a compendium of ephemera: 2021

or, things I liked this year

viggo, the king

This may shock you, especially if you knew a younger version of me, but I live a very boring life. I mean, I like it. Probably even I prefer it to any number of alternatives. I know this is most likely true because I daily live this life instead of changing my life to some theoretically better version of this same life.

For years, I watched movies almost constantly. Now I barely watch movies at all. I used to never watch television. Now I mostly watch television that I’ve already seen a dozen times. Once upon a time, I was on the front end of discovering everyone’s next favorite band. Now I usually hear about a new band three years after they’ve been famous enough for everyone to already be tired of them.

Books, though—I still read a lot, but usually I don’t read a book that’s new until it’s at least months or years old and people are done talking about it. Not because of, like, some ambivalence towards newness, but because I already know the next 400 things I want to experience and there are always 400 new things coming out every week, so I mostly just ignore it.

I mention all this because here is my list of things I liked this year across a few categories. I grouped together TV and Movies because I just don’t watch that many things, really.

I used to have dozens of hobbies. Now, I mostly have two or three, and so the media I consume tends to reflect this (mostly I just read and write books, so I don’t do much other stuff).

And so, for this final post of the year, I’m just laying out my favorite things of the year. Some of these things are quite old! Some are sort of new.

Books

The year was an all right one for bookreading. According to goodreads, I read 113 books and over 48,000 pages, which is the kind of information I think is cool to have. I’ve had limited success with fiction over the last few years, with a few exceptions. Strangely, this is the first year in I don’t know how long where I’ve mostly read books by men. I tend to avoid this because, to be quite honest, I think most male writers are often just bad at very specific things.

So why read so many men?

I don’t know. Just a lot of books I’ve wanted to read for a long time and I wasn’t having such good luck so I kept picking up books I thought I’d like only to be less than excited with the outcomes. Anyrate, I did read a number of books I liked quite a bit!

The Dagger and Coin series by Daniel Abraham

Really enjoyed his Long Price Quartet when I read it years ago, but never got around to trying this one out. I think because the Long Price was a pretty unusual take on the fantasy genre, whereas this seemed to be much more traditional.

But this year was the year, I guess. I’d run across a lot of not very good novels in a row so I gave this a chance and fell almost immediately in love.

While it is a very traditional series, it executes the genre just about perfectly. There are surprises and twists and turns and he plays with tropes to great effect, but this really is a fantasy novel that goes back to the basics and just executes flawlessly.

Despite coming out between 2011 and the beginning of 2016, it very much feels like a series that could have been written about the last five years of US politics. Which is interesting!

There’s a lot I could say about this, but I don’t want to spoil anyone about anything. So just read it if you like fantasy novels.

The Age of Madness by Joe Abercrombie

I did not care for Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy. Or, I liked parts of it quite a bit, but thought it should have been one 900 page book instead of three 500 page books.

However, I liked it well enough to read the three sequels. Which surprised me, because each one was better than what came before. Abercrombie was a writer getting better with each word written, which seems like an obvious career trajectory, but I find it surprisingly uncommon.

I waited to read this trilogy until all three were out, but, man. These are good. Real good. Comparing this to his first trilogy almost seems absurd because he’s just infinitely better than he was in 2006. I have various complaints about this trilogy and think it gets a bit sloppy at certain points and with certain narratives, but it really is great.

Not as good as The Dagger and Coin Series, but most things aren’t. Interestingly, both series have a very interesting understanding of politics. I find, sadly, that many genre writers just don’t understand politics, but Abraham and Abercrombie are good examples to the contrary.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

If you ever wanted to know what makes me sob with my mouth wide open like the worst actor during the worst death scene you’ve ever seen, this book would be a good place to start.

I have various conflicting thoughts about specific elements here, but the novel just gutted me. Over and over again. Cried like I haven’t cried in a long time. Probably the only writer who’s made me cry like this is Robin Hobb (someday I’ll be brave enough to write about her).

Yanagihara’s novel here is just unstoppable. Brutally dark and harrowing. But, really, the moments that broke me to pieces were ones of such gentle kindness. The way a certain person gives another person comfort—even just thinking about it makes me want to weep.

Anyrate, it’s good. Read it if you want to ball your eyes out for a thousand pages.

