𝘽𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚, 𝙊𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙣

The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 33)

Well, I did it. I went back to this second-to-last chapter, which wasn’t hard because I don’t like it or because it was hard to write…but because I do love it and I wish with all my heart it had reached more than the 50 or so people it ultimately did.

spoilers under the cut.

So I know I’m really critical of my own writing a lot of the time, but I actually really like what I did here, ending chapter 32 with “thank you for all the years to come” and then when you flip the page to chapter 33, it’s four years later and the band is still doing well.

So the goal over these first few pages was to show that Teru had been successful, that he had grown as a person, but that he still missed Rei. So the band is on TV, promoting a new single which Teru actually wrote the lyrics for. I think this is HUGE growth on his part, going from “I don’t know, anything’s fine” to actually writing an intensely personal song and performing it on national TV.

I wrote all of the lyrics for this book myself, by the way (since Japanese isn’t my first language, I did hire an editor to brush them up a little, but they’re mostly mine), and other than maybe the “ai ga sakikaeru made” (until love blooms again) that’s kind of the central theme, these lyrics are probably my favorite. Because it was written by Teru, I didn’t need to follow the sort of preposterous level of melodramatic angst that Rei likes to write, and sort of drew on some softer pop influences for a more personal song (that’s pretty blatantly about Rei).

Then we get a little interview with the band, which catches the reader up on everything that’s happened over the past four years. Rei’s last song, Sweet Goodbye, was a massive hit, and they’ve been doing okay since then, but haven’t quite matched that initial success. Of course, being reminded of how the band really is missing something without Rei just reminds Teru of how HE is missing something too. I feel really bad for him here… I think he thought that singing this song would bring him closure, but is there any such thing as closure? It’s really just making him sadder and more nostalgic.

This chapter has a couple of my very favorite lines, the first one here being “the worst part of losing someone isn’t the moment they’re gone, but all the moments after that. All the times they should’ve been there, and they’re not.”

It’s worth mentioning here that this is the only chapter I wrote out of order. Of course, I went back and edited and added to things, and that wasn’t always in order, but I almost always start the first draft with Chapter 1, and work toward the end. But I actually wrote the very last chapter, chapter 34, before this one, and came back to fill in these scenes.

I’m not really sure why I did that, except that I knew from the start exactly what I wanted to do with the last chapter, whereas this one went through a couple of different versions before settling on this one.

ANYWAY! The next scene is really to show how Teru has grown over the past four years. He didn’t have a driver’s license before; now he has a probably-expensive sports car. He hasn’t smoked in four years… I kind of think he quit cold turkey when Rei left, and that all of this is sort of a semi-conscious effort to be a better person the way Rei maybe needed or wanted him to be. (I mean, not driving doesn’t make you a bad person, and people who are addicted to nicotine or anything else aren’t bad or weak or anything either… but to Teru, because Rei wanted him to quit smoking, and because he felt guilty for not being able to drive when it was hard for Rei to go out, I think he sees those things as ways he could become more the kind of partner that Rei needed.)

I don’t think he really expects to ever see Rei again at this point. He’s not necessarily doing these things FOR Rei… but he kind of is, at some level.

He drives past the Ferris wheel where they had that long-ago date… this was actually a nice thing I was able to add BECAUSE I had to change the location of the Ferris wheel in editing. The original location of the date was nowhere near the TV studio (which is 100% obviously the Fuji TV studio, although in the interest of avoiding trademark violations etc. I never say so).

And then he kind of randomly goes to Ikebukuro. He has no real reason for going there, specifically, and I think he knows that. There’s a shopping center there, but there are a million similar places in Tokyo… it’s just a whim, and I think it’s really fate. For storytelling purposes, I picked that particular location because there’s a stage you can access without buying a ticket or anything… good for dramatic effect?

We also see that he’s casually dating a guy… this is also growth, I think. He’s comfortable enough with his sexuality now to try to date again, and to include men in his potential partners… but we can also infer from this that he hasn’t had a *serious* relationship since Rei.

In an earlier version of this chapter, it was set on a different New Year’s Day… I think the band had broken up, and Teru was in a slightly more committed relationship. I think that felt off for a number of reasons though, so I’m glad I changed it! Some early readers commented that it was too depressing if the band broke up so soon… and that was true, so I’m grateful for that feedback!

I also considered a version where Teru DIDN’T ever see Rei again, it was just an epilogue where he was happy and comfortable being himself and was ultimately grateful for what the relationship had given him… I think that also could’ve worked, but it would’ve been sad.

In the version set on another New Year’s Day, Teru heard a song that he KNEW had to be written by Rei, and used the publication information on the CD to track him down… but that ALSO didn’t work, because it didn’t really answer the question of why he would do that THEN, and not at any other moment, or why Rei would suddenly be okay with it after all those years.

So, the final version really just came to me one day… it still uses the idea of hearing a song… first, Utada Hikaru’s “First Love” on the PA system. Even if you don’t know that song, you should be able to tell from the title that it would remind Teru of Rei (again; this day has been an onslaught of reminders). But the song itself really is perfect, too: it’s about how your first love will always be your first love, even if and when both of you move on. It was also REALLY popular around the time Teru and Rei were together, so it probably reminds him of that time period in general, too.

But then, of course, the REALLY fateful song is Saki’s. Someone is playing that song that Saki wrote for Rei and that Minori wouldn’t put on the album… and there’s really only one person it could be. Teru thinks to himself that only six living people (the five members of the band and Rei) know that song, but there’s not really anyone else it could be. If any of his bandmates play piano at all, it’s definitely not at Rei’s level. There’s no reason any of them would be here in the first place since Teru JUST left them at the TV studio. And why would they be playing a song none of them really liked? There’s really no reason for Teru OR the reader to think it could possibly be anyone other than Rei.

I don’t actually remember at what point Saki’s song became a plot point. If it was there in the VERY first draft, it would have been only for that little fluffy scene where Teru plays air drums, and I’m not sure that scene was there either. The conflict with Minori was added later, along with the parts with Bara’s new band, because I needed to flesh out that music-related subplot to help move the main relationship plot along, and in THAT draft, by the time I got to this scene, everything just kind of fell into place, and I knew that it had to be Saki’s song that brought them back together.

There were a couple of reasons for this. First, it just works better than some random new song that just somehow “sounds like Rei” or anything the band actually recorded (which could be anyone, really, since a large number of people would have heard that album by now). Second, it sort of addresses both Teru’s jealousy of Saki and Rei’s fears that Saki might not have wanted him to find happiness with someone else. Now, this isn’t a religious book or a ghost story. Teru and Rei both admit that they don’t know what they believe regarding the afterlife… but if you choose to subscribe to the idea that Saki is somehow still watching over Rei, he clearly doesn’t object to them being together. (Or, death is the end and it’s just fate. Or a coincidence. It works any of those ways.)

So, Teru KNOWS. And that gives him the power to decide here how this is going to go. He COULD leave. Or he could go back to the stage and see for himself. And of course he’s going to do the latter. He tells himself he should leave, but that’s just because he thinks Rei still doesn’t want to see him. Teru (obviously, if you’ve been reading the chapter up to now) wants to see Rei more than anything in the world.

And I think Rei DOES want to see Teru again too… he always has. But he sees that as a selfish want, and still thinks he’s doing Teru a favor by staying away. And he doesn’t really know if Teru’s seeing anyone. He’s secretly relieved every week when the tabloids come out and there’s no mention of Teru in any relationship, but he also knows the tabloids don’t get everything, and the more time passes the more he can just tell himself that Teru’s happy, he’s successful, there’s no need to mess with that.

But of course Teru’s not perfectly happy, so… you know, I find it really hard to comment on this scene because I love it. When it came to me, it didn’t even feel like I came up with it… it was just THE WAY THE STORY ENDED. And I guess it took me so long and made me so depressed to talk about this chapter because I just… really wanted to share it with the world, to have other people be rooting for these guys as hard as I did… and it sucks that I think this book only ended up finding maybe 0.1% of its potential audience.

But I am grateful for those of you who did find it. ❤️

Anyway. I also needed to show how Rei had changed, and I know some readers feel like I didn’t do enough here to show that he had also spent the past four years growing and becoming better. I… somewhat agree with that? By which I mean I DO think I show that he has changed enough to give them a better chance at being happy together, and I think there are some things that are just hard to show because we’re not in his POV (like, I think he’s probably going to therapy and working on processing his grief in a healthier way, but that’s not exactly something that Teru can physically SEE). At the same time, there was one thing in particular I didn’t do and wish I had.

Backtracking to what I DID do—the most obvious visible change is that he’s using a wheelchair. I intended this to be pretty major, seeing as in the LAST chapter he was in (even though it was four years ago in universe) he was actively refusing to do so despite being recently (re-)injured and really not able to walk. I also did make a point of having him stand later on just to make it 100% clear that this is a case of his attitude toward mobility aids and self care getting BETTER, not his physical condition getting WORSE… this is like a nice custom power chair too that he would’ve had to put some time and thought and money into ordering and having made… so it was SUPPOSED to physically show a very significant change in his outlook.

He’s also wearing a black wig here, but other than maybe just not wanting to stand out on this particular day (but then like, why play gorgeous theatrical metal piano in the middle of a giant shopping center?), I think it was just me realizing that I HAD THE CHANCE TO GIVE HIM A DIFFERENT HAIR COLOR EVERY SCEBE AND SHOULD HAVE TAKEN BETTER ADVANTAGE OF THAT. 😂

Later, when they embrace, Teru also noticed that he’s not QUITE as skinny as he used to be, and I’m not sure if this really gets across but THAT IS A GOOD THING. It’s also possibly just a “being 40” thing but… no. He’s EATING. Yay self care!

Anyway. There were other things I considered doing but ultimately decided against… like I mentioned before, I didn’t think it would be in character to make the choice to amputate his arm. But I really, REALLY regret that he’s still wearing the same mask in this scene.

So, this book actually had two literary agents… the first quit agenting before she could even try to sell it, but the second did send it out to publishing houses. But before he did that we edited it together, and one of the things I suggested was that Rei be wearing silicon prosthetics in this scene, instead of the mask. That when he looked up at Teru, at a glance his face would look PERFECT… but it wouldn’t quite be. Facial prosthetics look amazing in photos but they don’t MOVE, and they wouldn’t be an option for eyelids or lips, anything that pretty much moves all the time as a matter of course. So Teru would think, at a glance, that Rei had somehow “fixed” his face, but would realize very quickly that it was essentially a mask of another kind… and say something like, “You’re beautiful.”💕

My literary agent advised against that because he thought it was like… an easy fix, and wanted Rei to stay disfigured… but he WOULD have stayed disfigured. Silicon prosthetics are a real option that actually exists in the real world, unlike god-level plastic surgery… I know people who use them. I know they’re not perfect. And I really wish I’d kept that in. If I ever do write a sequel, I’m definitely going that route.

ANYWAY. Rei is kind of cold here at first… he keeps playing as Teru sings, but when Teru tries to talk to him he initially says “Don’t spoil it”… that seems kind of harsh, but I really think he just feels like music is still the way they connect on the purest level… and he doesn’t really want to have to talk about what he did four years ago.

They play “Sweet Goodbye,” which they’ve never actually performed together before, and then a fan requests “Yami no hanabira,” saying that their indie stuff was so epic…. But also really meaning that something has been missing without Rei.

Teru is probably being too generous when he says that what Rei did was both the cruelest and the kindest thing anyone has ever done to him. It was fucking awful. But I think he also realizes that, in Rei logic, it was a great act of kindness.

My very favorite line in the entire book is here: “What’s the point of writing anything if it isn’t, at least in some sense, true?”

I came back to this over and over and over again trying to edit, trying to sell, and eventually trying to self-publish this thing. It’s fiction, yes. But it’s also TRUE, like all the best stories are.

Teru mentions here that they sold out the Budokan, which is a real, famous venue in downtown Tokyo. It’s not the biggest possible venue to sell out (selling out Tokyo Dome, for example, is a much bigger numerical accomplishment) but the Budokan’s cultural history makes it a place that a lot of musicians aspire to. And Rei says, of course: “I know. I was there.” Because of COURSE he’s been following Teru’s career as a fan, from the shadows.

And then Teru suggests that they go get lunch, or dinner, or coffee or whatever, and offers to drive them in his car… now, I think it’s pretty clear that Rei’s wheelchair is not going to fit in Teru’s tiny little car… I think what ACTUALLY happens after this scene is that they go for coffee or something somewhere in walking distance, and once they start talking there’s just SO much to say that they go home together on the train, and Teru comes back the next day and eats the incredibly ridiculous parking costs. (I think Sunshine City is something like 20-30 dollars an hour if you don’t buy anything… but I DEFINITELY don’t drive in the middle of Tokyo so I’m not 100% sure. Expensive but worth it in this case, anyway.)

Author Interview

Birthday Edition

Tagged by @callioope, thanks so much, my friend! (It’s only been nearly 2 months... *runs and hides*)

Name: Alli

Fandoms: Well, for posted works, in descending order from most works to fewest: four Original Work (poems), three Star Wars - All Media Types (which further break down into two Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and one Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton), two Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, and one each Last of the Mohicans (1992), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types/TMNT (2007), The Shannara Chronicles (TV), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, and The Walking Dead (TV).

As for unpublished works, excluding those listed above, I have drafts and notes for stories in: A Song of Ice and Fire, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Beauty and the Beast (1987) (I’ve been obsessing over this particular fandom for months now), Doctor Who/Torchwood, Firefly, Lord of the Rings, Mad Max: Fury Road, Maleficent, Origin (YouTube), The Phantom of the Opera, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tin Man (2007).

A few other fandoms I haven’t written for but have read and adore: Abhorsen/The Old Kingdom, Alice (SyFy), the Americans, Assassin’s Creed, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Being Human (UK), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chalice, City of Ember, the Expanse, Fringe, Hellboy, His Dark Materials, Howl’s Moving Castle, the Hunger Games, Jupiter Ascending, Killjoys, Lost in Space (Netflix), MCU/X-Men, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Myst, the Old Guard, Persuasion, Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick, the Pretender, the Princess Bride, Pushing Daisies, Resident Evil (movies), Star Trek, Stardust, Stranger Things, Terminator, Underworld, V for Vendetta, Watchemen, Witch Hunter Robin, the X-Files.

Where you post: AO3 (if the format of the above list of posted fandoms didn’t give it away). I have some snippets here on tumblr from unfinished works that will hopefully make it to AO3 one day.

