SHE'S STARTIN'

A quick word on what I'm doing here

In 2015, New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz ruined my life.

That year, she published “The Really Big One,” her Pulitzer-winning story on the long-overdue seismic activity that will inevitably devastate a chunk of North America. “An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest,” reads the deck. “The question is when.”

Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, almost a decade later, I keep the piece linked in an iPhone note marked “INTERESTING” along with a video of a prairie dog trying to jump into a car. Why? One, Schulz is a wizard; the story is a feat of reporting, a heinous stack of unlovely facts presented in the most artful way possible. Two: Like a total sicko, I find it comforting.  

I whip out Schulz’s masterpiece on the regular, a sort of self-flagellating mechanism to gleefully remind myself that catastrophe is getting closer by the day. I love it for the same reason I love disaster movies and AI-generated commercial airline accident roundups: The piece presents an inevitable impossibility too large for me to fully comprehend. A reminder that things are out of my control. It’s a perennial pang that pops up every few months as if to say, Hey, remember me?

Which brings me to the matter at hand.

As we speak, I’m working through a creative idea that we’ll call My Big One. The idea will, hopefully, become my next book. Like my first book, it’s a nonfiction project with a humorous bent; unlike the first book, it demands deep, immersive research that tickles me *extremely* pink. Like The Really Big One, this idea pecks at me in my sleep, jolting me awake to email myself an incomprehensible reminder to “CALL MOTH EXPERT.” It feels a little unwieldy; it also feels inevitable—like, if I don’t lasso it now, someone else will. (Unlike The Really Big One, my idea does not threaten the lives of millions. Yet.)

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BIG ONE (noun): A creative idea that promises to push you to the brink of disaster (in a good way)

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HOWEVER. My current circumstances for creating are… not ideal.

I decided to launch this newsletter as I throw my whole ass into The Big One. I really do mean my whole ass; I got laid off a few months ago, shortly after The Big One popped into my brain. Investing in myself creatively is, at this point, a sink-or-swim exercise. (Healthcare: I need it!) So I’m here to ask:

How do we commit ourselves to artistic excellence in less-than-perfect circumstances? 

If you’re anything like me, you probably feel out of control a whole lot of the time. Maybe you’ve also been laid off. Maybe you struggle with chronic illness. Maybe you’re wrapped up in climate anxiety (rightfully so: see above). Maybe you’re the primary caretaker of several screaming children. Maybe you have a million DOLLARS, in which case you should unsubSCRIBE because this isn’t FOR YOU!!!

Either way: Let ‘er rip, boys! I have an idea that won’t let me rest, and if you’re reading this, you probably do, too. This newsletter will explore the practical (my publishing journey as I try to sell The Big One for American dollars so I can, uh, buy groceries) alongside the impractical (the incredible sensation of grabbing an idea like a dog with a bone, shaking it until marrow’s flung about the room and you’re collapsed in the corner, chest heaving like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance.) Let’s use this space to be honest about the realities of artistic intensity in a world that makes creative living a real pain in the ass.

Ready? Good—because, in the immortal words of Countess Luann de Lesseps: She’s startin’.—Lil