8 Clicks from Nowhere ䷀

Dispatches ⌂

Tag: writing projects

Chapter List

  • Forked Up

    I have a whole topic on this project where I write about iteration, so it should come as no surprise that I wrote a plugin for WordPress (upon which the website for this collection is hosted) to support something I call “transparent iteration” in what I write.

    I call the plugin “Forkposter” and it does a complex task for a very simple idea: versions.

    I borrowed the notion from code, which as a software development guy is a topic that comes up even in the commercial naming of products. Such and such version three point one or Phone OS Eleventeen. 

    I have started doing something similar with essays I write here: and it all starts from the assumption that ideas change and grow.

    Forkposter allows me to “branch” an essay, which is to say turn it into a “part one” and then write parts two, three, four… etc. It also allows me to “fork” an essay, which keeps version one in the feed but then publishes a new, updated and revised version (I make the revisions, obviously, rewriting and expanding on the original) while that original stays in the feed and points aggressively at the updated copy.

    You’ve probably started seeing little “branch” and “version” badges on some of my posts, because I actually found I very much like this idea of iterating on old posts and old ideas (now that the project is nearly a year old there are a lot of those) and fleshing out things as I’ve thought about it more and written more on tangential topics.

    Iteration is not always about step-by-step growing outward, but sometimes it is just as much about retracing heavier lines over the things you want to get right and make stand out.

    That kind of transparency isn’t for everyone, but I think it suits a writing project like this, demonstrating in real time that none of this is written in stone, and rethinking, revising, and revisiting is not just a good idea but it can be one that’s baked into the machine, too.

  • Attention Economy

    I admit I have been hung up on the idea of toiling in obscurity lately. 

    We live in this era where unless you have millions of followers the general consensus is that it’s not worth it to even try.

    As I write this I have hundreds of followers, many of whom are probably bots, and yet here I am—trying. Call me crazy for going in against the grain of common sense.

    The attention economy has warped our perception of what it means to do valuable work. I can sit here and write tens of thousands of words and to many—perhaps even to the opinion of most—that is all wasted effort unless I’m simultaneously hustling and selling and going viral and changing the whole damn world.

    Rather, I sit here writing, toiling in obscurity, and trying not to internalize any of that. Were I to let those feelings seep into my heart they would manifest as nothing more than a shard of failure stabbing me right through.

    Of course, I have given myself a double challenge. Climbing out of the hole of obscurity is hard enough, and deeply more so is climbing out weighted down by a less popular media format like—ugh—the written word.

    It’s a small thing but I try to look at each of these entries, each word and sentence and thought and idea, as something vital in a long game to make something bigger. I try to focus on making a thing that I would like to discover, not looking for a hole to fill and trying to fill it but rather making a mark and making it bigger and bigger until maybe, perhaps, possibly it gets noticed.

    That is the opposite of embracing failure. 

  • Short Fiction

    I’ve always had a space in my heart for short fiction.

    Short story is a form that is often under appreciated, and I would chalk this up to a couple strange reasons.

    First, I think it’s a value proposition. I figure it probably costs about the same amount to publish, ship, and market a twenty page book—something that will take a customer a lunch-break to read—as it does a five hundred page novel. Thus, they cost the same at the store. We get around this by publishing anthologies, but I think the whole equation often breaks down for people standing in a bookstore: buying a bunch of small stories glued together in one paperback, or a whole novel—most people, I wager, pick the novel.

    Second, the mental investment. We do like strong characters and getting to know imaginary people through the course of a five hundred page-long story. Ideas are important, too, but my experience with short story is that it often leans more into exploring an idea than it does exploring a fleshed out character—that’s the realm of novels with the space to do that well. It’s not impossible in a short story, but I think you can only create so much personality out of ten thousand words. People like people, so I think we tend to gravitate towards novels about people over stories about ideas.

    Just my speculation.

    In the coming months I want to write more short fiction, I think, filling that gap in my heart with explorations of big ideas and crazy concepts. 

    I fully expect it to be under appreciated.

  • Passable Performance

    Voice acting is never something I was ever trained to do.

    My Kid (who I’ve mentioned is a theatre student) famously jibes me because the only stage performance I have ever done was in the fourth grade where I was a winkie in an elementary production of The Wizard of Oz. I had one line, and we put on a single show.

    I have been working on a project to “dramatically read” my novel and post it as a mid-production podcast, chapter by chapter.

    Now, you say, why not get your daughter to read some of it? And you’d be right in suggesting it, but the truth is that working on this thing is as much for my own edification as it is about the final product.

    So—what is a guy who’s never acted (but who has decided to act out an entire novel) to do?

    Like anything and everything, I am a strong believer in the idea that anyone can do pretty much anything (well… maybe not perfectly, but certainly passably) with practice, practice, practice. Wy shouldn’t dramatic reading of a novel be any different?

    To that end I’ve been practicing. I’ve read the first chapter of my novel into a microphone at least twenty times now, and each time I seem to find a tiny way to make it a little more interesting, bring a bit more depth to my performance, and kinda do something I was never ever trained to do.