Late November Updates
11.30.22
Brooklyn, NY
November is slowly coming to an end so I thought I’d post a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately, including my progress on projects discussed at the beginning of the month.
What have I been focusing on?
I’ve spent most of the month reading more than I’ve been writing. I wrote a few blog posts and did a few newsletters but mostly I’ve just been reading. November has given me that writer-ly idea of hunkering down with a book and enjoying the late nights and early mornings of weekends and holidays.
In the first half of the month, I made considerable progress with Lansing Lamont’s Day of Trinity, which I began reading for research on my fictional project Alpha Report (working title). When I started to review what I’d written for Alpha Report, I realized I needed an outline so I could really nail down the plot. But what is plot? That’s when I got back into some notes I’d taken from a Coursera on plot and story structure. I’ve taken this down-time in writing to do some research as well. My story will be much richer if I have a better understanding of the historical background. Alpha Report is set shortly after the detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. I realized I had no idea what life was really like back in the ‘40s, towards the end of World War II, and I definitely did not have much knowledge on the Manhattan Project itself before I started reading Day of Trinity.
Once I committed to doing some research, I allowed myself to go out and grab some more books to read! In the middle of the month, I went to the Strand on a warm Saturday, one of the last 70 degree days here in New York City, and searched the stacks for hours. I picked up the following:
Hiroshima (read in 2021 but didn’t have a copy)
The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer
In addition to learning about the Manhattan Project, I’m also interested in any and all tangential topics including atomic secrecy, World War II, and the Cold War, so I borrowed these books:
Note to self: be realistic with this ‘research’ - of course I’d like to read everything but it may not be possible, so then just get on with it (the writing, that is).
In recent weeks, I’ve cooled a bit on reading Day of Trinity - the topic is heavy and the reading is dense, so when I found a copy of John Grisham’s The Broker at my Grandpa’s place, I jumped into it. Thrillers are my bread and butter, the type of book I always return to. When I was a young teen, I was into Clive Cussler, Dale Brown, and during high school, I went down the Dan Brown rabbit hole. Thrillers are easy to read, keep me interested, and I usually learn something, even if it is fiction. I still consider reading Grisham’s book to be research (really any book is) because I am paying attention to the form, the style and the story itself.
Since I started reading The Broker, I’ve listened to a few interviews with Grisham. He starts a new book every year on January 1 and writes 1000-2000 words a day, five days a week, 7am-12pm, until July 1st. He doesn’t start writing until he knows how the last scene will unfold. He is a ‘planner’, a writer who outlines first before writing. In Grisham’s conversation with Stephen King, King describes his ‘pantser’ style, in which he writes by the seat of his pants, not knowing how the book will end or what will happen to the characters.
What’s going on with my Substack?
I didn’t get a newsletter out last week. I did some research on Thanksgiving but got to bed late and overslept on Friday and missed my 9am deadline. I’ve learned that the thing that will keep me from publishing an outline is if I don’t plan out my week properly and give myself enough time to research, write, edit and finalize the newsletter. Instead, I did something a little different last week. I started a Substack thread. Actually I meant to start a Chat, but because I’m still learning the site’s features, I started a Thread instead. After I learned the difference between a Chat and a Thread I prefer the Thread- it still get’s emailed to subscribers and anyone can comment while a Chat is more like a DM between your readers, who must have the app installed on their device to access it. On Friday, I let readers know that I wasn’t able to get the newsletter out on time and linked to the Thread, which asked them to comment with what they were reading, hearing and seeing over the holiday weekend. On Sunday I updated the thread with a few bullet points of what I was up to. This thread turned out to be pretty similar to my newsletter anyway, and I like that it’s more of a two way street, allowing readers to comment directly. I will keep this in mind as my newsletter progresses.
What else have have I been consuming?
In addition to listening to interviews with Grisham and King, I’ve also recently discovered The Writer Files podcast. Host Kelton Reid speaks with authors about their process, inspiration, publishing and more. Recently I delved into his two part series with thriller author Jeffrey Deaver. Deaver is also a planner - he takes several months to outline and research then writes the prose pretty quickly.
What have I been up to outside of writing?
I saw two art exhibits this month. Siren (some poetics) which I discussed in my 11.9.22 post and more recently, Tom Sachs’s Spaceships at Acquavella Gallery. Fortunately I had a chance to visit on the last day of the exhibit. I’ve been a fan of Sachs for a few years now and have been waiting for a NY show to pop up. I enjoyed taking a close look at all the little details of Sachs’s work - the wood, glue, screws, wire caps, quarters, soldering, electrical cabling, and pencil marks. Spaceships highlights devices, vehicles and anything in between which can transport onself to another realm, including the Titanic, which was the fast ocean liner at the time to cross the Atlantic, the Apollo spacecraft which took the first astronauts to the moon, or more esoteric inventions, like a mop bucket which housed a small virtual garden inside. Looking into the bucket, viewers caught a glimpse of another reality. There was plenty of Sachs’s quintessential NASA fanboy-ing on display, one of the reasons I was drawn to his work originally.
On Saturday, I saw LCD Soundsystem perform at Brooklyn Steel as part of their 20 show run this year. The band hasn’t actively toured in a few years, preferring to do limited runs at the Brooklyn venue instead. The band played for close to two hours, with tunes covering dance, alt-rock, and ballads, with some room in between for improvisation and percussion breaks. Vocalist James Murphy’s lyrics excite the crowd while the band supports him with driving drums, crunchy guitars, and heavy synths and bass.
Carrying over the band’s energy to Sunday, I checked out the Meet Me in the Bathroom documentary, based on Lizzy Goodman’s book of the same name. The documentary serves as an oral history of the early 2000s-era NYC music scenes, with bands like The Moldy Peaches, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On the Radio, and LCD Soundsystem. This was a golden age for music in the NY area and the documentary is equal parts fun and depressing as we see the bands cope with rock stardom amidst events such as Y2k, 9/11, and the Bush administration.
What’s going on with DORIS?
I am still scheduled to interview the top-secret guest which I alluded to in my last post. The interview is scheduled for Monday December 5th. I have been brushing up on my oral history research, as if I was studying the field as part of a university program, trying to understand and get a feel for the actual science of it. I came to oral history as a volunteer, someone who just wanted to try something new and listen to people tell their stories. I am not a trained oral historian, so with this interview, because the narrator is public person, I wanted to study up and do my best. I still have to outline a series of questions and try to tailor my interivew a bit more than I usually do. Fortunately, I have about a dozen of these interviews under my belt so it’s not the first time I’ve done this but it will be my first in-person interview.
I purchased several pieces of gear in case I was asked to record the interview. I also wanted the equipment so I can also launch my own audio adventures with some possible podcasting and to begin narrating an audio version of my Five Bullet Friday newsletter.
Ok, now wrap it up.
Looking back over this past month, I’ve been busy. I’ve got a lot of eggs in different baskets, trying to juggle multiple projects at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if I should focus on just one, like my novel idea, and forget the rest. But I enjoy blogging and I enjoy what I’m doing with the newsletter. People say that the holidays are a tough time to get anything done, and that’s true, but I’ve been more motivated than ever this month to keep reading and writing. When I did force myself to take a break over the Thanksgiving holiday, I still ended up doing a few things, but overall I came back this week ready to get into the daily routine and continue my work. These projects keep me excited and focused on doing the work day in and day out.
Until next time,
KW
