Medium continues to be a massive disappointment this year. Due to either an algorithm change or some kind of shift in how it distributes traffic, I barely get the engagement in years prior, and substantially smaller payouts and fewer followers, consequently. Though some of my articles caught on in Google’s rankings, I see zero money for non-Medium members who read my stuff. That’s really frustrating, as some of my “stories” (as Medium likes to call them) have caught tens of thousands of views.
It’s not that I soullessly write for money. It’s just that I would like to see commensurate compensation for when I do write something that lands.
Still, I’ve kept plugging away. Either foolishly or just out of stubborn persistence and the desire to maintain stasis. Medium is a solid platform, for sure. But it has a low ceiling. Whereas a platform like YouTube will (assuming you are monetized) at least pay you for ALL the views you get, not just Medium members. As such, YT has basically uncapped potential, though it too has its issues.
YouTube
As much as I love YouTube and the idea of being a YouTuber, I don’t know that it’s the right venue for me, either. Nor do I care to contort myself into the tortuous content creation pretzel shape that YT demands if you want to have a shot at gaining traction. YT seems to favor TikTok-style shorts anymore, and such snappy, soundbite quippings are not in my wheelhouse. The few videos I’ve posted this year are long, thoughtful, and reflective, which is not really conducive to YT’s dazzling discothèque guppy-attention-span content that seems to predominate on there.
I’m a writer at the end of the day. A fiction writer, specifically. I try to be. While I like dropping spicy op-eds from time to time, Medium and this whole “content game” thing often just proves a procrastinative distraction and a futilely unfulfilling endeavor. I get so little satisfaction out of writing even a “banger” article that gets a good traffic spike it’s not funny.
Whereas, a good fiction writing session puts me on cloud nine.
I don’t care to just crank out a bunch of noise, trying to surf the trend waves. I’d rather spend the time on my books. I have a lot of them in various states of editing, and I have a lot of ideas for more.
My latest will be out soon.
Conundrum
Which brings me to the conundrum. To be a successful fiction writer, you need a platform to help market your work. But to get a platform, you have to play the mind numbing algo/traffic/pretzel twist game I just talked about. A successful writer is a successful salesman, not just a good tapper of keystrokes. Like many writers, this rustles my introvert jimmies. I hate “putting myself out there,” though I’m not a wallflower by any means.
I see many other writers, especially self-published ones, market themselves via YouTube and social media, either by book or movie reviews, or by being (usually godawful) cultural critics and posting daily ragebait commentary on whatever headline caught their ire that morning. I don’t care to waste the time being a “culture warrior.” That’s very cringy to me. And there are frankly certain audiences I just don’t care to attract.
I will never be a fucking “writing coach.” I will never sell a fucking course or some bullshit consulting like so many of those hustlers out there do. No. Just no. I will never make “writing about writing” my thing. Never going to happen. I don’t care to waste the time, and I sure as hell don’t need to do it for the money.
I could see doing long form book or movie reviews, however.
And even though some of my finance-themed articles have actually performed the best, I think I’m done with that niche. Save and invest your money. Stay out of debt. Control your spending. Slow and steady (i.e. boring) compound gains will make you wealthy, not get-rich-quick crypto/stock/real estate/side hustle schemes. Stop listening to stupid influencers and their bullshit products. There, what the hell else needs to really be said?
Conclusion
As a compromise, I’ll keep posting non-fiction stuff, but likely just focusing on books, movies, and shows. Since Medium has proven near pointless to continue with, I may just go old school and post stuff on here exclusively instead. I blogged a lot way back in the day, and I see that era of the internet returning. Content has become far too siloed on digital slave farms like Facebook and other social media. It’s time for it to decentralize like it used to be. A.I. slop has ruined a lot of content sites also. In fact, I think A.I. is part of why the algo machine has completely broken down across the web.
I’ll invest more time interacting with social media in a qualitatively productive manner. I’ll also continue to experiment with YouTube. Perhaps there are actually people out there who’d rather look at my face and hear me talk than read my stuff. Hey, it’s possible.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’ll have more updates for you soon, including my latest book. See you in the sun. 🙂
I’m a recovering “beat-em-up” fan. Back in the day as a teen I used to love those terrible Steven Seagal films like Above the Law and Marked For Death. Or Jean-Claude Van Damme stuff like Bloodsport and Death Warrant. They were constantly on rotation on USA and TBS and other freemium cable channels in the late ’90s. Films that were passably entertaining for immature adolescent minds, but in retrospect are ridiculously cheesy and absurd. But hey, if you haven’t seen Seagal break a Jamaican dude’s arm in half or Van Damme roundhouse kick a guy into a furnace, you haven’t lived.
Nowadays, Jason Statham is your go-to macho man face puncher and bad guy beater downer. Strangely, actors even higher up the talent totem pole have had a go at their own fistacuffs franchises. Bob Odenkirk is Nobody. A-lister Denzel Washingtonis The Equalizer. And of course Internet Jesus Keanu Reeves is John Wick.
Everyone wants to kick ass these days! Who can blame them? Have you seen the prices of things lately? Going to the grocery store anymore is like going to a Fuck Me in the Ass Parade.
The latest is A Working Man, where Statham plays a former blacks ops soldier turned construction guy who has to return to his face-stomping roots when his boss’s daughter gets kidnapped or something. I’ve not seen it, nor will I ever. Just like I didn’t see Statham’s last flick The Beekeeper, which had pretty much the same plot. The latest edition of Statham Beats Up Some Guys interests me about as much as hanging around a bunch of backwards hat-wearing dude bros talking about their fantasy football picks.
(No man should have a hobby with the word “fantasy” in it. Like, are there sparkles involved? Pink glitter? GTFO of here with that.)
Anyway…
What is pretty cool (and surprising), is that A Working Man is based on a book. Which is part of a book series, actually. By a real author. Not some A.I. trained on Seagal and Van Damme flicks. Chuck Dixon is a prolific author known mostly for his work in the comic book industry. He co-created Bane, aka the villain who broke Batman’s back. So, this guy is well-experienced in creating characters that know how to kick the crap out of people.
Dixon’s series is called Levon Cade, and features the vigilante going on various quests involving revenge and likely crushing a few throats. There are twelve books in total. The first, titled simply Levon’s Trade, premiered in December, 2021. The others came in rapid succession, sometimes as little as three weeks apart, over the course of 2022. The eleventh published in August, after which Dixon took a sabbatical before dropping the twelfth and final (?) in February, 2024. Not bad. Guy banged it all out in roughly a calendar year.
