I promised myself no metaposting until the end of the month, but I’m a naughty boy, I just can’t help myself … to compromise, this will be an extra post on top of the daily one. I’ll start with the fun stuff and talk about the writing later. Who cares about writing?

(If you found this randomly somehow, Inkhaven is a blogging residency where you publish a post every single day — or get kicked out. Scientists report it the closest thing to heaven on earth yet produced!)

The fun stuff

I arrived at Lighthaven campus on the 31st and it might be my favorite place in the world. Not only is it chock full of startlingly brilliant and fascinating characters, but it’s a straight storybook location: everywhere is lush and gorgeous and nooked and crannied.

(images here when I remember)

The first day saw a speedfriending session, featuring a prepared list of provocative questions and a suitably dramatic gong to signal partner switchups every few minutes – surprisingly efficient at converting strangers into acquaintances! The following two days had talks by authors Alexander Wales and Max Harms, one on canonical writing advice and the other on “the second most important thing for writing.”¹

I also attended a feedback circle for fiction, which attracted remarkable variety of genres (science fiction, isekai, near-future satire, Lynchian quasi-erotica)². This was closely followed by “Shake n’ Bake,” where we staged Twelfth Night while working in the kitchen³ (I had a lot of fun playing Duke Orsino; he’s the sort of self-indulgent aesthete right after my own heart). The next day saw a spate of surveys and experiments for the empiricist zine The LOOP; the day after that, a workshop on “ethical clickbait.” I found out that I lack the constitution for glowfic after a short-lived try with Alicorn, listened to Milton Friedman’s son talk about his experiences at medieval reenactment camps, and watched — at a “weird movie night” — a biopic of the 2001 Japanese Classic horse races except the horses are replaced with anime girls…

The week closed with an open mic night. Many tremendously talented people played guitar — and one, an autoharp. The night saw two comedy routines and the spontaneous performance of an original play. Friedman and I recited poetry; one guy did a dramatic monologue in praise of Costco. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.

The writing

Oh boy. I think I’m doing a good job here, insofar as I haven’t been kicked out for missing a day, but I also struggle to say I’m especially proud of anything I’ve published so far. It feels as if I’m treading water with the lower-effort pieces and the higher-effort ones have been really wrestling me. I wrote a short story after Max Harms’s talk on tension that I planned to publish that night; somehow I’m still staring at it five nights later.⁴ I planned on writing roughly 1/3 fiction, 1/3 reviews, and 1/3 argumentative pieces. So far:

• 1 metapost
• 2.5 reviews
• 3.5 fiction
• 1 nonfiction
  And in order:

1. Inkhaven Desiderata: In Alexandria there is the saying that only a man who has already committed a crime and repented of it is incapable of that crime; in this tradition I forgive myself for the Inkhaven metapost.
2. Zaregoto // Nonsense: I reread these on the plane because light novels are light fare. I didn’t consider, jet-lagged as I was, that they’re almost impossible to review without spoilers.
3. My Dinner with Dante: This was my best work this week, I think, but I haven’t found a single person who actually watched the movie so it feels like a bit of a waste.
4. In the Loop: The most fun for sure. I think it could be misinterpreted as lazily mocking a certain strain of research papers but that wasn’t my intent and I had to resist hinting at any nuance because that just kills comedy.
5. Leonard Cohen’s worst album was made at gunpoint: The product of the clickbait workshop. There’s something about someone giving you permission to use a forbidden technique that really jacks you up.
6. Shrine of Sloth 1-3: My try at stream-of-consciousness flash fiction; I’d been reading some Wodehouse and wondered what it would look like if you used the microhumorous prose without writing any, like, actual jokes. A weird effect but I don’t mislike it.

Also…

…BIG NEWS!

I was selected as one of two WordPress.com Chairs! they have very generously sponsored my program fee and set me up with this website. It’s a bit of pressure — the other chair is Drew Schorno, who is very obviously one of the most talented writers in our cohort — but I’m bowled over with gratitude. Hopefully I don’t get kicked out or, worse, bring shame to the WordPress.com name. See you next week! (… or tomorrow?)

1. Feel that? It’s tension. ↩︎
2. Mine was Borgesian pseudohistory. ↩︎
3. Inspired by the famous line in Act II Scene III: “Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” ↩︎
4. I’ve been showing it to people and getting completely contradictory feedback; it’s driving me crazy! ↩︎