The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton

Excellent book about economics. I don’t really have a lot to say about it because I’m dumb at math, but this should be foundational to any progressive political movement.

To some, this is a pretty controversial book and Modern Monetary Theory has many detractors, but I think the political logic is sound. We’ve seen this exact project work nearly a century ago. There’s no reason these principles can’t be reapplied.

Press Reset by Jason Schreier

Sometimes I get the idea in my head that I want to design a videogame. This book is a good explanation as to why you probably don’t want to do that. Where Schreier’s first (also excellent) book highlights success, this one highlights failure. But it highlights the failure through the eyes of normal people. This isn’t about Bungie executives or the presidents of Sony and EA. This is about the toll the videogame industry takes on the humans who make it possible.

It’s bleak, man. But Schreier remains hopeful or at least optimistic and highlights certain strategies or at least tactics that could solve many of these problems crushing the humans who make the things we love to enjoy.

The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

For several years running, I’ve picked an author and decided to read just a bunch of their books. I don’t remember why I started doing this, but it’s been fun!

I’ve read all of Kazuo Ishiguro this way, most of Louise Erdrich and Haruki Murakami and Octavia Butler and Michael Pollan and NK Jemisin and Denis Johnson. It’s a fun way to run through the career of an author. Anyway, this year I was going to do Margaret Atwood but ended up really hating the second book of hers I read, so I did Guy Gavriel Kay instead.

This isn’t just my favorite of the bunch I read this year, but my favorite of the novels he’s written. Which is a bit amusing since I almost abandoned this after about fifty pages. But it picks up quite a bit and, I think, just represents the best version of what Kay does. His novels are always imbued with sorrow, with longing, obsessed with the passage of time, the loss of innocence, both cultural and personal. This novel just hits all these themes with such a thundering gong that I was moved in new ways.

Kay is an interesting writer. Much like Louise Erdrich, I really like most of his novels, but only really love one or two. But this one is my favorite. It’s one I never see people mention when they discuss Kay’s writing or career, but I think, in a way, it is a pinnacle that he hasn’t bothered to approach since.

Not that his newer books are bad! But I think he hit something special here. From here, he moves in a slightly different direction. One I actually prefer, but I don’t think he’s yet perfected what he’s now attempting.

The Second Founding by Eric Foner

Want to get depressed?

This book is about what the US government did after the Civil War. So, in essence, it’s about the failures of Reconstruction, but also its successes.

He does this by tracking the development, arguments, and implementations of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution.

It’ll make you mad.

Heirs of the Founders by HW Brands

I’ve read several of HW Brands’ histories now and I always like them a lot. This one accomplishes the most in the least amount of pages, however. And it’s great! It covers a time period I honestly didn’t know much about. Basically 1810-1850. I think of the US having a few eras where history is really popular: Revolution/Critical Period, Civil War, WWII, Civil Rights.

The rest of US history seems to fall into a sort of niche interest category, which is too bad because there’s a lot of fascinating stuff in these less talked about periods.

This book follows the careers of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, who each represented the ideals of different parts of the young nation. Their ability to lead the country both kept it from falling apart after the era of the Founders ended, but also ensured the inevitability of the Civil War.

It’s a fascinating story, really. The various problems baked into the Constitution led to many of these tensions, but these three men were able to compromise and work together to sort of keep the country taped together. And then, after several decades, the tape just wouldn’t hold anymore, Many of the compromises and decisions they made led directly to the Civil War.

In some ways, the worst you could say about them is also the best you could say about them: they caused the Civil War to be delayed a few decades.

John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit by James Traub

Several years ago, I started reading a lot of US history. Like, a lot of it. I did this, initially, by reading biographies of various presidents. This led to some obvious problems, which I may write about in a few weeks.

Basically, some biographies are so devoted to their subject that they actually obfuscate history. All biographies are projects of bias, of projection, but the best biographies give you enough information that you can see the man between all the paragraphs of laudation.

It’s actually why I prefer Ron Chernow’s exhaustive approach. While his perspective in each biography is to show the greatness of the man he’s writing about, he dumps so much information into your lap that you can see just how bad George Washington sucked, for example.

