Slow Down Time

I'm working on a thing that will take a while + what that means for this newsletter

Photo by David von Diemar on Unsplash

Good afternoon (or morning, midday, or, you know, evening) to you, reader. I have a little announcement to make.

I’m working on a thing. I know, way to be vague, right? Four things to note:

1. I don’t know what it is either. It feels like it might be a long project, like really long for my standards, but as of right now I’m just starting to ride the wave. No way to tell yet, which brings me to:

2. I don’t know if it will ever be anything. I don’t want to overpromise, especially to myself. I’ve done that twice already. I have two novella drafts staring mournfully at me from the bottom of my archives, and though one is in English and the other in Romanian, they both lie dead, their hearts stopped around the 10k word mark. Which leads us to:

3. I’ve learned a few lessons from the previous two attempts. One lesson would be to, as I said, not overpromise, as in, ride that wave as far as it goes, and if it peters out, let it do so. Don’t cling to something that wants to die. Another lesson is to start with a plan. As I mentioned before, I’m a pantser, not a plotter, which means I’m not used to working with outlines and character profiles. But the biggest hurdle I came across on my previous attempts was that once the initial little spark of excitement faded, I found myself with no idea where to go. I didn’t know what happened next in my story, and because I hadn’t taken the time to get to know my characters before I started writing, I had no compass to guide me forward. This at least is a mistake I can fix, and have been trying to. But let’s at last get to:

4. I won’t endanger the thing by talking (or thinking) about it too much. What I’ve said so far is all I’ll ever say about it publicly, unless and until the thing is done. I shall endeavor to approach this new project with calm, curiosity, and as little creative anxiety as possible.

All this being said, I will be focusing most of my creative energies on this project for the remainder of the year, or however long it wants to take.

This means I won’t be sending you as much stuff as I’d like.

I do promise you one thing, though. You’ll hear from me in some form or another at least once a month, for the rest of the year. If I can manage more, I’ll do more, but that’s about what I can promise right now.

This, alas, has been the post for August.

See you in September, when I’ll resurrect one of my favourite essays, which most of you haven’t had a chance to read.

I hope it all goes well. Wish me luck!

And by the way, if, while I’m gone, you decide to share this little newsletter with a few of your friends, I won’t be mad :)

Yours,

Andrei

(P.S. You may have noticed you’re receiving this under a new name. More on that a little later.)

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In closing, here are some links to a few of my favourite recent pieces.

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