Most popular one-shot: I agonized over how to identify this: kudos, a ratio of kudos to hits? “Catch and Release” with 49 kudos since publishing a year ago today on my last birthday is definitely the most kudos I have ever received, but it has 693 hits. Whereas “I’ve Stumbled My Way Back”, which I published on the same day, has just 12 kudos but that’s with only 99 hits. It’s all relative anyway I suppose. Neither of them can really be called truly popular. Regardless, I’m proud of both of them, even if I’m not happy with the title of the first one.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: That is currently my only multi-chapter fic, Of Scrolls and Sleeping. It has gotten 8 kudos since I reposted it to AO3 in 2016. I originally wrote it in 2003 and posted it to the Sink into Your Eyes archive and the Astronomy Tower that same year. A Radiance That Travels will have more chapters at some point and already has more kudos, 43, in the year since I posted it.

Fic you were nervous to post: Pretty much everything I’ve ever posted. Trollbrain is the worst.

How you choose your titles: Usually I use song lyrics or “clever” wordplay that’s more pun than not, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction on my part.

Do you outline: Kind of, yes. I make a lot of notes on backstory and how I want things to go.

Complete: Complete is a relative term. I have 14 published works. I’d say 8 or 9 of them are complete.

In progress: In progress is also relative. I don’t really consider any of my unfinished works abandoned. I fully intend to finish them one day. When that day will be is anyone’s guess, despite my best intentions.

A Radiance That Travels is intended to be a multi-chapter work and more likely to be updated in the near future (I have a little over 1000 words of chapter two, but they need so much work and I haven’t touched it since April 2020). “I’ve Stumbled My Way Back” was initially supposed to be the first chapter in a longer work, but will more likely be the first work in a series of connected Shannara Chronicles one-shots. “Catch and Release” (I don’t really like this title) was going to be a scene in a longer Last of the Mohicans work but will also probably end up as one in a series of connected one-shots. 4 of my works are officially part of an Unfinished Tales series and are less likely to be completed anytime soon, but I am considering adding more unfinished works that are lower on my priority/interest list at this time.

As for unpublished works in progress, I have roughly 26 documents containing notes and snippets that correspond to the same number of potential works. Motivation is in short supply right now...

Coming soon: T_T Anything, please! I wish my motivation would return from the war...

Do you accept prompts: Well, I am a very slow writer and I hate disappointing people (ADHD/RSD) so I never ask for prompts, but if you don’t mind maybe never getting anything waiting, chat with me about ideas.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: There is one in particular that @callioope​ and I started laying groundwork for early last year that I would love to work on. (Thank you for your patience with me.)

Tagging: @skitzofreak, @g-r-a-u, @okaynextcrisis, @weshallflyaway and anyone else who would like to do it! (No pressure!)

Some Tips on How I Keep Motivating Myself to Write

This post was inspired by a response I recently got from @pastelnightgale and obviously, I’m not an expert (I’m literally on year 6 of a fanfic rip), but I still wanted to type something up about this. 

I find that the hardest part about writing is finding the motivation to actually start it . . . and then keep it. You can have all of these intricate fantasies in your head, with twists and turns and even a playlist you made on spotify, but actually getting up and writing it is ridiculously hard. 

Especially if, like me, you suffer from perfectionism. 

I kinda wanted to write a post about how I personally motivate myself to write, both fanfiction and my own things. Obviously, what I write is flawed and needs a lot of improvement, but I’ve come really far and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. 

So, here’s some tips I’ve picked up over the years. Feel free to apply this to whatever art you personally create, but this is primarily for writers.

1) Listening to Music

This is my number one. Easily. I’m someone who has a lot of attachment with the music I listen to (as most people do, I’d assume). Though I’m picky with the overall sound, I prefer music or artists who really put a lot of thought into their lyrics specifically. Or even when they use certain effects to carry across emotions or add more emphasis to specific lines. It’s why I’m such a fan of Taylor Swift; her songs are basically poetry packaged as pop music. 

It personally helps me to listen to music not just because it’s enjoyable, but it helps create scenarios in my head. We all shoot music videos in our head, why not try doing it with your characters? Plus, if the artist you’re listening to plays with words through metaphors or similies or imagery, it’s a massive bonus. I seriously recommend turning to music, whatever genre you listen to, and letting that sometimes paint the picture for you.

2) watching Movies. 

This is a massive one for me. I don’t know how high this would be on anyone else’s lists since films are obviously a completely different medium to books, but I find there’s a lot of things that can be useful about movies. For one thing, movies just have better fight sequences. Kinda obvious statement, but I don’t mean in a ‘well you can see it so therefore film is better’ no, I mean, film literally has better action sequences. 

Obviously, as a writer, you’re never going to be able to properly adapt the quick pace of fights in movies. But you can adapt the details in how they move. Fight scenes in movies are better then books because they’re choreographed. Now granted, I’m still beginning my journey in reading, but so far, I haven’t been impressed with what I’ve seen. Either the author writes a scene that describes the action, but with no focus on the strain it has on the character’s bodies, or they gloss over the fight completely. It makes me feel like I’m reading fanfiction, but written from the younger side. 

It’s just super dissapointing, so I try to challenge myself by studying how the characters moves, the impact of their movements on each other, and then how tired that can leave them. 

But also, movies can have other things that I think writers should learn to adapt. Like a character’s mannerisms. Now, I don’t just mean mannerisms as in what they do in their day to day lives, I mean facial ticks. Like, the minute sequences their features will go through as they’re processing news. Or their stances. Or what they do with their hands. Actors are very detailed about how they’re protraying their characters, and I just find myself aching to carry that over in my own portrayal of my characters.

It’s obviously important to realise that film and novels have both their benefits and disadvantages in what they can and can’t portray. But it’s even more important to realise that different mediums can also teach us things about our sense of portrayals.

3) Reading books

This may be surprising that it’s not number one, but honestly, I didn’t start reading actual books until late last year. I kinda used to read some in high school, but those were few and far between. This year I’ve actively been trying to emerge myself in more professional writing, as I do find it a little strange to want to write so badly without taking any infleunce from any other writers. 

Previously, I used to take inspiration from fanfiction and fictionpress, which I guess I still do. There’s definitely benefits in exclusively reading them (for instance, I prefer characterisation, romance and comedy in fanfiction) but I personally find books to be better in overall world building. I mean, obviously.

World building and setting are my weak spots, and I find that reading literal books actually helps me easier improve on these areas. Oh, and length. I’m a pretty detailed writer, but it’s sometimes hard to navigate what should and shouldn’t be getting so much focus. Fanfiction is pretty short (typically only a few pages), but books can be a whole lot longer, and how they use that space and length helps me translate it into my own pages. Granted, I tend to write way too much, but it’s still really helpful in navigating what should and shouldn’t be getting focus.

Oh, and bonus points for booktubers. They review a variety of different books, and for me personally, whenever they critique books, it motivates me to write something brilliant so they could maybe read it and smile. My favourites are WithCindy and Dominic Noble.

4) Tumblr—Specifically writing blogs. 

When I tell you that I did nothing in my last years of high school but secretly read fanfiction and writing blogs on tumblr in class, I--

Obviously, I’m biased, cause I’ve been reading tips on here since I was a kid, but I really recommend following some good blogs on here. They give such good advice, specifically on how to research, or portray certain emotions and, most of all, representation. Tumblr was actually where I learnt to write my fight scenes—about how to portray the feeling of a quick sequence of events, while balancing it out with your character’s limited view. They write things I haven’t even seen professionals talk about (and honestly, I think they could benefit from reading a tumblr blog). 

My personal favourite blogs are: Nimble’s Notebook, and Clevergirlhelps

5) Re-writes.

Okay, this is a massive one I should’ve mentioned in the beginning. Never compare what you have on your word doc to what others have published. Why? Because I can tell you that they did not start off like that. They went through massive amounts of editing and drafting and re-reads before coming out like this clean cut version. Trust me. No one’s that quick. And even if they are, who cares? It could take you two drafts, it could take you four, it could take you nine--we all work at our own pace.

It’s something I have to keep reminding myself when I’m on my first and second draft. Because they are shit. I always feel untalented when writing my first draft--oh, and that’s not a purposeful dig at myself to get compliments, I genuinely mean that. I will never let someone read one of my early drafts because they are literally so bad, and not only that, but those drafts are for me. They’re not there for anyone else yet. Early drafts are just so you can start to build your empire, they’re your foundation. You can reach for the sky the more you keep building. 

Don’t get on your own case if you don’t like your first draft. It’s fine. It gets so much easier the more you rewrite it. Trust me.

6) Write Things for You.

This is one of my favourite tips. Oh, and I don’t mean it in a ‘you’re not writing for an audience, you are the audience’ kinda way. No, I mean literally write things for you. And only for you.

If you have a story in your head that you don’t want to write because you know it’s just a phase, it won’t last long enough for you to make something out of, or you’re not confident in it, or whatever, fuck it—just write it. 

Open your word doc and type it out. Then don’t post it. Or share it. Keep it on your computer, stored away in a folder you won’t ever share. You might be asking, why would you waste your time on a project no one will ever see? Simple. 

It takes away the pressure.

A major hindrance to a writer actually writing is sometimes . . . not feeling good enough. You’re worried that an audience will laugh or mock what you’ve written, or that it won’t turn out just the way you planned it too, or even that the plot is too corny. Well, what I’ve found is that writing for myself stops me from judging myself so badly. I have so many documents on this computer of corny borderline wattpad stories that will never see the life of day. And it feels great. Cause I’m still actively writing and improving myself while eliminating that huge amount of anxiety that plagues me. 

This is such a massive tip, please consider it. Obviously, if the story turns out really well, go ahead and post it if you’re super proud of it. But otherwise, just write something with the intention of not sharing it. Keep it to yourself, so you can look back on it with fond memories. 

Get to Know Me: Fic Edition!

I was tagged by the wonderful Maya @1mechanicalalligator! Thanks! <3

Name: Sarah (AO3: imagined_melody)

Fandoms: Currently writing for Community and the All For the Game book series, with a couple things for The Magicians also in the works. Have previously written for the Stranger Things, Spring Awakening, Shameless, Les Miserables, Heroes, Merlin, Game of Thrones, and Black Sails fandoms. (And this is just what’s on AO3- I could go back further into my earlier days, but we’d be here all night!)

Where do you post your fanfiction? AO3, but before that I posted on Livejournal, and before that fanfiction.net, and before that on message board forums as a teenager.

By kudos most popular one-shot: Homecoming has held that lead since almost the day it was published :D (Currently has 622 kudos)

By kudos most popular multichapter: I only have four fics that aren’t one-shots, but in the lead is Be There to Catch Me with 286 kudos. (Shout-out to the Shameless fandom for apparently being the real MVPs of leaving kudos!)

Personal favorite: I’m not sure I can actually answer this question! Currently two of the softest spots in my heart are for Cooperative Independent Studies and Uncharted Territory, but I don’t know if I could definitively declare them my favorites. (From God Above, to the One I Love is also a personal favorite.)

Method for titling fics: Good old song lyrics usually do the trick! The number of fics and chapters I have named after MIKA songs is unreal. (But sometimes a title just comes to me before the fic even starts and I work from there. There’s not really a method to it.)

Work I am nervous about posting: I’m currently writing a sort-of sequel to Cooperative Independent Studies; it’s called Remedial Room Reading, and it can pretty much stand alone from the first fic except that the 1st one establishes how Jeff got to be in L.A. with Troy and Abed. It’s a Troy/Abed fic, but it’s also a Jeff/Abed story and, eventually, a Troy/Jeff/Abed fic that has Troy/Jeff as well. I know that this pairing is gonna be...unpopular, because Trobed fans are pretty aggressively set on Trobed exclusively, for the most part; Jabed is tolerated and has its own dedicated fanbase, but the threesome pairing is very rare and often makes people uncomfortable because of the age gap. (I would hasten to add that if I counted my years correctly, Troy is 28 or 29 in the fic as I’ve written it, so even though he and Jeff are still 15 years apart, he’s not exactly a minor or anything here.) I don’t want to make people uncomfortable with it and this fandom is plagued by subtweeting and petty drama and factioning, so I’m afraid I’m gonna get pushback for writing it. I’m probably not gonna promote it on either the Community discord server I’m a part of or on here, just to prevent it crossing the feeds of anyone who doesn’t want it- the only reason I’m gonna even tag it Troy/Abed or Jeff/Abed on AO3 is because the majority of the fic is those pairings and it would be dishonest to just tag it Troy/Jeff/Abed purely to shield people from seeing it. I think the fic is good, and tactful, and worth reading- but there are a lot of people who might feel differently, and that makes me nervous since I’ve spent 20 years keeping myself firmly out of fandom hate and I don’t want to start now.

I’ve actually considered leaving the fandom discord server after I post this fic just so that they can talk shit about the pairing and about me as much as they want, because I know there are more people on there who dislike it/are uncomfortable with it than the other way around. And hey, they’re gonna vaguepost about it anyway once they see it, so why not just give them the space to do it there? But that would probably be unfair to the friends I have on the server who wouldn’t engage in that behavior, so I’ve rethought that decision since then. (Wow, sorry this got so negative.)

Do you outline your works or just wing it? I hate outlining my stories, even though it would possibly be easier to write them if I did! I skip around in drafts and leave little ellipses for the parts I need to come back to. I know if I do a multi-chapter fic at some point (beyond what I’ve already done) that I will need to outline, but it’s not really a rewarding part of the process for me.

Are you excited about any of your upcoming works? Despite everything I said about being nervous to post “Remedial Room Reading,” it’s also the work I’m most excited to post. I’ve been working on it for over four months now and I am immensely pleased with the quality of the writing and the story. I can’t wait for people (the people who would actually enjoy it, anyway) to read it.

AO3 statistics:

Works: 43 User Subscriptions: 56 Kudos: 6623 Comment Threads: 287 Bookmarks: 1113 Subscriptions: 119 Word Count: 168941 Hits: 104019

Not tagging anyone this time, but feel free to do it so I can get to know your writing!

A Life On The Road - Part 4 (A Luke Hemmings FanFic)

Overview: Elizabeth and Calum have been best friends since they were 15/14 respectively. Elizabeth is from and lives in the UK, but her family lived in Sydney for a brief 2 year period which is how the two met.

With 5SOS embarking on their biggest and most ambitious world tour to date, Cal has invited Elizabeth along to work as a photographer/content creator for their social media. This is in the hopes that travelling with them will help Elizabeth achieve her dream of becoming a full-time travel writer.

Elizabeth is acquainted with the rest of 5SOS but doesn’t know them tremendously well. Obviously that changes as they are all forced to be in one another’s company for the duration of the tour. As the tour progresses and new friendships blossom, Elizabeth feels the connection between her and Luke grow more and more.