Anyrate, this is a fascinating book about a fascinating figure. John Quincy Adams was basically a man so principled that it made it impossible for him to accomplish anything as president or even in the House. Of course, his lonewolf principled stances in the House led to some of the greatest House speeches ever given. And he inspired countless politicians through his stony determination to always do what he believed was right, unless it meant actually marshalling a coalition of people with differing beliefs to a desired outcome.

Basically, he was terrible at politics. Obscenely so. But he left a powerful impression on the country.

But he was basically an insane person. So principled in his public and private life that he was definitely a terrible husband and father.

But, yeah, this really presents the whole of the man, warts and all. Which is what I want from a biography, even if all biographies are, by nature, glowing reports.

The Price of Peace by Zachary D Carter

This goes hand in hand with the Stephanie Kelton book up above. A great biography of John Maynard Keanes, tracking his life and thoughts through his long and influential public life.

If you’re interested in the history of 20th century economics, this is actually a pretty good starting point. Also, you get an interesting and less adulation-heavy look at the Bloomsbury Group.

Doc by Mary Doria Russell

Mary Doria Russell is maybe one of my top five favorite authors. She wrote two of the best SF novels I’ve ever encountered to start her career, then never wrote another SF piece. Since then, she’s written historical fiction exclusively. Some of her books are misses for me (including the sequel to this novel), but most of them are great.

This is one of my favorites. Her Doc Holliday is just unforgettable. He’s funny, charming, disarming, and so affecting. The novel really is hilarious at times, but also far more moving than it has any right to be.

Definitely recommended.

Hyperion and Hyperion Falls by Dan Simmons

This is maybe a bit controversial to me because I only just finished these books hours before this post goes public and I actually don’t love them. I have the sense they’ll stick with me for a long, long time, however.

Which is not the same as being of high quality or of me even liking them.

I’ve known about these books for probably fifteen or twenty years. Knew I’d love them for about that long, have owned them for at least five years, if not longer. Somehow never got around to picking them up until a friend decided to do a reread.

Are these good? Yes, undoubtedly so. Nothing controversial about that. I have various issues with various things, from minor to major, but the books are obviously quite good, structurally and stylistically interesting, and even transgressively aggressive at certain points.

But I’m not sure I even like these books, honestly. I feel the same way I felt when I finished the two Patrick Rothfuss novels that have been published. Couldn’t stop reading the books but not even sure I ever enjoyed much of it. But this leaves me a bit colder and emptier, but I think it will cling to me longer, burrow inside my bones.

Already it’s given me dozens of ideas for stories, novels. Many of them iterating on themes or moments here that I think could be done in more interesting (to me, though maybe not to you) ways. So it’s worked as sort of a story generator, which is nice, but I often find these kinds of books kick me out of them a bit because I’ll start reeling through possibilities of where to take a concept or character moment and build something different. All of this happening while I’m still reading, which means I’m sort of not even paying attention to what I’m reading for a few pages.

Anyrate, these books are both better and worse than you’ve heard. Maybe I’ll write about them someday, though I’m not sure that I have anything interesting to say about them.

Maybe I’ll just write about this feeling I get when I read certain things. Sort of a gnawing dissatisfaction with the almost-perfection of certain novels. Felt it with many Louise Erdrich and Guy Gavriel Kay novels, the most recent Sally Rooney novel (which I was so certain would be the best book of the year but was instead…fine).

TV/Movies

I like what I like and I like a lot of trash. While I used to watch lots of movies, I just don’t anymore. Chelsea doesn’t like them. Which still breaks my brain to think about. But also she’s the kind of person who would rather rewatch a show she knows she likes 100 times rather than try out something she may or may not like.

So most of what we watch are sitcoms we know we like.

Squid Game

The first time someone mentioned this show to me, I misunderstood what they were saying and thought it was just a South Korean version of the reality TV show Survivor.

Imagine my surprise when this was not only not reality TV, but ended up being one of the wildest rides I’ve ever been on. Probably everyone you know has already seen this and recommended it to you so you don’t need to know that I thought it was great.

But it was! Watch it, if you somehow haven’t yet.

Great British Bake-Off

This is just pleasant TV. I’ve liked this show for a long time but hadn’t watched it in several years. I think it’s what I needed this year though. Just pleasant, kind competition.