Look, these are not labyrinthine literary feasts like A Game of Thrones. These stories are Fisher-Price simple and Neanderthal stupid. No shit. But when you get down to it, there are really only two genres — “Man with Gun” and “Girl Bangs Guy.” That’s about it. James Bond, for all his British sophistication, is just another “Man with Gun” story. Titanic is the ultimate “Girl Bangs Guy.” The classics usually combine the two in interesting ways. Double Indemnity, for instance. There are some exceptions, often seen in experimental or prestige award stuff, but nobody cares. People only pay attention when someone’s fucking or getting murdered. Can you name the book that won the Nobel Prize for Literature four years ago? No? Have you ever heard of Fifty Shades of Grey? My point exactly.
I am not a fan of simple vigilante series, in either book or movie versions. I read Killing Floor once, the first Jack Reacher book, a long time ago, and the experience was akin to tattoo gunning my eyeballs. I am a fan of writers, however. Especially ones who put in the effort to carve out their own success, in whatever genre they choose. A Working Man has likely done well enough at the box office to merit a sequel. Who knows. It could even be a franchise like John Wick. I have no idea. I’ll never see the films anyway. I outgrew the need for them a long time ago. But I do appreciate them and the writers who make them.
I’ll often see people post on book review sites or forums marveling over an author who churns out multiple novels every year. Popular authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Danielle Steel, and others who are well known for spinning doorstops with apparent ease.
How do these writers do it? It seems impossible.
Some cast doubt that the authors actually wrote their novels on their own. Often they accuse them of using ghostwriters. For sure, some brand name authors, like James Patterson infamously, employ an army of co-writers for their many projects. But many actually do it all by themselves, braving the blank white screen every morning. As David Baldacci says on his X account:
I live to write and write to live.
I recently finished my 11th novel. A book I started on March 23rd of this year — after almost 18 months of false starts — finally completing the first draft on August 27th. That’s a little over five months, or 157 days. The first draft is about 90,700 words.
That comes out to only 577 words a day. Some days I only managed a few hundred. Those were usually the days I worked. Toward the end of the novel, I picked up the pace (as I usually do nearing the exciting conclusion of a book). I probably wrote about 5,000 words in just the last three days before finishing.
Still, my average daily output comes out to a mere 577 words. A simple email might be 500 words. The average person probably texts their friends more than 500 words a day. It’s about the length of a two minute Medium article. A few tweets. Five hundred words is not a lot. Yet 500 words a day comes out to two 90,000 word novels a year. One thousand words a day equals four adult novels. Writing a “little” can really add up fast.
Of course, there’s the editing process. It’s not like once you finish typing that 90,000th word you’re all done. Editing is sometimes a lengthy, complicated process with its own messy timeline.
Then there’s outlining and idea generation. This last novel of mine was a struggle, unlike others in the past. But I found that by sticking to my daily writing regimen, I was able to push through a lot of supposed blockages. It’s usually best just to keep ploughing ahead anyway, even if you think you’re “stuck.”
If you are a prolific writer, sometimes it’s not enough for fans. Baldacci recently had this exchange with a reader:
Baldacci publishes multiple books a year, some of which are well over 400 pages. He certainly writes thousands of words a day. But you don’t have to write that much to write a lot. Even “just” 250 words a day is 90,000 words. That’s an adult novel a year. Or two novellas a year. Which is not bad at all.
On August 26th I completed my 100th article on Medium. It’s not the biggest writing milestone ever. There are accounts on there with hundreds, even thousands.
I had a goal of reaching the century mark by the end of this year, only to end up blowing right past it. This one is №118. A pleasant surprise, especially given how I was consumed with another writing project of mine for most of the past year and a half.
My experience with Medium has been decent. I’ve found some success with a handful of articles that got thousands of claps, and earned me some money. I’ve survived not one, but two account suspensions. One just recently, and another back in 2022. Both occurring without any real reason other than somehow my account became caught in the “spam filter.” Okay, whatever. Never had that issue with Blogspot back in the day or WordPress now.
On the positive side, I have over 900 followers. The majority of whom I’d say subscribed due to my finance-related articles. My highest earning month so far was this past July with $291. I’ve had multiple $100+ months over the last few years. I don’t know that Medium will ever be, or even could be, a full-time gig. Not without insane commitment and a willingness to plunge into primarily the most lucrative subjects (personal development and finance). I have too many other writing projects going on and other interests to go that far with Medium. As I’ve stated previously, I have no desire to try to build a “brand” there. I sure as hell don’t do coaching. I don’t do freelance work. I will never sell a stupid course or membership of some kind. I realize that’s how a lot of top writers on here make their full-time income, but it’s just not me. There are enough “gurus” out there peddling their snake oil. I just write novels and on occasion scribble out a usually sarcastic editorial. And a finance article here and there.
Writing on Medium for money is not a primary concern for me. My earnings have paid for the Friend of Medium badge for a few years though. Which is nice. At the least, the site is a net positive.
Overall, I see Medium as a good place to practice daily writing and gradually build a platform.
The other milestone happened to take place the following day on August 27th. That is the completion of my 11th novel. A horror story with a dark and twisted romance at its core. This was a tough one to get through. I struggled with it for years. A sharp contrast to previous novels I’ve written, which largely flowed. The inception of the idea actually came way back in 1999, which makes it the oldest concept I’ve ever maintained and seen through to a completed work. It was just a tiny undeveloped spark of a thing. I didn’t know what to do with it then, so I wound up putting it on the backburner for a few decades.
It wasn’t until 2020 that the idea ignited further. Then in 2022 it started to really kindle. At times it felt like trying to hammer cooling iron into shape. I went down two blind alleys, and almost 50,000 words, before having to start over twice. Daunting and dismaying, for sure. But when I have an idea I’m passionate about, I like to stick with it.
This past March, after revising the outline, I began the third attempt. Six months later the first draft is finally finished, and stands at over 90,000 words. My first drafts tend to be strong. I don’t believe in doing “vomit drafts.” I try to get most of what is needed down on the page in a structured and coherent (more or less) fashion in the first go. Even still, it’s perhaps only 65% where it needs to be. As I typically do when finishing a novel, I let the first draft rest for a bit before returning for revisions.
Even though I’ve written 11 novels so far, I’ve only self-published three of them. This is largely because, while I love writing, I have no effing idea how to market or sell my work. Simultaneously, I have little faith in or concern to play the lottery with the traditional publishing side. I’ve read a lot of articles on here about publishing, and let’s just say it’s a sad state of affairs. Even if you land an agent or a publishing deal, the problem of selling your work remains the same. You have to do all of that yourself.
