3Ts: author updates, pick my next article, dinner parties

Bringing back this style of post for a moment, because the pressure to write an Important Longform Article is giving me paralysis. I invented this format for myself back when I was in a similar bit of paralysis over a year ago:

although past!ren was absolutely unhinged for thinking they were going to be posting weekly. They didn’t realize yet that the more they worked on substack posts, the less they’d write the actual novels.

The other reason the 3Ts format exists is because I want to yap it up with yall, without having to contribute something “original” or “groundbreaking” to the intellectual meat grinder.

• I updated my website, specifically this page. One thing I loathe: I have a ton of opinions about website design, without any of the skills to make anything close to my Platonic Ideal. It often blocks me from making progress. Whatever. It is what it is.

• You can now buy my paperback directly from me! This is huge for me; I make almost double the money vs buying from a retailer (I make $4.14 per book on B&N, vs. $7.75 when you buy direct). I’ve been wrestling my publisher and everyone else on earth, it seems, and the process isn’t even done yet. Anyway. Buy my book?

• I’m hosting a workshop called “Raise the Stakes” on November 14th on the Order of the Written Word discord. It’s free, please join! (You can read a description of the workshop here.)

• In December, I’m going back to my high school (!!) to speak to two sections of a mystery writing class (!!) about mystery writing tools. I’ve been having a pretty hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that a huge dream of mine is happening. I went to an east-coast-like boarding school that always had guest speakers, and they are some of my most vivid memories of the place. The one who meant the most to me was Bill Ayers, one of the Weather Underground who wrote a memoir about that experience. After his main lecture, I ditched class to sneak into the small gathering the school was hosting for him with more impressive students than me (I was a muckracker and ne’er-do-well, throwing Anti Winter Formals, pulling pranks, etc). My roommate, as one of those impressive students, helped me sneak in. I got to spend all afternoon soaking up the wisdom and attention of an adult who seemed like the coolest person to ever exist, though I know now he was just being himself. That’s why it was so cool: when are adults ever just themselves around kids? There were many such moments at that school; they tried their best to treat students like adults, and to give them experiences around the smartest, wisest, most interesting adults they could get to visit. And now I’m considered one of those??? They must not remember the three months said roommate and I wouldn’t make our beds because we refused to follow rules we didn’t believe in, and kept calling the dorm parent a fascist.

Here are the longform pieces I’ve been working on. All of these are interesting to me (obviously), but I have no idea what you active readers are interested in, and I’d really love to write what you want to read. Leave a comment and let me know which you’d want to read next:

1. how to stay informed vs. how to stay sane — two part series into media detox (a topic you can’t avoid currently, hence why i stopped writing this) + “clean escapism” aka how to scroll/get your social media fix without the doomscroll in pt1, then how and where to get your news without wanting to [remembers suicidal ideation is bad] retire to Sussex to raise bees, Sherlock Holmes style.

2. the internet is still good — a counterbalance article to all the “we should quit our phones” “we should pull the plug on the internet” narrative, because i love the internet and i don’t think we should let fuckasses take over this tool.

3. how the chilling effect is working on all of us — polisci musings and observations about how we’re all self-censoring, and delving into the political theory of the 3 levels of quiescence.

4. not falling in the GRRM trap — writing article on tools for writers who are trying to tackle a 5, 7, 10 novel series — but specifically for series that have a definitive end, rather than a perpetually ongoing series in the Bridgerton open world style.

Seriously, I’m begging you, help my decision fatigue and tell me what to write next.

What’s everyone watching, and what would you recommend? You can check my Letterboxd; I don’t really do lists or ratings, but my diary has all the deets. Hard to beat Fire Walk With Me for absolute fucking terror, but I adored Weapons, and I finally watched Dead Ringers!! That’s been on my “ren, you can’t call yourself properly queer if you haven’t seen this” list for ages. It lived up to everything I wanted it to be (as did Weapons, shockingly!).

Yesterday, I threw a pumpkin beer tasting for my friends, and while many had to miss due to the various colds and flus going around (get your flu shots and wear masks on the bus!), it was still a delightful time. We watched my Halloween Playlist, which is supposed to end after “Bustin’” but we were having so much fun mst3k’ing the videos, we added a few more. In the same way my dad (a boomer) would gather the party around the living room speaker system and personally DJ from his CD collection (one song from this Nirvana MTV Live cd, one song from Barenaked Ladies’ Gordon, etc) and let the conversation flow around or be about the music, I as a millennial have taken over those party duties. New technology, same ethos. We did this as a family on our summer reunion, too, with a bluetooth speaker and arbitrary rules to gamify it: play the perfect roadtrip song; play a song you think no one else at the table will know.

The common thread is music, which can be ignored for better conversation, listened to by an introvert who needs a break, or commented on — because we all need help coming up with topics, unless you’re one of those people always talking about their work, god forbid.

Reflecting this morning on the success the youtube playlist had in keeping conversation going reminded me of the NYT article When Did Everything Become So ‘Intentional'? specifically the part about kids not going to parties unless there’s activity:

People seem to love a themed event these days: ‘We are here, we have an agenda, we’re going to follow it,’” she said of “intentional” gatherings in New York, which tend to be centered on an activity (like running) or a goal (like making friends in your 30s). “It’s more organized fun versus fun that happens on its own.”

Suck my dick, New York Times. Not only is the article reductive, taking snipes at youth we need not indulge in just to feel superior, it’s blind to something the New York Times of all publications should know: Before the games and themes of the current era, there was the agenda’d scaffolding of The Dinner Party Itself.

Out in the Chicago suburbs of my youth, my parents were throwing dinner parties all the time; I had a proper education in them. Appetizers and drinks standing up around the island, paired with 1:1 conversations that could veer towards catching up on life events or gossip that can’t be shared with the group; moving to the table for dinner, where the food is shown off and the entire party converses together, and we’re also at least two bottles of wine and a few cocktails in by now; dessert and coffee/tea, which can start at the table but you’re allowed to wander off as well in pairs or small groups. No, there wasn’t often the mental structuring of themes and games, but there was a physical structuring. If you read authors from NYC or London, you hear about the dinner party, its rules spoken and unspoken.1 Hardly anything about a dinner party just “happened on its own.”

I gave my group the structure of a youtube playlist, but we mostly talked over it. We never worried for something to say.