I have a lot of thoughts about this show, weirdly. Maybe I’ll write about it, but probably I’ll just keep enjoying it as a show that smiles back at me from the TV.

Survivor 41

I’d never seen Survivor before my son was born. I honestly had no idea even what it was about. Wrongly, I thought it was a show about surviving on an island.

But this show is psychological warfare! I love it. And it was the perfect show for dealing with a colicky infant. Then the pandemic happened. So, to put it simply, we watched 40 seasons of TV in about two years.

After a year without any new Survivor seasons, due to a global pandemic, it was a real delight to have a new season. This season takes a few bold swings with structure and gameplay. Some of them successful. Others much less so (with at least one moment that I actively hated), but I found the season very satisfying.

Great gameplay (though not the best) and a great winner who definitely deserved the win.

Interested in how long they’ll stick with this abbreviated format, but I think it was successful. I also think it makes sense as a new era of Survivor. Sort of severing the past to lean into the potential of the future.

The Great

I don’t even know how we heard about this show. It seems like it was never really advertised, even on Hulu. But, man, what a wild ride!

This show is a hilarious ahistorical version of Catherine the Great’s life. A period piece set in Russia may not seem like an obvious choice for the funniest show I’ve seen this year, but, man, the madcap hilarity is just something else.

Everything about this show is perfection. The humor, the acting, the timing, the over-the-topness of it all. It’s a tightrope act of making you feel, making you laugh, and making you want. It has all the advantages of high budget prestige dramas with all the perfection of the best sitcoms.

I could watch this show forever.

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson

This show just kills me. I cackle like a maniac. It’s definitely not for everyone, but this show just hits me perfectly.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Chelsea had never seen this before and I hadn’t seen it in, like, fifteen years. But it appeared on Netflix so we dove in

The show is really masterfully done. It’s heartwarming, emotional, exciting, provocative, and funny. The writing is always clicking and the story really uses rhythm well. It never loses track of its Big Plot, but also takes its time getting there.

A masterclass in building a world, building a narrative, and delivering on promise.

Dune

I knew nothing about Dune except what you accidentally learn by being alive for thirty years, but I really enjoyed this. Didn’t find it confusing. Didn’t especially find it, like, emotionally interesting or engaging. But it is a feast for the eyes, even if it could use some color.

I was intrigued enough that I finally read the novel. The novel is…well, I didn’t list it up with the books above for several reasons.

But I liked this movie. I don’t know. No deep thoughts. It’s not really the kind of movie that strikes me as requiring conversations. It’s big and dumb and loud and kind of awesome.

I love it.

Cowboy Bebop

Talking about the anime here. I think I’ve said enough about the live action adaptation by now.

Hadn’t seen the anime in a long, long time, so it was almost like watching it again for the first time. And I loved it. There’s always a fear in returning to a beloved story, but I found this to be so much fun. Fun in ways I’d forgotten. But it also tells a surprisingly beautiful story about friendship and family, about choice and failure.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

I have a lot to say about Evangelion. Look for one massive essay or a series of essays coming up in the months ahead!

But this movie, specifically, is just absolutely bonkers. I’m not convinced it even functions as a movie, let alone a story. But it is one of the wildest, surrealest works of art I’ve encountered in a long time. It does interesting things with the mythos of Evangelion and even with our understanding of the franchise, characters, and narrative.

It is a movie that honestly doesn’t care if it makes sense or if it even means anything to you. I think it’s a work of art so personal and deep inside the artist that it maybe has to be nearly incomprehensible to anyone else.

This is a bold and stupid decision, but I love it. I love how bonkers it is. I love how stupid it is.

I love how it doesn’t care about you yet manages to give you the sensation and emotion you wanted.

The Dick van Dyke Show

I grew up with Mary Tyler Moore.

I love her.

First time watching this since I was probably ten or younger. It’s goofy and hilarious. I love Dick van Dyke and I love Mary Tyler Moore. I love them in everything and this show reminds me how deep in my bones they’ve always been.

Vivo

Wild and fun and boisterous. Watched it with my son and loved it.

Don’t have any deep thoughts here. This is just good watchin.

Luca

Another one I watched with my son.

It made me cry. A beautiful story about family and friendship, about love. Great visuals, haunting moments, and music that’ll live inside me. I may write about this someday, depending on how it ferments in my soul.