Few, if any, publishing houses, big or small, will put any money into some no-name like myself. I don’t begrudge the industry. It’s the way it is. Most publishing companies make money on their back catalogue of hits, or on “bread and butter” sales like the dictionary or something. Most authors only sell a few hundred copies of their work at best. Publishing in general is a boutique-style business driven by hits. Hits are random. Even celebrity books have totally bombed. So, until I can solve the marketing side of things and learn how to sell myself, I don’t see much of a purpose in putting my eight finished books out there. Perhaps that’s extreme and self-defeating, but I think it’s important to have a plan of execution and not just go out on a wing and a prayer. My books are like my children. I want to treat them right.
I do love my latest book a lot. I think if there’s one that will finally get me to solve the riddle of the Sphinx of Marketing, it’ll be this one. It’s tough to be a writer these days. You can’t just scribble away in a room and submit to publishing shops. You have to learn to do everything yourself. You have to build your own platform. I suppose that‘s part of why I stick around here on Medium. I probably should make YouTube more of a thing, too. That’s a fantastic digital ecosystem, and potentially, a money-making one.
I’ve also thought about posting some of my fiction on here, though I do like keeping the worlds apart. It’s strange. Even though I enjoy writing articles on Medium, non-fiction never makes me feel like I’m really “writing.” Only when I’m writing my novels do I feel like I’m actually really producing something. Fiction enables me to get into a flow state the best, which is my favorite head space. Nothing else comes close.
Anyway, since I don’t like to spend too much time navel-gazing about writing “successes,” I’ll just leave it at that for now. Two good milestones in the rear view mirror. Onto the next.
The title of this piece is in reference in part to some recent comments made by Adam Goldberg, who played a bit part on the show Friends back in the day. In an interview with Independent, when asked about modern criticism toward the show due its lack of diversity, he said:
And in terms of diversity, looking back, it seems insane. I’ve heard Black people speak about this and it’s like, you never expected to see yourself, so when you didn’t, it was not a surprise, and you ended up identifying to characters, irrespective of their race.
The ’90s was a weird time in TV history when it came to racial integration. Back then, TV shows were largely segregated, with little integration unless an episode was racially-themed. You had White shows like Full House and Married with Children. Then you had Black shows like Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. There were no mainstream Latin or Asian shows to my knoweldge. Certainly no Native American ones. It was vanilla and chocolate, with hardly any mixing.
Friends was not unsual in its milk-colored casting choices. I never watched the show, nor did I ever care for it or find it funny. What little I’ve seen of it I find cringe and annoying. I’m a Seinfeld guy. But I do recall that Friends had a wide and ironically diverse audience despite its “insane” lack thereof.
In 2004 in college I was friends with a young African woman who loved the show and raved all week about seeing the anticipated series finale. In one of the lounges, people gathered around watching the last episode. To be clear, it most likely had a largely White audience, but the show’s humor (or what passed for it) seemed to catch on with all kinds.
Goldberg’s comments are rather innocuous. The show’s co-creator, Marta Kauffman, however, was more passionate in her response. Saying to the Los Angeles Times:
“I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years,” Kauffman said in a Zoom interview. “Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. It’s painful looking at yourself in the mirror. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know better 25 years ago.”
She adds:
The series’ failure to be more inclusive, Kauffman says, was a symptom of her internalization of the systemic racism that plagues our society, which she came to see more clearly in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the worldwide protest movement that erupted around it.
Kauffman felt so bad about her supposed “failures” that she donated $4 million to her alma mater, Brandeis University, to establish a professorship in the school’s African and African American Studies Department. A nice gesture on her part, I suppose. Perhaps the largest sum anyone’s ever paid to soothe their conscience for the crime of creating an insufficiently diverse hit TV show.
Though I would call it pathological. How sad and tragic that someone’s greatest accomplishment in life should be sullied by such pointless feelings of guilt over an imaginary transgression. This is the kind of remorse appropriate if you killed someone drunk driving. But casting six White people with good chemistry in a dumb sitcom? Please. It all seems performative and just a cynical attempt to pay off an angry mob.
It’s not the job of a TV show or movie to perfectly represent some fictious ideal image of a multicultual society. Or to live up to some hypothetical future standard. Sitcoms are notoriously tricky to cast for and rarely succeed. Many are canceled right out of the gate. The best ones all have a rare casting synergy, and for the most part have been homogenous. Comedy in general is largely a birds of a feather affair, save for some exceptional pairings like Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Or Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Even when a show injects some ethnic mixing, it often comes off as unconvincing, forced, or awkward. I always felt that the Indian character Raj in The Big Bang Theory was marginized and especially virginal compared to the better developed White characters. In the first season he hardly even speaks. But I suppose he represents “diversity,” or at least serves as an avatar of it.
“I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college,” Kudrow said.
“And for shows especially, when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven, you write what you know. They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of color,” she added.
I think Kudrow’s comments make a very good point, and illustrate how we should not assume that a lack of diversity is due to malice or internalized racism, but an inability to be as authentic as the art requires. If you had primarily White friends in college and directly after, and then you proceed to make a hit show based on that life of yours, and that show goes on to get made with an all-White cast and becomes a cultural touchstone (however undeserving or absurd that is), then I say good for you. You have nothing to feel bad about.
I mean, at the end of the day, are we really going to take some overrated crap show like Friends and call that a mirror or summation of ’90s culture? No show could possibly encapsulate the ’90s. I lived in and remember that entire decade. Does that show reflect our society or just one woman’s experiences as a young person living in New York City with her stupid friends? Are people so desperate to see themselves in things that they’ll attack a show that’s been off the air for two decades over its lack of diverse casting? Especially now in the social media age we live in, where anyone can put themselves out there on a dozen platforms and find an audience no matter what race or ethnicity they are?
Attack Friends all you want for being unfunny and cringe as hell. But don’t waste your time bashing it for its lack of diversity. That’s actually insane.
It’s 11 p.m. Dark, no stars. Soft rain patters against the windows of the small town corner bookstore. The proprietor, a graying, middle-aged man, old and weary before his time, starts locking up.
Another bad day. Only one sale. To a little old lady who was looking for that “cute sparkly vampire” book for her granddaughter. He sold her Dracula instead. Maybe he could save just one Zoomer.
No else even came inside. All too busy staring down at their phones as they walked past. Doomscrolling TikTok, cat memes, and God knows what else. These glowing screens might as well be crack pipes, he thinks, wiping a distressed brow.
