January 2025
This is the first newsletter and will be a bit of a strange one as my first book isn’t even out yet. And yes, I know a few of you signed up in the last week, you won’t get one from me every week, I just wanted to get one out while writing about David Lynch still felt relevant.
I don’t have children so I suspect writing is easier for me than for most people. I finish my workday, hang out with my wife some, then write for a while, I chat online, I go to bed. I try for 500 words per day on weekdays and 1000 on weekends on a first draft. I find editing difficult and it’s a slower process, though my experience so far is that every stage is the hardest except proofreading which is the worst of all.
In trying to do better, I’ve read a lot of books and article about writers and their rituals. I’m inclined to believe almost all of them to some degree though even more so Stephen King. He just doesn’t strike me as a man who lies.
This interview with David Lynch also has a ring of truth:
Lynch has been on my mind since I heard of his death. I'm not going to say that Lynch's "Mullholland Drive" was any kind of awakening. Even if I hadn’t known queer people in real life by the time I saw “Mulholland Drive,” I had seen at least "But I'm a Cheerleader" and "Blue is the Warmest Color" before. Also, Julie Newmar’s run on Batman in syndication. She wasn’t queer, my feelings about her were difficult for me to articulate even when I was a young child.
If I liked "Mulholland Drive" more, well, it combined queerness with other topics that seemed more pressing at the time I watched it, namely, identity, longing and a pervasive sense that no matter how bad you think your life is, it can always get worse. I saw it at a time in my life when I wasn't sure that my life would ever come together personally or professionally. Everything that seduced me-my own ego most of all-threatened to make me unhappy in the long term. I have mostly privilege and my own good luck to thank for it all working out.
I love “Mulholland Drive” even if it’s a painful watch. Diane fails a lot and she’s so flawed. Watching that kind of personal, professional and existential jealousy is like finding out that Mr. Rogers based Lady Elaine Fairchild on his younger sister because he never got along with her. (Humanizing, isn’t it?)
I’ve told myself a lie or two just to get through a hard time. But life always messes with my vision of myself as the wide-eyed heroine of my own story. If nothing else it gives me the sense that David Lynch, like Mr. Rogers of all people, saw the gaping flaws that made up his humanity and decided to create beauty with them.
May we all do the same.
Allison
Ps. Please feel free to send me recipes that can reasonably be considered public domain, or that are publicly accessible on the internet anyway. Extra credit for telling me why you love them.
From a friend:
Breanna’s Grandma’s Mexican Cornbread:
2 eggs
¼ cup oil
½ can creamed corn
¼ cup buttermilk
1 cup self-rising cornmeal
½ cup self-rising flour
½ cup onion, chopped
½ jalapeno pepper, chopped
½ cup grated cheese
Preheat oven to 400. Combine the ingredients in that order, bake 30 to 35 minutes until the top is brown.
