57: Notes App

A friend asked me this week how I come up with ideas for stories (hi Nicci!).I am not the best person to get productivity advice from. I am an undiagnosed ADHD procrastination module encased in human sausagemeat. But idea generation, that's more my thing. Strummer's Law states "no input, no output". On days where I'm getting absolutely nowhere, I've learned that literally anything counts as input, and therefore: work. That sounds like an excuse, and it is, but it's also true. Taking time away from a blank document or whatever you're working on (a podcast? A painting? A wrought iron gate?) gives you something else to focus on, hides ideas in the cosy grey folds of your brain to find later. The real answer is that ideas come from everywhere, but that's not helpful, and it's not advice. The only thing I know that's ever helped me is knowing you can't create something out of nothing. So sitting and fretting about work that isn't doing itself will never work. Give yourself permission to shut the laptop/wash your brushes/put down the scroll tool jig. And always write down the thoughts that come to you in your notes app on your phone and then forget about them. It's absolutely hilarious to read back what you thought was a genius observation weeks later. Here is one of my best from the past week: 

It is the end of the world and everyone is queuing for booze.

What does it mean? Fucked if I know. But it sounds deep, doesn't it? I'll probably use it.Other stuff

• This week, I was inspired to write several completely new things by three separate and excellent Vittles newsletters, so here's the signup link. I can't recommend it highly enough, especially this by Matthew Curtis on how pub closures have affected local communities. The intro by editor Jonathan Nunn is also bang on.

• TMI alert but I've been trying and mostly failing to find ethically-made underwear. However, on my journey I came across Organic Basics' "low impact website" which totally fascinated me. I'd never made the connection between data transfer and energy use and carbon emissions before, and their infographic goes through it all in a really accessible way.

• It is everywhere at the moment but in case you haven't heard it, Arlo Parks' Black Dog is a heartbreaking, matter-of-fact and beautiful song and I love it.

• Do you want to read the beautiful origin of the papaya? Do you want to learn about the tropical myths of how the world was created? Do you also want to look at a tasty sounding recipe? This, by Nicola Miller, has it all.

• A massive sinkhole at the bottom of the sea? Full of potentially as-before-undiscovered species? And marine biologists are about to head down there to find out what's going on? The type of content I thrive on.

• The International Rescue Committee has collaborated with artist Rob Blow to portray stories from refugees and people migrating across the dangerous Central Mediterranean Route. 

• Cooking is more than putting ingredients together and nourishing yourself. George McCalman writes about how relearning to cook over the lockdown is healing his relationship with the memories of his own latchkey childhood.

• Helen Rosner's fake food mag covers are absolutely hilarious, still.

• Lily Waite's latest piece is on the loneliness and ineffectiveness of diversity panels and her frustration, anger and sadness at how little has really changed within the beer industry to make it the inclusive place it claims it wishes to be. It's an essential read.

• Eliza Clark's book Boy Parts will be my book of the year unless something truly exceptional comes along and knocks me out between now and December. Interviewed in The Guardian this week, she speaks candidly about the book world's ideas of diversity, and how being northern automatically makes her diverse to some publishers.

• There is a humanitarian crisis happening right now in Xinjiang. The Uighur population are being subjected to atrocities in the area such as torture, forced labour and sterilisation. According to a coalition of 180 human rights organisations, "virtually the entire" fashion industry is complicit. The Uyghur Human Rights Project has much more information on the subject.

My Stuff

• I've been editing like a ferocious beast all week and will be on my book's rewrites by the weekend. Shower me with praise.

• Speaking of praise, thank you so much to everyone who left such lovely comments on Ko-fi last week! It was actually a highlight of my week reading them. (Not linking because I actually mean it, this was not an excuse to direct you there)

• Pre-order the Magic edition of Counterpoint magazine, I have a short story/flash fiction thing about tarot cards in it

Causey Pike by Carmen Norman