The proprietor lifts his tired eyes to the black abyss of a sky as he closes the shades. He used to be filled with optimism. He was going to change the world. He was going to be somebody. A bookseller. A real bookseller. He was going to nourish the world with the printed word. With physical books. Sure, they were dusty, old, and smelled funny. But they were real. Imprinted with human touch and ownership. A physical book is something that says, “I exist, I matter!”
Except nobody wants real books anymore. They just want their glowing screens. They want their Kindles with their “e-paper.” Ha! As if paper could be mimicked on a screen. What next? E-food? E-water?
Now the bills are piling up. Rent’s overdue. A utility company is howling at the door. Bankruptcy looms. It’s over, he thinks. Time to admit defeat once and for all. The glowing screens won. Damn them. Damn them all to hell.
Then he hears footsteps. A shadowy figure suddenly appears. It sort of reminds him of how Nick Fury came in at the end of the first Iron Man movie in the post-credits scene.
In fact, that’s exactly what it reminds him of.
“You think you’re the only bookseller struggling to keep the lights on? You’re part of a much bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.”
“No, I’m fully aware bookstores are a failing business model,” he says. “My ex-wife reminded me everyday.”
I step fully into the light. A stack of books under my arm. An eye patch placed crookedly on my face.
“Is that eye patch real, or did you just put it on for effect?” he asks.
“Never mind that. I’m putting a team together. I mean, I’m putting a library together.”
The proprietor glances at my books. Lost Horizon. The Caine Mutiny. Is that really Fahrenheit 451? Asingle tear forms in his eye.
A small smile cracks his cynical, grim visage. His first one in ages.
Maybe there is hope, afterall.
My books. Author’s photo.
Buying physical books may not be as dramatic as saving the world, but there’s nothing like actual “flesh and blood” print over e-books or words off a glowing screen.
Reading words off a screen feels more like scanning than actual reading. Though that’s probably just a generational bias. If you grew up staring into the pixelated prism of an iPad, you might prefer the digital version over the real thing.
I have a Kindle. It mainly sits there and collects dust. I only used it for a few digital books I bought. But the experience is not the same. Even if it is more convenient to hold a thin piece of plastic instead of a heavy, awkward book. Perhaps one I’ll finally get used to scanning the fake paper of an e-reader into my brain like a self-checkout machine.
I keep most of my books in storage these days. I like to keep things simple for the time being. Someday I’ll have a house to put them in. Someday I’ll have them properly displayed in my own library.
Jerry Seinfeld once joked that everything we own is just on an eventual jouney to the dumpster. Maybe having boxes and boxes of books like I do will one day prove a burden to family members. I have new books and old books from childhood. I’ve never thrown a book out. I’ve saved everyone I’ve ever had. One day after I’m gone they’ll be sitting on a plastic table at a garage sale. Donated to a library. Or just thrown in the dumpster. But they’ll have served their purpose, at least for me.
Are you daunted by door stop tomes like Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove? Intimidated by popular thick bricks like Stephen King’s It or The Stand? Just not ready to plunge into David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (more like Infinite Pages)?
Sometimes a big epic story like War and Peace is what you need. I’m in the thick of The Caine Mutiny on a reread myself right now. But If you’d prefer your next read be more in line with Shakespeare’s ol’ “Brevity is the soul of wit” chestnut, then think about picking up one of these next seven titles.
1897 was a banner year for sci-fi/horror classics, with both H.G. Wells’ brief but surprisingly brutal book being published, as well as Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking Dracula.
The Invisible Man tells the story of a mad scientist named Griffin who runs amok when his experiment in optics gets out of control. He turns himself invisible, as you might have guessed from the title. While being unseen is nice for awhile, when he can’t reverse the process despite his obsessive research, Griffin becomes homicidal. He terrororizes an inn, then threatens a town. After gaining a confidant named Kemp, he concocts a scheme to wreak havoc on the entire nation. But when Kemp betrays him to the police, a deadly vengeance-fueled cat and mouse game ensues.
The Invisible Man is definitely worch checking out, as is the 1933 Claude Raines-starring film adaptation. The 2020 film written and direct by Leigh Whannell is also pretty good.
2.) I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan
Source: Midjourney
As someone who had to endure that hip teen slasher wave of the late 90s-early 2000s that started with Scream and ended somewhere around Wrong Turn, I never knew the micro franchise I Know What You Did Last Summer was actually based on a bestselling YA book from the early ’70s. A book that predates the original teen slasher wave that saw Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and all the clones that followed. I always thought of I Know as just “that movie poster that shows off Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts.”
While the movie shares the major conceit of the book, it diverges significantly by adding in a fish-hook using crazed killer into the mix. The book is actually more of a slow burn in the style of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, or something like the 1988 Dutch film The Vanishing, as opposed to the film’s sexier, slashier counterpart. For some bizarre reason, author Lois Duncan decided to rerelease the book to update the characters with modern tech and center them in the present. The effect was jarring as I started reading a book I knew was written in the 70s when suddenly a character mentions texting their friend. Note to authors: Don’t ever try to update your classics for modern audiences. George Lucas is your cautionary tale there. And besides, everyone loves retro stuff these days. Barnes and Noble sells records now. Half the new shows out there are set in the ’80s anymore. Stories should be like time capsules.
I Know works okay as a YA thriller, except I think it would have served the story better, not to mention a sense of justice, had the teens been hunted down one by one and actually killed. It’s too soft as it is. Only one of the kids is ever actually endangered — the frat douche, who gets shot, but not enough to paralyze him permanently. The darling main character is exalted so much that her BF actually says that his punishment from the killer would have been to have to live in a world without her in it. Get the hell out of here with that. These four kids ran over a little boy while they were out partying, and then left him there to die without getting help. They formed a pact to keep the secret, and then went on about with their lives. Even after the would-be killer is revealed and stopped, we don’t even get to see the kids face justice for what they did.
3.) Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr.
Source: Midjourney
As a writer of novellas, and a sci-fi horror fan, I had to check this one out at some point. It comes with a pretty nice pedigree, being considered one of the most influential and important science fiction stories of all time. Who Goes There? certainly extends gravity in the pulp lit of sci-fi, having been adapted not once, not twice, but thrice to the big screen (or twice if you don’t count the latest 2011 adaptation, which I don’t).
Does Who Goes There? live up to expectations? It’s an unusual book in the sense that it relies mainly on lengthy dialogue exposition between the Antarctic researchers, only occasionally cutting to glimpses of the monster shape-shifting and running amok around the station. Nowadays you’d probably see a lot more graphical description, blood and guts, that sort of thing. So it came across more as a cerebral read. Like a clinical description of heart bypass surgery in a medical school lab.
