Dev Log: October 26, 2024
It’s been an emotional week in my life and in my work. I am reconciling and strategizing. I’m taking stock and feeling anxious to declutter. I am writing the end of the game.
Lots of tears at my desk, but never for the wrong reasons. This is a good thing. If it wasn’t this way, I’d be more concerned.
But I’m pretty vulnerable, is what I’m saying! Throw in a few days of engagement with the latest marketing push - a time when my sworn enemy, social media, is buzzing in my ear - and I’m desperate for a few Saturday hours at home with nothing to do but reflect. (There’s actually lots to do, but Mom’s on the porch right now, okay?)
I showed a few things to Mike after working without feedback all month. He reacted as I’d hoped to the story, and we had some great conversations about potential interactive bits. So I’m still building. But in another week, this will all be out of my hands for deeper editorial feedback, and I’ll be looking long and hard at systems for a while. Can’t think about it now. Must stick to landing.
My friend Evan shared a list of writing tips by Walter Benjamin, and one in particular has stuck with me all week:
Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there.
He’s right, of course. To maximize my work hours, I almost never leave my desk to write. There’s just too much settling-in before the flow state activates. But courage is exactly what I need right now, and it’s more than likely I’ll be writing in novel locations this week, even if I only go as far as my porch or back yard. Fortunately, these are the most beautiful days of the year to go looking for courage. Or, like, pick apples n’ stuff.
Perfect Tides: Station to Station - New Trailer
A new trailer for Perfect Tides: Station to Station debuts today! You may view it below. Hope you enjoy!
What I Got Into - NYC AGAIN - October 20, 2024
Only the weekend was worth reporting, so I’ll structure this one a bit more like a travel blog. (Is that a treat or a punishment?)
Back to NYC already. This weekend seemed like the last good one for camping, and fall in New York is amazing, so we finally made good on our threat to camp in the city. Having never done it, we had all kinds of dread, but it worked out great, with only minimal tweaks needed after the first day. The van rolled in around 4pm to claim a spot on Ave A & 2nd street, where we parked comfortably for 2 nights. Not joking when I say the 19-foot van was more spacious than a pod hotel.
I didn’t make it to New York Comic Con, but I did meet an actual celebrity* at an industry event on Friday, where I was also reunited with decades-old friends and childhood heroes, plied with candy, and given a wealth of books that my son is already halfway through reading.
I won’t bore you with most of my Saturday, some activities so generic I already can’t remember if I experienced them or read them in a bulleted “Kid-Friendly New York” list from the mid-00s. Much of what I do with my son is relive my former college/early-20s glory days, places that were already for kids but I didn’t really know it then, and are still a lot of fun. It turns out you can bring children to Sing Sing for karaoke before 8pm. The tech has improved and the rooms are just as grimy. After all these years I’m still having veggie dogs at Crif Dogs, playing 5 games of Ms. Pac-Man on their tabletop cabinet, and daydreaming about having one of my own before I die. (It would be sped up of course, which Crif’s management has sacrilegiously failed/refused to do.)
I stopped into Book Club on Saturday, picked up 2666 (Roberto Bolano, 2004) and have since put a hundred-page dent in it. Which isn’t much considering the book, but it’s pretty good for a busy Mom on the go, and the best of many false starts I’ve had with this book. A man saw me holding the book while eating an ice cream cone that night, and he asked about it. Between bites I told him it’s concise and delicious. Oh, how I love thinking and wandering and talking in New York! Moments later, I told my son New York sucks because I’d seen a man gushing piss from his penis three steps from our van, and we laughed about that for minutes.
On the last night I woke up at 2am for no particular reason and spent 2 hours reading the webcomic What Happens Next by Max Graves, which a lot of former Cohosters are talking about. This was a surprisingly good pairing with 2666, itself a story of sheltered people looking at life and sexuality through a media lens, while inflicting mundanely evil acts on one another, all while the sands of time and culture shift beneath their feet. This comparison is especially sound once you’ve replaced the works of obscure writer Benno von Archimboldi with “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”.
Got really great vegan biscuits n’ gravy at POST with some friends before heading home on Sunday. I found an “East Village” sticker to stick on the van’s souvenir wall, marking our last trip of the season. Then we stopped at a dump station on the way home and did the solemn task that every camper must do (watch a much larger RV dump its shit, while sizing up the owners’ technique).
*guy in an inflatable Dog Man costume