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Plus, Sit & Write #294

Greetings, friends —

Everyone and their mom has a hot take about this week’s news cycle. There are a million points of entry into the conversation about Charlie Kirk’s public assassination: gun rights, online radicalization, the postmortem rewriting of someone’s character, the near instantaneous explosion of transphobic or antisemitic conspiracy theories, and so on and so forth.

I have little to say that hasn’t already been said by people much smarter and more coherent than I. So, as I am wont to do, let’s zoom out and ask a bigger question: how does anyone know what lane to stick to? Or, in other words, when there are a million entry points into a topic, how do we as writers/artists decide where exactly to wade in?

One consideration is expertise: Do you have some specific knowledge or background that equips you to cover a particular angle? In the case of this week’s news, maybe you’re an amateur sociologist who knows a weirdly large amount about online subcultures and obscure memes. Or maybe you regularly fall down Wikipedia rabbitholes about similar events in U.S. history. Either way, you’ve done your reading and you have the vocabulary to describe what’s happening in ways that clarify the situation for people who don’t.

Another consideration is emotional proximity: Did the news story happen in a place you once lived or went to school? Was someone you know directly impacted by the situation? Has a parallel experience shaped your own life in some way? Whatever the association, it’s a good way to meaningfully connect your own perspective to the discourse at hand.

Then there’s the existential route — essentially, what I’m doing here. When you zoom out from the microcosm, what do you find in the atmosphere? What bigger philosophical or cultural questions emerge from the situation? You don’t have to be able to answer them — sometimes just posing the question is enough.

With each of these routes, it’s good to consider motive. I’ve adapted the classic trio of questions here: Why does it need to be said? Why does it need to be said by me? And why does it need to be said by me now? You should still write whatever you want to write, but before you foist it into the public sphere, spend a little time thinking about the impact and what’s compelling you to weigh in at this particular moment.

As for me, I’m motivated by the need to process whatever’s swirling around in my head on a given day — for the last 48 hours or so, I’ve been sitting around stressing about the catastrophic hellfire that’d be unleashed if the shooter turned out to be aligned with people like me. Trans people have big enough targets on our collective backs already.

There’s truly no making sense of this stuff. The world is full of individuals with inscrutable politics and irrational motives; some of them sit at home posting about their feelings on the internet, and some of them go out into the world and cause real harm. So, with that in mind, I guess if you really wanna post a half-baked hot take, there are certainly worse things you could be doing!

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SIT & WRITE

Come translate all those weird feelings into words at Sit & Write this weekend. If you’re new to the group, read this FAQ before attending.

WHAT: Sit & Write #294
WHEN: Saturday, 9/13, 11:00am-2:00pm ET
WHERE: Zoom
LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86470041352?pwd=zKbIp6swyaahxphdlglbBVQIa7f73T.1
MEETING ID: 864 7004 1352
PASSCODE: 845990

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Alright friends, that’s all for today.

Warmly,

Julian Shendelman
www.collectivelit.com

P.S. Have you seen Blue Stoop’s fall class lineup yet? There are some very good options, with financial aid and payment plans available. Do me a solid and tell a writer friend!