About two weeks ago my latest short story collection, Consultancy Blues, came out. I assure this is not going to be a self-marketing post: I’m bringing it up for a reason.
Looking back at most of the stories in Consultancy Blues, I feel a general sense of fun. The opening short story, Grey Rhapsody Remix Deluxe!, was mostly written in a single session of blissful idea-making (or rather, as I’d like to call it, bullshitting).
The result was unfiltered. I was not writing for an audience, nor did I care if the story ever found an audience. I wrote for myself; I wrote what I found amusing, and I was overwhelmingly amused.
Most certainly this style of writing doesn’t fit every story. I acknowledge that some time you need to be thoughtful; sometime the craft requires you to thread carefully. But this is not today’s point.
Flashback: me, as an 8-years old, pudgy boy, writing a 120 pages long trash-grade fantasy novel where me and my elementary school classmates embarked on an adventure in a secondary world (basically, what we would call today portal fantasy, YA isekai). Completely unreadable, sure; completely devoid of value. But good enough to keep my 8-year old brain far from more rewarding activities (e.g., that PlayStation one).
More than two decades into the future and I found myself having fun while writing grim tales about alienation.
![[SAFE] chibi style, short hair, office man writing, impressionist style, combining manga and comic style, whimsical, from below](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3jB_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F164a8992-e09f-495a-965f-f67089ba6cbe_1024x1024.jpeg "[SAFE] chibi style, short hair, office man writing, impressionist style, combining manga and comic style, whimsical, from below")
Now, maybe my stories are still trash. Maybe they are still mediocre, subpar, derivative, and badly written. I might be guilty of purple prose like any other guy. The point is that, for a brief, blessed while, I did not care. This is not about results, this is about an healthier process.
If I had a penny for each writer caught in a cycle of guilt, self-bashing, and paralyzing fear of mediocrity, I would have many pennies.
This doesn’t have to be the case. If I was able to rediscovered that child-like joy in the craft1, there is hope for everyone.
Incidentally, I also believe that fun makes my writing better. Those stories are also better overall: if anything, they are direct, less pretentious, and less filtered by unending cycles of doubt and revision.
This might be just the next step on my progress this year. I slowly and steadily changed my outlook on failure and I detached myself from thinking about my audience too much:
Of course, I have no way to tell if those steps are going to help anyone else (or if they are going to hold true for me in the long run). Each writer’s journey is different (and beware of people that tell you otherwise).
For now, I hope I will be able to bring the same childlike joy to my novels; and I frankly hope you do as well.
Was this remotely inspiring? If so, how about pushing the button?
Maybe what Pascoli would have called the “little child” inside everyone.