I like to believe there's magic in our world. In fact, I’d say I am a mystical thinker. I read my horoscope, I’ve met with fortune tellers, I get an annual tarot card reading, and I believe in signs. It gives me joy and a thrill to interpret what destiny has in store for me. Most people who are close to me know that about me, so today, when I read a fortune from my Chinese take out cookie and then threw it to the side disinterestedly, a friend was quick to snatch it up and find out what the paper said:
A creative endeavor will bring you fulfillment and recognition this year.
“I thought a fortune like that would make you happy,” they said. I shrugged. The prediction felt and still feels impossible. There are only four months left in the year, and 2024 as a whole has been my most unproductive writing year in recent history. Compound that with the staggering amount of jealousy and inadequacy I’ve been feeling and, well, there was no joy or thrill in the fortune.
You see, lately I feel like I’m falling behind in all aspects of my life. I’m watching my dearest writing friends produce some of their best work, my brothers welcome new babies and buy houses, and my professional colleagues move into new positions. By comparison, I feel stagnant, or worse, regressive. I know I have not had an easy year, I know respite is necessary, but up until now I’ve always defined myself as someone who works well—who produces good work—under pressure.
Even though I scoffed at the fortune, I still kept it. I still hung it up on my whiteboard with my favorites. Because the thing is, I do believe there’s magic in our world and I believe the most unlikely of fortunes can come true. With that strip of paper staring down at me behind my writing desk, I had to ask myself some questions. What if four months is plenty of time? What if I allow “creative endeavor” to encompass anything I choose to do? What if I apply the same belief I’ve granted fate to myself? What if I haven’t actually fallen behind?
It dawned on me. I haven’t. I haven’t actually fallen behind.
Here is the thing about comparison, especially when it comes to writing: you are only ever in competition with yourself. There is no first and second place in writing something meaningful or entertaining or worthy. There are infinite ways to accomplish any of those, but only one way that you can tell a specific story to your best ability. When it comes to falling behind, it is quite simply impossible, because we are all running different obstacle courses. If nothing else, the writing community I’ve built has shown me that participating in other writers’ journeys helps you along on your own. Talk about magic in our world; that is exactly what it feels like to walk out of someone else’s workshop inspired for your own writing. So maybe right now I’m in a mud pit, or army crawling under a cargo net, or taking a water break, but I’m still in my obstacle course. I’m still in competition with no one but myself. Once I start moving again, the only direction is the winner’s circle.
My kernel of prediction: Creative endeavors will bring us all fulfillment and recognition this year.
Inspiration, Information, & Insight
Shelby read an advance reader copy of Woo Woo by Ella Baxter, which has become one of her favorite reads of the year. Out in December, the story follows 38-year-old conceptual artist Sabine as she questions her work’s relevancy while dealing with a stalker and the apparition of conceptual artist Carolee Schneemann, who becomes a mentor of sorts. Shelby also read The Coin by Yasmin Zaher for her book club, which was particularly thought-provoking for its compactness. And she’s currently reading The God of the Woods by Liz Moore because the bookstore she works for can’t keep it in stock and the plot intrigued her enough to want to know if the book lives up to its hype.
Neidy attended a book club for writers hosted by Cece Lyra. They read My Mother Cursed My Name by Anamely Salgado Reyes. Reyes’s book, like Neidy’s own novel-in-progress, is a multi-pov family drama. Neidy also attended two virtual workshops with the NYS Writers Institute and caught up on recent episodes of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing.
Sarah has been taking a deep-dive into the speculative for a speculative fiction workshop she’s enrolled in this semester. She just finished reading Jonathan Lethem’s As She Climbed Across the Table and Octavia Bulter’s Fledgling, which have her thinking about how she wants to toe the line in her own work between genre-based speculative, like Butler’s novel, and the so-called literary-speculative, like Lethem’s. This week she workshopped a short chapter from her own speculative work-in-progress as well as a new short story, and she’s excited about the revisions and world-building writing exercises she has planned for the coming weeks.
Natalia is currently out of office.