The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'painting of a writing desk calligraphy.'
Today I spent some time checking out what a few friends have been up to. 
It's fun to see what kinds of things other people have been doing while I've been immersed in my own endeavors. Between my regular job and my personal projects, I don't always give myself the space to do that. Maybe I should start. My friends, after all, are interesting people who do interesting things.
I feel like there's something that happens to writers after they've been writing for many years. Toiling away, often in obscurity, their work takes on an unpleasant quality. This quality is a very subtle undertone of equal parts desperation and arrogance. It takes otherwise sound writing and makes it unappealing for reasons you can't quite put your finger on.
I actively fear falling into this nonsense. I fear it even more than I fear becoming a pedantic ninny, which is also a risk that comes with the territory of being a writer. When I was younger, my great challenge was to remove emotional baggage from my writing. The traps of maturity are harder to avoid.
One of these, the tendency to become increasingly eccentric as time goes on, is something I've basically resigned myself to. Eccentric is fine, as long as the work is also clear and relevant. And as long as the writing doesn't contain too much personality.
A good way to avoid these traps entirely is to expose the solitary work to social forces. For me this means comparing what I'm doing to the other stuff that's out there. Ideally, it also means seeking direct feedback where possible. The main thing is to remember that I'm writing for other people, and to think about how they're likely to read my work.
Exposure to the work of others and collaboration can both be helpful in understanding cultural context. Some of my writing has a clear cultural context. News media. Science fiction novels. The context for this blog is evident yet less clear cut. And the context for my new Substack has been slow to materialize.
Taking some time off today to look at what others have been up to was the right move. It was fun seeing what people have been up to. And I feel like it may have marginally improved my writing process by getting me out of my solitary focus for a while.
Read my novels:
See my NFTs:
