There’s a lot going on, and once I started to dig in to why I was finding it hard — on a day by day basis — to keep each of the various narratives that I need to keep continuous in my head, I was also blessed enough to remember that we’re all of us, at best, using 60% of our brains these days… assuming you (like me) have a permanent chunk of your cognitive function permanently doing the spinning beach ball of death on various Too Big For One Person matters, such as the slaughter in Palestine, and the American political clusterfuck, and the collapse of the habitable biosphere. I mean — if all of that is only occupying 40% of your mind at all times, leaving just 60% for your actual daily life, you are lucky.
I’m focusing on three things this summer, which are (in no order) getting Enneaka published; finishing the draft of The Last Alchemist; and finding paying work. But I also took some time out of my busy isolation to come out to my parents (!), pitch Inchworm a few places, and read or watch some absolutely kickass stuff that made me, in the best of all possible ways, feel like a rank amateur.
I’ve been looking for comps and prepping for meetings, and that means reading queer literature and YA and watching the best that streaming science fiction has to offer; and also, my friends and colleagues are writing some great stuff that they’re trying to get made, same as me, and sometimes they share it with me. I’m learning to give useful notes. I’m learning to be a faster, more productive copy editor and a more chameleonic copywriter. I’m basically unable to run across an episode 1 of anything without thinking through my impressions of its structure, its potency, and its success at selling its own concept. I watched the first episode of Severance and nearly punched a hole in the wall.
Everything’s going well.
Three fundamentally important things
- Treat every opportunity as a win. Not a range of possible outcomes; not a maybe.
- Be grateful for every iota of space you’ve provided yourself.
- Take a minute or two to stroll with the sheer irreplaceable joy of being the person you are.
[Zelda voice] Link…!(s) [/Zelda]
- In a single piece about Furiosa, Emily St. James articulates everything I’ve ever felt or written about Mad Max, pop culture, trauma, and the end of the world, including all the things that moved me to write the Fury Road book. So… fuck her, really. (Not really). (Episodes)
- Do I know why “best films of the year so far” lists have become a thing? No I do not. But Screen Anarchy’s, to which I of course contributed, kinda rules. (Screen Anarchy)
- “The Jewish Pessimist,” on Albert Memmi’s work in the context of modern Zionism, is one of the best things I read this week. (Abraham Josephine Riesman)
- I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this stupid, stupid, stupid old movie in 4K. (The Digital Bits)