Grabagging as creative process, lifestyle, and dinner
You can't be disappointed by a grab bag because it's a grab bag.
Today’s newsletter is a grab bag, which is my preferred way to eat, shop, cook, and think.
A grab bag’s premise is surprise—that useless things can be unexpectedly useful (or that uselessness itself is useful… because why does everything have to useful?).
A grab bag is easily disposed of and almost always cheap. If you don’t like what you find in a grab bag, then, hey, write a zen koan about the expectation of fulfillment and its ensuing emptiness. That’s the treat.
Please note: Make sure you read the footnotes.
Because a puzzle
Has anyone figured out what Wittgenstein meant when he said the inexpressible is contained in the expressed?
If so, let me know.1
Because mysticism makes sense to me in a senseless world
Mysticism is the place where all words, all explanations run out.
“Mysticism, to me, is what stands out of time and beyond circumstance. Read a 13th-century Zen discourse, pick up St. John of the cross, and listen to the latest Leonard Cohen album, and you are instantly in the same place. Mysticism is almost the unchanging backbeat and backstage truth that stands behind all the changing surfaces and shifts in the world.”
~ Pico Iyer
“Human progress” (yes, in bold quotes) has led to the privileging of logic, but we lose what’s most valuable by not attuning ourselves to that which is beyond us.
So play the drums outside at midnight the next time there’s a full moon. Seriously.
Because data-driven algorithms are over-rated
See above. Has anyone ever sensed what I’ll call the divine through data?
What story of self does the detritus of our data really tell?
When we write, we write with mysticism. In fact, our writing brings us closer to the mystical (or I hope it does).
I’m sure I’m missing something. Perhaps it’s in the data.
Because photos take us to new places
Use this photo as a prompt, as a random catalyst, as an igniter for any writing project you're working on.
Or … write a story about this photo in less than 300 words and share it here.
Because a good story
Yasmina Madden’s Zero Sum Game details a relationship through 26 paragraphs organized by the letters from the alphabet. We get different character traits and relationship dynamics in each section: “A is for admiration, which is what you want from him more than anything.” “P is for pedo, which is what your friends call him.” “T is for telling yourself what you need to tell yourself.”
It’s a fun, interesting read because it’s essentially a collage (except tidily organized), and you don’t know what each paragraph will hold. It’s story as grab bag.
Because a writing prompt (and self-analysis)
This one comes from the poet Chen Chen’s You MUST Use the Word Smoothie: A Craft Essay in 50 Writing Prompts.
26:
Which best describes the aesthetic of your poems?
A) Snow White and the Seven Despairs
B) Leftover chicken tenders
C) An aquarium full of bejeweled belugas
D) Costco, but everyone’s nudePick one and write a paragraph of five sentences elaborating on this descriptor. You may also combine two or more of the above options to create your own hybrid descriptor. For example, “An aquarium full of chicken tenders” or “Costco despair” or “Tender and the Seven Nudes.”
Because it's good to remember our senses
Walking past jasmine blossoms. Sulphur. The shortest day of the year. The smell of a new book. The smell of an old book. Waking up to a thunderstorm. Mulled wine. Stinky cheese. Pringles. The smell of brine on a walk by the ocean. A mechanic's oily floor. Anchovies. Black licorice. Orange marmalade. Lavender (as in tea). Lavender (as in a dime-store candle). Lavender (as in a plant). The sway of a hammock. Rolling down a hill. Dizziness. Too much dizziness. More. Free bird (the song). Free bird (the bird).2
Because a haiku
The moon always wary a lover unwilling to commit
Because whimsicality
To the any in the day in a high in a her in a way he had a day and in the loan even her in a me and he added a code and in the NA NA in a her in India and me and the own me and in mean you didn't have the end of the end isn't in a can in the only me and the union of the isn't in the in of an in: Indiana law3 and pay me a been in the been look of love of me and the me he isn't die me and where in each been and each in of the me and then he was me yet leaving in the end of a hanging of the been in the her he was a didn't4
Because hey, guess what?
I’m in the final, final, final stages of finishing edits to my book, The Art of Brevity, which will be out this time next year from the University of New Mexico Press.
I might have left out one “final.”
Because my favorite photographer made a music video of my favorite band
All the Comfort Sin Can Provide
If you like this newsletter, please consider checking out my recently released collection of short stories, All the Comfort Sin Can Provide.
Lidia Yuknavitch said:
“Somewhere between sinister and gleeful the characters in Grant Faulkner’s story collection All the Comfort Sin Can Provide blow open pleasure—guilty pleasure, unapologetic pleasure, accidental pleasure, repressed pleasure.”
Grant Faulkner is executive director of National Novel Writing Month and the co-founder of 100 Word Story. He’s the author of Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo and the co-host of the podcast Write-minded. His essays on creative writing have appeared in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Lit Hub, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer.
For more, go to grantfaulkner.com, or follow him on Twitter at @grantfaulkner.
Footnotes are fun. But people usually skip over footnotes. So if anyone skips over this footnote, they won’t know to email me for the secret to eternal life.
Someone once told me we have many more than five senses. She was writing a paper on the 14 senses she’d identified. It’s up to you to imagine nine more senses because I never read the paper, and I don’t remember her name.
I found this in a file called “jibberish.” I once had carpal tunnel so bad I had to use dictation software. This was back in the day when it wasn’t very accurate. I would often get interrupted at work and my microphone would pick up the background noise of a conversation.
If you have read this really closely, it makes sense. At least if you’re a Jedi.