Letter of recommendations

I was pouring my bag of writing popcorn into a bowl and thought, I wanna tell the world about the power of writing popcorn, and then I realized with just a swipe of format from the wonderful Olivia Crandall, I could.

(Seriously, go subscribe to her newsletter.)

So here’s some of what’s been getting me through lately:

Writing Popcorn. Focus snack, distraction crunch. If I could be crunching a salty snack the whole time, I think I could focus forever. Is this ADHD, the human condition, or just a way some brains work and others don’t? I don’t know—my therapist won’t give me a straight answer—but a mini bag of popcorn (Jolly Time mini is the best bang for your buck I’ve found) with a seltzer or a diet coke is the morale boost and pleasure burst and focus tool I need these days. I restrict myself to one a day. When it’s crunch time—no pun intended, I mean in terms of work—I may buy the full-sized bags. I’ve been deep in the book-research trenches lately, reading about space, science, history, art, all sorts of disparate things that I am working my little brain very hard to synthesize into something not only new but also… lovely? Easy to read? Big goals here. Popcorn helps.

Easy Anti-Scroll Phone Book. Last month I took two weeks away from Instagram, Discord, and all phone games other than NYT and Sudoku, and, A, it was easier than I thought it would be, and B, I read so much more. SO MUCH. And as I’ve come back into what’s hopefully a return with a new sense of balance, I’ve found that having an easy, delicious, crunchy-snack-type book on my phone at all times is an ongoing help in resisting the scroll. I am reading elsewhere for research, and elsewhere for edification (currently, there, Arctic Dreams), but sometimes we need ease, and I’d rather find that in a book than in a million Instagram reels. (Like, I understand why Instagram won’t let me just block reels within the app, but man my brain would be happier if I could.) Some especially lovely phone reads:

Romance: Beginner’s Luck (Kate Clayborn is hands-down the best writer in contemporary romance)
Parenting: Parenting a Spicy One
Warm Bath: A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot, both books are great)
SFF: All Systems Red (Murderbot #1)

I finished All Systems Red last night, wept and cheered, and immediately downloaded the rest of the series.

I feel like there should be a third item for balance, at least. But I also should get back to work before this bowl of popcorn is done. (Part of the writing-popcorn bargain is that you only eat it while you’re working. This newsletter is writing, is work, but with all the research work un-checked on my to-do list, it’s also a cheat.)

We’ll close, I suppose, with this:

Writing Mantras. I have two little quotes taped onto the base of my laptop stand, sitting right above my keyboard as I type. Especially as I sat down today to a day of “writing” that comprised copying highlighted text from pdfs into documents and, if I have time, organizing the now pasted snippets by theme as I would use them, this first one was a precious reminder:

“But in time nothing can be without becoming.”

It’s from the fourth Earthsea book, Tehanu, which I read when I was 19 and don’t remember at all (Earthsea reread is on the long future easy-phone-book list), but it came to me via the Ursula K. Le Guin bot that posts her quotes over on Bluesky. I don’t know its context in Tehanu, but as a writing mantra, “nothing can be without becoming” carries me through the days of tedious, necessary work, and the wandering.

(The other mantra taped to my monitor stand is one I’m keeping for myself.)

A brief bit of promo: I’m teaching Scrivener for Creative Writers again next month, and since I feel guilty doing promo here, and guilty for having eaten most of my popcorn without doing any book work, you can use code SAVE15 for a discount if you register. Info and everything here: jaimegreen.net/classes