63 Comments

Slipping and falling-- good lord that's funny! You are not a mess. Thank you for writing this extremely tight piece of writing motivation.

Expand full comment
author
Nov 27, 2023·edited Nov 28, 2023Author

Thank you, Ann! Only intermittently a mess, I hope 🙃

Expand full comment

Might be my favorite post of yours yet. “It’s gotta be fun” is the new rule I’m trying to enforce with everything I write. Harder than I thought it’d be!

Expand full comment
author

Thanks! Yeah, my goal with book-writing is just to make the reader want to turn to the next page (and the next, and the next) — surprisingly difficult to achieve!

Expand full comment

When I decided to write a novel about 5 years ago I said to myself if it wasn't fun I'd never get through it (knowing myself) and it did become fun and so I finished it. I went on to write a book of short stories, then collection of poems. I now write every day and it has become even more fun... I seem to be addicted to it. It has to be fun to get the work done.

Expand full comment

There have been chores in my life that I have attempted to force, but with that particular concept it fails. Switch off the concept, think about the parts one enjoys, and the enjoyment soon spreads throughout. It's only hard when one allows it to be hard.... Peace, Maurice

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Mason Currey

Love her process for notes. Although, I've tried writing in spiral-bound notebooks and it is hardly what I would call dancing. ;)

Expand full comment
author

Ha, that's a good point — maybe she uses a really smooth pen.

Expand full comment

WOW! I love her process and I loved this shorter version of the newsletter (I love the long ones too). I, too, love writing by hand. It becomes a different experience entirely when I have my fountain pen and a blank page in front of me. The possibilities feel endless and auspicious.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, I have been drifting away from writing by hand lately, and it's a good reminder for me not to skip that step!

Expand full comment

I do my entire work by hand, and I could write by hand on the computer, I'd do it there too. But then no-one could read it.....

Expand full comment

I have so many notebooks. I started keeping notes to books all over the place, and one year in London wrote my own thesaurus, using Websters and Brewers Phrase and Fable. Now I just do jottings mostly online. No I am liar, I still have notebooks. Notebooks of words quotes. Readings are along online are with little blister pops of commentary that really has no use except to myself as a "dug out." Mostly Philo. Which I use as paint thinner. I do somebody else index on line as a honey bee. Can barely keep up with what I am trying to finish. Clouds of meaning rolling this way and that. LOVE THAT!!! I think of it as Chronica, also, which Clarice Lispector did for a Brazilian newspaper but its all about her take on being what it is.

Expand full comment

Do you organize them too?

Expand full comment

Thanks for an interesting insight, in which I find some overlap..... I spent 70+ years making notes on my adventures and observations, adding stories , poetry and songs, ad infinitum. Performed it all for a few years, rarely publishing. I have almost all this paper still, so nowadays I comb thru, revise, draft, edit, and repeat, until I have a piece for my NeXt Legend. The only papers I dump are the words that I have committed to Substack. The rest may come in handy. During this process the greater mass gradually becomes archived in nine themes. However none of my Climate Articles come from the same source, as they are current studies. It is a labour of love, my current incarnation.....

Expand full comment

Terrific post! And thanks for the heads up on Jillian Hess's newsletter. Just subscribed.

I've been a note-taker all my life, albeit a not very consistent one. My note taking is a cross between a commonplace journal (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/magazine/commonplace-books-recommendation.html) and a vomit bag. Inspired by Neil Gaiman's work habits, I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen (I've tried them all) and cherish ink stains on my fingers. I've tried Julia Cameron's Morning Pages approach, but it just frustrated me, so I gave up. But writing with a fountain pen in a Leuchtturm1917 is the only way to start your morning (or evening).

Expand full comment
author

Glad you enjoyed — I'm sure you'll enjoy Noted. And I will have to try the Leuchtturm1917!

Expand full comment

I index my journals too. Lately, I’ve been thinking of indexing them into a spreadsheet so I can sort them and find ideas quickly and easily.

Expand full comment
author

That's so cool — I like the index idea a lot. Though I feel like I journal about the same three or four things over and over, so in my case it might be a very brief index...?

Expand full comment

When I finish my journal, I read it and only index the things I want to go to back to-a dream, a story idea, an event I'll want to remember.

Expand full comment

I really love this. Both your vulnerability and Olds's process give creative permission to embrace being messy (or an organized mess in Olds's case of indexing) -- I have no idea what type of music you like but Olivia Dean's album + song "Messy" have been on repeat for me & feel kindred in their message of reclaiming messiness.

