The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I've been producing the Story Grid Editor Roundtable, a reasonably successful writing podcast, for the past couple of years. We've made 115 episodes, 95 of them fully scripted hours. I've edited them all. I'm proud of our work. We put it out there in less-than-perfect state, improved as we went along, and broke a lot of new ground in our subject area.



Our long-range purpose was to give away the store: generously share our fiction-editing expertise and thereby slowly build our platform and our "social proof," and attract paying clients. This has worked fairly well--better for some of us than for others. Me, I'm unapproachable and scary, so my clientele has grown slowly, but I get the scary, serious people, and that's how I like it.

Now signs are pointing to my leaving the show behind. The first sign was a bit of a rearguard action a week or two ago that seemed intended to undermine my own contribution to the show. The second was Kim announcing her intention to leave at the end of our current 12-episode series. The third was my own inability to even think of a contribution to the episode we recorded last week--to the point where I made no contribution at all. This pandemic situation robs me of about nine-tenths of my mental battery most days.

Naturally in a group endeavor some in-fighting is bound to emerge. Differences in style, goals and personalities have become more marked in this time of unprecedented stress. What's more, nothing lasts forever, and it's okay to let a good thing go when it no longer feels like fun.

Still, I've got a considerable investment here. If I walk away, I cede the platform we've built together. There's no obvious way to carry any of that social capital away with me.

So I proposed to the group that instead of recording an episode in our usual Monday morning slot this week, we have a meeting to discuss refreshing the show's format and trying new things as a way of salvaging it. My proposal met with near-silence, so I imagine that Monday's meeting will result, after all, in my leaving.

I'm not sure I care. Right now (and the mood is extremely variable these days) I feel only relief at the thought of no longer having to produce an episode a week. But next week, who knows?

Meme from misbegotten via yourlibrarian. Last time I did things we can't do anymore.

• Last time I traveled abroad: August 2019. Went to the UK and France. Writing retreat on a farm in the middle of nowhere around where Limousin melts into the Dorgogne region. Led by Una McCormack. It was glorious.
• Last time I slept in a hotel: Nashville, September 2019, for a Story Grid Live event.
• Last time I flew in an airplane: Coming home from the Story Grid Live event in Nashville, September 2019. It was notable for my increasingly critical disability, and having to have wheelchair assistance in airports.
• Last time I took a train: The Heathrow Express into London, September 2019.
• Last time I took public transit: Portland, Trimet, bus to physical therapy right after my hip replacement surgery in November 2019. Since then I've been back on my bike and have been able to avoid buses, crowded or otherwise, for which I'm immensely grateful. Trimet has just announced a 50% cutback in bus service. Hopefully they'll survive.
• Last time I had a houseguest: Early summer 2019, I think. A fellow Story Grid Certified Editor and co-host of my podcast came into town for an event.
• Last time I got my hair cut: February 2020, and let me tell you, Kim Rhodes's haircutting video today makes me really tempted to get an electric trimmer and just go to town. I <3 her.
• Last time I went to the movies: Sometime in November, as I recall. It was between surgeries, so one leg/hip was working and the other was still causing me to limp the several blocks between bus stop and cinema. My sister and I saw Fantastic Fungi, a documentary about the mycelium kingdom, including the magic mushroom branch. Have I mentioned that I've been experimenting with psilocybin microdosing? It's really interesting.
• Last time I went to the theater: I SAW HANNAH GADSBY LIVE in Portland in February! In a 200-seat theater space, incredibly intimate and wonderful. She was fantastic. "Douglas," her show was amazing.
• Last time I went to a concert: Does ballet count? I was privileged to see "Romeo and Juliette" at Sadler's Wells in London in August with ravurian and ruric and it was brilliant.
• Last time I went to an art museum: It's been a couple of years. Portland Art Museum.
• Last time I sat down in a restaurant: breakfast at the counter, Cadillac Cafe, probably about four weeks ago. I miss this kind of thing the most.
• Last time I went to a party: Sunday, February 16. A dinner party. I feel like I dodged a bullet there. Crowded room, shared meal. Didn't get sick.
• Last time I played a board game with more than two people: I...don't play board games.

I'm sure we're all thinking about what the world will be like when this is over. I'm beginning to realize that, for good and ill, it's not going back to "normal." Normal was awful in many ways, and we have a lot to learn from being forced out of it by this extreme, slow-rolling event.

Take care, everybody. Wash your hands a lot.

...that Dreamwidth would be a very nice place to come back to in this difficult time. How's everybody coping?

So far, my family and I are well, but I've got a nephew working in a big grocery store--I guess they're "first responders" now--so that's a little worrying. Mostly, we're trying to support my mom, who just turned 90, by getting her what she needs without actually getting closer than six feet. Loneliness is the scourge of the elderly at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.

I'm lucky. I've got an income that continues to come in, at least until the stock market eats it up. I'm able to support one sister, whose income has suddenly ceased. The weather, normally dismally rainy this time of year, has been perfect, so we can get outside. The death of car traffic is a blessing. People are out walking and rolling in the streets, greeting each other from a safe distance.

Every day seems to go from dark cloud to silver lining and back again repeatedly. It's impossible not to think about the permanent damage to society, and a challenge to consider what good might arise from the ashes.

So I wash my hands a lot, thank the universe for the internet-may-it-keep-running, and offer a blessing to you all.