What Am I Doing?

I've been struggling with the question of what to do with this Patreon, since I've decided I'm not writing about politics or social justice directly anymore.

Part of the issue is that I don't have anything definitive to say about any of that anymore. I've said it. I don't have much interest in continuing to repeat myself about it. Greed and bigotry (in its many, many forms) are no way to structure a social order meant to encourage or enable human well being. They annihilate the humanity of the greedy, the bigoted and the people whose existence and humanity is devalued because of the greedy and the bigoted. There aren't any new ways to say it. Every culture in the world has history, mythology, folklore and modern narrative non-fiction and fiction that cover every possible way it can be said.

I think now, what I'm interested in are questions. I think that's what I've always been interested in, but there's a reward system in place for answers, especially easy answers in non-fiction. The explosive rise of Influencer culture pretty thoroughly demonstrates this. It certainly looks to me like Influencer culture is just a repackaging of the worst instincts and aspects of the self help and wellness industries, combined with a more overt consumerism. Do please notice I specifically said, ".... the worst instincts and aspects..." I understand and do believe there are people in those industries who not only mean well, but are progressing from a foundation of evidence, research and investigation. I also think those people are severely outnumbered and the free for all that those industries are means a lot of very successful snake oil salespeople. It's also part of the reason snark and outrage do so well on social media, both of which I've certainly engaged in more than my fair share of in the past, but are just not things I want them to be big parts of who I am anymore.

Those kind of come together in a dissatisfaction with social media that's both changing and growing. There is less I feel like I need to have an opinion about, and I'm also feeling a sense of revolt against it's influence on collapsing everything into the smallest, most engagement hungry bites possible. Personally, I want to slow down, and think things through more than that. I think it's also partially due to the combination of writing longer form pieces, and reading more. I'm finding myself bored with the repetition of social media, because most of the books I've been reading have been more interesting.

I'm coming to the realization that I'm ready for something slow and steady, and that's pretty much what my "strategy" is for my writing. I'm going to keep writing, putting out whatever I feel is ready, however I can. If I'm fortunate enough to find places to that want to publish it, great. If not, I'll figure out how to self publish. The strategy now is to just keep plugging, a little bit at a time. This short story is going to be ready soon, and I'll try to find someone to sell it to, but if not, I'll probably package it with the novella I've already written and sell them as one. I do plan on trying to figure out how to give Patreon subscribers a discount.

My "Big Dream" is to establish a relationship with an audience that allows me to write for a living, and be able to live a modest life that gives me the opportunity to occasionally visit friends and family, travel once in a while, and continue engaging with the different varieties of art other people are creating. I'd like to have an audience with whom I can grow, experiment and change, and who are okay with that. Personally, most of the best relationships I've had with individual artists work, has come from that experience, getting to see them evolve over time. I don't need or want to be rich. I would like to know my meals, housing and health care are not under constant threat, but hey, this is The United States, so I also know that is asking a lot.

Maybe it's because I'm in the midst of writing a novel and a short story, and I'm starting to see the next step, finding a way to get it published, that I've been thinking about it. It's also been something I've always thought about, as someone who loves the arts. I've been thinking a lot about our relationship with artists, as a collective, and also in more specific terms of economics, historical context, specific social issues etc. The way AI is currently being discussed has lead me to thinking a lot about it as well. There may not be anything as demonstrative of the degree to which we don't value the arts as more than the equivalent of a happy ending at a massage parlor, than the speed at which so many industries and individuals among the public seem ready to have AI composition become the source of most of our artwork. That's pretty terrifying, as a writer and as someone for whom the arts have always been one of the most steady, reliable lifelines.

If I'm really honest though, there's also a part of me that thinks it would be great if these industries starting dumping their fortunes into AI. I think there's a version of that story that leads to the largest companies in the industries surrounding the arts going down like the Titanic. If I'm going to be completely honest, I think I'm a fairly good writer. There are folks whose work I admire and respect because I know it's better than mine. I know that anyone with any penchant for reading would prefer something I'd written to anything any AI has written, even if a human has come back to heavily edit it. A thing that never lived can't imitate living in a way that's going to resonate with those of us who have. It's really about that simple. I do have some fear about the future generations though. If they're raised on AI created content, and that becomes the norm, I'm not so sure how much bandwith they'll have for the things that are created with the complexity human beings carry into art.

All of this is to say, I think what I'm going to be posting here on Patreon, for now, will be about our relationship to artists, media, and the popular arts. I don't think I'm going to have very much definitive to say, so much as I will be trying to find the way to ask better questions. I think there are a few purposes that can serve.

One is that the arts are becoming even more important as our political structures falter, break and/or fail to meet our needs. We both acknowledge those and attempt to imagine better, through the arts, most specifically storytelling of different varieties.