A/N: Picking up in Paris. There’s drinking and swearing in this one.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

******************************************

“That was genuinely one of the best meals I’ve ever had.” Michael announced as we exited the restaurant.

“It was incredible! I’m still so jealous of your main though, Mikey. Like, mine was good but I should have got the same as you.” I replied.

“So where to next? The night is still young and we have no obligations before tomorrow’s soundcheck.” Ashton asked the group.

A bar was obviously the unanimous decision. But I did convince them to walk aimlessly until we found a bar. That way we could see some of the landmarks lit up and I could get some content both for the band insta and to go alongside any Paris articles of mine that got picked up.

“I’m going to have my work cut out topping these,” I told the guys as I reviewed the short series of photos I had just taken of them by The Louvre, “So I think that counts as me done for the night. Time to find the nearest baaarrrr!”

It didn’t take long to find a bar. It also didn’t take long for us to all have a cocktail glass held in each hand. While the meal was excellent, it was quite a posh place, something none of us were exactly used to. This bar felt much more like our kind of place. It was time to really relax and have fun as nothing more than a group of friends.

In terms of music it was a bit hit and miss as to whether or not we knew the song playing. While that stopped us singing, it never stopped us from dancing. Also, not being familiar with a song was an excellent opportunity to get the next round of drinks in.

“Hurry up! I don’t have a good grip on these! Quick! Take your fucking drinks!” I yelled as I returned from the bar doing my very best to carry five glasses.

“Thanks, EP!” Cal shouted back as he took two glasses from me, passing one on to Michael.

“TO EP FOR ADDING MORE FUN, AND RIGHT NOW DRINKS, TO TOUR AND BEING A STEP CLOSER TO ACHEIVING HER DREAMS!” Ashton called as he raised his glass into the air for a toast.

“TO EP!” The four of them shouted as they clinked their glasses together.

“You guys are too much at times,” I laughed, “But thank you very much none the less.”

With that slightly embarrassing moment of attention out the way we got back to dancing and sipping on our drinks. After a few songs Cal excused himself to the smoking area. Not long after he’d gone Michael went up to the bar as it was his turn to buy the round, leaving just me, Luke and Ash dancing in a little triangle of space. That was until Live In The Moment by Portugal. The Man started playing. 

As soon as we recognised the song Luke gave me a knowing look as I exclaimed ‘As if!’ because only hours ago in that random little coffee shop had we bonded over our mutual current obsession with the song. From that point until the song faded into the next Luke and I were solely focussed on one another as we passionately sang the lyrics at each other and let the beat draw our drunk, dancing bodies closer together in the already small space. 

Without even realising it we became only inches apart, loudly singing into each other’s faces with our drink-free hands moving between air punches, waves and resting on each other (his hand on my waist, mine on his shoulder). And then far too soon the song was over.

“That’s officially made my night,” I declared as I took a step back and downed what remained of my drink, “That was the best coincidence ever.”

“I think that just became our song.” Luke smiled down at me while pushing a few curls back out of his face.

“Are you fucks going to take your drinks now? Because I’m 30 seconds away from drinking them.” Michael somewhat playfully asked, pulling the two of us out of our bubble.

It wasn’t long after taking our drinks from Michael that Mr. Brightside came on and the five of us went mad for it on the dancefloor. And it turned out that, just like a multitude of other clubs I’d been to, Mr Brightside was a subtle signal that closing time was fast approaching. After the two songs that followed, the music stopped and the house lights came on.

“Boooo!” We all declared, clearly not ready for the night to be over just yet.

We collected our jackets from the cloakroom as we were ushered out into the cold Parisian night air with the rest of the crowd. Once out on the street we checked the time for the first time in hours. Realising it was 3:05am and nowhere else was likely to still be open we began our walk back to the tour bus.

It may seem strange to say, but drunk walks home at the end of a night out are one of my favourite things in the world. I get such a feeling of togetherness when I’m laughing and slightly staggering down the street with friends. It always makes me feel like I belong. And semi-lost under the streetlights of Paris I had that feeling of belonging wash its warmth over me. I took two large steps to catch up with Cal and looped my arm through his, 

“I so fucking glad I’m here. Thank you so much for being my best friend. And thank you for having bandmates that are so easy to get along with.” I told Cal as I placed my drunk, sleepy head against his arm as I wasn’t quite tall enough to reach his shoulder.

As Cal and I continued our drunk heart-to-heart we absentmindedly followed the other three in what we hoped was the direction of the tour bus. Seeing as we hadn’t been paying much attention to them and their antics, it was a bit of a surprise to hear Ash shout “Smile!” at us. Thankfully we were quick enough to pose. 

The result was a pretty cool photo of us, arms still linked, pulling tongue-out faces while flipping the camera off. I asked Ash to send it to me, edited it a bit and kept it in my Insta drafts for review and posting in the morning. By the time I’d done this, we’d managed to find our way back to the bus. Once we all piled in we promptly collapsed in our bunks for what remained of the night.

*

The next day was actually quite a relaxed one for me by touring standards.

I was woken up by Michael repeatedly prodding my upper arm. Once I stirred and opened one eye to find him there, he let me know that Ashton had gone and done a coffee run and mine was waiting for me in the kitchen area. Begrudgingly I got up, because I knew the caffeine would do me good, and I also really needed painkillers for my head. As I padded into the bus’ kitchen area in my XXL tee I saw that the guys were looking just as rough as I felt and probably looked too.

“Thanks for the coffee, Ash.” I said as I picked up the cup with my name on, “I don’t suppose there’s any painkillers on this bus?”

“Got some on my coffee run. Here you go.” Ash responded handing me the small rectangular box.

“You lifesaver.” I said taking the box and settling down on the small sofa next to Luke who was barely awake.

As everyone was pretty hungover we didn’t talk much. We just sat in a comfortable silence while we waited for the caffeine to kick in. 

The silence was finally broken by Lou getting onto the bus and letting the four guys know it was soundcheck in 30 minutes. This prompted them to go and change out of their joggers and freshen up a bit. As they did so I dug out my laptop, charger and notebook from my bunk in order to set up a temporary desk at the kitchen booth’s table and get some work done.

After two hours I’d managed to finish, proof read and send off my article on Glasgow to ELLE; as well as flesh out two article ideas for Paris. Pleased with what I had achieved in that time, despite my headache only being dulled slightly by the painkillers, I took a break. 

Predictably, after making some instant mug ramen, I ended up on Instagram; which was when I remembered the photo in my drafts from last night. I clicked onto it and saw drunk me had gone a bit too far when altering the brightness and warmth of the photo. Once I had edited them down and was pleased with how it looked, I tapped out the caption “Two of a kind!” with the emoji of the two dancing girls at the end, tagged Cal and hit ‘Post’. Not quite ready to go back to work, I decided to get dressed and head into the venue to see what the guys were up to.

The guys were just finishing up the meet and greet, so I hopped round to the front of the venue and gave some of the roadies a hand with prepping the t-shirts and hoodies into piles by size at the merch booth. In between pile sorting, Lou appeared to let us know the boys were in Dressing Room 4 doing radio interviews over the phone and to avoid that area of the venue until they were done. Not knowing when exactly that would be, I headed back to the bus once the merch had been sorted and video called Drew.

“Work is so shit without you. Your replacement sucks too.” Drew complained.

“Aww I’m sorry, Drew! Have you heard back from the other firm you applied to?”

“No, not yet. But I should hopefully within the next week. I can’t survive much longer with these people. How’re you surviving on the road?”

“Really well actually! Not to rub it in or anything.” I laughed.

As I was divulging into some of the details and anecdotes I heard someone slapping their hands along the length of the bus as they approached the door.

“Oh. It sounds like I’m going to have to go.” I managed to say before the door opened and Luke stepped onto the bus, “Adios. I’ll call you again soon.”

“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t realise you were on the phone.” Luke apologised as he caught the tail-end of my conversation, “We’re all just chilling in the main dressing room now, so I said I’d come and find you.”

“Let me grab my camera gear and I’ll be right with you.” I told him while shimmying out of the booth at the front of the bus.

After a few wrong turns backstage, which resulted in a game of Marco Polo between Luke and Michael as a way to guide us the right place, we were back into our comfortable evening routine. They got prepped and hyped up and I documented it with my camera. That evening I took each of them down the hall to a really cool, cobalt blue door I’d spotted for some solo shots. Luke, taking the longest to decide on his stage outfit for the night, was the last of the four I photographed.

“That red silk shirt was such a good choice.” I complemented him as I held my eye up to the viewfinder, “It contrasts this cobalt door so well. And the two together really bring out your eyes.”

“He doesn’t need a bigger head than he’s already got!” Cal called playfully down the corridor.

Luke let out his infectious giggle and I seized the opportunity to grab another photo while chuckling myself. It was a great photo. Such a pure moment captured. I almost didn’t want to share it on their social media, but I knew that was a foolish, and not to mention selfish, thought.

Not long after that the guys were called to the stage. I took my place side of stage and ritualistically fist bumped each of them as they took to the stage for another amazing show. I felt I had already got enough content while in Paris, so I chose to just enjoy the performance instead of worrying about shots and footage. It was the first time I had let myself do so on this tour and I had a blast.

“It looked like you were having a good time tonight.” Cal later remarked when we were all back on the bus and on the road to Brussels. 

“Don’t tell Lou, but I sort of let myself take tonight off shooting to enjoy the gig as I already have so much Paris content.” I confessed as I reclined on the sofa in the lounge at the back of the tour bus.

“Your secret is safe with us.” Cal reassured with a wink, before taking the final swig that remained in his beer bottle, “Right you fucks, I’m off to bed. See you in Brussels.”

Not long after, Mike and Ash made their way to their bunks as well. This left just Luke and I chilling in the back lounge. As he was scrolling through Netflix looking for a film to put on, I asked him, 

“Are you not shattered too?”

“Eh,” He shrugged, “A bit, yeah. But I always have trouble sleeping. Plus after our drunk chat the other night I’d like to hang out with you more, and I seem to only really get the chance at night.”

“I’m not going to argue with that.” I responded while draping a blanket over my shoulders as the opening credits to Groundhog Day began. After a pause I continued, “We can hang out during the day you know. Like take a break and grab lunch or something. Hey, why don’t we do the coffee run together tomorrow? That’ll be an opportunity to hang out.”

“I’d like that,” He smiled, and then tugged a little at the blanket, “Don’t go hogging all the blanket.”

I released my grip on the blanket, allowing Luke to drape it over himself as well. The added warmth of his body next to mine made me feel even cosier and it wasn’t long before I nodded off to sleep.

The tour bus abruptly coming to a stop a few hours later managed to rouse me from my slumber. As my eyes fluttered open, the rest of my body registered that I wasn’t in my bunk, or even laying down, and that the warm thing my head was on smelt very good. Once my eyes were open and no longer fuzzy with sleep I realised that I had fallen asleep during the film, as I was still sat on the lounge’s U-shaped sofa. Luke must have fallen asleep at some point during the film too, as the nice smelling thing my head was resting on was his shoulder, and I could feel his head resting gently on top of mine as he snored softly.

“Wake up. Hey, Luke. Wake up, “I prompted as I gently shook his thigh, “I think we’re in Brussels.”

Even Heroes Have the Right to Dream: Announcement

My next long, chaptered story is officially scheduled to begin posting on Friday, May 1st. At the time of posting this announcement, that’s a little less than 2 weeks away. As always, chapters will be uploaded every other day following the first.

Therefore, since I now have a dedicated writing blog, I’ve decided to try something a little different and make an announcement post ahead of time. I’ll be reblogging this to this same writing blog on both the 29th and 30th of April, as well as possibly once to my main blog on the 30th.

But, for now, some details on the story:

Summary:

MariJon college roommates AU. Marinette and Jon have decided to give up being heroes in favor of an ordinary life. This story follows them throughout their college careers, and their mutual journey to find what life holds for them without heroism.

Notes:

(This is my rambling commentary part of the announcement, wherein lies further details and background on the story. Under read-more for your convenience.)

The story takes place over 4 years and 17 chapters. And, being a college AU, the characters are obviously aged up. At the start of the story, Marinette is 20 years old, and Jon 19. ML x DC, if anyone isn’t already expecting that from the names and my prior work.

It will be rated T on Ao3, merely because of them all being in college and the occasional themes that go hand in hand with that. There is no sex or drugs, but some light sexual themes and alcohol are mentioned, largely by the supporting cast.

Speaking of the supporting cast, there will be OCs, since Marinette and Jon will meet people while they’re in college, but they’re fairly background as far as my stories go. They’re important enough to be mentioned, but they really are just supporting cast for the story.

This story’s inspiration was the “Superman Playlist”. I put together a Spotify playlist with a bunch of songs I knew that mention Superman, and this story concept arose from that. The playlist does still exist, but it has since been supplemented with additional songs that aren’t restricted by the rule of mentioning Superman. Each chapter title, and indeed the title of the story itself, is taken directly from lyrics from the songs on that playlist.

The drafting concept, that is, the theme behind which I created the story, is “Life post-heroism.” People who have grown up as heroes leaving it behind and trying to figure out where they go from there without being the thing they’ve literally grown up to be. The original tumblr post, which was created the very night I first began brainstorming, can be found here.

If you’re familiar with my work, you know the drafting concept and the final product are often quite different since ideas need to be edited to make a story actually good, but I think there’s value in seeing the inspiration behind a project. This announcement post is, I think, a good place to talk a little about that.

Generally, the story is fairly slice-of-life. A good amount of time is dedicated to small moments, though obviously there are larger story arcs over it all, and time passes rather quickly to cover all four years in merely 17 chapters. As such there are time-skips and moments where months pass in the blink of an eye. I have no current plans for, but am open to, supplemental oneshots to fill in some of that space.

The story is also themed around hurt/comfort and fluff, in a “post-heroism” theming. The kids aren’t alright, but they’re going to be. Happy endings because I prefer it that way.

As of the posting of this announcement, writing is not 100% completed, so the chapter number is still technically an estimate, but it’s fairly solidly in place at this point. I’ll keep you updated if things change, but there’s a reason I wait until I’m nearly done with projects to announce them.

For a length estimate, I try to make chapters just above 5k words each, so 85-90k in total is a safe bet, though that’s also just an estimate, as I haven’t finished writing, nor added up the total word count thus far.

Oh, and just to be explicit, chapters will be posted on both Ao3 and Tumblr, in the same format as my previous stories, so you can choose which platform you’d rather read on.

I may speak more on the story leading up to it’s release, but for now I suppose this is enough. Frankly, it’s a lot more background than I usually have the opportunity to give (I like this announcement post idea, lol). I hope you all can get excited about Even Heroes Have the Right to Dream, and look forward to it coming in May.

