Hi, readers!
I hope you’re doing well. I’m starting this post after a two-hour morning writing session; it’s about 7:50AM. I was feeling really good about the scene I was writing (main character is obsessively cleaning her apartment while having an inner monologue about how slow her job search is going), and then about 700 words in, I realized I actually want my main character to be somewhere else, engaged in a totally different activity while having the same inner monologue. It annoyed me that I didn’t figure this out before starting to write the scene. It annoyed me so much, in fact, that I couldn’t bring myself to delete those 700 words and start over just yet. So now I’m here, writing to you instead.
No offense.
V and I went to the National Portrait Gallery this week. Months before we moved to DC, I saw the museum was hosting a special exhibition called “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance,” and made sure it was on our calendar. Baldwin was one of the first writers V and I bonded over when we met; and now that we live together, I’m pretty sure Baldwin is the most recurring author on our shared bookshelves.
The exhibition, in honor of Baldwin’s 100th birthday, highlights his connections with other prominent queer Black writers, activists and artists like Beauford Delaney, Nina Simone, Lorraine Hansberry and Bayard Rustin. It smaller than I was imagining, but it was still an interesting exhibition and a reminder of the different ways people connect with his work.
I’d never been to the National Portrait Gallery before, so we also walked through some of the other exhibits. Obviously, I had to see the Obama Presidential portrait (Michelle’s wasn’t there for some reason?!?!), and V took this amazing photo of me in front of Toni Morrison’s portrait.
It was a lovely date night! And ever since I’ve been thinking about writers, like Baldwin and Morrison and so many others, that I run to when I need inspiration for my own work. The writers I reread when I’m stuck, or bored, or annoyed with my own writing and I’m looking for a spark of yes, that’s it.
My morning writing sessions take place in my new office — it’s where I am now. I sit at a desk with one lamp on and try to lose myself in language and storytelling for two to three hours. Behind me is a skinny bookshelf, the content of which I’ve been curating for the specific purpose of keeping me inspired. These are books I know I can open to get going again.
There are books on craft — both the practical ‘set yourself a deadline’ type of writing advice and the more seductive ‘illuminating the path of the artist’ type. (Yes, I need both.) There’s poetry, a medium I adore but am too afraid to attempt myself. There are also beautifully written novels and heart-wrenching nonfiction that make me ugly cry to equal degrees of ugliness.
This is not an exhaustive list. Even as I stand here, running my finger along the spines, I realize there are some gaps — Paradise, by Toni Morrison, all my Paul Beattys — but it’s a spark.
Fellow writers, I’d love to know what authors or books you go to for inspiration! I’ve got plenty of room on this shelf.
Thanks for reading,
(and for your patience as I figure out the voice of this newsletter,)
Ariel
This was super dope! I tend to gravitate toward poetry when I get too bogged down in the narrative tools and cogs of fiction and need to revitalize my love of language on the sentence level. I always return to Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Refuse to be Done by Matt Bell, and The Creative Act by Rick Rubin