Category: Writingthoughts

Would that I could explain why I got obsessed with the idea of “instrumental writing” the other week, but alas, it defies logical description. The idea appeared in my head as a question — literally, “what does the writing version of instrumental music look like?” — and then just… stayed.

My first thought was that the answer wasn’t writing at all, but abstract visual art; that there’s no such thing as instrumental writing, because the joy of instrumental music was that it was something you felt but couldn’t fully explain, even if you understood it. By virtue of the way writing works, I figured, anything you read automatically has some level of explanation and specificity that instrumental music manages to avoid. Just the use of language at all surely presents some context that is otherwise entirely absent in music with no lyrics, right…?

Then, of course, my brain went to a place of, “Well, what if there was writing that was nonsensical and entirely context-free? Could that work?” Admittedly, I don’t have the clearest idea of what this would actually look like in practice — I imagined mash-ups of purple prose that looked like something we imagined robots would do in the ’90s if exposed to too much Bill Mantlo or Don McGregor, but that wasn’t it — so obviously that clearly wasn’t the answer, either.

Perhaps the true answer that isn’t simply, it doesn’t and cannot exist, lame-o, is that instrumental writing is something that doesn’t start or end. A stream of consciousness that the reader can drop into and back out, and exist inside that space for as long as they want. Writing that doesn’t exist for the reader, but instead for the author, and just exists to be interacted with or not, as the case may be.

But where would someone find something like that?

For someone who makes their living from being a writer, it’s surprising how little I think about the written word as a concept. (For someone who reads as much as I do, it’s weird, as well; but that might be in part because my head makes a split between what I read and what other people read otherwise I get oddly self-conscious; I can’t explain it.) Nonetheless, I’ve been thinking about the written word, and the past, and about how they interrelate recently.

Specifically, I’ve been asking myself if people read more now. I was thinking about the fact that I can remember life before not just email and the internet — because I’m old — but I can also remember life before texting, because I’m very old. (Was it really called SMS messaging back in the day, or is that something that we just all agreed to collectively hallucinate after awhile because it sounds old-fashioned and awkward?)

I don’t mean this in the crotchety-old-man sense, but there was a period of time when the primary mode of communication amongst friends was verbal, not written, and then… writing just started to take over: texts, emails, DMs, and so on. We all started writing more, and we all started reading more. There have been all kinds of discussions about whether or not the actual writing itself has downgraded language — remember the weird but seemingly legitimate panic surrounding “text speak”? — but I’m not sure I’ve ever read any serious study about to what extent people just started actually reading more often as a result, even if it was just emails and texts, rather than newspapers, letters, or “literature,” as much of a moving target as that last thing truly is.

Of course, history will make the final decisions surrounding what counts and what doesn’t, as it always does; it’s an unreliable beast at best, but part of me is oddly excited at the prospect of, centuries from now, texts between friends and emails with abbreviations and in-jokes and references that no-one else could ever understand will be held up as “proof” of a literacy that has been lost to the ages, and a society that treasured the written word even as we, living in this moment, never ever consider the possibility.

When I was interviewing for the Popverse editor gig, a couple people politely inquired whether or not I’d miss writing, because I wouldn’t be doing it so much; I glibly answered no, and that I’d probably still be writing as much as ever, but in different directions and for different purposes, but the reality is that’s not turned out to be the case; it really has been more administrative and strategic than I’d initially assumed, and I’ve found the make-up of my work day shifting as a result… and I’ve been thinking more about writing.

In one way or another, I’ve been an entertainment journalist for two decades. I’ve worked at a worrying amount of outlets, covering a worrying amount of topics — oh, who can remember my time as a “tech writer,” because that was what paid the bills? — and in a worrying amount of styles. I’ve prided myself on my ability to adapt to the needs of others’ guides: if I needed to write longer or shorter, to focus on one particular audience or another, to speak in whatever voice was required of me. The problem with that is, of course, that your own voice becomes lost a little as a result… to the point where, if you’re not paying enough attention, you start to lose track of it entirely.

(I do wonder how much of that bleeds over here, where I am always trying to write relatively un-self-consciously; have there been noticeable shifts as I jump from gig to gig, from role to role, and I’ve just not seen them, because I’m at the center of it all…? If I think about that too much, I get embarrassed and second-guess myself, so best not.)

All of this is in my head as I try to construct a working theory of what I want as an editor, in terms of the voice, the approach, the everything for writers working for the site moving forward. I find myself lapsing into vagueness unintentionally: speaking in feelings and metaphors instead of practical, concrete steps and tips. Approaching these topics from the other side, I realize how much it’s like creating an entire language, a code that you want others to understand and be fluent in, even as you rip it up and re-arrange it for yourself in real time around them.

It’s far easier to adapt to someone else’s editorial edicts than make your own, for me — I feel my therapist would look at that and go, hmm, interesting. Say more — and, as I find my way forward and find my footing in the process, there’s something valuable and new and exciting in the process. Something exhausting, too, but that’s literally the job.

I was just telling Jeff last night — which means that he’ll know exactly when this was written, if he has uncanny recall for conversations that he didn’t realize were that important at the time (they’re still not) — that, when I was first interviewing for the Editor gig at Popverse, there was a lot of discussion over the fact that I’d have less time to write as a result; I would, as the job title suggests, be too busy editing with all that entails. I brushed away such comments, reminding people that I understood what the job title meant, and that I’m sure I’d still have to write a lot as an editor (if nothing else, Tiffany had in the role before me). What I didn’t say, but thought at the time, was that I’d still have this place to write for, and so therefore I’d be fine.

