Isak's Blog

I wrote in my last post that I keep four reference books on my writing desk: a dictionary, a usage dictionary, a thesaurus, and a copy production book.

Sure, you can use Google to answer questions while you write. But opening the internet invites too much distraction for me. I already procrastinate way too much of my writing (don’t ask about my Screen Time stats!), so I’d rather open a book than the internet. Then when I do procrastinate, at least I’m reading about writing instead of scrolling an algorithm.

A few weeks ago Austin Kleon wrote that when he wants to get into something new, his first step isn’t to search Google but search his email inbox instead. It’s a personal, searchable archive of people you follow — so it usually turns up good recommendations for your new topic.

I do something similar. Not in my inbox, which is less an interesting archive than a stress-inducing to-do list for me.

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. Minnesota’s afternoon rainstorms have been perfect for reading, writing, and sitting on the couch.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. Funny how we assume the artists we look up to must be so literary, serious, and important compared to ourselves — then learn that’s exactly how they feel about who they look up to! I’m going to have to watch this entire Karl Ove Knausgård episode from BBC’s Arts in Motion.
2. Maria and I loved watching Desk Set last weekend, a 1957 rom-com about a whip-smart reference librarian and the computer engineer replacing her entire research department with a computer. Very funny, and unfortunately timely with AI!
3. I’ve been reading why people like Dante’s “Inferno” so much, so naturally I’ve been listening to Hozier’s “Unreal Unearth” album again and again.
4. “Oh Lord. I could talk about the various ways — in nature, in folklore, things like that — but honestly, the surest one? Spite.” T. Kingfisher on the surest way for him to find inspiration. This is my surest way, too! Austin Kleon recommends it, too.
5. I recently read “The Emerson Circle” and loved learning more about the Transcendentalists, but mostly Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Thoreau. Just in time to watch this new PBS miniseries on the Thoreau! Robert Gross’ book is up next to read.
6. “Well, I don’t have to worry about how to pay the mortgage. I get to write the stories I want to write.” Octavia Butler on the best parts about her success as a writer — the dream! I’m also an early-morning writer; by 5 p.m. my brain’s largely unhelpful and annoying.
7. I read the first Knaussgard book in 2016, and autofiction was this new, interesting genre to me. This week I revisited a LitHub article written by Robert Moor in 2024 (whose new book I’m v. excited to read) about the book “Bjarki, not Bjarki,” a great book about creativity, writing, and autojournalism.
8. Speaking of autojournalism: it’s starting to feel like summer, which means I want to float in a pool, drink gin and tonics, and read Hunter S. Thompson. Van Neistat likes him for his adventures and prose; I love him writing so politically and entertainingly.
9. Literary fly fisherman! I read “A River Runs Through It” in college in two days (molecules, molecules) and loved it. “Ninety-two in the Shade” felt like Norman Maclean meets Hunter S. Thompson. I’d add Callan Wink as a favorite modern literary fly fisherman, a form I hope continues.
10. We forget how much agency we have; you can just email people stuff. I’m not great at taking this advice often but it has worked well for me in the past.

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

The woodchuck has emerged from hibernation, I’ve been playing the live Bon Iver album all week, and I’ve got a thick stack of books about the Transcendentalists I’m excited to dip in and out of.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. Robert D. Richardson said Emerson thought that “language is the archives of history, … a sort of tomb of the muses.” The OED, the dictionary that traces the etymology and history of each word, has a hefty paywall that you may be able to access for free through your library. Mine does! And it’s great for procrastinating. “The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry,” said Emerson.
2. Maria and I downloaded Rollercoaster Tycoon and spent SO much time building a perfect park on the first level. It’s just as fun to play as when I was 10, and there’s a surprising amount of people still playing the game — like this person who made a rollercoaster ride so long, it won’t finish until after the heat death of our universe.
3. Your bad art is fertilizer for your good art. It’s the only thing that can close the gap between your what you want to make (your taste) and what you’re currently capable of making (your skill level) that Ira Glass talks about. More garden-creativity metaphors from Austin Kleon.
4. I’m always surprised to learn how much my creative heroes stole a lot of their ideas from their creative heroes. “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard is one of my favorite books, and she considered naming it “Creekside Solitaire” (like Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire), “Tinker Creek Almanac” (like Aldo Leopold’s “Sand County Almanac”), and plain old “Tinker Creek” (like Thoreau’s “Walden”).
5. Speaking of Annie Dillard, the first time I read “Tinker Creek” I felt simultaneously exultant (now THIS is what a book can be!) and decimated (she’s already done it, what’s the point of making more art?!). Funny stuff for an aspiring writer of twenty-one, but looking back now, the whole experience reminds me of that line from Steinbeck’s “East of Eden”: “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
6. Love this writing trick from Oliver Burkeman: draft it on the computer, print it out, delete the document, and type it back in. You’ll inevitably make edits, but the whole thing seems way less taxing. Like Lauren Groff says further down, “I’m trying to Jedi-mind trick myself into not putting so much pressure on any particular project.”
7. I love when two opposing things are true, and it’s up to you to know which advice to follow: Rick Rubin creates art for himself, never for the audience. Ralph Waldo Emerson always wrote with his audience in mind. My writing practice has the pendulum swinging to far to the latter.
8. “Bad texters are bewildered by expectations for prompt written communication, feeling punished by a system they never opted in to.” Interesting article from The Guardian on people (me!) who feel dread and anxiety over texting. Personally I’m a burst-texter, going silent for a while and then responding to all the messages at once.
9. And come to think of it, I don’t like calling or texting on my phone — mine’s mostly a camera and internet device, which is funny because I yearn for the days the internet was a place you went on your home desktop computer, not this black void in your pocket slowly eating all your waking moments. (Anyways: I still use Foqos and a 10-cent NFC tag to block stuff on my phone now and it’s wonderful.)
10. One of my favorite summer memories last year was sweating on a hotel rooftop pool in San Antonio, sipping a cocktail, and reading Tracy Daugherty’s biography of Larry McMurtry. I’ll be at a hotel pool again soon (not in summer, and not on the roof), but I might recreate it with this brand new Larry McMurtry biography by David Streitfeld. “It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living.”

See ya on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

It’s unseasonably warm in Minnesota, and spring birds are returning: phoebes and bluebirds are back this week, but my local Great Horned Owls are quiet. I never know if that’s because it’s easier to hear them in winter (it’s very bare, so sound travels), or if I just get more busy this time of year and miss out on their hooting at dusk.