falloffablog asked:
Yay Almost Nowhere! I want to write like you. "Things fall apart by nature" - this is a very nice sentence/riff on an old phrase!
I’m flattered, thanks!
falloffablog asked:
Typo in last chapter:
Heads of state and military generals do not feeling impotent.
Thank you! Fixed.
falloffablog asked: Just to let you know I'm waiting with bated breath for the next instalment of Almost Nowhere! I love your anomalinglect. I am beginning to follow their sign-trains which begin with signs and lurch towards violence.
I’m glad you like it! Unfortunately, if past experience is any guide, you will have to wait for a long time :(
It’s funny – I was going to say “I really want to write more of it soon,” but then I thought about how I could have written that sentence at any point in the last (I dunno) year, and yet over that interval I’ve rarely done as much as set aside dedicated time for writing, which wouldn’t be too hard if I really cared enough. I guess that means I don’t really care enough – not in the revealed-preference sense of “care,” anyway, if maybe in some others.
My life outside of writing is a lot better and fuller than it used to be, so there’s more of a sense of writing time actually competing with other valuable things, rather than being “work I actually like” that I do almost to rebel against the work I don’t. And I’ve never developed a way to write fiction that doesn’t feel self-indulgent and unhealthy relative to the habits I try to cultivate in other work – whenever I’ve been successful at it, it’s been through the “lock myself in a room with coffee and alcohol for 12 hours and come out the other end feeling utterly drained” approach, and it feels very weird to explicitly carve out that kind of block on a schedule rather than doing suddenly it on a whim. (”Sunday – reserved for bohemian writer time. Monday – discuss logistics of blah with so-and-so, 9:30 AM.”) But, again putting the revealed-preferences goggles on, I ought to be able to overcome something merely feeling weird if I really care about the end goal. So, maybe I really don’t care – but maybe I can make myself care again, like I used to, and people like you who express interest are a stronger impetus to that than my own internal need for self-expression, which can eat its fill at other troughs these days.
I’m not really a writer anymore, but I could make myself into one again.