Egomania

Friday August 15, 2025

Remember that time I wrote 500 words every day for a year, thinking that it would be the easiest way to write a publishable book? Me neither.

Well, anyway, when I wrote that thing, I frequently cheated, copying and pasting past work I’d done in the past to hit the 500-word benchmark. This problem with putting off personal work is not new. This week, I had soccer, we did a maternity shoot, and had date night at Bar Vlaha, so my time to write has been limited. I didn’t come up with a theme, so I’m going back to my bread and butter: Rehashing shit I’ve already done! (I really should have stayed in Hollywood.)

I’m not going to make a habit of sharing excerpts from this because a lot of it is pure shit, but there are some good entries. The below is not one, but it’s the second entry of the whole 365-day, 500-page serial killer manifesto, and I think it’s an entertaining glimpse into my life and mindset in 2018- 19 before I quit my job and started freelancing full-time.

This one’s entitled “The Great American Novel.”

Maybe I should clarify whatever dubious purpose I think I’m pursuing with this mission. To do that, you need to know a little more about me. There are no readers here, so it feels strange to say, “you need to know a little more about me,” to an audience that is effectively myself, Lindsay, my mom (hi mom!), and Google leadership, but maybe acknowledging outright the insecure conversations we have with ourselves is the first step towards actualization. The inner monologue, writ large.

To wit, I thought I’d be better than this by now. When I was 15, I wrote a short story for my sophomore English class, got some great feedback from the teacher, and suddenly my life had purpose. Up to that point, I had some nebulous idea that it might be cool to be a doctor, but I sucked at science, and the sight of blood made me nauseous, so somewhere inside, I always knew I needed a backup plan. So there, on that red, encircled A, came that backup plan. I would be A Writer. Not just any writer, mind you, but capital A, capital W. A Writer. I had quite the imagination, and when you’re well-liked by classmates and teachers, it’s easy to envision a perfect future in which you make more money and are much happier than they are. You’re told you’re special once in a society that systematically elevates people like you; delusion ensues.

Here was the plan:

1. Come up with a book idea.

2. Write the book.

3. Become world famous for writing the next Great American Novel at age 16.

Easy, right?

Well, I didn’t write it at 16, and at 17 I was still very impressed with my inner monologue but I got too busy, and at 18 I was just too high, and at 19 I was depressed at college, and at 20 I was depressed at college, and at 21 I was finally burying my depression at college with weed and beer, and at 22 I was actually genuinely happy at college and was so confused by it that I completely forgot to write anything, and at 23 I started journaling a little but was mostly too depressed after graduating from college, and at 24 I gained a ton of weight from antidepressants and mostly just felt like eating most of the time, and at 25 I got a new job where I was writing every day and was actually genuinely happy again and was so confused by it that I completely forgot to write anything that I cared about, and at 26 I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and became so depressed by how I’d bastardized the sanctity of creativity in my marketing day job that I mostly just drank a lot, and now I’m 27 and I just transitioned to full-time remote employment and rolled over my 401(k) so I’m taking that as a cue that I should probably start trying to write the next Great American Novel by age 16 now.

Lamott says you need to write every single day, regardless of how terrible it is. So, since I’m supposedly her target audience — passionate, aspiring writer — I’m trying to take her advice. If I’m not gonna be making any money, I might as well pretend at a passion for a little while.

Is this the next Great American Novel? Most assuredly not. I am still trying to write the next Great American Novel, it’s just in another Google Doc. Maybe I’ll tell you more about that later. But right now, life has offered free food at Tufts Community Day, so I’m going to stop this and go do that.

youtube.com/watch?v=jixxOkOUV40&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD

(Substack got an update, and something is wrong with the video embed feature. I haven’t figured out how to fix it, so apologies for just dropping links this week.)

One Song: Wet Leg - davina mccall

I recently discovered Wet Leg, who were nominated for Best Alternative Album at the 2022 Grammys. (I don’t watch the Grammys, I don’t look at the nominations.) They do good music and released their second album, moisturizer, this summer. A lot of their music is, well, kind of lewd, but this one’s pretty safe.

Fun fact: “Wet leg” is a derogatory term used by Isle of Wight residents towards off-islanders, particularly English mainlanders.

youtube.com/watch?v=YKzRPFvky9Y

One Hollywood: Happy Gilmore 2, Netflix

Apparently, this movie has been pretty divisive. That is strange to me because it is such an incredibly average, perfectly fine movie that I don’t understand how anyone can feel so strongly about it either way. As far as sequels that nobody asked for go, it’s honestly pretty good. I mean, did you see Moana 2?

We’ve got a genuinely miserable society filled with people who would rather be angry than happy.

One Book: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

I don’t know how I haven’t recommended Pachinko yet. You’ve probably heard of it; it was a major best-seller, and there’s a TV series that I haven’t seen. It’s a phenomenal book, I’ll just leave it at that.

One Quote: “To recognize you are the source of your own loneliness is not a cure for it. But it is a step toward seeing that it is not inevitable, and that such a choice is not irrevocable.” - Robin Hobb, Golden Fool

I’m really enjoying Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man Trilogy. I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish it before le kid comes along since I have four other library holds I need to get through first, but it’s the most entertained I’ve been reading in a long time.

One Hack: Kindle Airplane Mode

Since we’re brushing by the topic, if you borrow library books on Libby and read them on your Kindle, put your Kindle on Airplane mode. The books won’t return until you go back online, so if you don’t have time to finish a book before it gets automatically returned, don’t worry about it. The book will “be returned” but it won’t leave your Kindle until you actually reconnect to the internet. I keep like six library books on my Kindle at a time and just stay on Airplane mode for a couple of months to get through them all. (Note that you can’t add books either, so it’s best to put a bunch of holds and add as many books as you can until the first one is due.)

One Thing: Thank You Notes

I’m realizing why I went 26 years ignoring my mom’s remonstrations to write thank you notes. It’s much harder to ignore my wife’s. Why are these things so damn hard to write? We have so many wonderful, generous people in our lives who got us gifts for getting married, for getting a house, for having a kid… we need to stop asking for things because the price is far too great! I can’t write these things fast enough!