A novel idea!
From copywriting to Writing-writing, aspirations, agony, etc.
Hey y’all! It’s been a while — 155 days to be exact, which is nearly half-a-year, a stretch of time that was once a goddamned eternity but now it’s barely a unit of measurement. I think in years and decades now — also baffling because it doesn’t feel like that long ago when I couldn’t comprehend a future just a few days away. The concept of “Saturday” on a Tuesday was a noncommittal nebula — a meringue pie I couldn’t nail to the wall!
I’m contemplating age and the passage of time as I usually do after my morning scroll through Instagram. Today I saw a video of young Michael Jackson (not Jackson 5 young, but older Billie-Jean-is-not-my-lover young) performing at an awards show and the caption was like, “40 years ago…”
Forty fucking years and I remember that album coming out! 1983, my mom bought it on vinyl. And forty years before that? She hadn’t been born yet because she was only 32 at the time. She would not live for another 32, and now I’m 14 years away from the age she was when she died.
I’m basically Good Will Hunting at a chalkboard right now, astonishing you with this math.
Maybe this is a good segue to the novel I’m writing
I wouldn’t be writing it if I didn’t have dead parents and relatives who sat down to write things over the decades and left those things in my possession: Personal essays from a great uncle, letters and journals left behind by my mom, and all my dad’s articles, op-eds and non-fiction, most of which are Google-able. Two recently discovered gems:
Separately, I used a bunch of ads my dad wrote for Acura as inspiration for a recent work project. The client basically wanted to say “Precision-crafted performance” without saying that exactly. Does this make me a nepo-baby? I sure hope so!
Anyway, the book:
It’s a multi-generational family thing told from different perspectives that span WWII and post-war Italy, New York in the 1970s & 80s, and The San Fernando Valley in the 90s. It’s more character than plot-driven, but so far it’s a vague story of unrealized artistry: what happens to people when their natural creative spirit is crushed by societal forces, bad luck, trauma, and other distractions. And how that reverberates through their families.
There’s some stuff about The American Dream and a white immigrant experience of assimilation turned to far-right indoctrination, but it’s also kind of funny? Not to spoil anything but Purple Rain-era Prince kind of plays God.
If this sounds bonkers-in-an-interesting way to you, and you’d like to be a beta reader for a chapter or two, I’d be so thrilled. You can let me know here!
In the meantime, I’m sharing some wonderful things that have kept me going while I do this very time-consuming, emotionally demanding, and socially isolating thing that is writing a book. It’s kind of a trite metaphor that I always hear authors apologizing for in interviews, but writing a book is similar to having a baby. Not just the idea/conception/gestation/delivery parallel, but also the irrational hopefulness behind the act. Like raising children, there’s no guarantee of any type of return after toiling on a book. As a product of late capitalism, I have trouble rationalizing doing anything that doesn’t pay off financially, or conversely, seeing the value in experiences that don’t cost money.
So, committing to a tough process solely for rare moments of pleasure, or just for the sake of doing it feels foolish on a bad day. It’s radical and completely self-actualized on a good one. Here’s where I go for discipline and inspiration, basically for good days:
- ’s Craft Talk. She wrote one of my favorite books (an inspiration for this one!) and leads “1,000 Words of Summer” every year, where she basically shows up for writers for two weeks and encourages them to get 1,000 words on the page each day no matter what. So simple but revelatory! If you’re working on anything this summer, you should join. It starts in June.
The Artist Resentment and Gratitude Diagram - I think Tom Sachs was canceled for a few moments back in March but I put that aside every time I get stuck and need to watch this again. (Similar to how I compartmentalize Louis CK when I go back to his Good Will Hunting jokes.)
And some other multi-generational/multi-perspective books I’ve read in hopes mine will be a fraction as good:
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Divorce by César Aira
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Other recommendable miscellany:
I’ve been handpicking my way through 60 Songs That Explain the 90s. The Doll Parts episode is amazing, and The Breeders one was kind of disappointing, although the host referenced my favorite Kim Deal line of all time, which wasn’t even a song lyric but a quote from a 1995 SPIN interview when she talks about her twin sister Kelly getting sent to rehab over the course of the story, “...she was really high, dropping-her-bagel high.”
It’s a special kind of validation when you hang onto a tiny piece of pop-culture ephemera in your brain for almost 30 years and it’s so useless that you think you’re the only one who remembers it — or at least the only person on the planet who thinks about it more often than it probably warrants, until someone on a dorky podcast spits it back at you when you’re on your way to pick up your kids from school.
Anyway, most of the songs are Top 40 hits that I never want to hear again, much less take a deep contextual dive into, but the Smells Like Teen Spirit episode dropped yesterday and it features CLove herself, so I’ll be scraping 2.5 hours together this weekend to listen to it. I just have to, you know?
Just like I have to go see Buffalo Daughter when they come to Brooklyn next week. New Rock still feels new to me, wheel in the sky keeps on turning, etc.
Laterz!
I remember that article about lunch. Something like "what the world needs is a good lunch..." Your writing reminds me so much of his. I can't wait to read your book. You should reach out to Sophia, she has been doing a lot of family research and has binders full of old letters, documents etc.