July Writerly Things
Book recommendations, writing exercises and debut releases
July has been a month of firsts.
I, a woman who would sooner be buried than appear on video or be heard on the radio, have, at the persistent shove of my darling friend Dahlia who is a brilliant writer, started hosting a podcast.
The logic was sound even if the casting wasn’t. Either the two of us are catastrophically bad at finding things, or there is a genuine dearth of coverage of the indie authors, indie presses and indie books that do all the heavy lifting and make for the most delicious, meaty reading. We decided it was the second one. So we made The Deep List.
Five episodes shot, three up, two forthcoming, and it has been a delight. I do not use the word ‘delight’ lightly, and certainly not about my own voice, which I have now heard more of this month than in the preceding thirty-odd years combined. Talking books with authors who are hard at work putting out brilliant things turns out to be worth the ordeal of hearing myself say “so, tell me about your process.”
“Elf” it
On Instagram I came across Zach Cregger’s advice for drafting screenplays: you pretend you’ve hired a stupid, underpaid elf to produce the first draft for you. The draft will be terrible, because he is underpaid and overworked and may, on some level, hate you. But it will be a draft, which is worth more than blank pages.
I am halfway into drafting my #GoddessWIP and struggling in entirely expected ways, so this seemed a fine opportunity to try this mind-shift trick.
Reader, the elf delivered.
Over three days I went from 32,000 words to 40,000. 8,000 words, in three days, around a full-time job, a family, and an insane London commute that would test the resolve of a saint. For a drafter as time-poor as I am, those are frankly deranged numbers. The elf has been retained. He does not know it yet, but he works here now.
Book recommendations
I had an amazing time interviewing Lyvia Martinez on the podcast and reading her book of which I received an ARC. The ARC wasn’t available before we recorded so she very kindly shared a detailed synopsis with me at the time. I loved it then. But the book has turned out to be even better. My review is already up on Goodreads. If you like YA and LGBTQ+ tellings of grief, love, heartbreak, coming-of-age, and all the confusion that arrives with growing up, then Our Last Fall belongs on your autumn list. Have a listen.
Looking forward to:
Books from both my other interviewees, as it happens.
Chital Mehta’s Have You Seen Romit? I have already peeked through the first chapter of the ARC and her voice is extraordinary, grounded in exactly the kind of cultural specificity a premise like this one needs to wear. And Joanne Merriam’s Aether & Ego, a Pride & Prejudice retelling in a Jules Verne-esque steampunk register. Out in September.
If you’re after cosmic horror crossed with a thriller, AM Shilling’s The Devouring is not to be missed. Yes, I’m biased—she’s been on the podcast—but I only ever feature work I personally like, which is the whole and slightly reckless editorial policy around the magazine. The book, her debut, is a masterclass in pacing and structure and how to write villain protagonists. Her episode airs Friday 31 July. Stay tuned.
Emily Wilson’s take on Nolan’s The Odyssey in the London Review of Books, took me out. I have to read her translation now, and I will not be discussing more until I have read it, only that at the end of the very long night showing of the film, I was unable to shake the thought that Odysseus, frankly, had it easy. It took him less time to get home than anyone using the London Underground.
The panta bhaat post
The personal-column, journal-entry pieces are the ones I enjoy writing most, which I put down to having journaled and blogged more or less without pause since university—some sixteen years, broken only by Covid, which broke most things. This one on an ordinary Saturday with a recipe for a classic Bengali summer lunch, this one on researching through an off-work Monday, and the one on orphan sentences which I collect like other people stack silver, made their appearances this month.
I’ll end my less-than-ordinary dispatches here.
Happy writing!
Amrita