And then the first two weeks of the job came, and I was overwhelmed by them. It’s not that they were bad, in any way, but that there was so much stuff that I hadn’t really expected to take up my brain that was suddenly… just in there, and demanding attention. I was surprised by what I was spending time on, and how much time it was all taking, and I was surprised that there was just so much of it. Again, this isn’t a complaint, per se; I knew (roughly) what the job was when I accepted it, and the new bits were challenges that I am looking forward to mastering more than annoyances or things that make me want to hide under a table and never come out. It’s all just a learning curve, and it only makes sense that those first two weeks had a steeper curve and more learning, all things considered.

Nonetheless: two weeks passed, and I didn’t write anything here. (You didn’t notice, because I write stuff in advance; I’m good like that.) It wasn’t the only change in my schedule, or even in the way my schedule shapes up and shakes out — I found that my head would fill up on reading things, unexpectedly, or that I’d find some peace in scrolling through music on Spotify and listening to snippets before passing judgement, because it made different parts of my brain ping than the ones that were feeling a little bit overworked at the time. (On the plus side, I did find some wonderful music as a result.)

Again, all of these are minor adjustments and it’s early days, yet; more than anything, I’m fascinated by the butterfly wing effect of the new job: the things it impacts that I never saw coming, and learn through experience and suddenly realizing, oh, I’m not up for this after all anymore. I wonder what that’s all about? “We live and learn,” as Alanis Morrissette and so many others before her put it.

Secrets behind the blog: There was, originally, an entirely different post here that you’ll never see. I wrote something that was, reading it back weeks later — yes, sometimes I manage to write these weeks in advance (and sometimes I really don’t; the former is what I prefer, being the particular brand of deadline-obsessed weirdo I am) — nothing more than a rant about a work thing that, while I still entirely agree with it, is of zero interest to most people and probably pretty unprofessional to boot.

Re-reading it, I started to think about the idea of “quality control” when it comes to this place — wondering about the extent I think about other people reading what I write here, and how much (if at all) that colors what I write here. It’s a strange thing, really; I write for “an audience,” because that’s what I think I’ve always done, everywhere and everything I write, stretching all the way back decades by this point — but that audience is a different thing in my head in different places that I write. (When it comes to work, I am keenly aware of the audience and when I’m writing to them or not; it’s debilitating sometimes.)

Here, though, the “audience” I’m writing for has always been a strangely amorphous thing. I think of this place as more self-indulgent and, to an extent, “just me,” but then I get rid of a post because it feels too meaningless and too self-indulgent, so there’s some other bar(rier) at play here, although I’m not sure I could articulate that if pressed. Perhaps it’s simply my way of confessing that there are parts of my life that I think are too boring to share with the world…?

(Oh, friends, just be glad I don’t share my love of doing the dishes as self-care here. No-one wants to know about that.)

Sometimes, I think that I should give more thought to what I’m doing here. Other times, I just remember how necessary this space — and venting here, with these streams of consciousness — has been, and how it feels when I don’t give myself that opportunity. All of which is to say: if you’re reading this, thank you. I don’t understand why you’re doing it (and I’m not asking! Please don’t tell me, I’ll get in my head about it), but I appreciate that you’re here so much that I’ll delete a ramble about work to save you from my worst impulses.

The end of the year — and start of a new one, for that matter — is an excuse to look back and take stock, as the conventional wisdom goes. That was surely the thinking behind the work email that went out just before Christmas with statistics for how well the site had performed, what was the most successful story in terms of hits, and so on. As someone who is both a wonk and fascinatingly insecure about whether or not I’m earning my keep, the email was at once fascinating and terrifying, but one thing in particular caught my eye: the fact that I was the writer who’d posted the most stories that year, with close to 750 at time of writing. (By the time the year ended, I was almost certainly above that number.)

What caught my attention was, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, that the number felt low. 750 stories? But there are something like 260 workdays in the year! That means that I was only doing, what, 3 stories a day? That didn’t feel right…! What was I doing with the rest of my time?!? (Note: my math might be off in the number of workdays and the number of stories per day even if the workdays estimate was correct; I’m a writer, not a mathematician, dammit.)

The funny thing is, I know there’s a lot of work that wouldn’t have been tracked in that estimate: the stories as yet unpublished, the edits I do to other people’s stories, the rewrites and updates to other stories — that latter being a significant part of my week, but the stories go uncredited to me even if they’ve been rebuilt, Ship of Theseus style, so that none of the credited author’s work remains and it’s all mine by this point. None of that will show up in the official estimate, because my name isn’t officially attached. I know, objectively and intellectually, that the 750 figure if probably underestimating the actual number by 200 if not more. And yet, I still found myself feeling unexpectedly lazy.

(Wait, if I add on the… 120 pieces or so I created for here, does that make me feel less lazy? I can’t tell.)

I’d say that I want to do more in 2024, but that feels as if I’m signing up to return to being a workaholic, and there are better things for me to do than that, in almost every respect. And yet. Only 750? I know I can do better.