52 Comments

But my calendar IS broken.

Expand full comment
author

I'll trade you your calendar for my busted metabolism...

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
author

Frankly, I ignored most feedback because it seldom rose above "I liked/didn't like it." But when writers like Monica Drake or Chelsea Cain commented I paid full attention. Often even Tom was exhausted and could give nothing but encouragement, but I understood. My advice? Look for the few who can articulate their reaction. If the others laugh that's feedback enough.

Expand full comment

Took a course a long time ago in college called Art and Perception. Almost every time the prof asked about a work of art, the response was "I like the colors."

Expand full comment

Back in 2007, I got a scholarship to attend a pre-college program at RISD, Rhode Island School of Design, where I stayed on campus and attended classes. My two choices for majors were drawing and animation. But those were full, so they gave me sculpture. But I had one mandatory class about graphic design and one part was to critique someone's art in front of the class. God, I hated doing that. So awkward. Because until then, I had ZERO experience in giving feedback. Never knew what to say but I had to say something. So I mentioned how a certain part of the drawing guided your eyes to a certain place. Had a partner up there too and she said, "Is that all you want to say?" I just nodded quickly.

Afterwards, I was tempted to find and recite canned lines that included words like "juxtaposition."

Eventually, I just stopped going to the class.

Expand full comment

That would be very stressful as a kid.

When I was younger but post-college, I had so many bad Internet dates that I started just doing things I liked to do on the date figuring if romance was a wash, at least I would enjoy the activity. This resulted in a lot of art museum visits which as I learned is the type of thing most people SAY they like doing but don't. To make it more more fun, I'd play "who can say the most ridiculously pretentious thing about a painting". Again, though, I learned that was more amusing to me than the date.

Expand full comment

Theres a solution for that. One that you are quite experienced with. However, you trade years of life for energy and muscle. Or so Ive been told. My time on the juice is coming in the next few years, but just to normalize levels, dont want to be a body builder. For now, Fadogia, Tongkat, and Ashwagandha seem to be working well.

Expand full comment

Have you looked into peptides at all? I'm taking a few now and they seem to be pretty amazing.

Expand full comment

Ask about your mail at the UPS store when you ship those prizes.

Expand full comment
author

The manager mentioned you by name...

Expand full comment

I get around.

Expand full comment
author

You sent the postcard? Creepy picture.

Expand full comment
founding

Awesome feedback. And great work

Expand full comment
author

Always keep the hypnosis aspect in mind.

Expand full comment
founding

Copy that. Much obliged.

Expand full comment

Yes they still make desk blotters with calendars on them.

Expand full comment
author

Thank god.

Expand full comment
founding

Hi Benjamin! I loved this story. And the pacing, the voice, just great. Chuck, great feedback, I’ll be mulling it over! Thanks for sharing.

Expand full comment

Thank you. Now I need to get better at putting your massive list of gestures into practice. That was super impressive btw. Definitely got me thinking.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
founding

Thank you! 😊 Certainly got the juices flowing!

Expand full comment

I really enjoyed this Benjamin. Great job and I hope to read more of your work. It really is cool how it goes from this mundane environment to a place of wonder that you’d never expect. I love it when two polar opposites are paired together like that. I know there’s a term for that. I think Chuck mentioned it once in one of his posts talking about contrasting colors. The fact that things can come out of the bagel and that the character can enter into the other side is enticing too. And the thought that the character doesn’t know how to get to the other side leaves me feeling so sad for him, knowing where he’s stuck at, and it keeps me locked in even after I’m done reading it because I want to know how the hell he can get through that bagel portal. How can he get through the bagel??!

Expand full comment

Haha thank you--I think I always have this little hopeful feeling like I'll find some magical adventure somewhere in my own life. It makes me sad that it's highly unlikely--but then I thought...oh, it'd be so much worse if I knew it was possible and then couldn't get there. And so...bagel

Expand full comment
Apr 11, 2022·edited Apr 11, 2022

Knowing Chuck, I’m surprised he didn’t make a comment about the “- a centaur” reveal. He espouses describe before you name. I really enjoyed this story but feel that reveal came a little too quickly. I think it might be fun to have the narrator try to remember the name for that creature….which is man/horse and I actually thought you were describing a man/goat creature. Great work! I really liked this story, and what a treat to be featured by Chuck!

Expand full comment
author

Hah! I had the same reaction: a satyr, but just let it pass.

