By the time this gets posted, I’ll probably have gone on 3 or 4 post-vaccination for-the-fuck-of-it trips outside. Masked, of course. I really have to get my walking legs back up. Luckily, there’s a barber shop near me.
READING
I’m through four of the first five volumes of Budgette Tan’s TRESE, but it’ll probably be enough to get me ready for the upcoming Netflix show. So psyched!
I know, at this point it’s more like bi-weeknotes isn’t it? I’m working to get back on a weekly groove, but it’s not a huge priority right now. It is summertime after all.
It’s been a wacky couple of months. The world’s supposedly “returning to normal,” but we’re not there yet. Feels a little surreal–which is probably why this image I saw on TV didn’t phase me as much as it should’ve.
WRITING
I posted April’s writing stats last time and like I said then, May isn’t going to look much better. Somebody I follow on Twitter, I forget who right now, tweeted something to the effect of feeling they were writing in circles that day. That’s actually a good way to describe my writing the past couple of months. Bits and scraps, anything to keep the fingers moving even the tiniest bit.
READING
A couple weeks ago I ran a Twitter poll asking people what I should read next. It wasn’t helpful–two of my three choices ended up in a tie. Anyway, I did get a lot of reading done.
Having satisfied my Cleveland side, I checked in with my Filipino side. The Filipina cozy in the poll question is ARSENIC AND ADOBO by Mia P. Manansala. I can’t remember the last time I had so much just sheer fun reading a novel! I’m actually psyched for the next installment of the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series.
Shifting back to the Rust Belt, I got a lot out of finishing FOLKTALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE WEST by Edward McClelland. Not just knowledge of the subject matter, but on the rhythms, structures, and themes behind folk tales in general viewed from a different perspective.
And no, before you ask, I haven’t gotten to the books I got at the Book Sale last time.
WRITER FUEL
Aside from reading, the occasional connection with the greater writing world always helps me lubricate my mental gears. I’d almost forgotten I’d signed up for another online salon from Belt Publishing called “Bearing Witness: Collecting Oral Histories in the Rust Belt.” I really hope the whole virtual event thing doesn’t go away entirely when the world is fully in person again.
Time flies when you’re down in the dumps! Almost forgot to put this up.
It’s been a little harder to get back in the saddle than I anticipated it would. Illness didn’t help–got knocked out for a few days there. I got the flu shots and two COVID vaccinations, but being inside for the better part of a year, who knows what my immune system is no longer prepared for. And, it’s crunch time at the dayjob. Anyway, I can’t blame it all on those things. Best to focus on what I managed to get done.
I did better than March, but not by much. May will not be better. That’s okay though. Well, not really, but I’m letting it be okay because if nothing else, I’ve collected more data points that I’m hoping will prove or disprove some theories I have about the natural rhythm of my writing process. That is, when it’s unencumbered by the usual self-flagellation. Coming up with some interesting things, though.
But man, I can’t wait to see if this actually leads me to finish shit.
Three weeks since the last one. Really? Time flies when you’re busy and sick. Not sure what we’d been sick with for the better part of two weeks, since as I’ve had the flu shot and both COVID shots. But I’ve also been inside for most of the year, so I imagine my immune system has at least as many holes as the Colonial Pipeline’s firewalls. This’ll be a catch-up post, then.
I felt good enough to finally go for my first utterly recreational post-vaccination outing (still masked, of course)–the last weekend of our town’s bi-annual Book Sale.
YOU HAVE TIME FOR THIS is a microfiction anthology from a few years back that I’ve been meaning to get and read since it came out. I didn’t need Lenora Carrington’s THE SEVENTH HORSE, seeing as I have the ebook of her complete stories. But her books are kinda hard to find in print so, score! Of course, I jumped at the chance to get more of Victor LaValle’s work, what with how good THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM is.
I’m especially looking forward to PSY FI ONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PSYCHOLOGY IN SCIENCE FICTION. I’m not familiar with the editors, but the TOC of this 1977 anthology has a lot of familiar authors (Silverberg, Spinrad, Sheckley, Bradbury, Le Guin, et al.)–and of course Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon.”
READING
So if I’m adding to my TBR pile, I gotta take some stuff off it. RUST BELT FEMME by Raechel Jolie is probably the best thing I’ve read so far this year! This led me to want to go back and finally finish RUST: A MEMOIR OF STEEL AND GRIT which I’d started just before the pandemic and got about 3/4 of the way through.
WATCHING
Season 5 of THE EXPANSE was essential to my healing process. And, while getting my energy back, there are worse things to feed my head with than LODGE 49, which I totally slept on, regrettably.
IN THE WILD
Here, something that I actually saw out in the wild, as opposed to the wildlife I have indoors…
Okay, that’s enough catch-up. I know I owe a writing update–which won’t be much, but still.
This’ll be a quick proof-of-life post. Couldn’t get this in last week, or much of any other writing for that matter. Yeah, when I post my April stats, it’ll likely look like March–unimpressive, but not nothing. Still, maybe I was a little too cocky thinking I was as fully back on my bullshit as I thought I was last time.
