That Post Which Tells You Why I've Been Away

An Update And A Reminder To You (and Me) About What I'm Working On

Hello to those who signed up a while ago and to newcomers, I hope you’ve all been doing well. I have a ton of writing to send to you in 2023.

I wish you and yours a wonderful and festive holiday.

Pleasantries dispensed with, my update is below.

This is my first post in a month. I’ve been editing two piles of words, book-ending about two years of my life, in 2 novels. A list of pieces I want to write for you are annoying me with their nonexistence, and are shared at the end of this post.

A month ago, I finished writing a “Book #2” project, entitled “Harvest”. It was written over the course of four 30 day “sprints*, where I wrote daily, and riffed with a story inspired by a speech in 1962, and ended it on the Moon in 2112.

Below is an image for the final fourth of “Book #2” which will be edited (link in image).

I finished before the Thanksgiving holiday and felt both relieved and let down.

I annoyed the hell out of some of you by doing the final fourth of “Harvest” and posting daily on this Substack during October through to November 2022. Pardon it.

I drove away subscribers and won over others through a volume business in words.

Once is praiseworthy, twice even admirable, after you move past that amount, people get annoyed that you really do mean to do the thing you said you were going to do.

While I do have a queue of fresh exciting pieces for you, I put them on hold to finish what I started, by accident of circumstance over 18 months ago. 175,000 words.

Since, then it’s been a relief and guilty pleasure to read the work of fellow writers, who I both admire and envy, in particular in the Soaring Twenties community. If I could write half as well as some of them, I would be twice as good as I hope to be.

I am indebted to them for their inspiration when it came to starting this Substack.

(*Shoutout to Vanya, Samantha, Devin, Aaron, and other kind people for early recommendations of this substack, which meant a great deal. Frank, you were first, and in words that 1920s/30s pulp characters might have used, ‘You’re Jake, pal.”)

I folded a couple of older sites, so I could make room to write new things. If you’re here because of a link from a “goodbye” note I left there, thank you, I’m grateful.

Life is too short to not make room for it to be lived.

I wrote what became the core of “Book #1”, now called “Box of Stars”, in 30 days, a complete story but in diptych format, which was half history/myth) + half-SciFi story.

No outline, just one improv that lasted 30 days. I did it five more times, because I wanted to know more about these characters I created out of the whole cloth of a make-believe 30 day reality. All drafted chapters live on Notion pages with music playlists. They’re also on Mirror, a/k/a Arweave blockchain, forever in crypto amber.

I was never made for guru-hood and I’ll never go viral. Even my “*think-pieces” are Sci-Fi “imagine-pieces” at best.

I didn’t do “advice” and first-level faint epiphanies (e.g. “Be Authentic”) because I was deep into dealing with a lot of things in my life, through a lens of history, myths and the future. How can I tell you what to do when I’m figuring things out?

A month from now will mark the second anniversary when I laid my father to rest.

My life before that day, for about 3 years was focused on taking care of Dad, with occasional bouts of getting ghosted by what seemed like great opportunities and mimetic messes. That’s all past now. Writing helped me. I’ve found my “thick desires”.

I wrote “Book #2” while I was hip deep in the middle of selling a property, during spring and summer 2022, that was Dad’s - a messy situation saved by good timing. I understand the property market since then has gone tilt, pear-shaped - timing is all.

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But, why do I want to write to you “From The Future”?

To paraphrase* from a movie about that eminent archaeologist, Indiana Jones:

Treasures beyond your wildest imagination. You want to see it opened as I.

We’re simply passing through history.

The future, this IS history.*

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Anyway, here is part of the backlog I want to send to your inbox in 2023. They are closer to imagine-pieces than think-pieces.

I don’t have the answers, I’m just searching for the questions.

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(*I hate using ‘sprint’, ‘cohort’, and ‘thinkpiece’, but I can’t spend hours finding workarounds. I know you want to tell these words and their users “get off my lawn”. On a long enough timeline most words return to being ordinary upright citizens of dictionaries after a brief moody period when they’re annoying like teenagers. )

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For new people, here are links to 4 pieces, from before Book #2 took over my brain.

You’ve Got That Infinite Feeling
(A Marriage of Imagination to Narrative Machines Opens Doors To Infinity, or

How William Blake and Leonardo da Vinci help me “see” A.I. from their POV. )

The Best Stories Make Offers We Can’t Refuse
(The best story about the story of the making of “The Godfather”)

My Anti-Rules of Storytelling
(Do As They Don't Do, and Not What They Say.)

When There Is Nothing Left To Take Away
(An intimate perfection comes from what we can take away.)

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If you’re still here, ala Ferris Bueller, that bit of “art” at the top marks the visual beginning for a “Book #3” project, called “R3TR13V3” or “RETRIEVE”, for 2023.

I only have one line for it to share with you,

”Where are the three graces?”

Plus a music playlist for “Book #3”, which will grow along with the book in 2023.