Mah Stories

As has become de rigueur in recent years, there’s been no shortage of shitty reality television being used as decompression material for our overworked brains in the last few weeks. After the thinking-too-hard workday, I’ve developed an almost-need for a certain level of schlock to marinate in before sleep, before returning to the grind the next day. All of which is to say, I’ve very much been appreciating the current Golden Age of Camp Reality I think television has entered in the last couple of years.

The joy of streaming means that, currently, Chloe and I can enjoy episodes of Love Island Australia, RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars, Legendary, or Below Deck shows — that’s shows plural, not episodes, I point out, because as I write, both Below Deck: Down Under and Below Deck: Sailing Yacht are running new episodes simultaneously, which is crazy to me — in addition to any new discovery that we might make. It’s a joy, and a necessary mental balm, to have these pieces of trash to marinate in while trying to slow our brains down from that day’s work. It’s the most restorative viewing I could imagine at this point.

This sounds like sarcasm, but it’s not, I promise; there really is something impossibly relaxing about enjoying the histrionics and cliches that you can almost guarantee from any one of these shows, not to mention the schadenfreude of being able to look at almost any single one of the people onscreen and go, well, at least I’m not as bad as all that.

(If there is one thing in reality shows that I genuinely love more than anything else, it’s reality shows where everyone is over the top and overly emotional with the exception of one person, who gets to basically watch everything unfold and then make snarky commentary to the camera after the fact; it’s the ultimate audience stand-in, and when done well, it’s irresistible.)

Occasionally, I stop and think to myself that I should, perhaps, be reading more books, watching more highbrow cinema, and spending my decompressing time in more productive ways. And then I hear the low energy techno throb of the Love Island theme and such thoughts get pushed to the back of my head as I wonder whether Mitch and Tina will get it together tonight after all.

The Right Length

One of the things about having been an online writer for as long as I have is the number of white hairs in my beard. No, wait, that’s not what I meant to say at the start of that sentence. (I do have a lot of white hairs in my beard, though; I guess the last year has been particularly stressful?) What I meant was: After doing this for close to 20 years now, it’s strange to be able to recognize trends and attitudes towards particular things change, evolve, or simply upend themselves for whatever reason.

What’s brought this to mind is, simply, word count. As part of my new work reality, I’m writing a lot more long form pieces than I used to; at THR, the majority of my work was in theory short news bursts with the occasional long form op-ed or explainer. In terms of word count, that would translate at something roughly 300-400 words for news, and 800-1000 words for long form.

Nowadays, I’m seeing long form expectations start at 1000, and go up to 1500-2000, depending on outlet and story. Initially, it was a significant shift in thinking — I was used to compressing everything down to its tightest, most abbreviated form, after all — and something I really struggled with; I felt as if I was filling time aimlessly and trying to find something, anything, to fill the space.

What’s surprising, though, is how quickly you do adapt, though. Your rhythms change and you find the way to work through the space you have, fast enough that when presented with the old limits again — Wired still asks for pieces around the old definition of long form — that that becomes the struggle instead. I’d just gotten used to going on at length, and now I have to be brief all over again? Heavens to Betsy, who has the brain space to juggle all of this on an ongoing basis?

Sometimes, Some Crimes Go Slipping Through The Cracks

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

I knew in advance that May was going to be a crunch time, in terms of workload; it was the month when my new weekly contract with Wired kicked in — I’m back at Wired on a regular basis! Who saw that coming? — as well as the launch month for ReedPop’s new Popverse site, which I’m contributing pretty heavily to, and I also had deadlines elsewhere on top of that. As the month approached, I was well aware that it would be one where I’d be juggling more than usual at least in the early days, and so would have to keep my head down until I felt confident that I could handle and schedule everything appropriately.

It basically took me the month to feel confident and comfortable about that. Even now, I’m not sure that I’m necessarily doing it right.

This site, sadly, was the one that suffered; what was originally meant to be just a few days of posting images instead of writing became a full month out of necessity, as my head was full of other things that needed done instead. There were even times when I wondered if I should drop my twice-weekly comics newsletter, just because I wasn’t sure if I had time to do it properly. (I’m not going to, upon reflection; I feel like it’s something I need for myself, especially in the midst of all this other freelance work.)

So: it’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you without, uh, some blog posts to step to, I guess…?

I’m actually writing this in advance, at the end of May, to try and build a buffer of posts so that I don’t run aground here again anytime soon. It might seem otherwise at times, but this space is important to me, and I don’t want to lose it. Especially as I ramp up the writing I get paid for again, this free form meandering room feels even more important than ever. Sorry for my silence; I’ll try to be better moving forward, I promise.