Marc Rivers, Author

I’m doing better! Actually, I should probably rephrase that. I’m doing better. (The exclamation point wasn’t entirely accurate.) Support (and meds) are doing their thing, along with a committed effort to improve our sleep hygiene by waking up earlier, going to bed earlier, and getting the enervating blue light of our smartphones out of our faces earlier. I regret to report that it is, in fact, helping our physical and mental well-being.

Also! I did put the finishing touches on Wretched Us, All In Rime, which has been published to the site and can be read here. It’s a horror short that one beta reader described as “proper creepy.” I’ve got another unrelated piece I can share soon, so do go ahead and expect that of me. Maybe now I can be free from the song “Far From the Worries of the World” playing in my head every time I think of this story. (Again, it’s a fantastic song—I just need it to not cue up in my brain like a Pavlovian reflex every time I think about this short story.)

As far as other general writing, I belong to two local writers’ groups. One of them is very informally organized and meets once every blue moon. The other is still kind of new and figuring out what they want their focus to be. I appreciate having both of them, though. Being able to share my work and get any kind of feedback is really useful because it asks questions of my work that I wasn’t able to ask myself, mostly from being in the weeds of it for so damn long. It’s also one more way to help me stay accountable to myself and be more regular in my writing habits.

In one of those group meetings, someone recently made the statement that “writing is lonely work.” Personally, I think that’s only half-true. The act of hammering out the words on a laptop is lonely work, but that’s only half the work. Being among other writers, soliciting feedback, giving feedback of your own, all that is the opposite of lonely work. It’s still work (especially for us sensitive introverts), but it’s also a very critical part of the writing process, or really any kind of creative endeavor. Talking about your work with others gives you the chance to evaluate it from new viewpoints. It also gives you the chance to hear ideas that you wouldn’t have come up with on your own, which opens your mind to wider imaginative vistas. And sometimes explaining your work out loud shows you how to reshape it in ways that improve it, like the creative tension you might find between successful songwriters.

I don’t have time to dedicate to shutting myself off from the world, cueing up the extended play of the Super Metroid soundtrack (thank you, Nintendo Music app, for finally adding that), and cranking out 2,000+ words a night. I wouldn’t want to do that even if I could. I have to find writing time when and where I can. But that’s not the only way my writing “gets done.” When I incorporate that social element into it, it expands my own imagination for new stories and helps me to evaluate my existing work afresh.

All of that is just to say, “here’s where I’m at as a writer in this moment.” I’m trying to maximize the resources I have available to me and treat this craft as something that can always be evolved and developed further. It brings me genuine joy to be able to put the finishing touches on a story, so the more often I can do that and the better I can feel about the quality of what I create, the better.

Enjoy the short story. Keep making art, even when capitalism tells you that you shouldn’t. Oppose fascism whenever and wherever you can. And be kind to each other. We’ll talk again soon.

-Marc