Hello!

Hope you've had a fun and spooOOooky Halloweekend! (We certainly did—check out the Share section for another terrific costume from Sarah and I.)

Now, on to the real scary news.

As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, today marks the first day of my NaNoWriMo challenge: writing 50,000 words over the 30 days of November, or about 1,700 words each day. Long-time readers will remember that I did something similar while revising Project Curses last year—but that was for fewer words on a well-established project. This time around I'm writing something entirely new and taking on the full traditional challenge, because...

Because why? Why would I do this to myself, you ask? That's a fair question. There are, basically, two reasons:

1. I'm really missing the structure of working on a long-form project. I've been job searching for a while—a long while, at this point—and the thing that kept me sane through that slog was getting to work on a novel: something that could fill a few hours a day and that I, slowly but surely, could make measurable, meaningful progress on. Since finishing I've been, you know, not doing great, and so I figured, "why don't I just conjure up a new novel to work on?" TL;DR—I'm trying to cope.
2. The second novel is supposedly the hardest to write. (I imagine the argument could be made that every new novel is the hardest to write, but let's ignore that for now.) Regardless of whether this is true, I do have a tendency towards perfectionism and I don't want my next novel to take three plus years to finish. So my thought is that by just kind of forcing myself to write an imperfect, messy first draft very, very fast, I can solve both of those problems. Does that mean that there will be a ton of work to do on subsequent drafts? Yes. Very much yes. But that will be the case no matter what; if I learned anything from my first novel, it's that most of writing is revision. If I can just get the words out—give myself the raw material to work with, if you will—then I can shape it as I see fit. TL;DR—I'm trying to subvert my perfectionism.

So, yeah. Those are the reasons. That's the plan. Now all that's left to do is to do it—and I'm pleased to report that I'm off to a strong start. As of this morning, the first draft of Project Nightmare is sitting at 1,950 words! If I do that 29 more times (gulp) then I'll be golden.

Wish me luck with the rest and have a great day!

💌 Newsletter Updates

In the last edition I laid out a number of improvements I'm hoping to make to the newsletter in the next year and shared a few reasons that I think moving to a new platform—Substack—may help to facilitate those goals. Based on the feedback I received, I've decided to make the switch on a trial basis starting in December.

To be clear, you don't need to do anything! I'll simply migrate the email list from one service to the other. Once done, you'll still receive the newsletter in your inbox, as normal, but with the added benefit of being able to read it on the Substack website and app and, soon, also being able to listen to the newsletter (more on that in the coming weeks).

During the trial period my current platform will remain active and I'll maintain both archives (don't worry though—you'll only receive one email!). We'll see how this goes for a month or three and adjust if needed before making the switch permanent.

As a reminder, if you don't want me to include you in the migration, for any reason, just reach out using the button below.

Thanks for all the understanding and support—I'm excited for this new phase!

📓 Novel Writing Retrospective

As you might imagine, given my participation in NaNoWriMo, November is going to be busy for me. While I could use that as an excuse to skip the second newsletter this month, I've decided that instead the 11/15 newsletter will mainly feature my Novel Writing Retrospective.

For those who aren't familiar: Over the course of writing Project Curses I collected a bunch of data on my progress, process, and performance with the hope that I could draw out some insights about writing a novel, generally, and me writing a novel, specifically, once I was done. I've now done that.

I'll say this: it's very neat to see the results. I'm genuinely excited to share them—but they are not rigorous or scientific. I wasn't perfect at collecting data on myself (it involved filling out a Google form every time I contributed to the novel in any way, and sometimes that wasn't practicable) and, importantly, I have only very rudimentary skills in data analysis. Basically I'm saying that I'm not going to, I don't know, reveal the Secret Sure-fire 10 Step Method to Writing a Great Book™ (or a even fine one, for that matter). But it is interesting, and worth sharing—otherwise I wouldn't bother.

So, yeah! The bulk of the next newsletter will be dedicated to the Retrospective (or at least part of it—the full thing is a bit long!), featuring some general writing tips and key insights for starting new projects (both my own and maybe yours too!). I hope you'll enjoy it!