Big Mouth

I love this disgusting show. I don’t really have anything clever to say about it, except that I’m fascinated by the way they Lanarked this 5th Season. I find that just extravagantly interesting.

Games

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Was never a big fan of the original FFVII, but I loved this game. I love it still. I have a lot to say about it. This game may be the real reason any of this newsletter exists. This game re-sparked my love of videogames in very specific ways. I love how it’s sometimes dumb and loud, because it’s dumb and loud in exactly the right ways. The kind of dumb loud spectacle I want to bathe in.

But then it went and did all kinds of fascinating things to deform and reconstruct a story many people already knew and loved.

Bold and ambitious, wild and uneven, confrontational and aggressive while also delivering that comforting hot hot heat.

Expect an essay about it…eventually.

Well, I’ll cheat a little and share an excerpt:

Imagine a man with a gun for a hand.

Almost exactly six years ago, Indigenous people began the #NODAPL protest at Standing Rock, where they would be harassed and attacked for months by state employees violently clashing with peaceful protesters on behalf of an energy behemoth. As I write this, Indigenous people are facing off, again, against state violence sponsored by energy behemoths in Thief River Falls, desperate to stop Enbridge Line 3 from being illegally built through their land and poisoning the water for millions of people.

Last year, Andreas Malm published a book called How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

A few weeks ago, I was Barrett Wallace waging an endless war against ecologically cataclysmic corporatism where essential infrastructure was the only target. A man—whose body revealed a history of violence—possessed by fury over unfettered extraction sucking the planet dry, erasing a future for his daughter, Marlene.

I had a literal gun for a hand.

Final Fantasy VI

Said most of what I have to say about this game already. Though I may be expanding this into a book length essay.

Stay tuned for that.

God of War

Again, wrote about this already. Still feel the same, but I think that essay is also worth revisiting. This game is partly why this newsletter exists.

Super Mario Bros 3

Is Mario 3 a perfect game?

Well, yes.

I’ve been playing various Mario games with my son and I feel like I’ve tumbled back in time to the me I was decades ago. This game is great.

Also, I’m worse at it now than I was when I was six. Which is…I have no words for certain things, but I have a clock in my house that has gradually slowed down due to battery degradation. When I noticed this eight months ago, it was about fifteen minutes off the real time. It’s now over six hours off.

This fascinates me for reasons difficult to explain. But this is the beginnings of an explanation for how and why I’m worse at Mario 3 now.

Expect more talk about time when this essay comes out.

Super Metroid

This game was impossible to me when I was six. It’s still impossible! I can’t get past Ridley. He keeps whoopin’ my ass!

Anyrate, this game is great. I love it. I found everything about it pretty fun. It’s atmospheric and kind of terrifying. It’s difficult, but usually I could pound my way through. But now I’ve hit a wall and I think the real solution is to backtrack and find more Super Missiles. Which I am not going to do.

I might start it again soon instead.

If that sounds dumber than just going back and scouring the map for the Super Missile upgrades, then I don’t even know what to say to you. You probably colored in the lines as a kid like some kind of narc.

Spider-Man

Every game should take a lesson from this game. Just one. And that is: make traversing your maps fun.

This game is just a delight. Moving from point A to point B feels better than almost anything in games outside of Mario’s jump. Yes, the combat is fun and the story is well told. The game is the right kind of challenging for a game like this. There are enough sidequests and secrets to keep you busy for dozens of gleeful hours.

But, for me, it really is about web-swinging.

Every game should attempt to do just one thing as well as this game handles movement. I’d probably play this game even if it didn’t have combat or missions or dialogue or cutscenes. Just give me a big city map to parkour around in and I’m set.

I mean, I’ve played hundreds of hours of Tony Hawk. I’m pretty easy to please.

Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

I haven’t written about boardgames here yet but expect at least a few essays in the months ahead. I have a lot of thoughts about boardgames!

Twilight Imperium is a game of excess. It is excessive in every conceivable way that a boardgame can be excessive. It is bursting at the seams with stuff! With mechanics, with systems, with plastic figures, with cardboard, with cards. It took us 3 hours to learn and 12 hours to play!

