A few notes and experiments

And the things I do to myself as a writer.

I started out this quarter saying that I was going to write an essay every Monday, study texts with you on Wednesdays, and write fiction on Fridays.

But I’m realizing that my writing can’t fit into such clean categories. Right now I have more essays than I can count lined up (so Mondays are full), but I need to complete more book research before I can write the next chapter of my utopian novel (so Fridays are empty). In addition to studying texts, I am also working on podcast episodes, video discussions, and interviews that don’t fit neatly into those categories at all. And I would love to host the occasional discussion, letters with other thinkers, etc.

So I’m going to be a bit more experimental with the rest of this quarter (and going forward, if I like it). I’m going to let my research guide me and publish things as I learn about them. I will publish up to three posts per week, usually starting with an essay on Mondays, but where the rest of the week might contain more essays, fiction, interviews, audio podcasts, video discussions, cross-posts, discussion threads, writing prompts, letters exchanged with other writers, films, marginalia from the books I’m reading, etc.

For whatever reason I was stifling myself creatively, creating boxes my work had to fit into, and then feeling like I wasn’t meeting my deadlines because even though I have 12 posts I could publish, I wasn’t yet finished with a book I needed to outline for a Wednesday. It was silly really.

So you’ll hear from me 2-3 times a week. The rest is unbound by constraints. (And will be filled with collaboration with likeminded utopian thinkers!)

Thanks for reading,

Elle Griffin