Everyone’s Little Monkey of Personality
Friends, hello.
Welcome especially to the new readers who have followed me here after I shut down the Twitter shop a few weeks back. Glad to have you here, where it’s quieter and I will let you get your news coverage wherever and whenever you so choose.
I joined Twitter in 2009. I lived in Michigan then. I had an infant, an MFA, and a mortgage but little in the way of community. I was surrounded by adult things but still very much figuring out what sort of adult I wanted to be. Twitter helped me find so many people I could share my writing/parenting/getting through the world life with. It brought me perspective, news from the ground (for better or worse) as it unfolded. It was a delight to watch awards shows and dog sled races alongside. But that community is fractured now, in part by algorithms, and in part by a culture of production and feedback that feels like it empties more of us out than it builds us up.
In August, the novelist Adrienne Celt wrote this about the platform in her Tiny Letter (which you should absolutely subscribe to):
“Sometimes I find myself thinking in funny anecdotes, witty asides, and I struggle to discern which of these thoughts should be saved for the larger project of my life, to share with people, in books, in essays, in dreams, and which exists only because of the singular world of social media, where all our thoughts are trapped behind a layer of glass, and carry within themselves their own most natural reaction.”
I thought about Adrienne’s words for months, about the larger project of my life. 2019 has been a strange and at times outright awful year---both my daughter and I were diagnosed with celiac disease, I had a tiny organ removed this fall (no, you cannot take your gallbladder home with you; I had to sign a consent form saying I understood as much), experienced lots of soul-dampening life glitches (lost work on my books and my photography, caretaking for an aging dog, to name a few)---and in being forced to readjust so many times this year, I’ve come to understand that I can do that by choice, too. I can regain control of the larger project of my life.
Or, as I put it in a text to a writer friend: “the pressure to be everyone’s little monkey of personality to sell books is...too much. Realized I wanted to sell my books, not myself.”
The thing is, I met this writer friend, and Adrienne, on Twitter. The best thing I realized when I was ready to go was that I had formed the community I needed. Now it’s texts and emails and lunches and getting to hug someone whose brain I’ve admired and whose support I’ve appreciated in the flesh every now and again.
I don’t miss Twitter itself at all, which feels as liberating as you’d think it would.
Reading, Thinking Feeling
The Idiot, by Elif Batuman. This book was pure pleasure to read. I’m glad I waited after the wave of initial praise to read it, that it is a doorstopper, and that Batuman didn’t give up on the book that she’d begun when she was younger.
Meander, Spiral, Explode, by Jane Allison, which is about narrative design but also aptly describes my brain on Twitter. There were parts of this book I thought were close to nonsensical but also I really enjoyed it and suggest it for anyone who teaches writing.
Chelsea Bieker’s God Shot, coming from Catapult in 2020. Trust me, pre-ordering books is a gift to yourself later.
Many years ago my friend and first accountability buddy, the artist Brian Herrick, sent me Art & Fear. I reopened it to provide some guidance to students, and am nearly done re-reading the whole thing. Full of truth bombs for all kinds of artists.
Started reading this Rachel Cusk profile of the artists Celia Paul and Cecily Brown, which led me to this brilliant Zadie Smith essay on Paul, which led me to listen to Smith, a brain from another blessed universe, on Tin House’s Between the Covers podcast. This one is generally for writers but there’s a section at the end during which she talks about how much we are willingly and mindlessly handing over to technology (including our children), and it's spot on.
Working my way through the Hurry Slowly podcast.
Where to Find Me
Teaching a 4 week advanced workshop on the short story at the 92 Street Y starting in late February. The class is by application only.
Eating homemade corn tortillas and arepas. Long live masa.
Taking my 1 rejection=1 dog photo game over to Instagram. I’m @backtalkbook. There seems to be a lot of joy still present on that platform, and it’s what I need these days.
Finishing my novel. I’m getting there, though this very morning I realized I’ve been molding it longer than I’ve been molding my second born. She’s 8; the novel is approaching it’s 10th year of living in my brain.
That’s it for now.
Talk soon,
Danielle
PS: When I was a child, I was known to say that I wanted to be a gorilla when I grew up because I thought this was what baby monkeys grew up to be. Instead, I became a writer.