Deadlines, Ants, and the Midlife Internet

The first part of this dispatch feels more than a little indulgent, but the feedback I received after the last one included “make it more personal” and “the stuff about trying to write a book is interesting” (is it???). So here you go. 

Since late December, with a few scattered rest days, I’ve written around 25,000 words. Only 15,000 of those ended up being deliverable, which I then delivered on January 31. This is just the start. Most manuscripts end up totaling somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 words. 

In total I’ve actually written close to 50,000 words since last year, but the first two attempts at writing the first part of the book have been moved to trash. I’ve also had to revise, and revise again, and revise again, a lengthy outline. (And, not that anyone cares, but I also wrote a 75-page proposal for the book. In 2022.) 

In case you’re wondering how writing a book is going. 

The dull ache of opportunity cost is the worst part. The butt-in-seat writing is the best part. I’ve found a couple of spots where I can write pretty much undistracted, including a good old-fashioned public library. 

This kind of longform writing is also really hard to do with broken brain syndrome. In more immediate writing, in text messages, even in our social media posts, we say, “This is obviously the thing,” and in longform writing we’re supposed to convey, “I’m trying to articulate a thing that we can all relate to, and I may not have all of the answers for you, but I’m going to do a bunch of difficult mental gymnastics about the thing so that you don’t have to.” A friend who has helped me become a clearer writer likes to ask the question, “That’s interesting, is it useful?” and a book feels like a gaping canyon where you’re somewhat impossibly straddling both. 

A few good friends have been helpful in making sure I’m fed and sane. Then again, there are friends like Jason who text me to say “Don’t despair. Everyone should try to write a book,” immediately followed by, “But there’s a reason the great writers kill themselves or write about killing themselves.” 

Outside of this bubble, the news keeps happening. Everything happens so much. Sorry about the link. You can guess where it leads to. 

It's the rainy season here, which for a lot of us means ants. I read an article, and now I can’t find it or remember which outlet, that offered advice on how to manage them and then at the end said something like “If that doesn't work maybe you should just accept them and make friends with the ants.” What the actual…let me just say that the ants are not your friends. They’re insidious pests that could care less about you as they eat away at the structure of your house. 

I guess this isn’t just about ants, now is it. 

Not a Tech Newsletter 

This is not a tech newsletter [important caveat] but I’ve been thinking about the internet midlife crisis we’re in—not the kind of shift that some tech bros are living out publicly cringe t-shirts and broccoli haircuts but an actual crisis in the way we all use apps and services and websites. More accurately, the way they use us. The aforementioned book work has really put me in this headspace. 

Then I was reading this completely unrelated article in the New Statesman about—English majors, roll up your sleeves—the often-overlooked details of The Great Gatsby and the 1920’s. The article referenced a passage that could just as well have summed up the internet’s shift, a century later, from open to commercial to uber-commercial to slop. There’s this whole graph in there where Nick Carraway (unreliable narrator!) stares out from the shores of eastern Long Island and confuses the arrival of the Puritans in Massachusetts with the arrival of the Dutch in New York, and the article concludes, “The shift from spiritualism to mercantilism is the point: America has lost faith with its spiritual ideal and built a new world that is material, without being real, as it has lost its capacity for idealism and wonder.”

Part of the reason why we latch on to the whole idea of “mid”-anything is because we’re actually in some vague or uncomfortable space and we need to give a name to it. That’s what the internet feels like right now (when it's not total chaos or delightfully good). Some of us have been online long enough to remember what it was actually like in the aughts, so we experienced that transition online from idealism to mercantilism. 

But like an actual midlife crisis, there is almost no point in trying to reclaim some ideal from 20 years ago. The point is to develop new playbooks in building a better internet, assuming it’s mercantilist all the way down. What does that look like? First principles, sure, but beyond that? I have no idea. But again, I started this newsletter and mailing list with a few friends because I want to hear your thoughts on it. 

One More Thing

A random assortment of things I’ve been reading and watching that aren’t news-related (but some of them still are):

All of WIRED’s scoopage on what’s happening inside the government. 

This NPR story on...NPR.

This Acquired podcast episode on Costco, from 2023. Thanks to Ali for the rec. 

This really weird fiction story on bone frags. This is a “just trust me.” Thanks to Pete for the rec.

Speaking of Gatsby: This article in User Mag on influencers who are being paid to hawk old-money lifestyles. 

The grandMOTHer on TikTok, thanks to Sally for the rec. 

I really like Kristin Leuke’s monthly poetic newsletter The Animal Eats. We’ve never met but we’ve emailed and I think we’d be friends. Follow her. 

Have you kids seen Babygirl? (Don’t actually show it to your kids.) Between that, All Fours, The Idea of You, the new Bridget Jones and the resurgence of Younger on Netflix, early 40’s women and beyond are having a moment.

More TK. Send me your thoughts.