Greetings From An Airplane
Week of April 17-24
Welcome to my newsletter! Today I’m writing this from an airplane flying from Melbourne to Singapore. I’m in the window seat, it’s a cheapo airline, and my arms are squished at my side so it feels like typing with T-Rex arms. Also, the person behind me is coughing, which is now in my top four worst things about flying (the list includes crying babies, whiny dogs, and having diarrhea).
Feel free to skip through the newsletter sections:
Fun recommendations and cool stuff I’ve come across
Recent work and creative projects
Picture of our latest adventures. This is mainly for my mom.
A brief essay about quitting stuff
The last two months were spent in Melbourne, Australia. Avvai and I were a bit doubtful about it at first – it’s far away and not known for being the cheapest country to live. Our fears were unfounded. Melbourne is one of our favourite places now.
For me the big highlight was the community of writers I found through a weekly Words & Wine group. Screenwriters, poets, and novelists gathered to discuss their projects and meet new people. Did I mention it also had wine; that probably helped.
The main motivation of the trip was to write with my friend Bryan who moved there a few years ago. I’ll discuss our project below, but it was a blast.
Avvai’s highlight was all the animals. There was a community of 50,000 flying fox bats ten minutes from our house and… well, that’s pretty cool.
FUN THINGS
Australia was full of work and family visits (Avvai has a LOT of family here), so this list is short. But one highlight was reading graphic novels for young people while studying for my own graphic novel.
Novelist As Vocation by Haruki Murakami – A great novelist talks about what writing a novel is actually like. He compares it to “building a ship in a bottle”, which feels accurate. I don’t want to exaggerate, but this book may have changed my life; I’m shifting from novels to comics for the time being because of it. A great book about life even if you’re not a writer.
Rewatched The Lego Movie on the first part of this airplane ride and was reminded how amazing it is. The jokes are constant, the twist is unexpected but inevitable, and the heart and message are spot on. It’s also Avvai’s favourite movie now.
The Melbourne Library – Melbourne allows visitors to use their library and we took full advantage of it, often with 30+ books out at a time. They also had great graphic novels. Some of our favourites were:
Teen Dog – A 90s style high school story about a dog that loves pizza. Only picked it up because the writer was local but we were blown away. It took me back to my childhood while also feeling distinctly modern. Reminded me how enjoyable it was to be young in a way that not much else has.
Animorphs Graphic Novel – I’m reading young people graphic novels to prepare for my own graphic novel project and this was a blast from the past. I was skeptical at first, but this story sucks you IN! The twists are fast and furious and the stakes sky high. And the ending of the first book is not happy, which I’d forgotten about. Incredible these are for kids!
Senlin Ascends – My favourite book from the last few months. It’s about a stuffy schoolmaster who visits the Tower of Babel on his honeymoon, but in the first few minutes he loses his new wife and must ascend the tower (and become a badass) to find her. It takes place in a steampunk/fantasy sort of world, though it’s very grounded in reality. It’s fast-paced and brutal and the most fun adventure book I’ve read in ages. This Tower of Babel is now the #1 place I never want to visit.
WHAT I’VE BEEN WORKING ON
It’s been a productive few months and a lot of long-term projects have finally come together. Partly that’s why I’m back at this newsletter. I actually have something I can share!
KYLE & BRYAN TWITCH COMEDY – Working with Bryan was the main reason I went to Australia. We made a radio play in University and I have been chasing that creative high ever since. Amazingly, the magic is still there. While here we made a few fun things (including a fully improvised feature film), and are now working on a biweekly comedy project. We meet on twitch, pick a funny idea, draw characters, animate them, and improvise a sketch in under two hours. The results have been hilarious! Come join us for the next one.
CRUMBS – The comic book is finished! Final edits, designing all the covers, negotiating with printers, ordering shirts; it all took longer than anticipated but it’s finished. The big box of comics should be arriving at HQ soon and then we will be sending them out to people. I actually printed out a black and white version on printer paper so that I could feel like part of the fun.
OUR MOVIE – Last March we teamed up with two producers out of Montreal to start putting together a movie. I sent in multiple drafts over the year and finally, last week, we recieved word that we are moving forward with it. We’re making a movie! We meet early May to discuss pre-production and any script changes and I couldn’t be more excited.
GUS & COPERNICUS – This was my big change. I’ve written the manuscript for Gus five times now and I’m part way through the sixth… then I hit a wall. I wasn’t excited about it anymore and every day of writing felt like torture. I struggled for a bit… then decided to change it. I write about it below, but I’m now going to pitch this as a graphic novel. It already feels more full of life! Plus, I finally know what the characters look like.
GUS 
COPERNICUS
SCRIPT COVERAGE – As always I’m reading scripts; I’ve got to make money somehow! So far this April I’ve read 180, but there is still a week to go so I’m sure it’ll top 200 at least.
Hi Mom / Pictures To Prove We’re Alive
WHEN SHOULD YOU QUIT A PROJECT?
Or how do you know it’s time for a change?
I think the answer is simple – you feel unhappy or unsettled. Maybe you’re avoiding something or saying “I should do that” a lot. Either way, something isn’t working.
For me, it was my middle-grade book manuscript, GUS & COPERNICUS. I had transferred it onto my new to-do list for the 100th time… and I suddenly had enough. So instead of working on it, I meditated, fasted, went for a walk, and asked myself if it was time to quit.
The idea didn’t feel right, but neither did the thought of continuing. I went to the bookstore, looked at similar books, tried to picture it on the bookshelf… and couldn’t. This angsty brooding took me until evening, when I went to an event called Words & Wine.
There I met a guy who had just pitched a middle-grade graphic novel and gotten a 3 book deal… and it was like getting an answer from heaven. Gus & Copernicus could be a graphic novel!
This happened in tandem with my read of the new Murakami book, Novelist As Vocation. In it he says something like: “I love writing. Sitting down and writing is the highlight of my day. I think writing is like making a ship in a bottle. You must love the tiny little details that nobody will ever notice.”
The first half of this quote resonated because I was not loving writing. I was hating it. How could I be a novelist if I hated sitting down and writing – that’s like those people who get into a soul sucking job just for the money, except in this case there isn’t even any money.
The second section resonated because my hell is making ships in bottles, possibly while somebody coughs behind me on a plane. If that is being a novelist, then no thanks.
In all the books about writing, nobody ever mentions how much they love sitting and writing. Instead they poetically say that they suffer through it, but I now doubt that. I think they love it! I think they want to sit down every day and do it, otherwise they wouldn’t. The adage about “You’ve got not choice but to write” feels untrue to me. I think you’ve got to like it. Otherwise go do something else. When I’m famous I’ll pass on that message to people.
Over the next few days the idea to shift my focus felt clearer and clearer. I’ve written a few comic scripts and each one was more fun than my novel writing had ever been… maybe I could even sit down and have it be the best part of my day.
But the only way to find out is to do it.
So though it was hard to switch and effectively throw out a few years of work, I’m going to do it for a bit and see how it feels. Because it wasn’t working before and honestly I couldn’t picture myself doing it for one more day, let alone years. I may move on from comics too, but sitting down to write it today felt awesome, and really, that’s all we have, right?
GOODBYE
And there you have it.
Next time, dispatches from Singapore.
I like learning about how you approach your projects- thanks for sharing.
I didn’t know about this Murakami book. I enjoyed books on artists and their work. In college I acted a story from his book “After the Quake.” The class was called “Performance of Narrative Fiction.”
Didn’t know anything Melbourne. Glad you loved it.