The boardgame hobby has exploded in the last decade, which just so happens to be when I got into it. Kickstarters combust with content and trinkets and plastic and cards and mechanical systems. But Twilight Imperium is boardgames—already a hobby leaning towards maximalism—at its most maximalist.

And it is great.

I mean, this is a surprise because often games that are bursting at the seams with content shouldn’t be. They should tighten up and focus on doing a few things well.

Twilight Imperium decides, instead, to do every possible thing better than everyone else. It is the Ulysses of boardgames. And I mean that in about a dozen different ways that may take me a few thousand words to explain (let me play this again before I write something substantial about it).

Root

Wasn’t a big fan of Vast when I played it. It seemed asymmetric to a degree that made it difficult to play and difficult to comprehend. So, despite all the years of hype, I was mostly just interested in giving Root a try to see what all the hullabaloo was about.

And it is fantastic! Again, I need to play this at least one more time before I can really say much about it. But it takes something specific about asymmetric wargames and just does it so elegantly, so beautifully that it towers over the competition.

In some ways, it is the opposite of Twilight Imperium, despite sharing a lot of elements. Root’s lasereyed focus on this one specific type of gameplay makes it maybe the best in the genre.

There are disadvantages that come with this. I’ll write something about this, once I play a bit more.

Obsession

Do you like Pride and Prejudice or Downton Abbey?

Do you like boardgames?

Do you like anxiously counting the turns left in a game while you stare at the fistful of cards in your hand, tallying every single resource, every single possible complication your opponent can throw your way to send your game spiraling into the black chasms of an uncaring universe?

Obsession is brilliant. It’s tight and effortless, but demanding and brutal. It’s not a simple game and there’s a steep commitment required, but the devotion to theme and mechanics make this just one of the best games I’ve played in a while.

Search for Planet X

Played it once then immediately bought it.

That feels like recommendation enough to me, honestly.

But if you like deduction games, imagine adding a competitive element to that. It’s not about solving the mystery. Or, it is. But you better do it first. Or, if not first, at least second.

You know how stressful it is to know that everyone is searching for one thing on a big map, but everyone has different information?

This game is awesome. The right kind of stressful and rewarding.

Music

I love trash. Most of these songs are from years ago, but they’re the songs I listened to the most this year.

I used to have taste but now I just like what I like. You can’t convince me that these songs aren’t the best songs of the year until you show me something I like more. At which point, I won’t care about these anymore.

My Writing

Besides the tens of thousands of words written here on this newsletter (26 posts with an average probably around 2k words), I’ve done quite a lot of writing outside this newsletter as well.

I put this last because it’s really only for people interested in my fiction writing. But I keep track of a lot of stupid information for no real reason. It’s not actually interesting to me, but I do track these things and so I’ll share it all with you too.

I worked on a number of novels this year. Mostly old novels that needed some amount of rewriting.

Songs of My Mother

Originally, I wrote this in 2016. I’ve been meaning to edit it since then, but then nearly five years of life went by and I hadn’t even gotten around to reading the dumb thing again.

Anyrate, this was a 300k words epic fantasy novel that mostly takes place in the same location. It’s now a 400k word epic fantasy novel that mostly takes place in the same location. It might be the best thing I’ve yet written!

I’ve been sending it to agents for a while now. I think this is a novel that requires a real publisher. Maybe I’ll share something from it here some day.

Witches

Originally written in 2017 as a 150k word fantasy novel inspired by the War on Terror and specifically the Tsarnaev brothers. It was a colossal failure! And its failure broke my ability to work on it until this year. I chopped it back to 70k words and then added an additional 20k words.

It might be one of the best things I’ve written but it nauseates me, honestly. Failing so dramatically when writing it before still slaps me in the face whenever I open the word document.

Anyrate, it’s finished now.

Amok’s Run

A long time ago I read about a game called The Return of the Obra Dinn, which sounded cool. I never played it but I did get the idea for a novel. And so I finally got around to writing it this year.

It’s what I imagine The Return of the Obra Dinn is about or at least what I think it should be about. Of course, this is a fantasy detective novel about colonialism and cultural ravines.

It’s also unfinished because I never knew what the solution to this murder mystery would be. Just assumed I’d figure it out along the way (honestly, this is how all novel writing goes for me) and intuitively stumble into just the exactly right direction.