Thank you all for your time <3

Tag Game: Authors

Tagged by: @jellyjay (ahhh I've left tumblr on queue for days, and when I finally saw the mention I proceeded to forget to do the tag)

Fandoms I write for: Currently The Dragon Prince, but over the years I've written in 20 fandoms. Only a handful sustainedly though.

Where I post: AO3 and/or tumblr.

Most popular one-shot: Of all time, my first Miraculous Ladybug fic, posted oh-my-goodness-four-years-ago-what-is-time. Within my current main fandom: a Rayllum quickie called honey, you're familiar.

Favourite story I wrote: A post-canon coda for Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, titled your time will come (if you wait for it). It's not perfect, but I'm quite proud of it. Actually, I'm at a loss now as to how I wrote it, because it's non-chronological, freeform storytelling and yet it reads like I planned it all...?

Story I was nervous to post: Ruthari getting together fic starring baby Rayla, because the tone was tricky. I got beta help from @sequoiawintersnight

How do I choose titles: Most are song lyrics because by the time I finish writing and editing a fic, I get impatient to just post it already. Also, I listen to music a lot. Some titles are one word though.

Do you outline: I make a couple notes beforehand, and I’ll only start drafting if I have something substantial. But once I get started, I just follow the flow of the scene(s). Which is why I only do oneshots. I can't do plot well enough to sustain a multichap.

Complete: Everything I finish, I post. Ah, oneshot writer silver linings.

In progress: Lots of semi-abandoned pieces right now, including a third and fourth/final chapter of Here As On a Darkling Plain. I doubt anyone following me was waiting for these updates, as it's been a couple years, but... if you are, I'm sorry. In progress often means in limbo, for me.

Do you take prompts? Yes, although I... never get them.

Upcoming project I'm most excited about: I try not to tell people about stuff I'm working on until I'm relatively sure it's actually going to happen. It jinxes me, I think. That said, I’ve just started on a fic for Natasha Pulley’s The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, the sequel to The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. (For which I wrote this fic, back in 2017).

Tagging: oh dear, I don't really talk to anyone on here. If you follow me and you write things, consider yourself tagged if you like!

30 Days of Jyrus, Day 6

Title: Hard Hitting Journalistic Integrity 

Summary: Cyrus, a reporter for a celebrity news magazine and website, gets roped into interviewing pop sensation Jonah Beck. (This fic is epistolary, it’s all emails and email attachments). 

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Can you cover for me?

Hey Cyrus,

I know this is last minute, but I really need someone to cover my interview assignment next week. My parents are coming into town, and I really need to make time to see them, or I’ll never hear the end of it. Metcalf says I can take the week off if I find someone to cover my assignments.

It’ll be easy. You just meet the guy, talk with him for a bit, ask some questions that I’ve already put together from the research I’ve been doing, and then write it all up. I’ve heard that he’s really nice, as pop-stars go.

Thanks so much,

Andi

To: Andi Mack ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Can you cover for me?

I’ll do it, but you so owe me. You know I hate interviewing. 

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Re: Can you cover me?

You’re the best!! I sent the questions to Mr. Beck’s manager, and he’s gonna send you back the ones he approves of. I promise I’ll make it up to you!

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Approved Interview Questions & Topics

Dear Mr. Goodman,

Attached are the approved questions for the interview with Mr. Beck. DO NOT, under any circumstances stray from these questions. Mr. Beck requested that I also give him your email so that he may reach out before the interview, so expect something from his soon.

Respectfully,

Marty Evans

APPROVED QUESTIONS

• Question One: How does it feel to sell out stadiums?  

• Question Two: Tell me about your new album. All follow questions should be about the music and the music only. He writes his own music, so focus on that.

• Question Three: How does your family inspire you? This is something he’s talked about before in interviews, it’s important to him.

• Question Four: How long have you been playing music?

• Question Five: Favorite album?

• Question Six: I hear you like to play Ultimate Frisbee, is that true?

APPROVED TOPICS

• Music

• Family

• His fans

• His upcoming tour

• His hobbies, cooking and frisbee

DO NOT MENTION

• Amber Diamond/The breakup

• Amber’s accusations

• Anything personal

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Hi!

Hi!

This is Jonah Beck. I wanted to touch base with you before the interview. I’m thrilled that you’re interviewing me, because I love to read your articles in Celebrity Life. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to this interview in the first place. Most websites and magazines are very invasive, but I always found Celebrity Life to be trustworthy. But you usually don’t do interviews. Are you a fan? ;)

Jonah  Beck

To: Jonah Beck ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Hi!

Mr. Beck,

Thank you for reaching out. I assure you that I am only covering for a coworker. I do enjoy your music, but I would never intentionally seek out an interview. I’ll see you on Monday.

Cyrus Goodman

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: How was the interview?

Hey, Cyrus!

Thank you again for covering for me. How did it go? I hope it went well. I know you hate pop-stars, but he seems pretty down to earth and I know you listen to his music, so I was hoping that it wouldn’t be too much of a disaster.

Andi

To: Andi Mack ([email protected])

Subject: Re: How was the interview?  

It was good. I’ll send you the rough draft by tomorrow.

To: Buffy Driscoll ([email protected])

Subject: I fucked up

I attached my rough draft of the Jonah Beck interview, please read it. You’ll see. It’s too personal. His publicist won’t like it. I’m so screwed. Help.

JONAH BECK INTERVIEW ROUGH DRAFT

It’s a crisp September morning when I walk into the Belvedere Hotel to meet Jonah Beck. He’s sitting on the bed of the hotel room, strumming his guitar. Jonah Beck is a handsome and charming young man, but his demeanor is not that of a confident pop-star, instead he quiet and polite, offering me a sparkling water from the mini-fridge. He himself has apparently decided on tea with honey and lemon, probably to preserve his voice for the night’s concert. “The truth is I hate sparkling water,” he says. “I’m just trying to pawn it off on you.”

CELEBRITY LIFE MAGAZINE: You’re playing a sold out stadium show tonight. That must be a crazy feeling.

JONAH BECK: It’s absolute insane. I’m so lucky to have this life. Music is so

important to me, and it’s a dream come true to be able share this important part of my life with so many people. And I really do have the best fans in the world.

CLM: Best fans in the world? Even the crazy fan-girls?

JB: [laughs] Even them. Everyone has to fan-girl over something.

CLM: What do you fan-girl over?

JB: Truthfully? Professional Ultimate Frisbee players. But please, don’t publish that.

CLM: Sorry, buddy. This is all on record.

JB: [laughs] There go all my fan-girls.

CLM: You mentioned that music is a big part of your life. How long have you been playing music?

JB: I started playing music when I was thirteen years old. I, uh, struggle with some anxiety and music was, is, very therapeutic for me. It helped me find a little more confidence in who I really am, as opposed to who the people around me wanted me to be.

CLM: People around you? Like your family?

JB: My family, and honestly everyone in my life. My parents divorced when I was fourteen, but it was a longtime coming. I was a profoundly unhappy teenager, but I hid it really well. Music was the one outlet I had for all my negative emotions. I’m not sure how it became a career, but here we are.

CLM: Here we are indeed. I’m sorry to learn about your parents’ divorce. How has coming from that kind of background influenced your music?

JB: I think a lot of my love songs are more bittersweet than you expect from pop-music. My family is a huge inspiration—I talk to my little sister at least once a week—and I try to go home to my dad’s house for a few holidays. Without their support I never would’ve made it this far.

CLM: It’s going to be a challenge for you to make it home while you’re on tour.

JB: Unfortunately, that’s true. But I’m extremely lucky to be kicking off a world tour in six months. I get about six weeks off before the tour, so I’ll be spending it all with my family.

CLM: Where are you most excited to go?

JB: Germany. I have some extended family there.

CLM: Are you excited to meet fans from all over the world?

JB: Absolutely. Like I said, best fans anyone could ask for.

CLM: What will you be listening to on the tour bus? Favorite album?

JB: To be perfectly honest? Arianna Grande. God is definitely a woman. [laughs]

CLM: Oh, isn’t Amber Diamond going on tour with Arianna Grande?

JB: Uh…Yeah….

CLM: Shit, sorry. I wasn’t supposed to talk about her.

JB: It’s okay. I don’t hold any resentment towards Amber. We weren’t right for each other, but I handled it poorly. I don’t blame her for lashing out in the press.

CLM: That’s very emotionally mature of you. I mean, she told the tabloids that you’re gay. Which is a fucked up thing to do. If you’re straight, it’s a lie that will follow you for the rest of your career. And if it’s true, she outed you to the whole world.  

JB: Yeah. It’s not true, for the record. I’m not gay. I’m bisexual.

CLM:: Wow, uh. Wow. I won’t print that if you don’t—

JB: Print it. I don’t care. I was never really hiding it. I don’t fall in love with someone because of their gender. I fall in love with someone because of the color of their eyes, the way they smile, how they talk to me. It doesn’t matter what gender someone is or how they present. What matters is who they are.

CLM: That’s beautiful.

JB: I do write my own lyrics, y’know.

CLM: From deep and poetic to totally sarcastic in five seconds flat. Impressive. That must be what the fan-girls like about you.

JB: I would hope they’d like my music.

CLM: That too.

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Re: I fucked up

Calm down, Cy. There’s a salvageable interview in here. You just need some editing. I’ve got this. But holy shit, he came out in this interview. That’s huge. He must’ve really liked you.

Buffy

PS: You owe me one.

To: Buffy Driscoll ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Re: I fucked up

What do you mean, “he must really like me”?

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Re: Re: I fucked up

I mean, based on that transcript, you two were totally flirting. Tell me you got his number. You have to go out with him.

To: Buffy Driscoll ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: I fucked up

HA. You are absolutely out of your mind. I’m not going to go on a date with Jonah Beck. 

To: Cyrus Goodman ([email protected])

Subject: Interview follow-up.

Dear Cyrus,

I just read the article! It came out great. But I think we need to do an interview follow up as soon as possible. Maybe this Friday night over dinner? I can pick you up at 7.  How does that sound?

Jonah Beck

To: Jonah Beck ([email protected])

Subject: Re: Interview follow-up

I’d love to.

‘In the Heights’ 10 Years Later: From ‘Vague Promises’ to a Broadway Smash (Exclusive)

When Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the initial draft of his first musical, In the Heights, it was an 80-minute, one-act show with music that sounded like a hip-hop version of Rent combined with Marc Anthony. It was 1999 and Miranda was a sophomore in college at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, itching to write his “dream show” because he wanted a “life in musicals.”

“The version was not for credit. I just really needed to write it,” Miranda told ET following a celebration of the musical at BroadwayCon at the Javits Center in New York City, where members of the original cast and crew reunited 10 years after the show opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on March 9, 2008.

The winner of four Tony Awards, including Best Musical and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, In the Heights follows a bodega owner (Miranda) and other residents of a largely Hispanic American community in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan over the course of three days. The original cast included Mandy Gonzalez, Christopher Jackson, Karen Olivo, Priscilla Lopez, Janet Dacal, Andréa Burns, Carlos Gomez, Olga Merediz, Robin de Jesús, Eliseo Román and Seth Stewart.

Following a big showcase on campus, Miranda put his first draft in a drawer and let it sit there for two years after getting “vague promises” from friends of friends, saying they’d reach out once they’d started their own production company. “Who on Earth makes good on a promise like that?” he joked. Sure enough, they did. “They came to see my senior thesis and I met Tommy Kail for the first time the week after I graduated. The fact that we clicked so immediately was the greatest luck of my life.”

Three years later, In the Heights premiered in 2005 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, before moving Off-Broadway to 37 Arts Theatre in 2007. It then ran on Broadway for 29 previews and 1,184 performances before closing on Jan. 9, 2011.

Like Kail, who was the musical’s director, the production marked the first time Miranda partnered with composer Alex Lacamoire and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler. All four worked together on Hamilton, which also saw many members of the original Heights cast reuniting with Miranda. “The hardest part about this business is finding collaborators who are on the same page, and I found that really early,” boasted Miranda. “That was the head start -- finding someone who understands what you’re making.” When it came down to making music edits, the show’s book writer, Quiara Alegría Hudes, who joined the creative team in 2004, says Miranda worked best under pressure. “Every time [Lin] got story notes, he would write a new song,” she quipped.

One song was written at three in the morning before a workshop performance later that day. “Piragua (Reprise)” was conceived on a 10-minute break during tech rehearsals on Broadway. But there were dozens of other songs Miranda wrote at various stages of the show’s development that never made it into the final version, including a solo for Jackson’s Benny. “That song exists because Chris was like, ‘Where’s my Act II solo?’ for, like, three years,” Miranda teased.

The first piece of music Miranda ever wrote for the show, surprisingly, never made it to the final cut. “It was a song about Benny coming out of his own Jean-Claude Van Damme movie and how cool that movie was,” Miranda said, revealing that the first set of lyrics he wrote that has any DNA in the Broadway version was the phrase “In Washington Heights.” When Miranda first wrote those five notes, he said, “Nina was coming home from Yale [which was later changed to Stanford] on Metro North. The lyrics eventually became part of the opening number and title song ‘In the Heights’ and sung by the company.”

While Miranda was unknown at the time, many of the actors recalled the same energy exuded by the creator when they met him at auditions in the basement of Manhattan’s Drama Book Shop. “It was electric in the room. I had never seen anyone like Lin,” remembered Gonzalez, who played Nina. “I knew I wanted to be a part of it forever.” Broadway veteran Lopez (Camilla) had just finished another show when she was given a CD with some songs. “Before I knew it, I was in love hearing the music,” she said. Merediz, who played Abuela Claudia, was confused when she first learned of the show. “My agent called me and said, ‘It’s a show...they’re rappers.’ I said, ‘Rapping? What do you mean rapping?’” But Olivo (Vanessa) was in awe on Day 1. “When I heard the music, I was like, ‘Who’s letting this dude do this?’ He was a superhero in my head.”

“As soon as Karen walked in with her hair down to here like she owned the place, that was it,” Miranda said, adding: “There was no shortage of talent. There was no shortage of talent of people of color. I have five companies of Hamilton to prove it.”

Many in the cast felt their roles mirrored their personal lives. “‘Brave’ was such a personal song, because the whole character I knew so well,” Gonzalez said of playing Nina, the first in her family to go to college who then gets kicked out. “Being the first in my family to leave my hometown and do better -- to sing that every night was kind of like therapy for me.” Jackson admits he was living every aspect of Benny’s life. “Along the way, [Benny] raised himself and he and his friends raised each other. That was all happening in real time.”

