This is The Voice In Your Head Is Mine. The date is January 12th, 2021. If you're receiving this email and have no idea what's going on, well, fuck. I guess I blew it. Or maybe you blew it. Either way, you're here and this is Zac Thompson's weekly newsletter.
Writing this during the early hours of Tuesday morning. It’s been a minute since I’ve sent one of these out. We’re in a new year and the world has continued to go to shit. Which isn’t something we’re going to talk about here. Too much noise everywhere else and here we’re going to talk about writing and my various passions. That’s it.
The end of 2020 was a quiet one for me. A lot of time spent reading, hiking, and drinking coffee. I was feeling completely burnt out come Christmas. Partly by my own design, partly out of my control. I was fortunate to have a lot of good momentum that I needed to see through but it left me drained and barely able to write. Luckily, the break was rejuvenating. And in some magic sleight of hand, I had a rather large new opportunity work itself out in the final days of the year and it’s going to dominate my 2021. I can’t talk about it yet but once I get the all clear - y’all will be the first to know.
I’ve been thinking a lot about different tweaks to the format of this thing as the year progresses and rest assured I’ll be implementing them slowly over the course of 2021 as I figure out my schedule for the year. These first weeks are usually filled with a lot of gaming out the later months of the year. This is no different. I think a large part of my success in freelance writing is my ability to stay organized and keep myself with a rigid structure on the backend. Maybe I’ll share it someday, until then… let’s talk about something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately…
Writing Craft
Conviction.
Over the last month I’ve been promoting and marketing I BREATHED A BODY (which hits next week!!) and something that has been coming up over and over is this: Why is this here? What does this [specific element] mean? Was this [mushroom reference] on purpose?
It’s all on purpose. It’s all by design. It’s all chosen due to my conviction.
Conviction, in writing, means what are your reasons for making these decisions? Everything in your writing, in your art, should be there for more than one reason.
Every element should stand up to scrutiny from multiple angles when analyzed as a whole. Which is to say, you should make sure your work is layered and meticulously designed where each element has a role to play and services the story in subtle or obvious ways. So background elements are not chosen at random to fill a panel but operate on a level that informs the tension or direction of a scene in a clear way.
There must be a relationship between the elements in your writing and the text itself and as a writer you should have multiple answers for everything you choose to put on the page. It’s not enough to throw something into a script because it looks cool, it should look cool and inform the nature of the scene. There shouldn’t be a moment of wasted space when you’re writing.
Now, as an aside, this isn’t to say that every moment of everything you write should be layered with multiple different elements that are all working together in a single panel (pacing is a thing and moments need room to breathe). But rather, that when you make a choice to inform different elements of the storytelling that each element is chosen for specific reasons related to what you’re trying to convey in the scene. Ask yourself “what are my reasons for making these decisions?”
Scrutinize everything. Interrogate every element and ask yourself if the moment is working as intended. You spend too long creating art to do anything less. And I promise by interrogating your decision making you’ll create a tighter, more nuanced piece of work. It may take you longer but such is the trade for a highly considered story.
Finally, as it relates to conviction, this is perhaps the most important element of all: do not let your work exist as a means to something else. If you set out to create something with a certain goal in mind (fame, movie deal, tv deal) - you’ve completely lost yourself. That type of ill-informed decision making can only be grounded in the reality of what you see on the surface around you. Which is to say, you can only make that decision based on the things that already exist and were made months/years ago. Which means you’re already starting behind everyone else.
YOU are the most vital element of your work. Your mind is idiosyncratic. Embrace yourself, your strange passions, and unique ticks. Make sure you are part of your conviction. I promise your work will be stronger for it.
LONELY // RECEIVER
Well, speaking of which, tomorrow marks the end of LONELY RECEIVER and I couldn’t be more proud of the book. Seeing people take this journey with us over the last six months has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. This weird and idiosyncratic horror//romance has found a passionate and dedicated audience that I could have never imagined.
On top of that, multiple outlets have called Lonely Receiver one of the best comics of 2020 (SYFY, Comics Bookcase, Adventures in Poor Taste, and Doomrocket). Which is simply stunning to me, I’m so incredibly grateful. So it’s with a heavy heart that I look at the release for LONELY RECEIVER #5: A LIFE.
Once folx have time to digest the finale I’ll breakdown some of the series and get into the thinking behind the formal elements and why we decided to tell the story the way we did. But know this, I’m so incredibly in debt to my phenomenal collaborators in Jen Hickman and Simon Bowland.
Jen is one of the best working artists in comics and their talents are on full display in this book. They have consistently delivered career best work in LR and every single page is more stunning than the last. The final issue will leave your jaw on the floor. Sincerely.
And Simon’s letters reach another level in the finale that only adds to Jen’s stunning storytelling. This is easily the most proud of a single issue I’ve ever been and I do hope you enjoy the finale. Here’s a preview:
I BREATHED A BODY
We’ll get into IBAB next week when it hits shelves. For now, let me just say THANK YOU. The #1 issue sold better than anything else in my career by a huge margin. It’s flattering to see people show up for my weird slice of fungal horror.
What have I been watching:
A little bit about some movies I’ve watched recently and really adored.
KAJILLIONAIRE - Miranda July’s quirky comedy about a family of grifters is pitch perfect. It’s this type of sad weird comedy born of melancholy. A brilliant character piece that is deeply original and features an incredible performance by Evan Rachel Wood and Richard Jenkins.
THE NEST - Sean Durkin’s follow up to Martha Marcy May Marlene is equally depressing and weird but in completely different ways. A tight character drama about a haunted marriage that broods in moments of strange calm. Carrie Coon gives a career best performance that will fulfill folks missing her on The Leftovers. Incredibly shot and edited. It features a fantastic original score by Richard Reed Perry. Plus its a Canadian indie!
tiny scabs
Facebook is a doomsday machine - required reading given everything going on. It’s not an easy article to stomach but if you want to understand the mess we’re in when it comes to Big Tech and social media - this is a good place to start.
Floodlines podcast - a podcast looking at what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It’s a haunting listen but gets into how life/reality fractures in the wake of a huge natural disaster.
Every year David Ehrlich (indiewire film critic) makes a video countdown of the best films of the year. His 2020 video dropped yesterday and it’s sublime. Lots of incredible movies in there, too. Watch it here.
This week’s playlist. On heavy rotation:
Bye
The world grows crazier by the minute. I hope you’re healthy and safe, that you’re able to keep your head down and maintain hope for the future. If not, that’s okay too, things will get better, I’m sure of it.
Z