I’ve been thinking a lot about branding. Significantly more knowledgeable people than I am have suggested finding my niche, writing-wise, and committing. I don’t think it’s a bad idea, and I’m not morally against it or anything – though, as an old, it does shiver my Gen-X soul a little – but the biggest issue is that I don’t have any idea what my thing really is.
Just looking at my output, what’s been successful and what hasn’t, the intersection of transplant, trauma, mental health and pop culture is probably the answer, but, honestly, I’m exhausted already just thinking about that. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important and necessary, but it takes a lot out of a person to do that. Making it my professional identity seems like bad news.
All the branding issues aside, I’ve been having a hard time focusing lately on anything, and haven’t been able to come up with many ideas. Since January, I’ve had six articles published but the topics for all of them were given to me by someone else. The one thing I came up with on my own was a non-starter. So maybe “focusing” was the wrong word; I can write just fine, but I need someone else to give me the thesis statement.
Even short fiction has felt like a struggle. I’ve written about six stories, too, in the last year, maybe, but I’ve only just sold one. (Details forthcoming.) Style-wise, they’re all over the place. Quality-wise, too; there’s a couple stinky shitpiles in there. And none of them came as easily as they used to. It really felt like a fight to get a completed story out. (The exception is a Jersey Devil horror novella I just wrote, but I’ve kind of been sitting on that idea for decades.)
All told, I’ve been feeling pretty unmoored lately. Adrift. I know some of that’s from starting Trikafta, a modulator therapy that’s literally rewriting the faulty proteins inside of me. It’s been leaving me pretty tired and foggy. Though, a month in, I think that’s finally starting to lift a little. But, even before that, just left to my own devices, I haven’t feel particularly motivated in a while – and even when I do, actually being creative is a struggle. I know some of that’s the pandemic, and a lot of it’s the cumulative, cascading effect of hearing no over and over and over again, from publishers and agents and editors. But knowing all that, and knowing what to do about all that, are two very different things.
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Anyway, here are some links to those aforementioned articles:
Star Trek: Discovery Understands the Trauma of Life After Death, Nerdist
This one came about while Monica and I were bingeing the show and David Cronenberg gave a speech that seemed eerily accurate to what I was going through following my lung transplant. Wilson Cruz even tweeted about it!
The rest are from a particularly prolific couple of weeks at Cracked. These are the best of the bunch, even if no one famous did tweet about them.
6 Outdated Supervillain Tropes, Updated for Today, Cracked
Meet Springfield’s Most Evil Citizens: Mr. Burns and Maggie Simpson, Cracked
A Deeper Look at the MCU’s “Military Problem”, Cracked
The Most Amazing Thing About Spider-Man (Is That He Even Exists), Cracked
The Spider-Man one above is probably one of my favorite things I’ve written, for whatever that’s worth. I really enjoyed delving into the history of Marvel Comics and (re)reading some of the original Spidey stories.