“Vanessa was who I was during that time,” Olivo remembered. “I [came] from a bad home and being poor. I always wanted something more and bigger than what people told me I could have. Each night was a little bit of that. [The creative team] would see me come into rehearsals and say, ‘That is what Vanessa would do except she’d be in heels and a short skirt.’”

While a film adaptation originally being produced by the Weinstein Company is no longer in the works, Miranda said “that will happen when it happens,” revealing that a screen version has been stalled since 2008. “That’s one of those [things where] I will tell you when I walk into a set and no sooner.”

In the meantime, a reincarnation on stage is not an impossible idea. “I’d like to see a revival of it at some point, but not with me in it. I’m too old, but I’d love to see that,” Miranda told ET. “I think we will feel when the time is right for that.”

Bonus: Lin and Karen react to viral Lin-related content:

The Pandemic Work Diary of Margo Price, Nashville Rebel Though Margo Price has long seen herself as a counterculturalist — especially within Nashville’s country scene — she has been spending the pandemic like many people: stuck at home and patiently waiting for it to be over. “It’s kind of like the rug’s been pulled out from under me,” Ms. Price, 37, said in a recent phone interview. “I felt like this third album was going to be so fun to tour and play at festivals, and I had just taken so much time off after having a baby, too. I was really ready to get back to work.” Her third studio album, “That’s How Rumors Get Started,” was released in July, but on May 28 she’ll get to perform it live for the first time, at an outdoor concert in Nashville. Ms. Price is among many hopeful musicians who are collaborating with venues that allow space for social distancing. “The arts, in general, are really struggling,” she said, “and we need to figure out a way to get back at it and preserve the venues that we all play at.” And even during this pandemic, while raising her two children alongside her husband, Jeremy Ivey, and writing a memoir, Ms. Price has been in and out of the studio, recording two albums. “I’m a disciple of all things that are close to the ground — roots music, folk, blues, soul,” Ms. Price said of her new music. “I want to have enough genres that people can’t exactly put their finger on one thing.” Interviews are conducted by email, text and phone, then condensed and edited. Monday 7 a.m. I wake up and have a lemon water followed by a black coffee. I make the kids waffles and take my 10-year-old son, Judah, to Montessori school. I spend the next couple of hours playing with my 1½-year-old daughter, Ramona. 9 a.m. I put on some Miles Davis and start a fire in the fireplace. We stretch and dance and play with puzzles before going outside to enjoy the sunshine. 10:30 a.m. I’m driving to the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville. I’ve been working on two albums;being in the studio has given me a sense of purpose while I’m unable to play live shows. 11 a.m. Jeremy and I tune our guitars and do some vocal warm-ups. We play through a song a couple times to get a tempo and begin tracking it. We can overdub the rest of the band later. 1:15 p.m. We stop for lunch around the fire pit that’s burning here 24/7. 2 p.m. We track two more songs. 3 p.m. Jeremy leaves to pick up Judah. I stay to lay down guitar and vocals for another song. 5 p.m. I get home and take both children on a walk to the local church while my husband cooks dinner. (He does most of the cooking and is a phenomenal chef.) 5:30 p.m. We play hide-and-seek in an abandoned church. They don’t have services in here anymore, but our neighborhood pod is using it as a space to teach our children in. 6:30 p.m. We sit down to a home-cooked dinner. For the last five days, Jeremy was off recording his next album, so we’re celebrating him being home. 7 p.m. I clean up the dinner table, wash the dishes and throw in a load of laundry while Jeremy gives Ramona a bath. My mom, Candace, is helping Judah with his reading. She’s been here a lot during the pandemic, and we couldn’t do it without her! 8 p.m. I answer some emails and catch up on work while Jeremy reads to Ramona. 8:30 p.m. Ramona comes out and says, “Mama, sing to me” — she just started speaking in full sentences a couple weeks ago. She requests “Up Above” (that’s what she calls “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”) and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” 9:30 p.m. Jeremy and I listen to some rough mixes of his songs. 10 p.m. We sit down to watch “Nomadland.” 12:30 a.m. We move from the couch to the bed. Both of us fell asleep after the movie. Tuesday 8:15 a.m. I wake up to a phone call even though I was planning to sleep in. Jeremy and I tell each other about some crazy disjointed dreams. 9 a.m. Ramona and I brush our teeth and hair. We play Legos while I help Jeremy write a lyric to one of his songs. 9:45 a.m. I take my two dogs for a run at a nearby state park. 11 a.m. Jeremy and I just arrived at Frothy Monkey to grab some breakfast outside on the patio. I’m editing my memoir for the next few hours — I’m on the second draft and have to turn it in at the end of the month. (I’m on Page 30 of some 500.) 1 p.m. I take a Zoom interview with the “Poptarts” podcast for Bust Magazine. 2 p.m. I start editing the book again. Currently drinking my fourth cup of coffee. 4 p.m. Ramona wakes up from her nap, so we’re heading on a walk. My neighbors own these two horses that are rescues, so we like to feed them carrots. 5:45 p.m. Ramona is drawing, Jeremy is cooking, and I’m working on my book again. 6:30 p.m. Jeremy cooked veggie stir fry (rice, peppers and oyster mushrooms that were grown and given to us by John Carter Cash when we were over there recording). 7 p.m. We’re watching “Toy Story,” but the kids got distracted, so we’re all running around the house and wrestling to get some energy out. 8 p.m. I’m reading Mona books and doing the bedtime routine while Jeremy helps Judah with some homework. 9 p.m. Jeremy made a fire outside, and I cracked a soda water and rolled a joint. We’re sitting out here talking, listening to music and looking at the stars. Wednesday 7:30 a.m. Ramona’s playing with magnets, and I emptied out a piggy bank so she could put the coins back in. That kept her busy for about an hour while I made her breakfast. 8:45 a.m. Mona put on her red rubber rain boots, and we’re going outside to enjoy the weather. The ice is almost all melted, and we’re walking along the creek that runs in front of our house. We stop to throw in rocks and splash around in the puddle. 10 a.m. I’m driving to Golden Hour Salon for my first haircut since the pandemic started. Noon Back home drinking more coffee. I’ve been editing my book in a large walk-in closet that we converted to be a part-time office. 1:30 p.m. Jeremy took Ramona to the pediatrician to get immunizations. 2 p.m. I took advantage of the empty house and worked on a song. It’s so nice today, so I took a guitar outside to the swing and practiced finger picking while listening to the birds. 4 p.m. Everyone’s home, and we’re hanging out on the couch reading. Judah is whittling and sanding a stick he found — he wants to make a sword. 5 p.m. Jeremy and I pick up some suits from a place on Music Row called Any Old Iron. It’s owned by a local designer, Andrew Clancey, whose designs and beading are so psychedelic and artistic. I adore him. (He also makes great sequin and rhinestone masks.) 6:15 p.m. We pick up dinner from Superica, a great Tex-Mex restaurant, where I always order the shrimp tacos. They’re sinfully good. 7 p.m. My mom already put Ramona to bed since she missed her nap, so Jeremy and I are reading to Judah. It’s nice to give him extra attention when we can because the toddler demands so much. 8:30 p.m. I pour a tea and draw a bath. 9:30 p.m. Turned on the new “Unsolved Mysteries,” and I’m doing a little stretching and a free-weight workout. I used to go to the gym all the time, but since the pandemic, I’ve been forcing myself to work out at home. Thursday 8 a.m. Ramona isn’t feeling great and is running a little fever, so we let her watch a little TV. 9:30 a.m. My hair and makeup artist, Tarryn, arrives to help me do my hair for a photo shoot. This is only the third time I’ve had my hair or makeup done all year. 11 a.m. The photographer arrived, set up a blue backdrop and very quickly snapped some photos. Noon I’m eating lox for breakfast and having another cup of coffee. 1 p.m. Went outside to our picnic table and started editing my book. 2 p.m. I’m picking Mona up from the neighbors to put her down for a nap and go get a Covid test. I take one weekly just to be extra safe. 3:45 p.m. I’m back home, and the kids are outside jumping on the trampoline. 4:45 p.m. Jeremy’s making dinner, and we’re making a fort. 5:45 p.m. We put on Billie Holiday and sit down to eat. We hold hands, and Judah leads us in a prayer. His dinner prayers almost always include asking that God help the homeless and end coronavirus. 6:30 p.m. Judah and I went into the music room to play double drums. He makes up a beat, and I have to copy it and vice versa. 7:30 p.m. I read to Ramona while Jeremy and Judah build a fire and make s’mores. 8:30 p.m. Both kids are in bed. I go out to enjoy the fire, and my friend joins. We pick guitars and drink turmeric tea until 12:30 a.m. Friday 8 a.m. Back at it again with the kids and the morning routine. I make blueberry pancakes while Ramona plays with pots and pans. The house is really trashed — toys everywhere — but it’s Friday, so I don’t stress about it. I’ll clean later. 9 a.m. We go on a walk but get interrupted by the rain. Back inside we FaceTime my 90-year-old grandmother. She beat Covid a couple months ago but hasn’t been able to be out of the nursing home in a year. We call her often to check in. 10 a.m. Jeremy relieves me so I can work on editing my book. Noon Ate oatmeal for breakfast, thought about a John Prine lyric and came inside to pick some guitar. 1 p.m. Recorded a SiriusXM D.J. takeover for a Canadian station called Northern Americana. I made a playlist for International Women’s Day. 2:30 p.m. Ramona woke up from her nap, so we’re jumping on the trampoline. 6 p.m. My mom took the children on a long walk, but everyone’s back for dinner. 6:05 p.m. My daughter throws a huge tantrum (terrible twos are coming early here) so I spend some time calming her down. We take some deep breaths and sit in a quiet room. 6:20 p.m. I finally get her calmed and sit down to a cold plate of delicious food. 7 p.m. I give Ramona a bath and distract her with some washable bath crayons to paint on the bathtub while I sing and play guitar. Jeremy and Judah play Zelda in his bedroom. 7:30 p.m. The toilet overflows, Jeremy fixes it with a few choice four-letter words, I laugh. 8 p.m. We’re all reading books, kissing foreheads and saying good night. 10 p.m. We turn on “Judas and the Black Messiah.” The house is trashed, but I don’t care — I’ve cleaned all week, and I’m tired. We can worry about that tomorrow. Source link Orbem News #Diary #Margo #Nashville #Pandemic #price #Rebel #Work

So tell us about writing dirtynumbangelboy!!!!!! It was so fantastic.

Thank you so much, anon! I’m very happy you liked the story! ❤️

I’ve waited some days to reply to this because I was travelling, but I’ve been thinking about your ask loads. Thing is, there’s so much to tell and idk if there’s something specific you want to hear about, but here are some behind-the-scenes trivia:

1. I always struggle with titles. I keep stealing them from lyrics or books. When I do find the right title, I get a little shiver; especially if it’s before I write the fic. That feels almost fated.

In this case, the title came first. It was one of those fics, the fated ones. I had the idea of writing a clubbing fic back in May, involving the song Born Slippy. I was listening to it, and looked at the lyrics and was immediately caught by the line ‘dirty numb angel boy’. Something about the way he sings it; something about the words, idk. I just knew that this lyric would be the title and it gave me a feel for the fic, a mood.

When I signed up for erised and got my assignment, I was delighted to see that my recipient loves clubbing fics and had included a fake relationship prompt, and so I decided to use the idea I had back in May. As for the title, I can’t remember if I’d initially decided to have them as four separate words; when I drafted Erised, I wrote them as one and that was it. 

It’s a title that people either hate or love. It was the first title I wrote that my beta commented on, saying how creative it was and that it would draw her attention if she was scrolling down AO3. But there have been people who hated it. It’s fine. I’d rather it’s something dramatic and hate/love than bland, you know?

2. I was trying to find a song to listen to for inspiration (Born Slippy was my inspiration mainly for the dancing scene and the sex scene), and out of the blue a friend sent me a link to Sia’s Chandelier. I gave it a listen and immediately thought, this is Draco. Chandelier ended up being my Fic Song that I listened to repeatedly before writing and while editing. It gave me major dnab Draco feels.

3. Some people have commented on the Incident. This was a HC idea I had more than a year ago when I was drafting TMODM but I never got around to including it. I think it would make ideal fodder for a play: one locked room, two former enemies and reluctant allies, twenty-hours of them working through their issues.

4. I had an idea that stalled me for a LONG time, and the fic only got going when I cut it. The idea, which I’d love to explore eventually, is the creation of the first magical university. I was thinking of getting the main players in the same environment as lecturers, Will about Healing, Harry Defense, Draco possibly Law. The idea resisted me loads; but I just couldn’t think of why Harry would need Draco to pretend to be his boyfriend unless he had to see his ex all the time. Then, Blaze happened and the story started taking shape.

5. I wrote a line in chapter one about Harry having to take part in the charity Quidditch match against his ex, managed to hang the entire plot on it, and only later realised that I’d have to write a freaking Quidditch scene, which was something I’d never tackled before. The idea filled me with a lot of trepidation. It’s not the best Quidditch scene, but it’s from the spectator’s POV rather than Harry’s, and not too terrible, I hope.

6. All the Muggle places mentioned are real. Roebuck pub is indeed a pub in Richmond that looks over the river. I haven’t been but googled it extensively. Trade and Love Muscle were nights/clubs active at the time the story takes place. As for Kent Uni, I adore the campus. Everything described is 100% real: the rose garden behind Darwin College, the labyrinth sketched on the grass, the views of Canterbury cathedral, the red canteen truck with the pad thai (though, it prob didn’t exist at the time the story takes place), and the shop Essentials. I know this campus almost inside out and love it. It’s one of my favourite places in the world – and I’ve travelled A LOT.

7. I’ve had all these ideas that I kept wanting to explore, but they’d detract from the story, so I didn’t. For instance, I wanted to write a small scene about Harry meeting one of the WWHPD people giving out flyers. I imagined them as a sort of weird cult, obsessed with being righteous, putting an idealised version of Harry on the pedestal. I also wanted to write more about the betrothal and early marriage thing. I’d developed quite a headcanon and tried to write about it in places, but it didn’t work. So that was cut, too. Finally, I wanted to end with a Christmas scene, where they’ve all met at Draco’s flat and are exchanging presents, and everyone is gifting hedgehog-inspired gifts to Draco (ceramic figurines, a keyring, a book on British Hedgehogs etc). Draco wanted his patronus to be kept a secret but Astoria had let it slip, and I had this image of Draco progressively getting redder and glaring at Astoria (who’s examining her nails) as he kept getting these hedgehog gifts. 

