2025-W29 EOW Report

Anti-Goal Cycling

• A lot of critique and feedback this week from both Cat Rambo and MRK. Handed prj:WAITE to MRK for review and feedback, and the second draft of prj:MUSIC and third draft of prj:SAVED to Cat. Got great feedback for all three. prj:SAVED is closest, prj:WAITE is surprisingly second closest, and prj:MUSIC is where the work is required. That final scene just doesn’t work.
• With prj:SAVED, the feedback is to make the progression of the relationship between PROT and LOVR a lot more clear. Right now, the LOVR is mentioned in the first scene and the final in a throwaway line, so a little more buildup would help make the final line more powerful in terms of how much PROT changes. I think I can get that done this coming week. Oh, and as per always, I am told to paragraph break more. It’s something of an extreme overreaction for me after writing one sentence paragraphs in copy. I just don’t have a sense of what proper paragraphing is, so everything gets lumped into a stream-of-consciousness wall of text (not unlike these weekly journals). The feedback is not exclusively from Cat. MRK said something similar in prj:WAITE, but not in relationship to the lack of paragraphs (because she got the version with paragraphs), but order of information, what to keep a mystery or not. Basically, I need to tone down and/or be a lot more intentional with what I keep subtle or not. But let’s keep going.
• With prj:WAITE, as I mentioned already, it’s the opening scene where it’s chaotic and the reader needs to orient themselves. MRK told me how anything I called out to in that opening scene (anything I raised tension with by creating story questions) could potentially be seen as “important”, so that first scene needs to be extra intentional, along with giving the reader some onramps. It’s a question of how I curate and arrange the furniture in the house I’m inviting guests to… how accessible it is, who I invite, and more importantly the type of confusion I want to create. I think this is where the deep cut of craft comes in. I can’t confuse readers with “huh? I don’t know what’s going on”… but I can confuse (cause tension) with the right kind of unanswered questions. I don’t want to boil it down to basic either/or stuff… but it sounds like “rules of the world” or MECHs need to be telegraphed and clear, don’t hide that stuff, because you want to give people direction the moment they enter your world… but why people feel certain ways about things, they you can leave answered until later. I guess another way of putting the is that if it’s a support pillar for the plot and it’s a piece of information they need to contextualize what the character is going through, you need to drop that first. You can’t feel bad for someone if you don’t know why? MRK had other brilliant insights I will implement, but from a pure craft perspective, this was what I need to fix here.
• Finally, prj:MUSIC, which I thought I could get away with in one shot is now in need of a much clearer ending still. I think I relied too much on the gimmick in the first draft and now I need to fix the actual relationship between the PROT and LOVR. I think I need to also define (both in my head and in the prose) what the MECH is. I sort of have an idea, and that’s the problem with it, “sorta”. Also, the final scene changed focus from the PROT to the LOVR and that kinda messed up the entire story. Again, the ending was rushed.
• Finished not one, but two history books this weekend. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978) by Peter Burke and Diarmand MacCulloch’s The Reformation (2003). Since MacCulloch was on audiobook, I’ll probably need to read it properly in text (and take notes) to fully absorb it all. Been thinking about getting back into my history zettelkasten again.

Four Thousand Weeks

• I don’t think I have much to report here. Progress was made on three stories. Three stories that are very close. I’m quite happy with that. Ideally, I’d like to have three more-or-less done by end of year.

Story Introspection

• So. Did something I haven’t since, gawd, probably June of last year? I binge watched a TV show. I’m looking at my records and I don’t think I did that with The Bear S3, and before that I have Outlander S7:P1 in June. But to obsessively watch several episodes strung together, I could even argue last time that happened was Money Heist from middle of March to early April of 2024. Anyway, it was Saturday night, wife and youngest were out, eldest and middle were online with their friends, and I was left to my own devices on a weekend. I had my choice of Wheel of Time, Cobra Kai, and Foundation… but I didn’t want anything heavy (and yes, I would consider Cobra Kai “heavy” in the sense of the drama and stuff)… so Murderbot it was. I was laughing out loud a LOT. Since I read the book, I knew the jokes, I knew when they were coming, and I still laughed. And it all came down to Alexander Skarsgård’s deadpan deliver and everyone else’s reaction… which made the rare moments when Skarsgård did emote all the more powerful, like when he’s defending The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. I am tempted to buy the other books. TEMPTED. But there’s a part of my brain that’s like $20 for a novella… EVEN THO I spend $7 on a comic book that lasts me ten minutes… and then do that once a month for five to six months for a miniseries. So it’s like a $35 cost.
• Got back into The Best Short Stories 2023 edited by Lauren Groff. Two excellent, excellent entries. Jamil Jan Kochai’s The Haunting of Hajji Hotek and Lisa Taddeo’s Wisconsin.
• Saw Charlie and the Chocolate the Musical. I haven’t seen this movie or read the book in a long time and revisiting this story, I have a lot of questionable feelings about it. Is telling young poor kids that gambling for a chance to win a golden ticket really the lesson we want to push today? Is telling them that “being good, kind, and honest” the lesson that will actually carry them forward? I mean, ideally, yes, we want people to be good, kind, and honest, but I grew more cynical by the day with how unfair the other side plays this game and keeps winning and has this massive cult following. Maybe that’s why these stories need to keep coming, maybe we need to keep teaching basic virtues because if we don’t, we have a whole generation of selfish, racist assholes, who’s OK with bad behavior at the highest levels. I dunno. I’m being despondent. Maybe I’m more upset by the first lesson more than anything else. That if you wish hard enough, you’ll get some lucky break. That some generous billionaire will just give you their business empire if you’re a good enough person. I think that’s the lesson that annoys me the most. With that said, as I’m typing this, I realize that this is very much a fable from Early Modern Europe… the story that a lucky break will just fall on your lap but could very well have variants where the eccentric billionaire would’ve chewed you up and destroyed you and threw you away afterwards too. The point of those popular culture stories was that being poor just mean life was unpredictable and you’ll never know. I dunno. I’m tired.

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