Another is that the arts are an expression and celebration of our humanity. If there's one thing about our collective attitude and approach to the arts that I'd like to see changed, it's to move toward recognizing they're not just products, no different than the latest techno dongle or consumerist trend. We've been making art since we became human. We make art no matter what else is happening. When human beings have been facing the worst possible conditions, atrocities and disasters, we've made art about it. When we've faced the best conditions human beings have ever had the privilege to experience, we've made art about it. Art isn't a luxury. We may not be able to express exactly why, but the evidence that the arts are a necessity is pretty clear.

Last, it gives me the opportunity to start developing a relationship with an audience. By writing about the arts, about storytelling, about our relationships with different artists, I think it will give potential readers a decent idea of what to expect from my fiction. I don't think it will serve my writing to talk too much about what I'm working on at any given moment, but this can give folks an understanding of the perspective I approach those works from. I do think that's important in today's world. I can understand people wanting to have some sense of how a writer, musician or any other artists approaches their work and the world it exists in. People should be able to rely on whether or not the artist in question recognizes them as human beings etc.

That this is a Patreon will give people who might be willing the chance to contribute to the effort to write more fiction. The thing about writing is that you don't get paid until a whole lot of work has already been done, and in some cases, that work can take years. A few extra bucks a month can go a long way for all of us, myself included.

So, from now on, you might find something here that asks, "Why Taylor Swift?" To be honest, I'm fascinated by our cultural obsession with her. I respect what she's achieved as an artist, and I recognize why her songwriting resonates with her fanbase the way it does. There's a whole lot of the rest of it that I have questions about. Another part of it, for me, is the antagonism the right has developed toward her. It's utterly bizarre. I haven't written anything about it, because I'm uncomfortable with the sense of entitlement to her private life that exists, and don't want to take part in that, in any way, but I do think I can ask some worthwhile questions about it all too. I think there's a lot dig into, and I think I can approach it in a way that's complicated and nuanced, without being disrespectful or shitty to her as an artist, her fans or her good faith detractors.

I have an idea cooking about the change in the landscape of horror cinema that took place in the first decade of the 21st century, how we're seeing the effects of it now, and how that feeds into horror being one of the few reliable box office bets left. To put it concisely, when discussing the different "eras" in horror, the importance of independent filmmaking gets undervalued. The 80's and 90's were a period of some of those independent distribution and/or production companies becoming what we recognize now as "minor majors." New Line and Lionsgate did then what A24 has done more recently, they went from a small independent to being major forces in the industry, not quite on the scale of the decades old studios. Part of what made that possible was studios chasing success they'd seen those independents have, so the say, the slasher era, became a product of that dynamic. Indies released successful slasher films, and studios went chasing what they saw as an emerging trend, which is why Paramount is involved in distributing something like Friday the 13th. The aughts are often characterized as the era of the "remake and reboot." There were a lot of those from major studios and from the minor majors that then existed, but that excludes what was happening in independent horror, which was wildly varied, and starting to show signs of moving back to horror for adults. Without films like May, Lake Mungo, Session 9, and what was coming in from other countries (rec.), we don't get to the explosion of horror with an adult audience in mind that came in the 2010's, which has been unfortunately now fallen under the label "elevated horror." There were people making horror films that weren't solely for a teenage audience, which had become more of a rarity throughout the 80's, 90's.

I think I might also take a swing at a piece about the instinct for different kinds of media to cosplay "working class" as ignorant, when there isn't actually a connection between the two, except for the cultural expectation and presentation.

There's a good chance I'll write some about my journey toward trying to publish too, if nothing else so that other people can learn from what I do wrong, and whether I get anything right. I don't ever see myself writing too much about writing itself. One of the things I've always known, but that has been even more forcefully driven home as I've tried to entangle the mess that is publishing advice, is that the actual process of writing can have some general best practices (for example, you do have to actually write and a regular practice is the best way to progress), but there really aren't any rules. I've already learned discussions about the boundaries of genre are not for me, and the vitriol/aggression they come with is baffling. There are things in life worth being an asshole about. Genre isn't one of them, as far as I'm concerned.

I've also gotten very clear, very quickly that I'm not really interested in "writing to market." If I were trying to write something to chase a current trend or just to meet genre parameters, it wouldn't be very good. I have to be interested in the thing I'm writing, beyond that. I feel like I owe anyone who'd be willing to read any fiction I write (especially if they're paying for it) the best work I can do. My strategy, currently, is write the thing, then figure out how to market it. I think people who read can handle a little genre wonkiness, especially horror readers. It's a big, wide, expansive genre, and I can find my own little place within it. I'm not so terminally unique that there aren't other people who will enjoy the same kinds of stories I enjoy or am interested in.

Anyway... That's what's up, right now, and for the foreseeable future.