I also wish I wrote more smut lol

Thank you for the ask, anon! This was fun! Hope it was even a little interesting to you, too :) 

Everything Old Is New Again: An Interview With Co-Web Editor Adam Soto https://ift.tt/2WdSDbp

Writer and editor Adam Soto has long been a part of American Short Fiction‘s editorial team. As one of our assistant editors, he regularly read submission to the journal, wrote copious feedback for authors, and helped determine which stories would ultimately appear in our print edition. So, when we made the decision to bring on another web editor this spring, Adam was a natural choice for the role. This month, he joins our longtime web editor Erin McReynolds as our website’s co-editor, and together, they’ll determine which stories are published here at ASF Online. I recently emailed with Soto to ask about his work, his approach to editing, and his aspirations for the magazine.

—

Nate Brown: Adam, we’re so thrilled that after having served as an assistant editor with us for so long that you’re stepping up to the plate as a new web editor who’ll be working alongside web editor Erin McReynolds. While we know you around these parts—you’ve been a member of Austin’s literary community and of our team for years—I want to start by asking you about your own fiction writing. You’ve got a novel coming out next year. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Adam Soto: Joining ASF was one of the first things I did after coming to Austin, and it’s really been like being part of a family, so I’m really grateful for all the time I’ve had with organization, all the stories I’ve read through the years, and I’m really moved to have the opportunity to contribute more to what the journal is doing, which is something special. 

The novel is called This Weightless World, and it’s out on MCD/FSG fall 2021. It’s a sentimental sci-fi, a kind of Contact for misanthropic millennials. January 1, 2012, Earth detects an alien signal from a planet 75 lightyears away and a group of characters—a Chicago Public School teacher; one of his students, a musical prodigy; and his ex, a programmer who dumped him for a gig at Google—anticipate a major paradigm shift, an alternative to late stage capitalism, the neighborhood’s cycle of violence, an escape from their own personal guilt. I mean, aliens are supposed to be game changers, right? Habit, human nature, laziness, and fear, however, prove to be a greater obstacle than the 75 lightyears between us and them, and when the planet suddenly falls silent, leaving us alone in the universe once again, collapsing the distance between who we are and who we hope to be feels harder than ever. While the characters sort out their lives, our planet’s biological clock keeps ticking, our dependence on technology distorts our sense of reality, and our most vulnerable continue going mostly ignored. If all of that sounds too depressing, I should add that there are also loving pen-pal letters and lyrical dispatches from deep space woven throughout.    

NB: It’s funny, Adam, but I remember you from back in your Iowa City days, when you and my wife, Thea, were MFA students at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Was this a project you were working on back then, or is the novel more recent than that? And how does the novel compare to the work you were writing then? 

AS: I remember the two of you as well. I started the novel on January 1, 2012, so, right before the start of my last semester at Iowa. Marilynne Robinson was going to be teaching a novel workshop in the spring, we’d all been in a novella seminar with Peter Orner, so all of my friends had suddenly pivoted from writing short stories to writing novels, and I thought, I wanna get me some of that!

I was staying with my parents for the holidays, and I had a dream featuring an image and a wordless interpretation. I saw this fuchsia-colored planet and felt that not only I but the whole human race was being shunned and shamed by it, like the planet was Earth’s twin and we just weren’t going to be friends. With absolutely nothing else to go on, I set up my laptop in my parent’s kitchen, took a look around the room, and typed the first thing that came to mind. “So, this dude wakes up on Jan. 1, 2012…” Most of my work, up to that point, had focused on alienating readers. They were mainly plotless, kind of nihilistic, and tried really hard to redeem themselves with lots of catchy sentences. It had never occurred to me that I could cut back on my affect and keep alienation as subject matter. It took me three whole drafts (re-written, top to bottom) and four years to figure out what the story was about, three years working with my amazing agent, Marya Spence, to turn an 800+ page sprawling tome into an actual novel, and it’ll be another year and a half before my editor, Danny Vazquez, and the rest of the team at MCD/ FSG and I turn it over to the public.

NB: Did you have any particularly great workshops or instructors at Iowa? What ideas about writing have stuck with you? And for those considering an MFA program, do you have any advice on what they should expect to take away from the experience? 

AS: My very first workshop there was with the late James Alan McPherson. He was so funny, sage, and generous, and my workshop group became my best friends. Peter Orner was also very inspiring. He taught me a lot about teaching and reading. Teaching and writing were the natural byproducts of reading and paying attention to others for Peter, and this has proven vital to me as a middle-school English teacher. Michelle Huneven, however, changed my life. The way I saw it, I was just this kid who got into this really nice writing program for one reason or another, but, somehow, Michelle took me seriously and told me to take myself seriously. There’s no shortage of people taking themselves seriously in MFA programs, so, I guess my advice is to expect to find something out about yourself. A lot of people find out they don’t like teaching; hell, some people find out they don’t like writing that much, at least not enough to spend the rest of their lives trying to get published. Either way, no matter your age, or where you’re coming from, you’ve got to let the MFA years be formative in some way.

Back in the day, there used to be this expectation that you could join a program and graduate with a book deal, or at least a “cushy” teaching gig that’d hold you off until you got a book deal, and because it was more of a rite of passage, these programs could get away with being deeply unfeeling. I felt nurtured and supported, but I know a lot of people who didn’t and who don’t. But I think if everyone comes in expecting more, and if everyone is willing to accept that that something more probably isn’t going to be more book deals—taking on publishing is a whole other nightmare—then I think a lot of the criticisms of MFA programs could be addressed, and not just by faculty and directors but by the student communities that hold them accountable. Because there’s no real promise for what you can expect, especially from program to program, until you start laying out those expectations. For starters, funding and diversity.

NB: In addition to writing, a big part of editorial work is reading submissions. What kind of work grabs you? What excites you? What do you love coming across in submissions? 

AS: I like something that commits. Something that assures me that it wants to tell me something, even if it’s reluctant to, even if it fails to. Commitment is huge. To voice, a structural procedure, a deep study of character, a memory being pulled apart, a woolgathering.  

NB: Our web exclusive stories have long been capped at 2,000 words (though this is changing), and I’m wondering what you think the short form—whatever you may call them: flash fiction, micro fiction, short-shorts—offer that longer works do not? What are the advantages of really short work?  

AS: Whenever I get a new album, I always start with listening to the longest song. With short story collections, I always start with the shortest story. This is something I’ve done forever. Whatever they’re called, I’ve always been attracted to these brief things, and, over the years, reading them, writing them, I’ve come to appreciate their different intended effects. You read one of Babel’s Red Cavalry Stories and the story’s length isn’t really the first thing you notice. Similar to your feelings after a shorty by Chekhov, you’re struck by the wholeness of the experience, the funny asymmetry, the dropped details—as in the details the writer does and does not drop. Compare that to a sprint by Thomas Bernhard, one of Lydia Davis’s illuminating punchlines, or a haunting by Peter Orner, and I think you get a mixture of dedications to singular things, which is rare in our Wikipedic, FOMA world. And the fact that that one thing can be so many different things—grief’s manipulation of time, light’s impression on a memory, an anecdote, extensive alliteration—is really a gift. Such dedication taken to greater lengths is often awkward or dull until it ventures into the obsessive and becomes genius again.      

NB: Are there writers whose stories you find yourself returning to over time? If so, who are those folks, and which stories do you think demand re-reading? 

AS: Mavis Gallant, constantly, and especially her early and long story “The Cost of Living.” I love that long story for its failure to commit, for dragging out what it means to say for pages and pages, for pretty much being a 36-page novel. Leonard Michaels’s Nachman stories and his list story “In the Fifties.” Anything from Joy Williams’s Escapes, but especially “White” over and over again. Andrey Platonov’s “The Motherland of Electricity” (it teaches you how to build a generator), James Alan McPherson’s “The Silver Bullet,” and, more recently, Sara Majka’s “Saint Andrews Hotel,” “Especially Heinous” by Carmen Maria Machado, and Brandon Taylor’s ASF story, “As Though That Were Love.”  

NB: Jesus, there’s so much good work in there. That Brandon Taylor story has really stayed with me. I taught it at Johns Hopkins last semester, and it made a couple of students (and me) cry. Taylor has so much to say about loneliness and the unbridgeable spaces that exist between people, even those who are dear friends. Come to think of it, the Williams, McPherson, and Majka stories you mention are sort of about that, too. Would you say that the tension between isolation and collectivity, between personal spaces and social spaces are of interest to you? Based on what you’ve said about your own novel, that seems central in that work, too.  

AS: Yes, definitely, definitely, the isolated and the collective, isolated collectives, and, now that we’re all getting a taste, the collectively isolated. And that tension, too, I think you’re right, between the singular and the collective, I’ve always been fascinated by where it pops up, how places and moments of intimacy can leave us feeling so isolated, how fractured our alliances and coalitions can be, how hard it is to come together behind a common goal. But most of all, over the years I’ve become obsessed with characters who, against their better judgment, still seek community, and I’m really attracted to the tensions that arise when those seekers interrogate their intentions or test the authenticity of their communities. One of the unique features of our world today is our ability to not only witness but quantifiably measure the efforts being made by ourselves and others as we vie for each other’s communion—it’s something both beautiful and grotesque. And that reality really takes the characters in TWW for a ride, from pulling them out of their recessional depression to overloading them with worldly concerns to leaving them feel completely isolated. 

NB: American Short Fiction has been around since 1991. Why do you think that journals like ours—large and small, from all parts of the country and the world—abide? What role do you think we play in the broader literary culture, and has that role changed over time? 

AS: Like the few healthy corners of the internet, lit journals are places for spaceless communities, folks looking for a common thing; in our case, a certain flavor of fiction. With every issue, you’re excited to share in the discovery of someone new, eager to read someone familiar, and happy to sustain the practice of an old art form. And before the internet, and now through the internet, lit journals have always offered deeply reflective but also relatively immediate reactions to the worlds we live in, which is something I’m excited to play a part in as a web editor. As a utility, we broaden the spectrum of representation in culture, and although our nets require wider and wider casting, what we discover here increases the expectations we have for other literary institutions, as well as the world at large. 

    Adam Soto is a co-web editor at American Short Fiction. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a former Michener-Copernicus Foundation fellow. He lives with his wife in Austin, TX, where he is a teacher and a musician. His debut novel, This Weightless World, is forthcoming from MCD/ FSG fall 2021. 

Creator’s update #1

Hey guys! So I’ve decided to start actually blogging on this blog and tell a bit about the various things I’m working on, share WIPs, music I’ve been digging recently etc. I realise that I rarely post anything, so it seems like I’m super inactive - which is totally not true, I just have so much stuff going on and take a long time to finish things, and I’m also pretty picky about what I put up online lol! For the sake of keeping those of you interested in the loop, I’m gonna start this series of creator’s updates in which I’ll update y’all on the progress I’ve made on my various creative projects. The goal is to give an update a few times a month (hopefully lol)!

This past while I’ve been super inactive in the writing department, but very much productive in the art department, so my writing update will be mostly a summary of what I’ve been doing the past few years up until this point.

Mood: Feelin’ real good cuz my parents finally brought my comfy double bed over from my mum’s place this past weekend, which means no more sleeping on the couch yaaaaaas.

Music I’ve been digging recently:

Skye Sweetnam - Boyhunter So, the other day I randomly listened to this song on my way home from work, and I totally realised that Skye Sweetnam is the perfect voice for my character Caitlyn, and this song totally embodies what Caitlyn is all about lmaoooo. (The song isn’t very accurate to the time period Caitlyn lives in, but it’s super accurate to her character essence and personality, and I just find that so lit hahahah) 

Fallulah - Out of It This song is basically my MC’s theme song?? It’s performed by a Danish artist and was super popular in Denmark a few years back as it was the theme tune to a Danish tv show (a show I loved!). The lyrics are just so Daniel, it’s not even funny. It mostly fits his mental state at the beginning of Renaissance.

Girl’s Day - Love Again Ugh I just love the tune of this song so much, I can’t really place my finger on it, the emotion is just so great. I love the guitar riff especially, and Girl’s Day is a four member girl group, so it’s one of those songs where I can imagine my main girls Annaliese, Caitlyn, Mary and Serena singing as each member lmao.

Nine Muses - Remember Another four member group now, this song is also one where I can imagine my main girls singing each member’s part lmao, and having that aspect to a song always makes it a little better for me! Forreal tho, this new release from Nine Muses slays, and we all know it. The music video haunts me.

Sistar - Lonely This song makes me sad and happy all at once, cuz I’m not ready to say goodbye to Sistar, but at the same time this ending is probably the best one any fan could’ve wished for because there was no drama or anger, just well wishes and hope for the future. I know these girls will go far, and this song just pulls at all my heart strings man. The melody of the bridge and chorus, Dasom and Soyu’s parts in particular, really works for me. And yeah, Sistar has four members too, and once again I can picture my main girls singing as each member lmao. It’s a thing I have, okay?

Moana OST - We Know The Way + Know Who You Are I recently watched this movie, and while I sorta felt like the plot was a bit rushed and tropey in many ways, I totally adored the visuals and the MUSIC OMG. These two songs are my favourite, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vocals never miss, and Auli’i Cravalho’s high note is gorgeous! Also dat choir in the background tho, and in context with the movie scene that song just makes me irrationally emotional mkay. (That ending was the best twist ever, it definitely lifted the story up a notch for me!)

Writing

So I’m writing a book! You might have seen me mention it a few times already on here, but I’ve not really shared much insight into my process or what sort of book this actually is (other than talking about characters here and there), and as I’ve not been making huge progress lately (I’m in an art state of mind duuuh), I thought that I’d keep this section short and sweet, with a bit of an introduction into what my book project is all about.

I call it a book project because I don’t feel comfortable just calling it a book when I don’t have rights to publish. Technically my book is a fanfiction based on the horror video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and as such I don’t own copyright of the small percentage of my story that features the canon elements. However, I take this as seriously as anyone else would writing their own book, because I’ve poured my entire heart and soul into it, and the vast majority of the content (plot, characters and world) is my original creation. It’s my own little big project lol!

You might be familiar with the game, and even if you aren’t, that’s not a prerequisite for reading my book since everything is introduced and set up just as in any regular book. The protagonist is an Englishman named Daniel, and we know little of his past through the game. I won’t go into too much detail on what the game is about (if you really wanna know, you can look it up), but the point of my book is to explore the protagonist’s life from his childhood up to the events of the game and beyond, and afterwards connect his story to the game sequels featuring other protagonists within the same universe. It’s a bit complex and elaborate, which is just the way I like it!

