Welcome to Issue #50!Feels like a milestone, coming right after I turned 49 on Sunday.For the second year in a row I drove out to Mt. Whitney, thinking about a line from one of Norman Maclean’s stories that says, “It’s surprising how much our souls are alike in the presence of mountains.” I needed a dose of awe and wonder to remind me. Last year it was just me and Ellie. Julie got to go this year and we spent a few hours in the fresh air, taking in the waterfalls and small pond at the Whitney Portal Recreation Center before driving around the Alabama Hills and hiking a little among the black volcanic rock on the side of the highway. It’s spectacular out there and at three and a half hours away it’s practically in my backyard.In hindsight, I wish I'd saved that piece from the last issue for this week's because I don't really have any newfound wisdom to share after five days into my 49th year.But about that piece from last week...I originally wrote it as a letter for my niece and nephews. I pulled it out again because I read an issue of Story Club, the newsletter from George Saunders, where he talked about, “Goofing around in adjacent areas.” He told a story about how writing the music for one of his audiobooks took him back to the early days of writing, where he was just messing around, having fun, reacting to whatever impulse he had in the moment. I did the same thing with that piece, which I originally wrote as a letter. I just started playing with it, breaking up the lines and seeing where instinct and intuition told me to stop. Sometimes it was more satisfying to end on a complete thought, sometimes it was about how it looked visually on the page. I was just pushing words around and seeing how each little change made me feel. The stakes were low, the fun quotient was high.Being a Leo with a compulsion to share, I added it to last week's newsletter. I tried adding my usual intro but it felt wrong to break it up or kick things off with a business update. It seemed more fun to just jump right into it and let you respond to it however you were going to. It was one long experiment, bringing new life to an old piece of writing.I underestimate how much I need that in my life in general.I was listening to one of my favorite songs by Amos Lee and it gave me the perfect mantra for carrying that spirit of play with me through the week while working on the day job."Keep it loose, keep it tight."I got notes back from the studio and producers on my pitch document this week, now I’m in the middle of writing the third draft. I also finished a brand new pitch for a series that wasn’t even a gleam in my eye two months ago. It showed up out of the blue as a few disparate ideas started connecting, one to the other. This one is a lot of fun. There are genre procedural shades of X-FILES, a little dark humor and eccentric ensemble of something like the FARGO series, and a touch of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS awe and wonder. It's set deep in the mountains of Appalachia, an attempt to tell a sci-fi story set pretty close to home.“Keep it loose, child.”Have fun, change things up, keep experimenting.“Keep it tight.”Revise and refine. Make it better. Do more with less.Have a great week!
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Turning 49 / Seven Monologues
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Welcome to Issue #50!Feels like a milestone, coming right after I turned 49 on Sunday.For the second year in a row I drove out to Mt. Whitney, thinking about a line from one of Norman Maclean’s stories that says, “It’s surprising how much our souls are alike in the presence of mountains.” I needed a dose of awe and wonder to remind me. Last year it was just me and Ellie. Julie got to go this year and we spent a few hours in the fresh air, taking in the waterfalls and small pond at the Whitney Portal Recreation Center before driving around the Alabama Hills and hiking a little among the black volcanic rock on the side of the highway. It’s spectacular out there and at three and a half hours away it’s practically in my backyard.In hindsight, I wish I'd saved that piece from the last issue for this week's because I don't really have any newfound wisdom to share after five days into my 49th year.But about that piece from last week...I originally wrote it as a letter for my niece and nephews. I pulled it out again because I read an issue of Story Club, the newsletter from George Saunders, where he talked about, “Goofing around in adjacent areas.” He told a story about how writing the music for one of his audiobooks took him back to the early days of writing, where he was just messing around, having fun, reacting to whatever impulse he had in the moment. I did the same thing with that piece, which I originally wrote as a letter. I just started playing with it, breaking up the lines and seeing where instinct and intuition told me to stop. Sometimes it was more satisfying to end on a complete thought, sometimes it was about how it looked visually on the page. I was just pushing words around and seeing how each little change made me feel. The stakes were low, the fun quotient was high.Being a Leo with a compulsion to share, I added it to last week's newsletter. I tried adding my usual intro but it felt wrong to break it up or kick things off with a business update. It seemed more fun to just jump right into it and let you respond to it however you were going to. It was one long experiment, bringing new life to an old piece of writing.I underestimate how much I need that in my life in general.I was listening to one of my favorite songs by Amos Lee and it gave me the perfect mantra for carrying that spirit of play with me through the week while working on the day job."Keep it loose, keep it tight."I got notes back from the studio and producers on my pitch document this week, now I’m in the middle of writing the third draft. I also finished a brand new pitch for a series that wasn’t even a gleam in my eye two months ago. It showed up out of the blue as a few disparate ideas started connecting, one to the other. This one is a lot of fun. There are genre procedural shades of X-FILES, a little dark humor and eccentric ensemble of something like the FARGO series, and a touch of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS awe and wonder. It's set deep in the mountains of Appalachia, an attempt to tell a sci-fi story set pretty close to home.“Keep it loose, child.”Have fun, change things up, keep experimenting.“Keep it tight.”Revise and refine. Make it better. Do more with less.Have a great week!