👹 Project Nightmare

Starting in on NaNoWriMo means I've also officially started writing Project Nightmare! I mean, yes, technically I've been preparing to start for weeks—brainstorming, planning, scheduling, plotting, etc., etc.—but those preparatory steps, while important to the process (and encouraged under the guidelines of the challenge!) are not properly drafting. I digress.

My intention is for this novel to be quite a bit shorter than Project Curses—about half as long, actually, coming in at a planned 65,000 words instead of Curses' massive 130,000+. This makes it a bit less intimidating to dive into, and—if all goes to plan!—means that at the end of the month I should have about three-quarters of an initial draft. There's a pretty major caveat there, though.

I can confidently assert that drafting in this way will produce a flawed result. That's kind of the point of the challenge, actually; it operates on the philosophy that it's better to have an imperfect something on the page than a perfect nothing in your head. As mentioned above, this means that my rewriting, revision, and editing phases will be more intensive—in other words, the 50,000 words of the challenge represent far less than 75% of the work—but that's okay. I'm mostly curious to see whether I like writing this way, or if it won't quite fit; to learn what I'll learn, in other words.

📚 Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh | This novella is a really lovely retelling (reimagining? reinterpretation?) of the green man mythos—the proverbial keeper of the wood, a sort of forest-shepherd, who is sometimes of the wood itself and sometimes bound to it. This story follows the latter tradition, but with some captivating iterations that allow the story to root and grow quite naturally. With a voice somewhere between Susanna Clarke and Alix E. Harrow (and with impressive word economy!), Tesh manages to unfurl an exciting story, weave together her characters' arcs with subtle precision, and deftly develop a rather sweet romance. If you're looking for a short, charming, and surprisingly cozy read, this is a great choice. Thanks to EP and MD for the recommendation!

​ Bookshop → Libby → ​

📚 The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean | Dean's The Book Eaters was one of my most enjoyed reads last year based purely on its premise; I feel much the same about her sophomore novel. Her prose and character work are solid, of course, but its her ability to take the kernel of an interesting story—in this case, a mystery set in Hong Kong's infamous Kowloon Walled City—and turn it into something wholly unique. This isn't just a mystery set in the world's most notable de facto megastructure, you see, but a fantasy-mystery-organized-crime-thriller that philosophizes about collective trauma, grief, and belonging with an impressive degree of nuance as it unravels across the floating walkways and hidden alleys of an alternate Kowloon—one that is literally haunted by the hungry, angry ghosts of post-war Hong Kong. It's rad, is what I'm saying.

​ Bookshop → Libby → ​

💽 "Liquid Smooth" by Mitski | I've been a Mitski fan for a good long while, so it startled me this week when I had the realization that I'd somehow never listened to her first album, Lush, all the way through—including this first track. An instrumental cover of the song came up in my recommendations and after I listened to it half a dozen times I went digging for the original, and—you know what? You don't care. This is too much backstory. Just listen, okay? It'll give you chills.

🍿 You Can See Everything | Yes, it's as good as everyone is saying. Yes, you should go see it in theaters, if you're able. I won't spoil anything except to say that you shouldn't go in expecting a re-litigation of Elizabeth Holmes' crimes. It's not about that. I don't even think it's about her. Not really. Regardless, this is one of my favorite watches in a while, if only for all the conversations it's sparked. (Please talk to me about it.)

This Christmas Cactus comes from a clipping my mom gave me, and her plant came from a clipping her mom gave her. Every time I look over at this plant—it sits right next to my desk—I think of them. It might be hard to tell in this tiny photo, but ours is finally putting out buds after more than a year of tending. I've found myself really, genuinely excited to see it bloom in the winter (blooming around Christmas time is where it gets its common name, by the way!).

These little guys can live for decades and they are, ultimately, pretty easy to propagate and care for. I think that's what's capturing my attention and churning my thoughts; if tended properly, thoughtfully, this plant will continue to remind me of my mother and grandmother for years and years and years to come. It's an odd rooting into memory and blooming into the future, a metaphor for itself. I'm not sure what more to say about that aside from that I've got to stick it into a story (maybe this new book!) so that the image itself can remind me of remembering the people I love (and maybe do the same for someone else too).

I'll stop waxing philosophical now. Oh yeah! Before signing off, here's Sarah & I's costume:

Have a great day! Talk soon!

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🎨 Artwork by Andi Dailey-Parada​