A Long-Form Mind
On attention spans & holding space
Good morning, all, & welcome to 2024. I hope it treats you well.
A few weeks ago, I was able to see Ann Patchett in conversation with R. Eric Thomas, in a fairly large church that was packed to standing-room-only, easily the biggest audience I’ve seen an author draw besides Neil Gaiman1. It was my first time hearing her speak in person, and it was delightful; she’s so smart, and really knows how to spin a story and keep a crowd engaged. (Something a lot of authors can do on the page, of course, but can’t always translate to public speaking. She 100% can.) Patchett talked about the experience of writing a ~*~pandemic novel~*~, about being in studio when Meryl Streep read the Tom Lake audiobook2, and about how she does most of her writing on a treadmill desk, because it keeps her “brain squirrels” at bay.
Later, as she discussed her writing process, she spoke for a bit about the difference between writing magazine features (where she got her start, as rumor has it one used to be able to do), and writing novels, and about how she somewhat famously does not have any cell phone or social media3:
I have a long-format brain. It’s how I make my living, it’s how I can stay focused on a novel and work on it for years at a time. I stopped watching TV in my twenties… I said no more. I want to live my life. I don’t want to be constantly interrupted. I went years without a cell phone [and when I finally got one], it’s a dumb phone, it lives in the car. How do you maintain your sanity? That’s the most important thing to me. It’s about not blowing around in the wind4.
I can’t advocate for never watching TV5, but as someone a few years into working on a novel with a very typical (bad) millennial attention span, I’ve been thinking a lot about that sort of sustained attention, about returning to a large project over and over without completely losing the plot or getting overwhelmed or just plain old bored. Specifically, I took a break from my novel over the past month or so, writing and editing a new short story that I wanted to have completed by the new year. It felt good; I was excited about the story, and then I didn’t write as much over the Christmas days anyways, between driving back and forth to Pennsylvania and other holiday things. And then I sat down at my desk on the afternoon of 12/31 ready to return to my novel and felt like I was swimming through quick-drying cement, utterly stumped by the notes I left myself for the chapter I was in the middle of. I wrote maybe 200 clunky words and quit for the day.
Some days it’s very easy to disregard the work I’ve done to this point, to disparage any progress I’ve made, and to feel like a total amateur kidding herself by working toward any kind of writing goal.
The bad news is that I’m a slow writer to begin with, partly due to how my brain works and partly due to life. The good news is that, though I get jealous when I hear about writers who crank out a magical draft in a few weeks, I don’t think I would trade places with them, at least not for long. I have plenty of things in my life I tend to rush: I pick up hobbies or projects (sourdough bread, a knit colorwork strawberry tea cosy), work in a flurry to master it, and then cool quickly, bored once the thing is achieved. Because the feeling of completion is so much more elusive to me in writing, the project is sustained for so much longer, allowing more time for craft, for improvement, for growth. The draft I’m working on now is almost unrecognizable from the one I was muddling through at the end of 2020, and it’s better for it. And when I do get that restless urge in writing— boredom, the urge to be done, the longing for something novel (excuse the pun)— I can turn to a short project for a few weeks, and enjoy the flurry of production, knowing that my long-form project is waiting for me when I’m done.
On days like last Sunday, when the re-entry feels like a slog or even when I’m just generally feeling a bit stuck, I turn back to structure. I keep a few reference materials handy:
A slim outline, with the main plot points of the book
A robust outline, with a few sentences at least summarizing each chapter and/or describing what the chapter needs to accomplish
A cast of characters and their relationships
A rough timeline of the plot of the book (including some events that happen before the book but which are referred to/important to characters— very important so I can remember what year I’m writing in)
A playlist for two characters (a couple).