Still, what makes this novella famous is the monster itself. I think Campbell does a great job of depicting the horror of what would happen were such a creature to reach the mainland, where it would have a whole population of flesh and blood to replicate. There’s one heart-stopping scene where an albatross, which Campbell uses in reference to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, lands near the camp. The men are forced to shoot it to keep it away, preventing the monster from copying it and potentially flying away. I’ve seen the original Thing from Another World, and Carpenter’s masterful ’82 version, and neither takes advantage of such a threat, which makes it unique to the book.
It’s kind of funny though how Campbell constantly refers to the monster as the Thing, and yet he titles the novella something else. Really, the Thing is such a perfect and obvious title, you’d figure it would have HAD to have occurred to the writer to call his story that. He was a legendary sci-fi editor, in addition to being a writer. Perhaps this is case of writer myopia. Who Goes There? comes across more as a murder mystery than a sci-fi horror.
4.) A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison
Source: Midjourney
You could place a colon at the end of the title and add: “A true love story.”
Reading this novella is like handling a Hattori Hanzo sword. Ellison’s genuine love story is less a string of prose than a glinting weapon you equally admire and fear for its supernatural sharpness. Ignoring the outrageous arguments against this short, beastly narrative for its misogyny and big wet dick slap in feminism’s face (it’s Ellison, for Christ’s sake, did you expect a PC automaton?), and you can admire Mr. Always In Hot Water’s cinematic prose, subtlety, and black humor that would certainly warm the cockles of Vonnegut or Burgess’ hearts.
I made the mistake of watching the film version before reading the story, but let’s just say I’m glad it was made in the mid-70s instead of, well, pretty much anytime afterward. This is a young adult dystopian story with big, hairy balls, where the monolithic evil, teenage-exploitative system doesn’t get overthrown by plucky coeds in latex. Nope, our hero simply escapes to live another day, and then makes the ultimate “bros before hos” decision ever made. Which really isn’t a decision. I mean really, who in their right mind would turn their back on their loyal, sarcastic, telepathic doggo for some downunder wacko?
5.) The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
Source: Midjourney
This is a nice companion piece to Fifty Shades of Grey.
This was such a dark, twisted modern fairy tale about a couple nasty people ultimately getting what they deserve. You wouldn’t think a novella about BDSM demons from another dimension would be an insatiable read, yet this is one you can’t put down once you start. Barker’s writing is spooky campfire story tone, with sentences that pulse with blood and desire. Is this one of those rare books where the movie exceeds the source material? Probably not. Hellraiser is a decent horror flick, but Barker’s true talent lies in his writing.
I like to revisit this book every year around Halloween, but it also makes for a good stocking stuffer.
6.) Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky
Source: Midjourney
Ever wanted to experience the psychedelic/swinging 60s/70s in book form? Now you can! Well, it’s not quite same as dropping a tab of acid, or swallowing a handful of mushrooms, but Chayefsky’s novel, which he adapted into the movie starring William Hurt, is like an adult version of Alice in Wonderland crossed with Frankenstein with a dash of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Or imagine if Michael Crichton had become a theoretical physicist with a wake and bake routine.
I mainly read this book just to check out how Chayefsky, already a legendary screenwriter, handled a novel. I’d say this represents a culmination of nearly all his writing efforts. His work generally contained existential themes like the meaning of life, humanity in the face of industry, and such heady topics. But Altered States explores the very nature of consciousness itself. At times it’s a little too jargon heavy. Chayefsky’s two years of intense research amongst the Boston-area medical intelligentsia certainly shows. This is not a book that attempts in any way to be relatable, reflecting the monastic traits of its main character. Nor is it a book that will necessarily put you off due to its way out there premise. I think Chayefsky actually left a lot on the table, and could have explored the transformative effects Jessup experiences in the isolation tank more thoroughly. Instead, plot is dispensed with in favor of scientific soliloquies. Not bad, overall, it just feels truncated.
This is one of those books that you will likely revisit several times in your life, drawing different meaning from it depending on which era you’re currently in. The movie is decent, but don’t expect it to offer any more answers than the novel.
7.) The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackery
Source: Midjourney
You’ve heard of the D.E.N.N.I.S. System from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Allow me to introduce you to:
The B.A.R.R.Y. L.Y.N.D.O.N. System
Be of noble birth. Always be seducing wealthy and vulnerable heiresses. Rogues are cool. Really, rogues are super cool (especially Irish ones). Yes, my great-grandaddy was an Irish king.
Lying? Me? Never. Yes, I’ll have a fine brandy. All of them, in fact. Nora, that bitch. Destroy scheming step-sons at all costs. Only bang sluts, never marry them (unless they’re rich). Never surrender a chance to duel.
William Makepeace Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon is many things. It’s a picaresque confessional novel, a sort of 18th century American Psycho. It’s a satirical look at class and the aristocracy of England during a transformative time when the American colonists were overthrowing the rule of the monarch.
I found its greatest strength to be its cruelly honest depiction of an unhealthy and toxic marriage, in the form of the relationship between Redmond Barry, who becomes Barry Lyndon upon his marriage to Lady Lyndon (the wealthiest heiress in England, apparently). Despite being of low birth, through mostly violence and psychological warfare, Barry gains control over Lyndon’s entire estate, and promptly plunges it into near bankruptcy. He isolates his wife from society, abuses her in drunken black out rages, makes a mortal enemy of her son Lord Bullington; yet still produces a son with her to serve as his heir. As with everything Barry touches, it turns briefly to gold, only to crumble to dust. His son dies in a tragic horse accident, and he is ultimately undone through trickery just as he is ousted from his first love Nora at the beginning of the story.
Subtley, Thackeray seems to hint at the failure of English society, despite all its pomp and importance. All it takes is a mere “Irish rogue” with enough cunning to spearhead his way to the top of the heap (however briefly), to be undone only by the same vices that lead him initially to success. But perhaps Barry isn’t completely to blame. If one wanted to rise above his station in those days, in that part of the world, one had to be a force of nature. You had to be willing to do whatever it took. Only the few were born into the nobility, and so had the leisure of acting as “gentlemen.” For the rest, it was either through military service (risky, considering you had a high chance of death, disease, or dismemberment), or schemes. America had not yet been invented. There was yet very little means for one to climb upward.
