Read to the end for a great TikTok
I don’t have the answer to the question I posed in the title. It’s kind of a bait and switch that way, and something we never do in content marketing. One of the first rules of writing for the web is that you always answer a question you ask in titles. But that is work, and this newsletter isn’t work, even though it sure feels like it sometimes.
That’s not true. This never feels like work, because sometimes work is enjoyable. This newsletter is a weight around my neck! But, and hear me out, that’s okay.
I have learned that this resentment is a feature of the things we love and know we should be doing. I learned this from a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressler. I am only about halfway through it, so if it takes a weird turn into unpleasant spiritual mumbo jumbo or some other objectionable direction, I will retract my endorsement (he has already said some eyebrow-raising things about depression and anxiety, but I am choosing to overlook them). So far, so good. I like his approach.
The Enemy is Resistance, and It Comes From Within
That’s basically it: the obstacle to creating the art in our hearts is not big and scary and implacable, it is merely our own reluctance. It does not matter what form this resistance takes—we can overcome it. Here’s a highlight from the book:
There’s a lot of power there! We are our own worst enemies, our own greatest champions. It’s all in us, baby!
I haven’t gotten to the part where he explains how I can beat resistance, but I’m looking forward to finding out so I can start writing again.
Oh, shit. I’m doing it now, aren’t I? Ah. Well, I’ll give him that one.
Poetry Break
the past is so horribly fast.
—from I Have a Time Machine, by Brenda Shaughnessy
How Do You Picture a Year?
This isn’t a Rent reference, this part is literally about how we imagine the flat segment of time called a year, divided into the 12 months we all know and love. Here’s a TikTok about it:
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You know how you occasionally encounter somebody who experiences things the same weird way you do? Or maybe they’ve thought about the same thing, but had a different way of thinking about it?
I’m sure there’s a long, labored German word for this phenomenon but whatever you call it, I experienced it when I saw that TikTok. Some people might focus on the fact that she’s eating while she records a video, and how affected and purposeful that specific trope is among TikTokers (it evokes casualness and familiarity, which people respond to). But not me. I’m thinking about calendars.
This is how I imagine a year. It starts in September and ends in August. I know exactly where this weirdness comes from because whenever I imagine that year I am also sitting, cross-legged, on some masking tape on the carpet in front of a chalk board, and this calendar is above it. It is my kindergarten at Woodsdale Elementary School in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Little did the person who put that calendar up on the wall above the chalk board know that a man in his 40s would keep that image in his head for the entirety of his life.
“How you imagine a calendar” is only one of those things that run around in my head that I occasionally find outside of myself, in another person. I think it is those moments of shared experience that keep me engaged in art and stories and all that stuff.
The Section of Recommendations
I don’t have a lot to say in this newsletter today, but I’m forcing myself to sit down and write it because I will feel better about myself if I do that. So I’m going to throw a bunch of recommendations at you, okay?
Grant Howitt’s One Page RPGs
I love role playing games. I don’t mean the computer console video game kind (though I do like those). I mean the kind where you sit down at a table with friends and dice and tell a little story together. There are lots of different ways to do that (Dungeons and the occasional Dragon is the most famous example), but I’m most excited lately about One Page Role Playing Games. It’s a whole genre of game and, for my money, the best in the business is Grant Howitt.
That’s not fair to other One Page RPG makers but his are a beautiful mixture of everything I love, with humor and verve and weirdness. He is most famous for creating Honey Heist, which got so popular that a prominent website wrote a whole article about him and it.
I have two games that I use to illustrate what I love about these games and the ones I want to play the most (and have yet to find a group who wants to, somehow!). These recommendations for two different audiences.
For veterans of the Dungeon/Dragon game, I point to ADVENTURE SKELETONS. In most traditional games (like that popular one) you play an adventurer who goes down into dungeons and fights the monsters inside them and loot the crypts for treasure. In Adventure Skeletons you play the monsters (skeletons, in this case) who put on some bits of armor from dead adventurers and their weapons and go to the “dungeon” (the village above ground) and fight “monsters” (villagers). It’s funny and silly and madcap and you’re not meant to play it a long time.
For anybody new to the genre, I like to suggest CRASH PANDAS, where you are a Fast and the Furious style family of raccoons who are driving a car, and each of you has a different part (steering wheel, brake, accelerator, etc.) and you can’t communicate. Also, maybe you smoke cigarettes?
Adriana’s Analog Art
When I saw Adriana’s art recommended to me on Instagram, I was intrigued because unlike your humble author, she doesn’t tell everybody about everything she’s doing at all times. It was a nice surprise to see the art she’s doing and she’s talented and I’m honored to know her.
https://instagram.com/p/CqgkBLiuBwM/
That’s all. That’s all I have for you. Life is hard and you’re up to the challenge. To the hard things. Make yourself uncomfortable.
Here’s the best TikTok I’ve seen this month:
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