Weeknotes #1
February 26, 2021
A means of holding myself accountable.
Books
Finished A Promised Land. I started this one back in December, leafing through a few pages here and there. It’s a weighty text (700 pages), so it’s not ideal for bedtime — when I do most of my reading. Finally dragged the fucker into bed with me and knocked out the last 500 pages in four days.
Finished Death In Her Hands. Picked this one up not long ago at Malaprops. I’m a sucker for autographed first editions, especially when they are brand new releases. It means the publisher has high hopes for it. Reading Moshfegh is like looking deep into a painting by Goya — there always feels like something sinister is going on underneath it all. I loved My Year Of Rest And Relaxation, and Eileen was worth the read. Death in Her Hands might need another reading. It’s…dark.
Started reading Hold Still by Sally Mann. There is a stack of novels on the bedside I need to pick from. For the moment, I’m getting through the backlog of New Yorkers they keep sending me. Although, this story about getting Africans to care about the conservation of their own wildlife in the face of exploding populations was a great read.
Also pulled Some Stories off the shelf and flipped through a few pages. Something in these pages keeps calling to me.
Creative Juice
Long-tired of not having a place of my own to work in, I re-established my blog over at my home domain (blog.dtpennington.com). The aim is to publish every day. For so long I have stuck myself into writing for a niche — this is my challenge to break out of the monotony of writing yet another article on copywriting, content, whatever.
Since I’m always curious about the next publishing platform, I’ve set up with Revue as a way to send updates on the content I push out. Give it a subscription. I’m just as interested to see what happens with it as you are.
The pre-drafting for the Grand Novel Idea rounded the 35,000-word mark this morning. I’ve been adding a thousand words — whatever tells me needs to be written at that moment — every morning before I get into the projects that pay the bills. At this pace, I’ll reach 100,000 words on May 3rd. Then, take a breath and layout all of the pieces to find out what the first draft might need to look like.
The Business
Knocked out a marathon branding session for my brand with Joel over at BAM Creative. Joel and I have been making a lot of curious things lately, but the branding was solely for the next phase of my copywriting business. I hope to have something great to show off by the end of next month.
Body & Mind
Spring is trying to break in through the Carolina greys. We had a few beautiful days this week — took the walks, ate lunch in the sun, tried to get more time on the deck while the getting is good.
One ride on the Peloton this week. A low. I’m not mad about it.
7/7 days with at least 20 minutes in total meditation. Looking into what it would be to take things in a more transcendental capacity.