Barry gambles compulsively, a habit that serves him mainly in youth, when with his uncle, he tours Western Europe separating fools from their money. Barry’s only chief skill is in fact “play,” (cards) a perfect metaphor for the arbitrary fate that falls on those who choose the criminal life of deception and violence. Though nowadays Barry’s means of creating wealth might be related to the casino dealings on Wall Street. A modern day Barry Lyndon would probably be a Silicon Valley fraud, a la Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes. Someone psychopathically fixated on achieving status not so much because it’s fulfilling or it even satisfies some inner need, but simply because their brain seems wired in such a way. The world is filled with Barry Lyndons, just as the world is filled with horrible, shitty marriages that nevertheless go on.
The Luck of Barry Lyndon is worth a read, as is Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation, it goes without saying. It’s a bit dry in spots, but the parts with Lord Bullington are worth waiting for.
Or will his ghost writer cartel keep his name on the bestsellers lists until the sun explodes?
“James Patterson.” Made by the author with MidJourney.
If you’ve somehow never heard of prolific best-selling author James Patterson, head on down to your local library and just look for the Patterson Section. It’ll usually be its own wing, maybe a garage, or even a seperate building altogether.
My local library used to be a video store, and they actually keep all of Patterson’s books back in what was once the adult video section. Complete with privacy curtain and sticky carpet. I always forget when I visit in my trench coat and sunglasses that this is no longer the place where I can rent my well-used copy of Spirit of Seventy Sex, but instead a respectable section offering cheap and sometimes titillating disposable literary entertainment. Certainly not porn.
In the Patterson Section you’ll find sophisticated, thought-provoking titles. Titles like Cat & Mouse, Jack & Jill, Pop Goes the Weasel, Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Four Blind Mice, Mary Mary, and Rock-A-Bye Baby. OkayI made the last one up, but basically think of any nursery rhyme you can and it’s likely Patterson’s written a door-stop-sized thriller with it as the title. And that’s just in the Alex Cross series. That is Alex Cross, the cool black detective who bangs hot white women, written by Patterson, a white dude born during the Truman administration. They say to write what you know, but I guess there are exceptions.
The Alex Cross series also has numerous and very clever “cross”-themed titles. Such as Double Cross, Cross Country, I, Alex Cross, Cross Fire, Cross My Heart, Deadly Cross, and Triple Cross. Man that detective has some bad luck. He’s getting double-crossed AND triple-crossed. At least he has all those hot white women to compensate.
Patterson has a veritable smorgasbord of literature beyond the Alex Cross series. So much that it’s practically impossible to keep track of it all. He’s got The Women’s Murder Club, Maximum Ride, The Shadow Thrillers, NYPD Red, and a mess of standalone thrillers. His most famous work is Along Came a Spider, the 1993 bestseller made into the 2001 film starring Morgan Freeman and some lady who looks like Sharon Stone if you squint hard enough.
Along Came a Spider is actually a decent book, though it pales in comparison to what was obviously its inspiration — The Silence of the Lambs, the classic 1988 thriller by Thomas Harris. That and probably Basic Instinct (1992). I read Spider years ago when I suddenly became vexed by the question of when exactly James Patterson threw in the towel on being a real author and decided instead to become the book factory equivalent of Sysco, pumping out infantile titles with fill-in-the-blank plots and characters plucked out of ’80s soap operas. I gave up trying to find out, but I think it was somewhere between Kiss the Girls (2000) and Double Cross (2007).
James Patterson is, of course, known for more than just his obsession with killing the Amazon rainforest to print his books. He’s famous for, or perhaps infamous for, his massive cartel of co-authors and ghostwriters. Not to mention his diverse breadth of literature. The man will literally write about anything. He’s got a book he just released in March, 2023 titled Elephant Goes Potty, which “captures the struggle — and delight! — of potty training.”
Elephant Goes Potty aside, nowadays it’s rare you ever see a title on the shelves with only his name on the cover. He’s teamed up with former president Bill Clinton to write not one, but two political thrillers. The President’s Daughter and The President is Missing. Also look for The Blue Dress Caper coming this fall, though I hear the plot for that one blows.
He’s written a book called Run, Rose, Run with Dolly Parton. Not to be confused with Rose Madder, by Stephen King, or Rabbit, Run, by John Updike. or Run Lola Run, the 1998 German film about some chick with red hair.
This June Patterson’s got a book coming out called Eruption, which he co-wrote with Michael Crichton. Which is amazing considering the Jurassic Park author died in 2008. But why stop there? Why doesn’t Patterson team up with H.P. Lovecraft next? Maybe write a title like Cthulu Joins Black Lives Matter. Or maybe a self-help motivational book with Ernest Hemingway, Life is Worth Living. Or maybe a fun family adventure about siblings with George Orwell. Big Brother and I, or something. The possibilities for collabs are endless.
There’s no question James Patterson knows how to pump out content. I don’t begrudge the man for having the same fevered enthusiasm for writing as a pervert lurking outside a sorority house and whacking it in the bushes. I don’t care that the guy writes like A.I. before A.I. writing was a thing. Good for him.
I do wonder, though, that for all his output, if he’ll be remembered in 50 years in the same manner as Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. You may chuckle at such comparisons, but Dickens was dismissed in his day for churning out simplistic melodramas. Most commerically successful authors are looked at askew by the literary etablishment. And what about contemporaries of Patterson’s like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling? Both locks, I’d say, for standing the test of time. Patterson may have built an empire out of the literary equivalent of hot air, but will anything that he’s done be worth revisiting in half a century? Will his mountain of books add up to a molehill of memory?
Patterson’s prolificacy also brings up the age old struggle many artists have over quality versus quantity. Thomas Harris has only written six novels, but he’ll always be remembered for introducing the world to Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter. Ira Levin wrote only a handful of books mainly before middle-age, but he introduced the term “The Stepford Wife,” and Rosemary’s Baby will probably always be a timeless classic. Patterson has done nothing close to that. Will anyone be thinking about Alex Cross in even ten years?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Patterson is reviving Crichton himself, who died over 15 years ago. Perhaps someone else will come along and “co-write” a book with Patterson in 50 years, reintroducing him to future masses. Maybe the New York Times Bestseller’s List of 2074 will bear the illustrious title of Elephant Goes Potty, Again. One can only wish.
One thing I’ve found recently is that it’s getting harder to find fiction that appeals to me as a middle-aged man. This seems to apply to most mediums, though it’s most prominant in film. Rarely are films geared toward those male and older than 35. If it isn’t a superhero fantasy four-quadrant epic, it’s the latest mopey romance, or it’s a movie about a toy of some kind. I think this is why films like Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Oppenheimer did so well. They were actually able to pull in guys like me, who normally just bypass the theater because we know there’s rarely anything there for us.