Unfortunately, I never figured it out! Never got struck with that inspiration! And so this novel has been resting at about 50k words with really no clear idea of what I should do with it. Sadly, it contains maybe the best 50 page sequence I’ve ever written!

Finally let someone read the draft and they had no idea what to do with it either, but it made me realize the problem is that this novel needs to be like 100k words longer. Which makes for quite a bit of work.

Maybe I’ll figure it out next year. But probably I’ll have to get to the other ten things I’m always planning on writing.

Lurid

Wrote this last year. It takes place during the George Floyd uprising here in Minneapolis. It’s another novel whose first draft was a searing failure, so I rewrote chunks of it this year. Probably around 10-20k words of this 65k word novel were rewritten.

I realized about a month ago that I need to rewrite parts of it again, which is annoying. This novel has the potential to be quite good but it keeps being mostly bad.

It’s a domestic realist drama about many things, but especially about life in Minneapolis.

fistful of dirt

Also wrote this last year. It might be the best literary thing I’ve written in nearly a decade, since I don’t much do that anymore. Had to rewrite bits and pieces here and there and then especially the ending. Maybe like 10k words rewritten.

It’s a nightmare of realism taking place over the course of about 18 hours. In some ways, it’s my nightmare of how my life would be now had a few things turned out differently. It’s a psychologically torturous novel!

It’s also great. Trust me. I wrote it!

Labyrinth, or, how to decapitate the minotaur

About 20k words of nested narratives. The narrator collapses back and forth through memory to tell several different stories that all return to a single moment in time.

It’s about a night of temporary love and permanent heartache, of resentment and forgiveness. I think it’s unusual for its genre (fantasy), since it really is more like Marguerite Duras than, say, Tolkien.

It also reminds me of the things I used to write ten years ago, which has been fun for me.

Fingers Wrapped in Hair

A polyphonic fantasy novella about the aftermath of a public execution. It tells the history of a City State through the eyes of 12 people recounting the public execution of a man who picked up his own severed head and led a war against that City State.

I like it! But it doesn’t really function well as a story. So I’ve realized it probably needs to be anchored around a more straightforward novel. Which means writing probably 70k-120k more words.

Right now, the novella is 30k words. It’s very much in the style of Noir: A Love Story. So if you liked that way back when, you’d probably like this as it is now. Too bad I need to make it a real novel.

A Quiet Night in Uhaku

Takes place the same night as Labyrinth but follows two mercenaries on a wild night of drunken revelry. About 20k words of sword and sorcery fun. The first of what will likely be many novellas following these two characters.

My goal was to write something funny and fun, and I think I succeeded. I hope you like it when I throw it out into the world.

The Collected Suicide Notes of Francois Truffaut

I read a novel this summer that I really disliked. I won’t name it here because the writer may be someone reading this now (don’t guess). But the novel was quite bad but could have been quite good!

I’ve had an idea for a very specific novel for about two years but then this novel came out that seemed like it was going to be exactly that! But it wasn’t, and so now I need to write it to make a proper execution of this idea.

Sadly, I mostly have not dug into this novel(la) much, but I hope to complete it early next year.

The Plague Year, or, the mindnumbing somnambulance of these four walls, or, also a Resurrection

I read A Malady of Death by Marguerite Duras last year because it was sitting in a free library to be read. It’s a short book and mostly interesting.

Anyrate, I began this novella after reading Sally Rooney’s new novel and an old Louise Erdrich novel because they reminded me of that Duras novella in ways difficult to explain. I started writing this basically without any idea of what I intended to write, and I seem to be doing the most unusual thing in the world, which is writing only a chapter about once a month.

It’s a realist love story during the pandemic. It all takes place in four rooms.

Still not finished. Sitting at about 10k words. Probably I’ll come to the end in a few months.

cyber punk

I’ve wanted to write a cyberpunk novel for a long time. So here it is!

Cyberpunk without hackers or even ubiquitous access to future technology. Instead, my vision of the future is one where the future is gated so only the wealthy have it while the rest of us return to a sort of pre-internet existence. But, you know, with a planet ravaged by climate change, war, and so on.

It, too, is in the beginning stages. It’s meant to be a novella, but I fear it’ll balloon into a novel.