This is typical for this time of year. My dayjob is on an academic calendar which is nearing the end of its semester when work traditionally takes a lot out of me. And while my mood over the past weeks might not have been the best, the basics of life are still happening. So yes, there’s a little bit more urgency to “get back on the stick” as it were, where the writing is concerned. But I’m resisting the usual lamentation of “Woe is me, I haven’t done anything, I’m a loser, blah blah blah….”
READING
I finished Mia Alvar’s IN THE COUNTRY. It was tough to get through because of how hard it hit home, but well worth it. I felt compelled to follow it up with Isabel Yap’s NEVER HAVE I EVER, and I’m about halfway through it. So far it’s pretty much what I expected having read and enjoyed the story “Asphalt, River, Mother, Child” when I first saw it on STRANGE HORIZONS.
Of course, I can never read one book at a time. Nor can I resist a good discount code, which I got after attending a couple of very enlightening virtual salons from Belt Publishing. I picked up three.
The one I’m reading right now alongside Yap’s collection is Edward McClelland’s FOLKTALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE WEST. Exactly what it says on the tin, including not just Indigenous tales but immigrant/settler ones as well.
I’d never read the work of Claire Winger Harris, a speculative fiction writer with Cleveland connections who published, very roughly speaking, in that early WEIRD TALES era, making her a contemporary of other writers I like, such as Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman and Margaret St. Clair. So when a scholar compiled some of her work in THE ARTIFICIAL MAN AND OTHER STORIES, I knew I had to have it.
I also picked up Phil Christman’s MIDWEST FUTURES because aside from the subject matter, I’m a sucker for micro/brief essays.
LISTENING
I don’t know if I’m going to do this every week, but I wondered what it would look like to push out a weekly playlist of the grooves in my head. Besides, it’s not like I’m doing much else with my Spotify account.
IN THE WILD
Maybe I’m projecting, but Mazikeen has always seemed like her father’s daughter. I mean, this is pretty much the pose and the face I’ve had for the past couple of weeks…
This week I got back into the writing saddle and today, I get back into my regular Sunday Weeknotes routine. Of course, maybe that’s why this week feels like a blur and that there isn’t much go post about. That’s what it can feel like for me sometimes when my focus comes back.
THE CHAIN
So, after almost 3 weeks of no progress…
It was all about getting back in the saddle this week, so all of my daily bars were set really low. I just picked away at a short story and dumped my brain of some ideas I might develop for an essay (or two). Maybe nothing will come of them, but it’s the groove that’s important.
PLANNING
Yes, we’re getting vaccinated now but that shouldn’t mean cool virtual events should stop. I signed up to attend two in the coming weeks, both part of Belt Publishing’s Spring Salon (despite what the link says).
Also, it’s been a week since they came into my life and I’m still not sick of having Miss Velvet and The Blue Wolf on daily rotation in my playlist. I mean, if they put in even half as much work recording as they seem to, then these motherfuckers are the real deal!
IN THE WILD
Who’s a good boy ready to devour the week? Besides me. It’s Asher Mir, of course!
Not a great month. But, 64 writing days since January is better than my usual track record. When you throw in last November and December, it’s the best 5 months of writing I’ve had in years! Anyway, like I said in my last Weeknotes, the haze is lifting, I think.
I’ve been through this before. I hit some kind of bump and I find myself with almost zero capacity for any kind of creative work. It usually stems from a combination of depression, anxiety, and general exhaustion. I try to fight it for a bit, of course. Push through on willpower. But eventually everything creative stops and I feel like a general loser for a month or four until the haze lifts or something pulls me out of it.
Except this time. I did a few things differently.
First, I didn’t fight it. I let the slump happen.
Second, I actually watched the slump take its course. This was a risky move. I mean, what if it was another week/month/six-months/eight months until I could write again? Well, I gambled against having racked up 5 months of the most productive writing I’ve had in years. As well as, you know, all the other times I got back on the horse and had a productive period whether it lasted a week, a month, whatever. I decided that the worst likely outcome was that one day in the future, I start up again.
Third, and most importantly, I actively fought my natural tendency to berate myself for falling off the horse. And let me tell you, it was not fucking easy. But if there’s one thing I can point to that made the difference between the past three weeks and every other time I felt blocked, this is it.
And so after three weeks with only 2 writing days, I seem to be back in the saddle as of this past Sunday. We’ll see how long this lasts. We’ll make some notes, and we’ll see what happens.
Back on my bullshit after a couple weeks off. Guess these are #fortnightnotes? Anyway, I took some mental health days. I kept up the basics–didn’t miss a day of work and managed a couple of Sundaydinners–but outside of that, my mental and emotional state wasn’t conducive to much else.
Definitely not writing.
THE CHAIN
Since we last spoke…
This week’s writing chain: 1 day — same as my missed week’s.
Total days in March: 13
Longest chain in 2021: 33 days
Total days in 2021: 64 days
I’ve been through this before, you see. Weeks of solid progress at a time, only for some mental/emotional fuse to trip and shut things down. For a depressive haze to set in, making everything that isn’t a muscle-memorized routine feel impossible until the fuse magically flips… and that’s assuming I even realize it’s flipped back days or weeks later.