The same holds true for the book publishing industry. During a stroll down my library aisles recently hardly anything caught my eye. The romance section is so massive it needs its own wing. Filled with iconic names like Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts. I’ve read Roberts in the past, and while she’s great, romance just isn’t my thing. What, you don’t expect me to read something like Fifty Shades, do you?
There’s your brand name male authors like David Baldacci, Dean Koontz, good ol’ King, John Grisham, James Patterson, and your high-concept thriller guys from the past — Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy. I’ve read most of Crichton’s stuff already, and hit a lot of Clancy’s highlights. And if I’m being honest, a lot of the murder mystery thriller stuff starts to sound repetitive. How many detectives investigating a conspiracy “bigger than they imagined” does one really need in life?
It’s understandable why studios and book publishers don’t care about us. Afterall, your typical 35+ dude is working all the time and/or married with kids, dealing with family stuff. Hey, we’re too busy trying to run the world here. We don’t have time to be wasting in fantasyland.
This is alarming as a novelist myself. Even though ironically many novelists don’t read themselves. Koontz can’t. There’s no way at the rate he pumps out his books. I’m pretty sure he wrote another Odd Thomas during the time I took to write this overly long intro.
Anyway, it sure wasn’t easy, but with some hard work I actually found a few books that appealed to me in 2023.
The Penal Colonyby Richard Herley
Book cover for ‘The Penal Colony’ by Richard Herley
This book is sort of dystopian future adjacent. In the near future, criminals are sentenced to an island penal colony near the British Isles called Sert that is divided between two warring factions. One side lives in relative peace and order, while the other has reverted to primitive barbarism. A wrongfully convicted man sentenced to Sert tries to survive and earn his place within the peaceful side under a wise ruling Father. But first he must try and survive in the wilderness to prove himself. If he can succeed, he may just find a promise of escape.
This was an interesting concept. Sort of like an adult Lord of the Flies. Stylistically it was rather dry. Very gray and British, if that makes sense. The Penal Colony was made into the 1994 film No Escape starring Ray Liotta. An adaptation which is currently on Amazon Prime, and one which I was able to endure watching for all of five minutes or so. So just stick with the book, which is ultimately well worth the time.
Unwindby Neal Shusterman
Book cover for ‘Unwind’ by Neal Shusterman
YA dystopian. Dark YA dystopian, mind you. I heard about this one on Reddit, and it has the most bonkers concept ever. In the future, adults can have their delinquent teenaged children “Unwound,” which involves harvesting not just their organs but every fiber of their body. One kid must try to escape government agents trying to capture him before his 18th birthday, the final deadline before he becomes an adult and is independent from his parent’s whims. Bizarrely, the whole unwind deal is done as a tradeoff to making abortion illegal.
The premise of this series felt both odd and familiar, sounding like a concept from the ’80s. Like something David Cronenberg or Paul Verhoeven would have dreamt up in their heyday. Say what you will about YA novels being superficial or silly, but that genre has some of the most creative, if not outlandish plots you’ll find in all of popular literature. No ditzy navel-gazing box wine sipping bored housewives here whatsoever.
Unwind is part of a series. While I found the first book satisfying enough, I don’t know that I’ll return to finish the saga. So many of these YA writers need to just wrap things up in a single book. Not everything is meant to become a Netflix series or become another Hunger Games. I mean, David and Goliath is arguably the first “YA novel,” and it was all of half a page in the Bible.
Farhenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Book cover for ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury
The classic novel about book burning, screen and media addiction, and censorship. Relevant, refined, though unsatisfyingly truncated. The endpoint feels more like a midpoint.
451 was unsurprisingly inspired by George Orwell’s 1984. It started off as a shorter story simply called The Fireman. Another point of trivia: the beginning originally featured Guy Montag having a dream where he’s captured for being in possession of books. Bradbury wisely scrapped this opening to instead start right in the middle of the action, with Guy burning a set of books, letting us see him in his element up close. It starkly marks his arc, which will ultimately take him into exile, where he will learn to become a “living book” in the woods.
If you were never assigned to read 451 in school like many are, you should absolutely add this one to your literary bucket list. I love reading books that have made a powerful cultural impact. Bradbury’s classic is referenced practically every day.
This was simply a pure delight. Every once in a while, it’s nice to go back and read an author who pioneered a genre, which Wells did in science fiction. In a pleasant surprise, there was ample dark humor to be found in this classic work of a mad scientist run amok. As was there also in the 1933 adaptation starring Claude Rains.
First Bloodby David Morrell
Book cover for ‘First Blood’ by David Morrell
First Blood is basically The Godfather of action novels/films. The DNA of Die Hard, The Terminator, Jack Reacher, and Predator are rooted in Rambo’s inaugural adventure. The book also contains a moving and meaningful theme concerning our nation’s Vietnam War veterans. My dad served two tours in Vietnam doing recon in the Army, so this book felt personal to me, even as someone who was never in the military.
First Blood is about how sometimes conflicts don’t end on the battlefield, and what can happen when they’re taken home. A great read you won’t want to miss.
Hopefully 2024 will provide more great reading opportunities. Finding something that appeals to me sometimes feels like performing alchemy. But I have faith.
It’s hard to read printed words these days. Who wants to crack open a boring old book when you’ve got an infinite scroll of the latest Twitter hatefest, non-stop booty-shaking TikTok videos, and Pepe Frog memes to look at? Now with Web3 out there, or the Metaverse, or Zuck’s Uncanny Valley, or whatever the hell they’re calling it, the days of reading plain old black and white text on dead trees are surely numbered.
Just look around you. Everyone’s become “smartphone-faced.” That’s when you hold your phone so close to your face it practically is your face. Ancient Hindu swamis once warned the youth of their day not to stare too long into the River Ganges, or else it would absorb their soul, and they’d spend eternity trapped underwater. The same warning could be applied to everyone today and their O.C.D. (Obsessive Cellular Disorder).
(NOTE: I made up that part about the ancient Hindu swamis, but the lesson still stands).
As a word-munching kiddo I used to read until I fell asleep every night. No Berenstain Bear book was safe from my crayon-smeared fingers. My mom would know I’d conked out because she’d hear the books thump against the carpet as they fell from my hand.
I loved to read. Still do. But even as a novelist and online wordsmith, reading sometimes feels like a slog to get through. I get smartphone-faced, too. I find myself falling into slumps, distracted by the circus of social media, or the impulsive need to Google stuff. Or I just get bored or don’t have the time.
Then comes the awul guilt for not reading from my inner finger-wagger. A cardinal sin for writers.