News clippings and reference materials
Usually— on good days— I can sort of flip back through the reference work I’ve already done, re-immerse my brain in the project, and get started again. On less successful days, I simply commit to reviewing the material, opening the document or my notebook, and holding space if anything useful will come. And on the least successful days— when I’ve stared at the word doc or gone for a walk and all my sentences sound like Spot’s First Walk or I wake up in the middle of a twenty-minute Instagram fugue, I read a good novel, often one that I’ve read before and that inspires me in some way.
As I read back over what I’ve written here, it sounds a bit like I’m reassuring myself, and I kind of am. Some days it’s very easy to disregard the work I’ve done to this point, to disparage any progress I’ve made, and to feel like a total amateur kidding herself by working toward any kind of writing goal. I beat myself up, quite a lot, for not doing or accomplishing more things more quickly. Particularly at the start of the New Year when I’m focused on all the things I want to do6, I can forget how important it is to look back where I started, and reflect on how far I’ve come, even if I’m not doing it as quickly as I once imagined. I’d like to do less of that in the new year.
So, here’s to 2024. While I’m not giving up TV— The Gilded Age just got picked up for season three, after all— I am reminding myself that I kind of know what I’m doing, and I’m recommitting myself to my practice and the work. If you’re doing anything similar with your goals for the new year or just in general, I’d love to hear about it.
With love,
C
A few things I’ve been enjoying lately:
“The Counter,” by Stephen Dixon, in the new lit mag R&R.7
This very basic but indispensable neck warmer I got for Christmas after finally admitting to myself that I was never going to sew one for myself. It’s like ten dollars and it’s nothing special and it’s my best friend.
This essay from Kelsey McKinney at Defector, on doing creative things for the fun of it, without worry about success or perfection.
Tracee Ellis Ross telling the NYT she does three to four sheet masks a day.
Rereading The Lord of the Rings at Christmastime, which is perfect because 1) it’s great, 2) it’s such a deep and long and engaging story to dip in and out of between the chaos of other Christmassy things, 3) it was Christopher Lee’s Christmas tradition and if it’s good enough for him, etc; and 4) when Christmas is cancelled in Bethlehem due to ongoing genocide and the calendar is turning to an election year, it feels really really good to read a story where good triumphs over evil. Not forever, and not without pain, but they triumph. It’s a comfort8.
I liked but didn’t love Maestro, but I’ve really been enjoying listening to Bernstein’s Mahler’s Symphony #2.
Nathan got me a collected Miyazaki Blu-ray set for Christmas, which is really exciting. We started at the beginning with his first (pre-Studio Ghibli) feature and maybe the only one I’d never seen before, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, and it was so fun and charming.
Eating braised pork and sauerkraut on 1/1, for good luck. I don’t follow a recipe, just my heart and the guidance of my Plain ancestors, but be sure and add an apple and a spoon of brown sugar.
The essay “Gods, Guns, Country, and Jim Bakker,” by L Mari Harris, in Poverty House. Technically about the Ozarks but much of it could be about Lancaster County.
I got there quite early and got a good seat because I happened to be coming right from work, so I was privy to a full half-hour parade of people bitching about others who “saved seats,” many of whom then proceeded to save a seat themselves. Humans, man.
I mean, come on.
Technically, her bookstore has made her a TikTok sensation, but she says is simply the on-camera talent and does not do any engagement or maintenance, which I believe.
Ann Patchett, 12/11/2023, Church of the Redeemer, with apologies for the rough transcription (all errors my own).
Ann Patchett may be smarter than me but I can’t understate the amount of joy Matt Berry brings to my life on a not-regular-enough basis, so—
I’m a Virgo. I’ve been editing my resolutions for at least a month.
I’m not a big Stephen Dixon reader but I’ve been sort of craving lit and art about Baltimore, specifically the more mundane (beyond John Waters and The Wire). Regardless of the actual feel or content of the story it feels very cozy to read about my new city in fiction, like slowly getting to know a new friend.
Also the reason it’s the only book on the “reading/enjoying lately” list, because I’ve been working my way through a 1000+ page behemoth (she said lovingly)