I; I talk with my therapist lately about what to do when you find marinating in a lot of incredibly justifiable feelings. I think sad's a perfectly reasonable reaction right now, but it's still hard to soak in it day after day. So I brace my healthy habits and keep up with my li'l daily yoga and my reading, with seeing friends sometimes, with making myself leave the apartment occasionally, with still attempting to go out dancing even though mask stuff has gotten dicey even in the Bay Area. I'm trying to get more exercise and more sleep. But it's all about keeping a foundation from washing away more than building something, and that's a strange way to spend so much energy.
I am building, though. I finished a second draft of a novel at the turn of the year, and since then, I've been pressing really deliberately on breathing life into a new first draft. The stuff I've been working on since May 2020, which I think of as the Castle Stories, has occupied such a huge part of my brain, and I wanted to see how long it would take before a new project felt like it really, properly took root.
It took about 30,000 words, ushered along by doing the Mini1000 again.
Taking root, in this case, meant details about story or character from the new project (which is currently called The Perimeter) surfacing in my imagination without being summoned by LWH or other deliberate writing times. Walking thinking, vacuuming thinking. And a few weeks ago, it happened: I was about to fall asleep when my brain went, "Hey, something has occurred to us," and I had to make a note.
It isn't as lush as the Castle stuff, but the Castle stuff wasn't always like that either. I've been watching this new thing spread and unfurl more and more, and it feels wonderful. I'm finding the new, weird, wonderful corners of new people, all the hurts and joys, the strange things they do when they're alone, why they've made the choices they've made, and of course I love this. As I've noted, I'm a first-draft writer above all else. I need to continue learning to revise, and I want to too... but sometimes you just want to come home.
I've been trying to tend things more lately, as I said, and I've realized that I've gained some things from trying to push on as hard as I can, to see exactly how much writing I'm capable of, but that it's time to rest a little too. In the last two weeks, I finished writing an 8,000-word chapter of a cybersecurity book, a blog draft for a conference I adore, and more than 13,000 words of fiction. I am content with my stamina, but in the way of all things in my life, it's time to look at how to recharge the battery. Crops have to be rotated, and I don't think I'm any different. I don't know what that means yet, but I'm excited to find out.
Here are some things I've written or liked.
I've written a ton, but nothing public, so it's been a month of reading. That is, to my thinking, a good month.
- People don't work as much as you think: I find a lot of tech thinking to be damaging at best, but I found the way this essay looks at how long things actually take and how a person really spends a day to be incredibly enlightening (and encouraging of people giving themselves a little grace). This post explains the different ways of spending work time, the different energies they take, and the reality of how much even a very motivated and skilled person can actually get done.
- After the Green Ribbon: I just loved this. That's all. The small terrors, the large things they add up to, the questions of gender, and the many ways navigating the world can be complex and casually terrifying.
- on obligatory scenes in trans romance: I read this after Austin mentioned it during an author panel about speculative fiction and romance put on by the Seattle Public Library in January. It's loving, thoughtful, and important to say.
- To All the Brooklyn Brownstones I’ve Loved Before: to Brooklyn and away from it, to Brooklyn and away from it, and several lives told skillfully through geography and meaning.
- Cheat Day by Liv Stratman is one I got randomly from a shelf at my library in a moment of very good luck. Around page 70, I stopped and wondered if I should finish; it's so detailed and precise and immersive that its protagonist's disordered eating crowded my brain. I'm glad I stayed; it doesn't get simpler, but it keeps piling on more of the same skillful characterization and world building. I sometimes think one of my greater writing challenges is in making the small dynamics that fascinate me interesting enough to pull a story along. This book does that so beautifully. All these little tragedies, all these blooming mercies, just another day.
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters is what I read immediately following, and holy shit. You ever read a book and wonder if it's going to burn your hands? That's how I felt. It had the same level of searing detail (and some of the same geography), but turned a very different set of characters. Instead of the paralyzing sameness of a settled life like in Cheat Day, this was all unsettling and the unsettled. Oh, and it also manages to be very, very funny.
And finally, a sentence I've written recently that I liked: “Tell her I died as I lived.” He grabbed her hand again and kissed the palm. “Immersed in everything that makes me happy, a hedonistic comet heading toward an inevitable destination.”
I took a weekend trip to Santa Cruz recently. I will confess to being a grump about some things, and driving on Highway 17 is one of them. Highway 1 is beautiful and scenic; Highway 17 is a vengeful act of an unkind creator. The whole time, as I sometimes do lately, I thought I could be doing nothing, and instead I'm in this car, instead I'm in this hotel listening to the loud TV next door, instead instead instead. I'm remembering how to ignore that voice. We ate good food, saw different things (including different walls, increasingly important in this era), wandered around downtown, and went to the beach at sunset on the day we were to go home. I like seeing straightforward surfing culture; I've always liked that about Santa Cruz. Just people with bikes that have surfboard racks, just sunburned people in wetsuits. And everyone comes out for the sunset. It's a genuinely distinctive place, and even though it's a little hard to take now and then, it was a worthwhile trip. It reminded me that I still want things, even when I feel low. I feel low because I want things and they feel out of reach, and one cure is to find something nearby to reach for. I'm glad I reached.