As the games are set at various points during the Victorian era (game #1 is set in Prussia 1839, game #2 is set in France 1858, and game #3 is set in England 1899), you can probably guess that the entire thing will be pretty long. That’s why I’m making it a series! I have at least seven books planned so far (though there’ll definitely be more, since I’m not near the end of the timeline I need to cover yet), and I currently have the first book written and am writing the sequel - however, the first book will need a complete rewrite once I’m finished with book #2, because I’ve since developed and changed a lot of stuff, and I have many new interesting ideas for a more fleshed out version of the first book. Still, the fanfic version is available online, so if you’d like to read it, you can find it here. You’ll get a pretty good idea of the general story and the characters, but keep in mind that it’s super outdated and will be very different after my rewrite!

For reference, this is the list of books that I’ve planned (and titled) so far, so you can keep up with what book of my series I’m talking about at any given point:

I - Amnesia: Memoirs

II - Amnesia: Renaissance

III - Amnesia: Voyage

IV - Amnesia: Noir

V - Amnesia: Encore

VI - Amnesia: Rogue

So what I’m doing right now with this project is revisions. Uuuuggghhhhh. Yes, that’s right, I’m stuck in revision hell. I’ve not even finished the first draft of Renaissance yet (I know, sacrilege, writing blasphemy, don’t start your damn edits until you’ve finished your draft dumbass), but I had some pretty major changes to make, changes so big that it would be a waste of time and effort to go on drafting without implementing them first. Mainly the changes are surrounding 1) a change of ages of my main cast (I aged many characters up a few years), and 2) changing and figuring out the specifics of the illness which my MC’s sister, Hazel, is afflicted with. She’s not such a major character in Renaissance, but she plays a big role in Memoirs, and since I had all these new ideas for the rewrite of that, I wanted to implement the ripple effects in the second book so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to edit later when Renaissance is a finished 3-400k first draft lmao (I have a lot of words okay?). These changes mostly affect the early chapters of my book - chapters I wrote about three years ago, which means that these early chapters really need a face-lift. In addition to the age and illness change, I wanna revise the first five chapters by cutting the fluff and tightening up the beginning so we get to the action a tiny bit faster. Adding to the fact that these early chapters are three years old, the prose also needs an almost complete rewrite. So long story short, all of the edits are taking a long ass time, and I’m not having a good time lmao. Doesn’t help that I had to stop drafting right at one of the juiciest scenes in my book?!?!? (that’s a lie, it gets juicier, but I was just getting to the real good stuff yanno?)

(Side note: for someone who said that I’d keep this short, it sure turned out long lmao. I just have too many damn words.)

Chapters edited: 2/16 (working on 3 right now and it’s an effin’ pain)

Current total word count: 120,591

Current total chapter count: 17 (the number will go down to 16 once I finish the revisions, as I’m merging two chapters)

Look at all the dumb shit I still have to edit for chapter 3. Look at it.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Art

Man, I’ve been doing a lot of artwork recently, and by a lot, I don’t mean that I’ve finished any.

I think I’ve been focused on developing my actual drawing skills rather than making finished illustrations, because I’ve been so overwhelmed with inspiration and I’ve wanted to try out drawing a bunch of different motives, so my mind is on a lot of different art projects at once, and I’m making baby steps of progress on each of them because I just wanna do everything lmao. I should probably take a step back and settle on one thing at a time, but at the same time, I feel like this is working for me because I’m so inspired and motivated and super excited for every single art piece; I don’t feel myself losing interest in any of them, in fact I just feel like my switching between different artworks keeps every piece fresh and interesting for me, yanno?

So here’s one thing that I’ve been slowly chipping away at for the past few months. I’m drawing a full body group picture of my main cast from Renaissance!

I’ve drawn the anatomy sketches of all the male characters (though I’m debating whether I should add some others), and now I’m adding the female characters one by one, so these are not all of the characters yet. But man, I just love seeing the characters side by side? The variety in their body language, body types and heights is just so interesting to look at, and it’ll be even better once I get around to actually adding their facial features, expressions, hair, attire, and then colouring them as well omg! I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, blame it on @juliajm15 and her amazing diverse character designs.

It’s gonna be a huge picture with a lot of characters, and I’m stoked for it!! This is a piece which I hope I’ll be able to show ya’ll the progress of bit by bit in every few updates. (also, if you feel somewhat familiar with some of my characters, you’re welcome to make guesses at who’s who (; )

Another project I’m working on is making official character portraits of my main cast (and possibly minor characters as well). I just think it’s nice to have official portraits as reference for anyone who’d like to see what the characters look like, and also for myself for whenever I need to refresh the specific features and expression of each character. It’s just a nice thing that satiates my very Type A personality lmao!

So the characters above are Owen Wright (to the left) , Daniel’s puppy bff with the fluffy hair, and then from left to right I’m colouring the portraits of the Armstrong siblings: Caleb, Caitlyn and Tristan. Their dad is a duke! n.n Caleb is the oldest, Caitlyn the youngest, and Tristan is the bland middle child. He’s a little brat LOL but I still love him.

Also, due to this glorious reference I found, I finally figured out how to draw Daniel. Bless this model, I never knew I wanted Daniel to have big puffy lips, but apparently I do.

He looks actually nice now? Which is nice? I’m amazed. Also his hair? I can never draw his hair, but this looks nice so yay? Also, I dunno why I never draw clothes on him, I guess I’m just lazy lol, but he’s gonna need to wear clothes for the official character portrait soooo... That’s a thing I’m gonna have to do.

Now that I’ve figured out his features, it’s gonna be fun to remodel all his family members accordingly. I sense that he’ll have gotten those cute puffy lips from his mum meheheheh.

I also did some Disney fanart of my two favourite Disney ladies; Esmeralda and Kida <3

I actually never really draw fanart any more, it’s been yeeeaaaars since I did, and when I used to do it, I was always very particular about staying as true to the original art style as possible. But now that I’ve spent the past couple years focusing on developing my own art style, I actually decided not to care about that so much and just draw the characters the way I’m used to drawing my own, and lo and behold - it looks pretty accurate to the Disney style?? I assumed that the characters would end up looking very different, but other than the eyes being smaller I feel like they look the exact same lmao. It’s interesting to me, because even when I used to do fanart, I usually did so of Japanese art and manga, not of Disney or any other western art. Also, I don’t consider my own style very Disney, but it pleases me a lot that the characters look so much like themselves even in my art style! The most important thing to me is to capture the essence of the character anyway, so any fan can recognise the character they love so much n.n

So that’s about it for this round! I’ve been working on other things as well, but I’d rather not disclose them to the public just yet - perhaps later, when I’ve made more progress, or (gasp!) actually finished something!! Bahahah, with the many things I’m working on, hell will freeze over before that day comes. *cries*

Youtube

I’m adding this Youtube section because, in addition to writing and doing artwork, I also like to record vocal covers (mainly of kpop songs, but I’ll do anything I’m in the mood for at any given point), aaaaand as of today I'm gonna be uploading speedpaints as well! Which is probably good since I don’t upload my covers nearly as often as I finish them lmao.

I’ve not uploaded any new covers recently (though I really should, I do have some covers lying around on my laptop mwerp), but I’m gonna list a couple of my favourite covers I have on my channel here so you can take a listen if you’d like!

And today I uploaded my very first speedpaint to my channel, so check that out if you’re interested in that sort of stuff! It’s the process of my Christmas portrait piece for Serena. I aim to be more consistent with uploads since I have a few unedited recordings lying around, so keep an eye out for that!

If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking around and taking a look at my work, even if it’s only in WIP form. I wanted to start doing these updates because I’ve been watching my friends do them for a long time, and I always love reading their writing updates; they motivate me so much to get working on my own stuff, and I just wanna be able to perhaps do something similar for anyone else who’s watching me out there. So thank you sincerely to @coffeeandcalligraphy, @sarahkelsiwrites and @shaelinwrites for sharing your process with the world and being such an inspiration to me and many others, I love seeing you all make progress on your own projects <3

So that was all for this round, I hope you guys enjoyed a little sneak peek into what I’ve been working on! Until next time, folks!

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Nothing quite builds the desire to write creatively than being paid to write about power tools. So, here I am.

I spent the better part of yesterday in a room full of people as gripped by fear, anxiety, and a deep desire for change as I am. Two organizers, named Scott and Michelle signed onto the Indivisible project within seconds of the inauguration and have been pulling a bunch of us en masse to demonstrations and meetings. There is so much happening every day, to list it out is a litany of science fiction. I can’t list any of it right now. Maybe some day, I will. It’s hard to fathom what history will say about this era. 

What I have to say is that I do not share much passion for my activism. I never really have. To me, it is on par with exercise or eating a mostly low fat diet. I don’t really want to do it, but I know the painful results that await me if I don’t. Also: just like I prefer to hang out with stable and healthy people, so do I prefer the company of people who are awake. I always, always have. I’ve always run to places where awake people gather, like the coasts, the mountains, and parts of the dessert. Now, I’m tucked away in a corner of a small city, reaching out and finding my people. 

One of them, Anne, I had lunch with this week. Another colleague of ours, Debbie, sat with us through a sobering lunch where we stammered our concern, fear, privilege, and resolve. We are thankfully motivated. I am thankfully not alone. 

I felt like complete emotional shit all week. Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair to have to menstruate during the era of T****. Especially with the sick husband and a body of lawmakers who are using the health insurance on which he is so dependent as the most irresponsible political wedge in the history of my lifetime (just this side of abortion, voting rights, and all the other horrible racist shit Congress has done in our name since the founding of the Republic). There were too many days of tears last week. I was wiping them away like an angry child attacks her sadness from the unwanted pain of a scabbed knee. They shouldn’t be there, not this much. 

But they are there, quite a lot. It is not easy, starting over. I heard a voice, the voice of the yogi, to be sure, who in the midst of that turmoil, that grief, that blistering anger that spoke to me in the form of torrents of sobs. It said: “You just started over. Your friends are far away. Your husband is sick. It’s okay to feel alone. It’s okay to be scared.”

Sometimes, you turn into the skid. It’s the only way to stop. It’s also the only way to forgive yourself for moments when it feels like everything is about to fall apart. And so, even in all the spinning, I stopped. I saw the world and remembered that it’s always, always been a place of unfettered cruelty and hatred. To believe I could escape the brunt of it is to see myself as something spectacularly lucky. We have been lazying ourselves through a modestly participatory democracy for a century now. 

So, I listened to the yogi voice, because she’s the smart one. She always knows what’s up. “Please,” she said, “the world is in turmoil. Please, be soft with yourself. Be quiet. Be mindful. Be kind.”

To me, a horrid epoch started with the death of Bowie and was capped with an orange-faced monster’s inauguration. I’d never equivocate the former with the latter, but they both broke my heart, so it matters to me. I’m listening to “Space Oddity” right now, because I need that David, the David who had only recently turned away from being David Jones. I haven’t listed to that album for years, and rediscovering it is lovely.

My friend N--- was the roommate who had this album. We stopped speaking over a decade ago, and she is as self-destructive and messy as they come, but this album ties me to her and a house we shared together. I’ve had a couple of dreams lately where she floats in and is nicer, younger, and friendlier than she would be if I saw her now. It was the version of her I met in the 90s and it was like spending time with her. 

She was one of the first warriors who taught me how to be a real fighter. She led me to yoga and other esoteric practices, she gave me the instinct to chant, which I still contend saved me. So, “Oddity” is a bridge to her, and that time, the girl I think of when Ani DrFranco sings about her “starstruck girl.” I love the way the soul pulls you to the albums you need, because it knows, somewhere buried in its lyrics, in its swells and lush orchestration you’ll find the moment, a bullet, that sends you armed, ready, steaming, and flaming for the fight the next day. 

Because, FUCK. That’s the only word for it, this period. Every headline is worthy of its own new curse word. We are all armpit deep in potential losses. Everyone is scrambling looking for anything to grab so we can all have a hand free to hold onto our very humanity. These are rough waters. We are all exhausted and gasping. 

Bowie buried the shimmery, glossy, very 60s and folky (”Oddity” is his folkiest album by a mile) “Cygnet Committee,” and on it, he sings like a man whose just lost his religion. I’d always assumed it was about war, but I read in the Mojo Bowie edition that it was about the dissolution of an art collective Bowie had helped create. Or something like that. The thing is in storage and I haven’t putted together the damned book cases yet. 

The song structure belies the epic rock drama of other long Bowie movements, like the “Sweet Thing” trio on Diamond Dogs and, of course, “Station to Station.” It is a character song, and, so, no one probably really knows exactly what the song is about unless Bowie specifically said. The orchestration is demanding and remarkable. There is Dylan-influenced guitar laced within it, as well as a direct shout out to Detroit (”kick out the jams”). You can hear him pulling at the boundaries of analogue instruments, with what sounds like a spinet (but could be a Hammond) tinkling in the background. 

I need my fight songs right now, and I forgot this one existed until it spoke to me today. It raised its hands and said “I’m the song. I’m what you needed. I was right here.” I did need it. It reached out from over 40 years ago and clobbered me on the head with its history. 

Who am I to think this is the worst of times anyway? How could this be worse than an era when black and white people couldn’t legally marry? How can I know what it was like to have friends drafted into a war? I would have, had I been a young woman, a woman Bowie’s age, then. Friends of mine would have been dragged, helpless and alone, to Vietnam. 

Who am I, a Jew, to think that my life is harder than my great grandfather, a man so scarred by his own heritage that he wouldn’t tell my grandfather, his own son, his true last name. Who am I to feel suffocated when my own husband can’t take an uncompromised breath?  

I dove into the song and let it take over my sadness. I’d been writing about power tools off and on all day. I’d already taken my husband to lunch at Unioin Loafers, a remarkable bakery and lunch spot that Cassidy has been preaching about since we moved to the neighborhood. We had great food and I drank strong coffee because I knew I’d need it. (I’ve been drinking coffee again regularly for the first time in nearly 15 years. I felt about that for about 8 seconds; there are far worse fucking things I could be drinking too much of at a time like this). 

Herbert at a messy chicken salad sandwich and I had maybe some of the best pastrami I’ve ever had. it was feathery, light, very lean and perfectly seasoned, piled onto their fresh baked caraway, piled to the ceiling. It’s an elegant little spot and I could see sharing a bottle of wine with a sister or four there soon (their wine list is great and super reasonably priced). I sipped on the hot coffee and watched Herbert pick his way through his messy sandwich. (Herbert has a pet peeve about oozy sandwiches; there was a restaurant in our old neighborhood that became his sandwich nemesis for this reason.) 

To know your husband’s sandwich preferences is the normalcy of marriage. Happily married people love that kind of intimacy. I suppose unhappily married people are tortured by them. To one, it’s a reminder of love and companionship, to the other, a sort of torture.  

“When I go to a place like this,” Herbert at one point said, referencing the hip urban crowd (a very diverse one to be clear), the relatively loud music, the crowded dining room, “it occurs to me how wiped out I am.”