But like I’ve done for the past few weeks, I allowed myself to roll with it with as little self-recrimination as possible. Which is not to say no self-recrimination, but still. I’ll have more to say about it when I do my March writing post, but let’s just say that the haze might just be lifting. Maybe.
LISTENING
I like it when I get in at or near the ground floor with a new(ish) band, in this case, Miss Velvet and the Blue Wolf. It’s even better when the discovery is totally serendipitous! What with all these acts nowadays incorporating ’70s/’80s yacht rock sounds and the occasional ’90s R&B groove into the 21st century, I wondered who might be bringing the old ’70s jazz-rock back. One cursory Google search later, I found this…
It’s been awhile since I came across a new (to me) band and thought “instant buy.” It’s definitely on the “rock” end, but the jazz, R&B, and funk are definitely there. And after a bit of research, it made sense why, given who’s been shepherding them the past couple years. Suffice it to say, if their stuff is good enough for Dr. Funkenstein himself, it’s good enough for me!
READING
I'm trying to get through a particular short story collection for the third time. The first story was a little triggering, but I finally got through it… and now I'm at the second story and guess what?
Gotta plow through because it's really good. But… fuck…
Most of my reading has been working through Mia Alvar’s story collection IN THE COUNTRY. Yes, I mean “working through,” but in the best way. It took me three attempts to get through the first couple of stories because they hit so fucking close to home.
IN THE WILD
With any luck, I’ll at least get back to these Weeknotes next Sunday, as usual. Until then, I’m going to try and take care of myself at least as well as I take care of my fur children…
My mood has been pretty low this week. It had been for a minute or two before that, so I don’t really feel like I can say it came from the side effects of my second COVID shot, or even the shooting in Atlanta. They didn’t help, to be sure. And while I more or less kept up with the business of life, the writing suffered. That’s okay, though. You know, therapy and medication helps but there have always been moments where they don’t work as well as I’d like. You still hit walls every once in awhile, and I’ve now hit the first wall of 2021.
The difference this week though is that I purposely, mindfully allowed it happen so that I could observe what was actually goes on with me, as opposed to slipping into a depressive haze and realizing 3 or 4 months from now, “Oh shit, I guess I haven’t written anything, have I?”
I wrote this in my notebook…
Self-care is an active process. A mindful process. Not just for “picking up the pieces.”
And what exactly did I do for myself this week? Staying off my own back was a big help. Taking stock of how much my writing practice has, in fact, improved over the past few months actually let me put it all in perspective and conclude that taking an entire week off (wasn’t like I had a deadline or anything) wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It wouldn’t be “the end of my writing career,” wouldn’t make me “a failure,” and might actually be just what I need at the moment.
WATCHING
There wasn’t a whole lot to distract myself with, but I did find a couple of things. I’ve finally caught up with the whole Uncle Roger phenomenon and I admit feeling a little disturbed. Not by all of the “Is it racist?” discourse but by the question, “Have I reached Asian Uncle age?” Racist or not, I can respect how he takes the piss out of Jamie Oliver.
Love watching other artists talk about how they engage in their creative process? I do. Check out “How to write a song with Lake Street Dive.”
IN THE WILD
Look at Asher–a little groggy maybe, but awake and ready to get back into the game. Thanks for inspiring me, Little Guy!
Remember how I kinda forced things last week, but as a way to experiment to see what happens? Well, now I have an idea. Sure, I kept up the momentum the day after, but only to find myself inexplicably in bed for 4 extra hours the next day. Coincidence? Maybe. I tried to grit my teeth and push through for two more days. But the two days after that, I noped out of it all like I should’ve done in the first place.
I spent a lot of that off time dumping stuff into ye olde writer’s notebook and zoning out to music. It’s actually two of the ways I recharge my artistic batteries but here’s the thing–I’ve never purposely paused to do that. Here’s what usually happens, in order:
Pause writing for one reason or another. Could be simple exhaustion, depression, life circumstances, abject laziness, etc.–it’s all happened at one time or another.
Beat myself up from anywhere between, oh I dunno, three days and six months.
Zone out to music or some reading, dump my brain into a notebook, and maybe get the gumption up to start writing again.
Thanks to years of therapy and medication, I’ve been working to notice these things ahead of time. Last week, it paid off and I was able to bypass Step 2!
Tempted to not give myself any credit for the minuscule amount of writing activity I did tonight. I mean, it's next to nothing…
…which means my brain chemistry is probably a little out of balance, so I'm going to cut myself some slack tonight. #amwriting
LISTENING
I picked up Lake Street Dive’s new album OBVIOUSLY. I’ll write up more about it later, but suffice it to say I caught a couple of nice AOR/Yacht Rock-y grooves. I tweeted about them too, which kinda started me on a path I don’t want to go down.
Now that I think about it, I’m torn about livetweeting albums listens….
IN THE WILD
I could interpret Mazikeen draping herself across my keyboard as her way of reinforcing my need for self-care, but I get the feeling that it’s not entirely about me.
