camera's rolling
Hello. I’m back from visiting the set of the movie adaptation of This is Not a Test. I can't share much, if anything yet, but this is something I wrote in 2022 from a five year diary I kept for only a year: I feel like I'm watching my career end.
I've found a lot of gratification on the sentence level lately. Writing has gotten so painstaking and so granular in a way that completes something inside me. Always revision looming somewhere on the horizon, yes, but I won't think of moving toward it until I feel in my bones I've said what needs to be said. In and of itself, as part of a greater whole. I read back what I’ve written and I feel good when it works and even when it doesn't—because the moment it doesn't is also the moment before it will.
If you’ve been here a while1, you know this newsletter has largely become a chronicle of process, craft, of how disconnected I’ve been creatively, of trying to get ‘it’ back. Creative reconnection has not been the result of any golden ticket promise of what is to come for me or the book I’m working on—there are none—but because it’s a part of me that insisted on itself. That no matter how broken, it was worth repairing.
I love storytelling. I love storytellers. Art and artists. So much of what's brought me back to my own work, over time, has been in studying the perspectives and approaches of other creatives, and the last two days I've witnessed a movie production comprised of people tapping into their extraordinary talents and artistry to commit to a story they want to tell. I’ve witnessed the unique contributions that define their part in telling it, of what that asks from them at any given moment and the ways in which they respond, which was always in consideration of everyone else’s efforts and of the ultimate goal of seeing this narrative through. Adam’s brilliant directing. Cybill's brilliant producing. The entire crew's enthusiasm and careful attention to detail. Production, camera work, set design, props, costumes, make-up, drivers, PAs and on and on . . .
I got to see Olivia, Froy, Corteon, Chloe, Carson, and more, channel their acting skills to bring their characters to life. Their control over their craft, narrowing each moment to its emotional core alongside the intensity of Adam’s direction and visual language left us with no choice but to fall into their apocalypse. I loved watching them work. I'm so energized by it. People asked me if I cried happy tears on set and I managed to hold it together, but This is Not a Test energizing other artists is the part of this experience that really makes me want to.
It was a beautiful time. Still is.
I've been in publishing too long to bet on total reciprocity, or meritocracy, the return hard work guarantees, or to get behind certain notions and declarations of what is owed and ‘deserved.’ What I owe my work is everything. What I want for it is everything. Neither entitles me to anything. I’m grateful for what people choose to share with it, for supporting it, for what it has received. I’m excited and so happy for this experience, and what more I get to share of it with you—because there is so much more to come.
In 2022, I was trying to excise a part of myself I can't actually operate without because I wanted relief from the pain it was causing me. Now I do my best to negotiate the concerns of my career from a place that protects the art that lights up my mind and my heart. And I’ve been reading a lot about sentences lately, of commitment to expression, and how writing a sentence is the collapse of certain possibilities, but not all of them. To become what it is, you have to accept what doors have been closed. But the door you leave through is the door others are led to, where they meet your story. Whatever does or doesn’t happen next, you told a story. And what a gift, to tell a story.
How I love telling you stories.
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"To become what it is, you have to accept what doors have been closed."
I had to stop and reread that sentence out loud. I love it and I know it's the sort of sentence that will stick. I love the energy of this whole post.
I absolutely LOVE this post. I'm hearing an optimism in your words, a hopefulness that has been evolving for the past few months as you've tapped into the language, visual production, choices, and teachings of your mentors. I'm so grateful we are the second-hand recipients of these lessons.