I shared with him that the night before, when I was networking with local activists, that I knew it would have been more than he could handle. Walking from parked cars to crowded rooms, backed to more cars, onto another restaurant, where there was more walking. I recognize so many times where he should be with me, and probably wants to, and last night was surely one of those. He’d have been with me at the Women’s March. But I’m doing all of this alone. He’s spending his time alone, in our (albeit fully beautiful and comfortable) house. 

And that’s how you normalize illness. That’s how you come back together when an ideological war is raging around you. You eat sandwiches and you talk about the disease that destroyed your husband’s lungs. You embrace all of it. When you can, you remember how lucky you are to be able to eat a nice $40 lunch with your husband, as heartbreaking as it is that he’s taking medicine that requires he wear 50 SPF sunscreen, even on an overcast day (it was drizzling when we left).

As soon as we got home from the restaurant, I clicked on the space heater and sat down to write about tools. It’s work that’s easy to get distracted from. And so I tend to Facebook and then get back to writing. Writers are experts in killing time. 

Somewhere in there I felt a yearning for the right piece of music that would remind me how to live through all this. I started with Prince’s (lest I remember how crushed I am that he’s fucking dead, too) “Around the World in a Day” which is ridiculous and got me through a blog about dust collection equipment. I went right to Kate Bush’s “The Kick Inside” with her wee, 19-year old voice and her quaint arrangements, belting out tunes on what I’d still argue is one of the most staggering debut albums ever. 

I kept going back to Spotify, until I went back to an old Bowie. I felt the young person who first heard those songs, the 20-something who lived in Tucson, kick at me. It was my kick inside. And I started crying. 

Not right away. I let the opening tracks wash over me. I drifted over to Facebook and posted a link to the song “Unwashed and Slightly Dazed” and I reminded everyone who reads my posts that I still miss Bowie. I got through about 1k words about demolition hammers and portable flashlights with “Letter to Hermione.” 

Then the lyrics of “Cygnet Committee” clobbered me in the face with their relevance, their nowness. I listed to the song two times in a row. I sat in my desk chair and let myself get rocked with deep, deep sadness. I turned into the skid. I let Bowie be my lullaby, as he has been so, so, so many times in my life. I felt possessed by hope, by the sweet knowledge that men like Bowie always matter, too. He mattered.

This is a fighting song. Whatever it’s really about it is, in every way, a 60s song. It’s got a battle march beat at the end, and it’s in the final moments of Bowie crying “I Want to Live” that kept sending me back to the beginning. Mostly, though, it was because I needed to hear this sequence more than anything. Over and over again, as this operative folk rock song churns over on itself, an ambitious 9 minutes of as well-crafted pop as has ever existed on earth, this moment felt like its heart. It pounded its way into me, and out of me, as I just let it bring me into a little pool of sobs, sobs I knew would wring their way out of me until the ship stopped spinning. This is what you listen to when you slide into a skid during the era of T****:

“And We Know the Flag of Love is from Above And We Can Force You to Be Free And We Can Force You to Believe"And I close my eyes and tighten up my brain For I once read a book in which the lovers were slain For they knew not the words of the Free States' refrain It said: I believe in the Power of Good I Believe in the State of Love I Will Fight For the Right to be Right I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right.”

Thank you, David. Thank you so much for teaching me that language. I need it right now. I need to remember that I will kill for the good of the fight for the right to be right. I don’t think it will come to that, but that’s what I need tattooed on the inside of my fucking eyes right now. I believe in the power of good. I believe in the state of love. I will fight for the right to be right. I will kill for the good of the fight for the right to be right.

You get through a traumatic childhood like mine by finding the right guideposts from the outside world. Bowie was more than a guidepost. He was a searchlight mixed with a billboard. This way, he said. He helped me name my tribe. I have to be grateful for being someone who loves music right now. Because I can’t give up. None of us can give up. This is a lousy time for giving up. 

About a week ago, I went over to Cass’s sister-in-law’s house for an event she (her name is Rachel) hosted for a friend who has just written a book. Her name is Steph Jagger and her memoir, “Unbound” is about quitting her job and taking a long ski trip. She’s lovely and some of the women there had read her book. I’d meant to, but of president T****, so I only read terrifying headlines right now. My brother-in-law’s brother’s wife, Kris, was there with her two sisters, one of whom is a theater artist and both are lovely. 

It turns out that Dot’s other aunt Rachel happens to live about a block from where this Aunt Rachel grew up. Rachel lives on a street that was literally on my way home from school. About two blocks from her sits the community theater where I did children’s theater when I was a kid. The most tender and loving moments I have of my childhood happened there. 

We got a bit giggly about that when I walked in the door and I drank too much rose. I knew I was a little depressed (heavy and soggy with a horrifically painful and heavy menstrual cycle that would dragged me down even during the relatively restful Obama era). If I could have gotten my hands on fresh doughnuts, I would have walked into her house with three dozen and a bag of sherry to wash them down. That’s how I felt before I got there. 

I spoke to the theater sister about local theater and drank a little too much rose and luxuriated in the simple joy that, yes, this is a part of my new life, too. As hard as things go, I came home at the right time. These were all perfectly charming, smart and accepting people. Kris’s sister Ellie knows a lot about the local scene, has a theater company, and is curious to read some of my writing. It felt like a gift, that night, a reminder of the smart choice I made to come back here, of the world I’m defending, of these nice people who work hard and have the right to raise their lovely children. They loved me and talked me into some well-needed joy. 

I’ll keep stumbling along like this until I can’t. I’ll keep showing up at meetings until I die. I know that now. I’ll never not be involved for the rest of my days. I get it. I did a lot, but it was never enough. I have the gift of extra time now and I will use to show my ass up as long as I can. 

Here we are, facing the dragon of our age. To this, to this epoch, to Herbert’s disease, to the threat of losing our healthcare, to the pain of growing up the child of an alcoholic, to my loneliness, to racism, misogyny, bigotry and ignorance, to the trolls I shall not name who spew venom on behalf of 45, I have this to say:

I will die for the good of the fight for the right to be right...especially if I die right after eating that pastrami at Urban Loafers. 

Forced increase

Every Day is Magic: Ada Limón by Alex Crowley in PW

In her 2015 collection, Bright Dead Things, a National Book Award finalist for poetry, Ada Limón writes of moving to Kentucky: “Confession: I did not want to live here.” It’s perhaps not a surprising sentiment coming from a coastally oriented person who was raised in Northern California, attended college in Seattle, and then spent over a decade in New York City.

But Limón and her husband, Lucas, have been in Lexington for seven years now and the effects of settling into this place are noticeable in her new book, The Carrying (Milkweed, Aug.). It’s a phenomenally lively and attentive collection replete with the trappings of living a little closer to nature. While Bright Dead Things is marked by a preponderance of light, such as images of fireflies and neon signs, The Carrying features numerous appearances by various trees, birds, and beetles. Limón also demonstrates a greater willingness to be explicit in naming colors, particularly green. “It’s crazy green, the whole book,” she says. “Lexington is the greenest place I’ve ever lived.” Similarly, where in Bright Dead Things, Limón tells a lot of stories and anecdotes, in The Carrying she is very present in her thoughts and experiences.

As it turns out, these shifts in focus have another, altogether unexpected source. While putting Bright Dead Things together, Limón was diagnosed with chronic vestibular neuronitis, which can cause bouts of vertigo. “If I’m really having vertigo, it’s pretty intense and I really have to focus,” she says. “There’s a focus on presence that I think that the body has given me in the last three years that I’ve had to listen to. When I was sick, everything was a little bit of a blur. When things would stand still, it was the most amazing technicolor. It’s almost like the static stops and then suddenly the picture became clear. ‘Oh my god, I see the mailbox! I see the little red flag.’ Those became things I anchored on to. It was a way of saying that I was surviving, that I was ok.”

Limón’s writing process has been heavily impacted by this new reality. “I used to write everyday but when the vertigo was bad, it was nearly impossible for me to write. So when I could, I would try to write a poem every day, because I felt good. Suddenly the brain would stop worrying about remaining in balance and would be, ‘oh, remember words?’ So this book was written much more in fits and starts.” Limón thinks it’s likely that lots of poems didn’t happen because of her health but that what she did produce benefited from the forced increase in concentration, “in the stillness of it.”

The book’s title points to another health issue that Limón confronts in its pages: struggles with fertility. “What if, instead of carrying// a child, I’m supposed to carry grief?” she asks in “The Vulture & The Body.”

“It took us a while to even come around to the idea of trying,” she says of she and Lucas having a child. “We thought, ‘let’s try this, it might be amazing.’ Unfortunately, The fertility drugs made the vertigo worse.” Limón has since ceased the fertility regimen she discusses in several poems and is now “happily child-free.”

“You wait for the universe to send you an answer and the universe does. It just said ‘no!’” But this reality opened up a new avenue for her, what she calls being a “poetry mom”: “Anyone can have a different experience, but for me, I find a lot of creativity, creation, in poetry and in writing, so I have this element of myself that I feel I’m giving to the world and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a child.” In the poem “Mastering,” Limón writes, “perhaps the only thing I can make// is love and art.” It’s a subtle political stance, given the ways that womanhood and motherhood are conflated: “Think about the word mother or woman. How are you valued? It’s a lovely, beautiful thing to know you can be valued and respected and even cherished without giving birth. Because motherhood becomes such a definition of, ‘well, you’re not a real woman until you’ve given birth.’”

Following that line of thought, Limón pays homage to Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, and Sylvia Plath, for “speaking about motherhood in a way that was never spoken before.” She lists a number of important influences—”Sexton, Plath, Rukeyser, Brooks and Clifton. Adrienne Rich! These women who were opening little doors”—before continuing: “Isn’t it cool that, even if I don’t get to be a physical mother, the people who’ll read my work will somehow be affected. I’m related to Gwendolyn Brooks. I’m not, but in that way I am.”

Limón’s deep respect for her predecessors also points toward another core theme of The Carrying, that of the interconnectedness of beings and how humans attempt to express it through language. “If we’re gonna say we’re poets, we’ve got to say that language matters, but we really have to look at a thing in all sorts of ways. Every aspect of it. How does it enforce patriarchy, how does it enforce white supremacy? The way we think about gender fluidity? All these levels. Let’s look at our language deeply. Why not pick it apart? Why not use it as the right tool?” Limón brings up her poem “A New National Anthem,” in which she delivers the brilliant insight that maybe there is a hidden third verse to every song of America. She asks, somewhat rhetorically “Why do these words, for me, fail?”

Here, the subtle politics of The Carrying become more explicit and pointed. “It’s hard not to be political now,” Limón says. “A lot of poets, they’re like, ‘well, I’m not political, I don’t do this,’ and it’s like, no, we have to. You can’t be truthful if you don’t talk about it.” She realized it was true of her own disability issues: “I realized on some level how much I’ve taken my own ableism for granted.” The general public is finally starting to talk about ableism, Limón notes, and suspects it’s part of a wider phenomenon within contemporary poetry: “Poets seem to be at the forefront of those conversations; like, there’s an openness that we’re always trying to get to, instead of getting comfortable when one door comes down—what about the next one?”

Limón says she constantly asks herself, “Can I go deeper? What kind of poems come out of revisiting the stories we tell ourselves?” She has taken such a step, both formally and substantively, between these latest collections. It’s most notable in a set of letter poems written to poet Natalie Diaz. “She’s so fun to write to,” Limón remarks. Written over the course of nine months, she says that these poems “became a way where even if I wasn’t feeling well I felt like I could write to her because we didn’t have any agreement to publish; they were very personal.” These four poems are more fluid and off-the-cuff than most of Limón’s usual lyric narratives. “They really intended to be letters, so I wanted to remain true to that; I wanted them to communicate just to her, so I wasn’t thinking about an outside audience at all. That’s totally different for both of us.”

Limón opens her notebook to show me a handwritten draft—in effortless, fluid script—of one of her poems to Diaz, discovering in the process another that she had forgotten about. “Oh, this is funny, I don’t remember this poem. This is a totally different poem, I never typed this poem up. Holy shit.” She scans the page for a minute and reads aloud, laughing: “it says ‘Was Bishop a mean drunk?’” She then finds the draft of “Cargo,” the poem she was looking for. “It’s very letter-like. When I typed it up, though, that’s when all the edits happened.”

Limón and Diaz also read a book by Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer called Braiding Sweetgrass, which in its discussion of Native wisdom and ecology offered insights that suffuse all of The Carrying. “I think there was a part of that that seeped in about connectedness, the aliveness that I wanted to experience in the world,” she says. “I’m a narrative lyric poet, but I really wanted to do my due diligence and give attention to the things that were not necessarily myself. Even though I’m definitely talking a lot about myself in the work, it’s hopefully not in a way that feels disconnected or isolated.”

“I read a lot, but when I’m writing it’s hard because I’m a mimic,” Limón says about direct poetic influences on The Carrying. “I need a bit of radio silence. But I do think Lucille Clifton plays a powerful role for me in this book. And Joy Harjo,” from whom she takes the collection’s epigraph. “Natalie and I both talk about Creeley and Lorca, and they’re both in there; Lorca especially with his magical realism,” which she says reminds her that she’s allowed to engage as well. “The weirdest thing in the world is reality. I’m more fascinated by the idea of magic than I am of god. I mean, I understand why we think about it, but I think the idea of every day being this incredible gift, this chance for the bizarre and the ordinary to interact and dance and get twisted. That’s magic.”

Now that magic happens in a house in Kentucky, where Limón has her own office “and a screened-in porch with a big table and a grill—that’s a good writing space for me.” Still, she laments that “Sonoma is still deep within me,” especially after the 2017 forest fires, which appear in The Carrying. “And one thing about New York that I miss so much is that bar on the corner.” But, showing me pictures of her home, she scrolls past a picture of a snake in the yard and mentions that her poem “Against Belonging” is about how “these snakes find their home wherever they want to find their home. And I felt like that’s what I’m doing, wherever I am I’m finding a home.”

Limón returns to “A New National Anthem,” which ends with a “song that says my bones/ are your bones, and your bones are my bones,/ and isn’t that enough?” She repeats the question to me, “Well, isn’t that enough? I don’t know. Clearly it’s not, but I want it to be enough. I feel like poems can sometimes fail by trying to be too resolute, or by trying to give some received wisdom when there is none. I’m not a wise person. I’ve lived some years and I’ve had some experiences, but do I have wisdom to pass on? I dunno. I think I have questions to pass on,” Limón says, laughing again. Maybe knowing how to ask the right question is its own kind of wisdom and she doesn’t realize how wise she is. “It’s another way of saying we’re all in this together. I don’t have it figured out.”

(https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/77427-every-day-is-magic-ada-lim-n.html)