Expand full comment
author

"An organized mess" seems like something to aspire to for sure! And thanks for the music rec, I will check out Olivia Dean 🙏

Expand full comment

Actually gets me thinking of Olly & Stan, who's "Mess" was really only what they portrayed. What was going on behind the scenes were currents of wonders and devices. Just as we writers build our craft upon, n'est ce pas ? Peace, Maurice

Expand full comment

I've loved Sharon's work for over two(!) decades now. Thank you for reminding me of this profile! That picture of her is absolutely stunning. I still remember picking up Satan Says in a little Eugene, Oregon used bookstore in 1999. It was revelatory for me. How inspiring to think of the way she works and how she's stayed with poetry all this time, and continued to produce such incredible work.

Expand full comment
author

Satan Says is such a great title! I need to pick that up. Glad to remind you of her work and working method!

Expand full comment

It ain't just a stunning pic, it's a powerful compelling story waiting to be deciphered.

Expand full comment

And it's also a stunning picture!

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Mason Currey

I love a short newsletter! It's just the right length for me to read twice so I can really absorb the information. I've been thinking lately about how I assume length=value. (Did I pick up this idea in college, with required page-counts, I wonder?) But that's not necessarily the case. Especially since we're no long being paid by word-count--still thinking of Reardon and Grub Street🙃. Also, loved this glimpse into Olds's process. I could have included her in today's Noted newsletter! Thanks, also, for the kind shout-out!

Expand full comment
author

This is such a good point, about length not equalling value! Plus, as a reader, I'm often overwhelmed by long newsletters and I sometimes end up skimming a good portion of them (sorry, writers!). Feeling inspired to aim for more short, targeted issues in the New Year . . .

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Mason Currey

I totally relate to that. I hate it, but I end up skimming quite a lot. It's heartbreaking since I know how much time an energy goes into every post. Anyway, thanks for planting this thought in my head. I might just follow your lead and experiment with shorter posts too.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, same. I used to work as an editor at a blog that used software called Chartbeat to track user engagement, and you could see stats for how long the average reader spent on each article and what percentage of readers made it past X point on an article. It was horrifying! The average time spent was less than a minute, and many readers never scrolled beyond the first couple paragraphs — this for articles that sometimes took weeks of reporting/writing/editing. Hoping Substack never introduces this kind of functionality!

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Mason Currey

That's fascinating--and horrifying!

Expand full comment

Love a short and sharp newsletter!

Also love this observation you make - "to make notes in one state of mind (searching) and revisit them in an entirely different state (fussy)" - I've been thinking (and attempting to write) about the idea of being in the right "state" to become the person we want to be or doing the work we want to do. I love when in my own writing all of a sudden my ideas have babies and something new and insightful appears out of the musings that I hadn't thought of before.

Expand full comment
author

Oh yes! This idea of "the right state" is one of my favorite subjects. I wrote about it from a different angle last May, if you're interested: https://masoncurrey.substack.com/p/maggi-hambling-brancusi-mental-state-making-art

Expand full comment

I have read it and loved it! It's a great piece of writing!

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Mason Currey

Great poem by Olds ! Thanks for sharing

Expand full comment
author

Of course! Glad you enjoyed

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Mason Currey

I love this quote: “Clouds of meaning were rolling this way and that,”

Expand full comment
author

Me too!

Expand full comment

I loved reading about her process - especially that writing is between “drawing and dancing”! ♥️

Expand full comment
author

Yes! Love her sly, joyful grandmother energy

Expand full comment

This gets at two separate conversations I had with two separate writers just this morning. Sometimes the physcial act of writing longhand is the thing that shakes us lose. That gets us unstuck. And, sometimes it's the detritus of our creative process, the overlooked and discarded things, that undergird our new imaginings.

Expand full comment
author

Yes! That point about discarded things — how they can enable and almost energize what ultimately ends up on the page — was particularly important for me to hear right now.

Expand full comment

Same here! My whole creative process revolves around capturing and collecting these fits, and spasms, and false starts. Hoping that they amass to something connective, to something intricate, to something more. It seems that even when I'm writing, I'm collaging.

Expand full comment
author

Oh yes — my writing often feels like collaging too. But I also really like the idea that even when we *don't* capture and collect these false starts they're still there in the finished work somehow. I feel like that gives me permission to let stuff go.

Expand full comment

I totally get you! It's all the post it notes and scaps of paper. All the drafts and sketches. That's the scaffolding. the undergirding. The structure of all our making. The thing holding up everything. It's things we don't show or say. It's the silent letter of our creativity.

Expand full comment

The collagen of our collected collaging

Expand full comment

oh, that's good!! I may steal that, lol.

Expand full comment