(cl)ashes

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Been doing the newsletter for more than ten years and a blog for even longer and I still don't have a clue how to balance things out: what do I share publicly, what do I save for Sunday? is Sunday a review of the week previous, a revision of / synthesis? do I use all of the pieces from the week to construct something new? is it simply something new?

A clash of Annie Dillard's exhortation in THE WRITING LIFE with this writing life, at least as it stands at present (same river twice, etc etc):

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now... Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and you find ashes." 

Every week being new effort to understand it?

Of course, the real question may be why I'm continuing to wonder about it at all, a conflict between my usual whenever/whatever and that OCD need for (faux) certainty in an calling that feeds on uncertainty.

FANTASTIC FOUR: FULL CIRCLE (Ross, 2022)

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(read: fri/20220924): a spectacular work of Kirby-infused bombast that, along with the original Lee / Kirby run, made me finally see the FF's decades of appeal: a deliriously fun yet pathos-filled romp harkening back to that immortal run and forward via a seminal talent’s bold reinvention of themselves as writer and artist.

Related – and not at all dismissive of Ross's writing here – but all I want now is a Morrison/Ross (especially with the style used here) - or Morrison/Quitely FF run: I know that Morrison said they were done with superheroes, but this, more than any other current series – no offense to current/upcoming team – just screams for Morrison to be unleashed.

fortnightly subcutaneous awakening ritual

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49ºF, cloudy: As is typical every other early Saturday morning, a screeching and incorrect newly-subcutaneously-installed CGM woke me at 0100 to tell me I was blood-sugar crashing in my sleep but reality proved otherwise. Starting to get used to said awakening but acclimation doesn't make it any less exhausting.

Newsletter work in progress, hence less-than-verbose relayed here but something, daily, is the process, the ritual, the routine, so here I am now entertain us.

now with comment system(!)

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After much back and forth, my search for a solution to Squarespace’s abysmal comment system (I refuse to use Disqus) has ended: installed HyvorTalk and managed to get it configured (HUGE thanks to the creator of the system for the solution!) so that the comment field only shows up on individual pages and not the top of each page of the list. Anyhow, there’s a comment system here now, so contribute your two cents or whatever whenever you feel like it, no log-in or anything required.

two and a half seasons

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41ºF, clear: welcome, Fall. Finally / at last / at long last / until it isn't, which might be tomorrow, given that it's Ohio and there are two and a half seasons, Summer, Winter, and Not-Summer/Not-Winter.

While I feel somewhat dirty including the two in the same breath, it does make for a useful (if only for me) contrast in the act of lamenting the passing of distant people: Whereas QEII's passing was more of a historical fascination – there will be another queen – not in my lifetime, probably/certainly, but there will be another – and an answer to "what happens when" – the news of Hilary Mantel's is a brutal punch because we won't be getting more Hilary Mantel books. One of the best writers who ever lived: If you haven't read the Cromwell series, read it NOW. So, so good.

Totally off the subject and profoundly unrelated to one another but a.) ABBOTT ELEMENTARY is every bit the delight its not-inconsiderable accolades suggest and then some and b.) I managed to get the trash out on time yay victory etc etc.

OLED void amelioration

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(Update, 1019: the SmurfPiss Chariot rides again.)

60ºF, clouds: gave in and bought myself the OLED Switch (podrelease reward) and will dive back into ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD on the big screen – though today’s main non-writing project is to replace the car battery in the SmurfPiss Chariot; spent much of yesterday afternoon caked in battery acid and corrosion what fun. The Lite goes to K so she can learn how to get thumbs working with dual joysticks, a hand-eye coordination complexity that has befuddled her since even before we started dating.

Pleased with the sound quality of the latest TSR: the Vocaster Two was definitely worth the price tag (though I could have gotten away with the Vocaster One; didn't realize that the second input was for a second physical guest but maybe someday I’ll actually use it) and the post-prod addition of music was easier than I expected (without a physical knob, I couldn't do the intro/outro over the music live).

The only solution to the post-release void is to work on more things (and upgrade to an OLED Switch). And so it is and so it goes. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

New TSR: Maud Newton

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The Fall season of my SOCIALIZED RECLUSE pod has begun as the inimitable Maud Newton, author of the absolutely brilliant ANCESTOR TROUBLE: A RECKONING AND A RECONCILIATION, joined me to discuss the ins and the outs of writing ANCESTOR TROUBLE; of “making the line well”; of Aristotle at two in the morning; of freedom from and fealty to form in books and in blogs; of creative evolution; of taking the time to get to the truth – be it via NYT-lauded books or via seven-year paragraphs published to a website; and of freeing oneself from the creative and personal boulders we push up the hills before us. You can check out our complete conversation – and pertinent linkage to buy ANCESTOR TROUBLE – here.