Notes on a very Trying! year

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One year ago, I changed my life. After a full career as a writer, I had given up on both the business and the practice. I loved writing, but I couldn’t make it work, and while I kept hoping something would shift in our world that would allow me to write professionally again, nothing was shifting, certainly not for the better. So I decided to change myself. I decided I would write what I wanted, as often as I wanted, for whoever I could get to read me, and without expecting to be paid. I launched this newsletter, Trying!, on November 1, 2024.

For the first 106 days or so, I published an essay every day. (Yes, including weekends.) That was crazy, overwhelming both for you, my dear readers, and for me. But it was also necessary. I needed to get all those ideas, all those hundreds of thousands of words, out of my head and into the world before I succumbed to caution or, worse, to laziness. I didn’t expect anybody¹ to read every single one of them, but if you did: Amazing! Incredible! You are as weird as, or possibly even weirder than, me!

Since February, I’ve certainly slowed down a bit, having published around 70 emails, sometimes just one a week, with a week entirely off here and there. I don’t know how you feel about the slower pace, but it both suits me and frustrates me. On the one hand, I get to do other things with my life — nothing exotic, of course, just watching TV and reading books, having an extra glass of wine and hanging out with Jean and the kids. On the other, I feel like I’m neglecting hugely important — I should be writing! I know I’m capable of this, of making myself sit down at the computer for two hours and cranking out a halfway readable essay. So why don’t I just do it and do it and keep doing it and never ever let up? Why is this not the 365th Trying! email?

It’s not just the frequency that’s changed. It’s hard to put my finger on it precisely, but the anger animating the writing — I once labeled it “omnidirectional fury” — is of a different character. It’s still there to be sure; you don’t get Violence Is Always an Option without it. But after the full boil of the first 106 days, it’s now maybe at a healthy simmer, ensuring the flavor of rage evenly permeates my stock. Does that make sense? Can any of you help me understand what’s different now?

More after the ad…

Let’s look forward now! What comes next is, well, more of the same. I’m going to continue writing Trying! a couple of times a week, taking on the topics that pop into my head and that I keep stashing in an Apple Notes doc. Actually, that Notes doc is so epic by now that some of the early additions, the ones I never wrote about, have become mysterious to me. Any idea what I might have meant by these?

If I can ever remember why I wrote those down in the first place, I may take them on. Or they may continue to get buried by new ideas!

Also, following the spectacular success of the Trying! print book, I’m going to do another one. Figure it will be called Still Trying! I just need to figure out: what’s going to be in, who can curate it, who can illustrate it, how I can rope in a few outside contributors (perhaps you, {{first_name|my close personal friend}}?), and how I can get it done in time for the mid-December holiday season. Easy! Right?

Other things that won’t change: I’ll keep accepting prompts from you guys, so keep sending them. I’ll keep scouring public-domain archives for headline art. I’ll never be entirely sure how serious I am about anything I write here. And I’ll remain grateful that you continue to allow me space in your inbox as well as your brain. I know I can be goofy and strange and self-obsessed, but I do take very seriously the idea that I should be not just thoughtful and original but entertaining — I want you to enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it! I won’t always succeed, I know, but I’ll always keep trying. 🪨🪨🪨