To be fair, not everyone has the time to get absorbed into a book as they’d like. And to be even more fair, there are a lot of bad books out there not worth even looking at. The New York Times Bestsellers list is less a list of quality than a ranking of which sales team did the best marketing for their product.
If you’re struggling with staying focused on reading these days, it’s important first to get over any guilty feelings you may have. Reading is all about learning, and there are a ton of mediums you can use to do that. Not just books. Losing temporary interest in reading could just be your brain’s way of saying it wants to try other means of data extraction.
When I was in college, I remember a student submitted a thesis asserting that people can learn history or other topics just as well through gaming as they can through researching books, using immersive MMORPGs, and historical-themed games as examples. His case study revealed that both the gamer and the reader retained information about equally. Which is great news, as I can finally call myself an Oregon Trail historian like I’ve always wanted.
Here are a few ways that can help you “read” without reading.
Audiobooks
Most everyone is aware of Amazon’s Audible program, which offers thousands of audiobooks on its platform. But there are also numerous audiobooks available for free on YouTube. Everything from classic books, to big name authors like Stephen King, to cult hits like Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. In addition, there are tons of nonfiction bestsellers on there, like The Richest Man in Babylon.
If you don’t have the time or energy to read a book the old fashioned way, just type in a title and enter “audiobook” afterward into YouTube’s search bar. Chances are it’s on there, and narrated by a professional.
Podcasts
Everyone and their grandmother has a podcast these days. Which is awesome, because it virtually guarantees there will be something out there you’ll be interested in, no matter how small the niche or audience. True crime stories are really popular. But you’ve also got scary/paranormal stories that are getting big.
One of my favorite types of podcasts are behind the scenes ones for shows I like. I used to listen to the Better Call Saul podcast after each episode until the series finale aired. If you’ve got a favorite TV show or movie, chances are either the cast or crew has started a supplementary podcast. Or fans are still talking about it. Even shows that have been off the air for years, like The Office, have ongoing podcasts run by some of the cast members, such as Office Ladies.
Another favorite podcast of mine is Inside of You by Michael Rosenbaum, the actor best known for playing Lex Luthor on Smallville. Rosenbaum mainly interviews actors and other celebrities in a kind of therapist-on-the-couch manner, focusing on the psychological impact of fame and the grind of Hollywood. He’s even interviewed his former Smallville co-star Tom Welling, aka Superman. Times are tough when Lex Luthor is counseling the Man of Steel.
YouTube/TikTok Book Summaries
Sort of the Cliff Notes version books. These channels are increasingly becoming more popular, as people are interested in learning about what’s out there, but may not have the time to get deeply invested in any particular topic.
TikTok’s “BookTok” community has actually become so large and influential that its creating New York Times Bestsellers. Madeline Miller’s book The Song of Achilles became a viral breakout hit this year. I wrote about BookTok in an article awhile back. It’s becoming the place to go to not only learn about new books, but get reviews and summaries for genres you might be interested in, and even market your own stuff. Sometimes the best part about “reading” isn’t the actual reading, but discussing what you’ve read with likeminded people.
Read Aloud Feature on Medium/MS Word
Automated, or “AI” voices have made some progress in mimicking human speech. Medium’s read aloud feature sounds close enough that it doesn’t throw you off that much.
MS Word also has a good AI voice under the “Review” tab. I find using that feature is a good way to proofread, or get a sense of the flow of a document. But if you’re a busy professional, let’s say, and you’ve got briefs and other docs to read, using the Review AI voice could be a good way to save time while you do other things around the house.
In addition, there’s been a growing number of YouTube channels that summarize the news or particular subject interests, creating condensed and quickly digestible pieces. Altcoin Daily, for instance, covers a wide swath of cryptocurrency news and distills it all into a nicely condensed daily video. Then you’ve got pop culture channels like YellowFlash2, that talk about current events, with some added colorful commentary.
Go Back to Favorites You’ve Loved
Of course, you don’t have to go the headphones-and-listen-electronically route. You can go right back to physical books, which still exist believe it or not.
If you’re in an anti-reading rut, or stuck in that bizarre fog where the very idea of reading seems impossible, it doesn’t hurt to go back to the books you once read and enjoyed before. The books that may have inspired you to get into reading in the first place. Many people credit the Harry Potter books with that. While I’ve moved on from the Berenstain books, I’ll always enjoy a good Stephen King or Ira Levin novel.
Try Another Medium of Writing
Such as screenplays. So many scripts of classic or popular films are available on the web. You can get scripts for The Terminator all the way up to the latest Best Picture winner. Every year a certain number of unproduced screenplays are chosen for the Black List, and they’re almost always available for download. The 2021 Black List selections are all available here, for instance. And if you’re reading this year’s unproduced scripts, you’ll be aware of new films coming out before anyone else.
It’s also really instructive to the creative process. Screenplays are basically blueprints. It can be really cool to see how a movie starts from the page and progresses through the filming process. You get to see earlier drafts of stories before they were changed for the screen. For instance, in the original Alien script by Dan O’Bannon, the entire crew was male, including Ripley.
You can also try fan fiction, which has become pretty huge. Fifty Shades of Grey started off as Twilight fan fiction, and that worked out well for everyone. Or not.
Join a Book Club (Online or In-Person)
This can be a good way to force some accountability into your regular reading habit, though it may be more time-intensive than the previous methods. There are many book clubs on Facebook, of course. But usually your local library will be the place to go for in-person clubs.
If there’s not one in your area, consider starting one yourself. It could not only be a great way to discover new books, but meet new people.
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Hopefully, these seven methods will help restart your drive to read. The world’s unfortunately become filled with zombies addicted to glowing rectangles with vibrant flashing images. Time will tell the kind of damage that will do to the human brain on an evolutionary scale, though we already know attention spans have shrunk to microscopic levels for many.
Spending time deep in a book is an increasingly lost art. It helps strengthen focus, foster critical thinking, and can create an appreciation for language and imagination. Social media and video may provide a pleasurable jolt of dopamine, but the effect is superficial and temporary. Those forms of data distribution also tend to be passive. They deaden and hypnotize the thoughts and senses. Whereas a good book (fiction or non) can be like stoking a fire inside your mind. Massive movements, revolutions, whole empires, have sprung from written works like the Bible or The Communist Manifesto. I don’t see the booty shakers on TikTok inspiring a lot of meaningful social change.
Even if some of the above solutions aren’t technically “reading,” they may help to put you back on a better path toward active learning and data processing. And that’s something we could all use more of these days.
Dean Brooks 