October 3-1-1

3 updates, 1 useful tool, 1 impactful image

Hi Readers,

Here’s the October installment of my monthly 3-1-1 series where I share 3 personal/writing updates, 1 useful tool and 1 impactful image.

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Three Updates

One: I am in revision hell.

This is the first time I’ve had a meaningful crisis of faith regarding my novel. Reading my manuscript after some time away has brought on such a confounding mix of emotions.

During some reading sessions, I am totally absorbed. It’s only when I pause that I realize how much I was carried away by the story, how quickly I had devoured chapters.

During other reads, I am just plain bored. I don’t care what’s happening. I don’t care how the events impact the hero. Regarding the story—I could take it or leave it.

As an author of that story, how can I possibly expect readers to care if I don’t?

Pausing to take stock, I understand that my plot is not the problem. Things are happening on the page. My hero is working to achieve her external goal.

But I feel that my hero’s internal motivation, her would-be personal transformation is just not a palpable part of the story arc. The story is missing character depth. Before seeing this flaw in my manuscript, I never realized how much witnessing the internal growth of the hero is a key part of a reader’s experience.

My plan is to revisit Lisa Cron’s Story Genius with the hope that I can learn how to build out my protagonist’s internal world, work in some interiority, and raise the emotional stakes.

But let me get real: I am worried I simply won’t be able to make this story better. I honestly do not know how to make a character have more depth, how to show that complexity through scenes and dialogue and prose, and how to make the character’s choices and rationalizations believable. I am truly flummoxed and it’s a scary place to be.

Two: Somebody show me some fall foliage, please.

It’s mid-October, and in central Ohio where I grew up, the trees have become an astonishingly bright shade of orange. Dotted throughout the orange are smatterings of sand-colored leaves that drift lazily to the ground and carpet lawns and parks until the foliage is piled so thick you can smell their sweet earthy decay almost everywhere you go.

The air has taken on a crisp quality, and though the sun is still bright in the sky, its rays have become sharp and sparse, as if it must cut through thicker atmosphere to reach the wanderers and dogs and children roaming the earth.

The nights come sooner and the darkness outside encourages time spent at home, curled up on a couch. It’s cool enough to snuggle under a blanket. Maybe light a spiced candle, or feed a fire with fresh logs. Fall in Ohio is for morning strolls through dense trees with a hot thermos of coffee in hand and soft leather boots underfoot.

I know, I know, weather in northern California where I live is the stuff of dreams, but maybe not my dreams, ok? Maybe I don’t like all the sunshine and lack of rain. Maybe I don’t like that the trees and shrubs look exactly the same shade of greenish brown month after month, year after year.  

There’s just nothing quite like that hygge feeling of living through autumn in the American Midwest.

Three: I’m in my punk phase, 20 years late.

I went to brunch last week with two of my friends, and told them I was thinking about getting an unusual haircut. I had printed out pictures of other people on the internet with the cut I wanted and I was going to show them to my hairstylist. I brought them for my girlfriends to take a look. 

But when I went to hand them the photos, I had the reflexive urge to snatch the photos away. The new look was going to be a big change from the standard shoulder-length hair style that was appropriate for the courtrooms and law offices I had frequented for the last decade. Internally I thought: What if my friends find this cringey? Will they think I’m having a mid-life crisis? Will they see this as a cry for attention?

But my internal response to those silent questions really surprised me: I didn’t care. I didn’t care what other people thought. This was what I wanted.

My friends are super nice, by the way, their comments were really encouraging (they probably would have been under any circumstance). But the point is that I didn’t need their affirmation.

For most of my life, I never knew myself well enough to feel confident in making bold choices about how I present in the world. It’s like I’m finally getting acquainted with a version of myself I had buried. I carry myself differently now, and it’s awesome.

Here’s the haircut, by the way.

One Useful Tool

Arc is the best browser I have ever used.

I got fed up with the Chrome browser earlier this year, and I was desperate for change. I needed a browser that didn’t make tab management so damn hard. I perpetually have a thousand browser tabs open. And I needed a way to store bookmarks that wasn’t just the stupid bookmarks bar, or an annoying array of embedded bookmark folders.

Thankfully, I found Arc. It’s a browser that lets users set up multiple “spaces,” which is like entering a different dedicated browsing mode (e.g., work, personal). I have four spaces, including a “content” space where I bookmark sites like Substack, Youtube, Kindle, and online courses for when I’m in a content-consuming mood.

Each space offers its own lefthand menu where users can pin frequently visited websites and organize them into folders. Having different spaces gives me more real estate to pin sites and store open tabs. My distracted, non-linear mind is so much better served by this browser.

And I don’t have to give up the things I do like about Chrome. Arc is built on the Chromium engine, so all my Chrome plugins, like my password manager, still work in Arc.

Arc values privacy. Unlike Google, it does not track my browser activity data and use it to sell internet ads.

One Impactful Photo

I was in Pittsburgh recently for a friends’ wedding. I managed to fit in a visit to the Andy Warhol Museum. If you haven’t noticed—I’m a huge Warhol fan, and his work influences a lot of the photos and branding here on Write on Track.

For example, this picture of me on the right is inspired by Warhol’s Marilyn collection.

Left: Warhol of Marilyn, Right: Me

I was surprised to learn that Warhol was friends with Basquiat (another artist I admire). They collaborated with each other on art projects, and damn I wish I was a fly on a wall during their hangouts.

Just imagine it—an artsy gay white man who grew up in Pittsburgh hanging out with a Haitian graffiti artist in 1980’s New York. They should make a movie. (Actually, I discovered that someone wrote a play about their tumultuous friendship).

Here’s a photo of an elephant that Baquiat worked on for Warhol, but that Keith Herring ultimately finished. Behind the elephant you see other art that came out of Warhol-Basquiat collaborations.

That’s all for this week.

For the commenst:

1. Have you ever been in revision hell? If so, how did you get out of the woods?

2. What is your favorite season?

3. Who is an artist that inspires you?

Thanks for hanging out, friends.

Noor