Director's Notes: 198 - Them Woods Are a Maze (Patreon)

We field a lot of questions about writing (happy to!) though we don’t have all the answers. Joseph and I can only really ever tell people our own approaches to writing, which might not be the best approaches for you.

But there is one constant, one truism, that i return to more than any other: Input/Output. Everything you take in shapes what you put out.

One way of reading that is if you’re a writer, you should read similar writers’ work. And I think that’s a good take.

Another interpretation is that diversity of experiences broadens your voice. I’m not just talking racial/gender/cultural diversity. But yes, make sure you’re not reading a majority white cis men. By “diversity of experience,” I mean to say, a novel that wins the Booker Prize or a Pulitzer or whatever is good to read, of course. And the trashy bestseller everyone’s talking about will provide some amazing social currency.

But what about some bargain bin paperback ain’t nobody ever heard of, probably out of print? What about a James Patterson thriller from 1998 that you find on your grandma’s bookshelf? Those sound terrible. Right? So what? Read ‘em.

Goodreads and Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic make it much easier to find the BEST things, and they’re often right. Cecil jokes that the only good movies are either 1 star or 5 star. Hard to disagree. But if you’re an artist yourself, you need to exist in the 3 star world. Mixed enjoyment is far more valuable than a perfect experience or an absolute trainwreck.

In this episode, Larry Leroy convinces Cecil & Carlos to go see an art exhibit in the whispering forest. And of course it goes badly, but also goodly, too. You won’t have an experience like theirs at The Louvre.

I once ate at the Applebee’s in Times Square because I wanted to know what a 2-star-on-Yelp dining experience in New York’s most crowded area was like. It was terrible. But also fascinating. The urgency of the waitstaff, the freezer-burned food, the dorm commons-quality tables, etc. Now I know, and I’ll never forget it. And sure I can dunk on that Applebee’s or get depressed about it, but thousands a day go through that location, and I would have never seen it otherwise. It's a real experience to have and to know about. Is that useful? I'm writing about it now, so yes. 

Hopefully, unlike Larry, you’ll be safe in your experience-gathering. Don’t take your friends to any place you might not be able to get out of, of course. But don’t just stick with the finest, the 5-stars, the usual. Go off the beaten path.

-Jeffrey Cranor
November 18 2021