back to writing/week 4 check-in
Hi, all. The Friday check-in is going to be quick today because I’ve got a to-do list that is making my heart race. I’ve returned this week to getting up early to write on my non-teaching days. Unfortunately, my eight year old has resumed his early wake-ups, too. At least he’s old enough now to be told to chill for a couple minutes while I work. (It helps that my office is also the guest bedroom, so he can bury himself in a blanket while I type.)
How are you doing? How were your little experiments this week?
notes and reading suggestions
I really liked this essay by Julia Metz about how writing personal nonfiction is like building a time machine:
Writing memoir is time travel. It’s a bit like a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip, the head-trippy ones where Calvin builds a time-travel machine out of a cardboard box and sends a version of himself back a few hours to do his homework. Things never turn out quite as Calvin plans, with comic results and metaphysical implications. Over two memoirs, I’ve sent a researcher self to excavate my personal life and the geopolitical past to create stories for the present. Each book marks a true point in time and space, a mark on a map. And then, my life moves forward, leaving behind a part of me as the narrator.
I know I am a bit of a broken record on the topic of Virginia Sole-Smith’s amazing work on parenting and bodies and diet culture but wow her essay this week—What We Get Wrong About Trauma and Fatness—was so smart and moving. I won’t quote it here because it’s so beautifully knit together that it’s hard to excerpt, but I really hope you’ll click over and read.
Barrelhouse Write-Ins are a great way to get online writing community and company; you can read more and sign up here.
Happy book birthday to poet Bronwen Tate, whose debut collection The Silk the Moths Ignore is out this week! I know the book’s engagement of “the liminal, sometimes gothic, spaces of miscarriage, pregnancy, and early parenthood” will speak right to the hearts of many readers of this newsletter. We’ll have an interview with her on Monday about how she’s used Helen Sword’s work on habits with her MFA students and in her own practice, what she learned about writing and community from working on a critical dissertation, and so much more. I loved talking with her, and I’m excited to share her wisdom with you all.
How did you experiment in your writing this week? What progress are you making on your goals? I’d love to hear how it’s going! You can always reply to this email, comment below, or find me on twitter (@nancy_reddy) and instagram (@nancy.o.reddy).