A slightly disoriented newsletter . . .
Wednesday, 9.17
Thought for the day . . .
“If we fail, let us fail in the most beautiful way.”
That’s a quote from soccer legend Jurgen Klopp, and it signifies two things. First of all, that I want to begin each new Misfit newsletter with an epigram. Just something to remind, provoke, inspire.
Second, that my goal for Misfit is to gather ideas and information from a very broad array of sources—not just the “authorities” that tend to dominate writer world. Sometimes the best known people have something new to say, but a lot of the time they are all saying the same things, over and over.
So let’s see what can be gleaned from the worlds of business, sports, science, philosophy, journalism, the arts! After all, creativity and productivity are going on beyond the fairly narrow precincts of writing/publishing . . .
But! There’s also plenty to be explored within those precincts—and it’s not too soon to start planning for two big October events.
Fall Forward
Yes, we are halfway through September. Two weeks from Q4. 103 days til New Year’s Eve.
For me, the first half of September has been marked by some big decisions—and the biggest was discontinuing my four-year-old Tarot Substack. That’s turned out quite differently than I anticipated, in terms of how I feel.
The result has been a significant change in both my attitude and my plans. Which I’m going to write about at some length next week, on the theory my experience will be useful to anyone thinking about the future of writing life.
But I’m still processing—and a bit disoriented. So for now, I’ll just offer a couple of riffs on forwardness, in the form of two big events coming up in October.
The first one I can recommend without hesitation. It’s the event that got me interested in writing fiction (some day), and introduced me to what a really well-run summit can offer. It comes around every autumn, in the form of:
I’m bringing this up now—a month ahead of time—so you can get on the mailing list and enjoy unfolding announcements over the next few weeks. The schedule of presentations is not out yet, but I can guarantee you’ll find worthwhile speakers and interesting topics.
The other event I’m anticipating is completely different, and totally new to me. But it seems like an inviting variant of the frantically paced NaNoWriMo:
To be clear . . . the odds of my writing a novel any time soon—much less in Q4 of this year—are infinitesimal. Or at least really tiny.
But I like the idea of gathering a few snippets that could eventually be stitched into my maybe-someday cozy mystery series.
So I’m going to jump into the Novel 90 Challenge at least enough to see what it feels like. And get some Autocrit freebies. And possibly meet some other Misfits.
Completely Different
One of the things I especially like about Writing Mastery Academy is that they have Q&A sessions once or twice a month on Saturdays, when I can take time to listen. And this past Saturday, the “Office Hours” guest was Carla Hoch.
This is the third time I’ve heard Carla talk about her specialty: how to write fight/action scenes.
A pretty tight niche! And I personally am unlikely to be writing fights, even if I get to the point of becoming a cozy mystery author. But I’ve gotten so much out of listening in on Carla’s conversations with thriller writers, fantasy writers, and assorted others who come to her with their wide-ranging questions.
Meet Carla on her website, find out about her books, and enjoy some informative posts from her wide-ranging blog—like:
I’ve admired Carla’s consistently smart, clear, and generous way of answering questions. In last Saturday’s Q&A session, discussing the psychology and physiology of fear responses, she referenced her own experience of growing up in a violent home. And she did it just as fluently as she quotes from Sun Tzu’s classic treatise Art of War and talks about her own training in multiple styles of martial art.
Writing about writing is tricky enough, to say nothing of talking about writing in real time to random strangers. We’re lucky some people make that effort, and share not only expertise but authenticity.
And then—
I got to just that point on Monday, and was about to share a Substack Gem when I had a sudden idea about how to build something I really want.
So I took a quick break from finishing this post, to explore whether my new idea would work—and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. I’ve made it, I love it, and I really want to share it with other Misfit writers.
I think I’m about a week away from telling you about it, but I’ll hint that it’s a new way to organize and clarify creative life, for those of us who have more ideas and projects than we can keep up with.
I’ve tried a LOT of methods and tools in the past, and I learned from each one. Even when I only learned why it didn’t work. So maybe I was just gathering up the necessary experiences to imagine a different approach.
I’ve built a prototype and started trying it out in my own life. Stay tuned!
Thanks so much for reading—see you Friday. C