ch-ch-CHANGES!

Reflecting on (Nearly) a Year of Loose Baggy Monsters

P.S.A (PublicATION Service Announcement): My poem “Raspberry Hairs” is out now in Issue #12 of the Exist Otherwise Literary Journal! It explores music, girlhood, and of course, those weird little hairs that grow on raspberries. Read it here!

Marigolds, 9/14/24

Dear Reader,

The other day my friend sent me this photo from her Snapchat memories, taken six years ago:

It’s me, senior year of high school, using the school library’s printer to illicitly print the first complete drafts of my novel.

Man, this picture hit me like a bag of bricks. In a good way, though.

I can’t believe how long I’ve been writing. I can’t believe how hard I’ve worked, how determined I’ve been, and how long I’ve stuck to my craft. Like many writers, I can be hard on myself, but today I feel like celebrating. Today the journey really does feel like the destination.

November will mark the one-year anniversary of Loose Baggy Monsters. I was going to hold off until then to write this—marking the occasion by reflecting on the past year and sharing my plans for the future—but this picture galvanized me, and now I’m too excited to wait. Besides, it’s autumn! The trees are changing and we might as well follow.

When I started Loose Baggy Monsters, my goal was to publish one post every other Wednesday. And guess what? I actually did that. In fact, I did more than that: in addition to my biweekly reflections, I also shared a few of my poems. This is the most consistent I have been about any writing practice since I was freshly sixteen and walking to the public library every morning to work on my novel. I have written and published 26 posts. I have a handful of regular readers.¹ I even got my first Substack recommendation!²

Most importantly, I am genuinely proud of myself. It’s a funny feeling. Part of me wants to skirt around it, minimize it, shy away. Instead, I’m trying to lean in. So this is a thank-you note—to myself, for showing up week after week, and to you, for reading this.

Originally, Loose Baggy Monsters was just supposed to be a place for me to reflect on my writing process. I didn’t think I would ever share any previously unpublished, original writing, so sharing a few of my poems was a big step for me. And it was liberating, in a small-yet-significant way, to share them when I wanted to share them instead of waiting three to nine months for a lit mag to publish them, where they would probably only be read by the same handful of people who always read my work anyway.³

With that in mind, I’m making some changes around here!

Loose Baggy Monsters will now consist of four different sections:

1.) Backpage: My writing on writing, a.k.a. where I reflect on all things writing adjacent

2.) Behind the Monster: Featuring annotations/analyses of my poems and short stories that have been published both in Loose Baggy Monsters and elsewhere

3.) Poetry: Poetry

4.) Stories: Stories (As of this writing, this page is blank, but stay tuned!)

Instead of bimonthly posts, I plan to share a new poem or short story every other Saturday, followed by a “Behind the Monster” analysis of that poem/short story that Wednesday.⁴ So, if you’re a subscriber, you’ll be hearing from me about once a week. If you’re interested in some but not all of these sections, you can manage your subscription . . . somewhere. (At the top of the website if you log in? Via a button in the email? I’ll have to get back to you on this.) For you fans of the “Backpage” reflections, never fear—I will still yield the Wednesday slot to the occasional writing-on-writing.⁵

Why the increase in output? I’m glad you asked. In their book Art and Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland share an anecdotal parable about a ceramics class. (You might have heard this one before.) The story goes that a ceramics teacher divided his class into two groups. The first group would be graded on the quality of their clay pots, the second only on the quantity. That is, the first group each had to make one near-perfect pot, while the second group each had to produce as many pots as possible. Paradoxically, the quantity group made the highest quality pots. Why? Because they got in the most practice. Freed from the prison of perfectionism, they let their creativity run wild. Each pot that they made further honed their craft.

Bayles and Orland summarize the moral of the story like so:

If you think good work is somehow synonymous with perfect work, you are headed for big trouble. Art is human; error is human; ergo, art is error . . . you’re a human being, and only human beings, warts and all, make art. Without warts it is not clear what you would be, but clearly you wouldn’t be one of us.⁶

(Pretty poignant in the era of AI, isn’t it?)

The ceramics story reminds me not to be precious with my work. The more I write, the better writer I become. Loose Baggy Monsters has helped immensely with that. I’m looking forward to another year.

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll let Bowie play me out.

Turning and facing the strange,

If you like Loose Baggy Monsters, consider leaving a tip! All donations will go toward submission fees for contests and lit mags, helping me get my writing out into the world.

1. Hi, guys!!! :D

2. Shout out to

Naira

! Read worldmaker for her thoughts on poetry, decolonialism, and world-building at a world’s end. (Naira, if you’re reading this, yes I’m stealing your idea to put a cute signature at the bottom of my posts. Don’t sue me.)

3. Nothing against lit mags, of course! Lit mags are the best!

4. Saturday and Wednesday, in that order, are the two most magical day of the week. The third most magical day of the week is Friday and the least magical is tied between Tuesday and Thursday. I will not be taking questions at this time.

5. Shout out to my co-worker who loves my reflections and hypes me up in front of all the other people at work! You know who you are and you’re the best. <3

6. David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Art-making (Santa Cruz, CA: Image Continuum Press, 1993), 29. Accessed via Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/artfear00davi/page/28/mode/2up?q=pots.