3 things writers need desperately right now
What we need most when the world is a mess
Sometimes my thoughts are such a muddle I don’t even know where to start.
Joan Didion once said she writes to find out what she thinks and I like that because I find myself doing the same and sometimes as I’m writing and digging for facts, I end up changing my mind because of what I learn along the way. But even in saying that, I know a lot of people say what they think, except they haven’t. Thought. They haven’t dug into any facts or done any research. Just repeat what they heard or know.
One example. Renee Good is all over the feeds. All the outcry that ICE shot her, and if that’s not bad enough, so close to where George Floyd was killed. And it’s true and it’s horrible and I saw the photo of her vehicle and the blood on the airbag and the stuffed toys for her babies in the glove compartment and I cried. But also?
She’s the ninth person shot in the last five months. The second killed. The first death was also a parent. Had two little boys he’d just dropped off at school. Like Ms. Good, he was turning his vehicle away when the shots happened. All those two little boys know is Daddy took them to school and then they didn’t have a daddy anymore.
Why wasn’t he all over the feeds? Because Renee Good was a woman? Because he was a man and an immigrant from Mexico? I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t. I suspect there’s probably more than one answer. There usually is.
I suspect some people will be angry that I even posed the question. Because a horrible thing happened and this isn’t the time to talk about that man. But when is?
Injustice and beauty are my passions. The things that move me. Art. Writing. And injustice. I cannot see an injustice and not say it out loud because if I don’t say anything I feel like I’m condoning it. Like I’m complicit, somehow.
And I know I’m not. But once you know, how can you not say it? I’d always rather know what’s happening than not know but we aren’t all built that way.
Here’s what my ex used to say. I don’t want to know what you think, because you go get facts and I don’t want any facts, I just want to feel how I feel. Which is part of why he’s my ex, but also? That’s a lot of people. It really is. Look around.
Read a few feminist posts. Read my Epstein post or my Grok post on Borked.
Yesterday I wrote about a change Elon Musk made to Grok AI in December. They’ve dived into the nudifying trend. If you have a Grok account, you can give it any photo, tell it to undress the person and it will. Elon Musk had a little laugh, posted a photo of Bill Gates in a bikini. hahah. So funny. Of course, that’s not how people are using it.
Mostly, they’re grabbing photos of celebrities, journalists, media and hot women off Instagram. Telling Grok to put her in a transparent string bikini. That’s a popular prompt. Oh, and make her boobs bigger. And maybe bend her over. Hahaha.
A long time reader I know from Medium said it’s going to change. God, I hope she’s right. I just don’t know how when AI companies are running rampant. I have so little hope for needed restrictions in the AI industry I’m willing to borrow a little of hers.
One commenter said this is terrible, I can’t heart this.
Another said it’s too disturbing to restack.
You know the hearts are for the writer, yeah? A heart isn’t omg, I love this. It can be. In the case of art, and beautiful writing. But it can also be holy crap, thank you for saying this out loud, please keep writing. And the restacks? Restacking is how we say this needs to be read by more people.
My opinion, of course. You know that thing we say about opinions, right? They’re like backsides. We all have one and no two are the same.
Back in 1818, German Romanticist artist Caspar David Friedrich painted a piece he called Wanderer Above the Sea Of Fog. It’s one of the most famous paintings of the Romantic Era. The Romantics were a bit of a backlash to the Industrial Era.
They believed life wasn’t just industry and productivity. They believed passion and intuition mattered more than was vogue at the beginning of the industrial era.
Like a lot of famous art, it got more famous after the artist died. We looked at the painting and interpret it as a depiction of self-reflection. One man contemplating his life and existence. Gazing off into the fog and letting his imagination run wild.
The romantics believed beauty was more than form. Evoking emotion mattered, too, and I can’t help but wonder how the emotion of that painting would change if there were flames on the horizon because the world was burning down around him.
This morning I read a post by one of the top writers on Substack. He was writing about the ICE shooting of Renee Goode and he shared some video clips and at the end he said look, if you need to take a break from the news cycle, I get it. Take a breather. Walk away for a while, it’ll all still be here when you get back.
I nodded. Yes, I thought. That’s the problem, isn’t it?
It will all still be here when we get back.
When my kiddo was little the neighbor called one day. She said hey, want to take the kids skating? I said sure, let’s. So we get to the rink and she pulled the weirdest thing out of her car. She’d taken a giant pillow. Put it in a nylon cover and attached straps.
I watched her clip it around her daughter’s waist. Pull a strap between the legs of her little ski pants and clip it to the waist strap. And then the little girl stepped onto the ice, her feet promptly went out from under her, and she landed right on the pillow.
God, couldn’t we all use a soft place to land, some days?
We writers, we’re seeing all of this. There’s no escaping it. Not unless we log off the internet and never read anything, anywhere, ever again.
And I think in today’s world there are three things writers need desperately. We need to be able to look into the horizon and imagine a future. We need to have hope, even if it’s hanging by one thread. And we need somewhere soft to land when the world knocks us on our backsides. As always, I’d love to know what you think…
P.S. January gift for paid subscribers will be out Tuesday. It’s an in-depth guide to better titles that goes beyond the advice that hasn’t helped so far. Because honestly, if you’re struggling to grow, titles are why. Watch your email for it. 💌
I agree with your three things, Linda.
And I think we should also consider that we can help to provide these things to our readers, since they also need these things.
One more thing I'd add is that trust is golden, and if we want to earn trust we have to be as sure as we can that we have reliable sources of information.
I make the assumption that our readers want to know what's going on and are also traumatized by world events right now. So I try to write accordingly, honouring the times we're in, our need for correct information and how traumatized people are feeling by world events.
I think what writers need the most is protection of language. we work with words and can't do our work if dishonesty and misuse of language renders words meaningless.