Diary of a Process Nerd
I just want to know how you do what you do
Hello friends,
It’s only Sunday morning, but I can say thus far that it’s been a good weekend. On Friday evening, I did an event with Jillian and Mariko Tamaki (cousins, not sisters) for their new graphic novel, Roaming. It took place at the San Francisco campus of the California College of the Arts, and even though I have a history of studying at art schools, I don’t tend to set foot in them now. The last time I went to CCA was probably when I did a semester there in the early aughts, studying printmaking in between my stints at Yale and Stanford. There’s an electric quality about spending time at art schools, especially one in a major metropolitan area; they’re live-wire spaces where people are stretching themselves creatively and trying to determine if this is, in fact, what they’ll do for the rest of their lives. Roaming is a graphic novel about being young and visiting New York for the first time, with a queer romance at its heart that rips the time-space continuum of the group of the three who are doing the New York roaming. Before I moderated a conversation with Jillian and Mariko, they presented a slideshow about the process of creating Roaming that I found absolutely fascinating.
I’ve called myself a process nerd before. The best part of the entire evening, I’m convinced, was watching Jillian show off the elaborate Dropbox system she used for Roaming’s image reference system. Being that we were all in our 40s, they knew exactly what I was talking about when I referred to the image library that students used to use at CCA(C) (they removed the “Crafts” from the end of the college’s name since I was a student there). This is going to knock your socks off if you’re a younger person, but if you wanted to draw a tree, and you went to the chest of drawers in the CCAC library and pulled open the T drawer, you could find a file folder marked “TREES” that was filled with clipped-out photographs of trees. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE? Nowadays, you’d, of course, hit up your favorite search engine and have immediate access to millions of images of trees. Life is a rich tapestry.
Anyhow: I recommend you check out Roaming, even if you’re not particularly into graphic novels (aff). The visual narrative is a treat, and now that I know the incredible amount of work that went into the project, I respect it even more than I originally did. Hats off to Drawn & Quarterly, which I’ve been a fan of since I was a teenager, for asking me to do the event.
Speaking of process: Colin Meloy, perhaps best known for his band The Decemberists, has been keeping a Studio Diary of his work on the new Decemberists album. Seeing as how I know nothing about being a musician or a composer or a songwriter, I’m particularly fascinated by his own chronicling of the process.
(If you know of any good catnip for process nerds, please feel free to drop it in the comments.)
This coming week I’ll be going to New York for a scant three days I wish I could stay longer, but C can’t be alone for too long, even though he can basically manage things himself. I’ll be there to give a keynote speech for World Schizophrenia Day. I’ve been itching to do work-related events, which tend to have the nice side effect of reminding me that I have a career and that I have a career that is at least a tiny bit consequential.
I’ve finally wrapped up the new project called The 10 Day MFA, which is a little ten-day, self-paced class I’ve created that teaches everything I found important to know from my creative writing MFA program. If you’re a subscriber to this Substack, you’ll immediately get access to the class. It’s a project that I’m proud of, and I hope you enjoy it. Like I said: I’ll announce how to access it soon—I’m just having a trusted eye look over it before I do.
Here’s some Sunday reading for you:
❤️ Novelist Jesmyn Ward: ‘Losing my partner almost made me stop writing
❤️ Substack resources by Claire Venus
❤️ Ukrainian Artist Ivan Grabko on How to Remain Creative When Anxiety Gets Overwhelming
❤️ Inside Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad’s 19th-Century Brooklyn Town House
❤️ Taylor Swift Is an Inspiration for Us All
❤️ World-Building a More Sustainable Work Environment
And here’s your weekly dose of Daphne, who says hello (and flops over so that you can give her a belly rub).
I’m in a phase right now when my ensemble choices are fairly simple. I currently own a substantial number of black slip dresses, which I wear under some kind of silk kimono robe or 1930s dressing gown robe. I also sometimes swap out the robe for a vintage fur-collar cardigan. Gone are the days when I wore painfully uncomfortable clothes with snug waists for the sake of fashion. I understand now why so many older women tend to wear caftans—they’re fucking comfortable, and it’s simply too hard to be uncomfortable these days.
Journal prompt of the week
Oscar Wilde once said, “It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.” What would you say about the town or city that you live in? What makes you see it that way, or feel that way about it? Feel free to share in the comments.