Expand full comment

Ah! Crap. You're right. Spot on. Poor Mr. Tumnus. That was speciesist of me. Oh, maybe there is a thread here. Have him think centaur but then have the thought process happen where he realizes no, it's a satyr. This has all given me a lot of little paths to fiddle with.

Expand full comment
author

My reaction was that you were trolling the reader. Having a narrator make such a mistake is not forbidden. It makes the reader feel smart and makes the narrator seem human.

Expand full comment

Ah. Unfortunately not. I do love how that happens though--I think when I write a story I’m far more critical of myself than any reader would be. I think--crap I screwed up. And they think, “unreliable narrator, sweet.” Certainly not something to rely on, but neat when it happens. I do wonder, if you don’t mind, with how much Fight Club has become a cultural phenomenon, do you ever read things on it and think, “Hah! They are reading way more into this than I expected.”?

Expand full comment

Ah, that is a great idea to have him try to think of the name--I do need to work on those slow reveals. Also there is a lot of humor to dig out of him forgetting the name.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Haha your comment got me watching Zizek videos and--of course--in the second one I watch he references Fight Club. Brought things neatly full circle.

Expand full comment

Hi Chuck—

First, thank you. This is wildly cool and helpful. I’ve been reading your work since before I was writing, so waking up to this was a bit like a little dream.

I am delighted you enjoyed it and enjoy the absurd (I love Tom Robbins. If you haven’t read Jitterbug Perfume, highly recommended)—I am hugely drawn to the absurd and the magical. That is often where my ideas begin—with the funky bits. The ‘draw them in’ is precisely where I struggle. I love the idea of using the calendar to build this up. I’ve spent so much time thinking up the weird ideas, but since reading your newsletter, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the “hypnosis” elements. If I can up the believability, I think it’ll make things stronger—as you said.

I’m glad you mentioned the gestures—after your recent newsletters on it, I realized that’s something I need to work on. After you wrote about it, I started seeing it all over the place in the book I was reading and thought, “Crap! I haven’t been doing this.” I’ve started making lists of my own for these and trying to think of other things like that to fortify my stories—I suppose I’ve started to see them like the cement between bricks. I’d been neglecting that, and your posts have got me thinking a lot about those sorts of things. This breakdown of my work brings even more of those to light—not just for this story, but for my storytelling brain.

Thank you so much again—for this and for this newsletter as a whole. It continues to help me improve my work and is wonderfully entertaining all rolled into one.

Note on the blood: An artist recently made a comic out of this story, and we had a whole conversation about the blood. In my mind, it was always there, but she saw it as magical and unable to be seen outside the bagel—I hadn’t thought about how that small detail could be read into (excuse the pun). Now—all I can think about is how I could write a version where the centaur head comes flopping out onto the breakroom table. So thank you for the hilarious idea for my imagination to play with.

Expand full comment

I'm a Skinny Legs and All guy. Great idea Benjamin - if you're going to write, go ridiculous, I say.

Expand full comment

This might seem like a stupid question...but, gotta ask. When unpacking something summarized into a moment by moment reveal, is there a practical trick or maybe a skill that you do, chuck? What questions do you ask?

Expand full comment

Not sure if this relates to hypnogogia, but I read something about Salvador Dali where he held something in his hand as he drifted to sleep in a chair. And when he did, he dropped the object as a way to wake him up. And after that he was in a certain mental state.

Expand full comment

I thought about this too. Apparently, it's that moment between awake and falling asleep where creative ideas surface. Edison and Dali used this technique to catch those ideas.

Expand full comment
author

A sad confession: At Freightliner I'd gobble down my lunch, then lay my head on my workstation and try to doze until lunchtime was over. It was while waking up from this cat nap that I got the idea for Fight Club. As kids we were always lectured that Thomas Edison would take frequent naps because they seemed to generate break-through ideas. A pattern?

Expand full comment

Naps are magic. Hold on. I need to email my boss...

Expand full comment

Speaking of ways to get ideas. ( This is a really odd one) I just remembered a young female writer I met years ago on a workshop, she sniffs wash machine cleaning powder to get inspired. I'd assume she always carries it with her. I swear this is true.

Expand full comment

I read in an essay that you cringed when you see a story begin with "I." Was wondering, do you still have that reaction or has it changed over the years?

Expand full comment
author

I still cringe. Beginning with "I" or a quote or a rhetorical question, these all make me cringe.

Expand full comment

So characters and objects in motion are best for that hypnotic effect? I love when you compared it to a dog watching a squirrel intensely. Hell, sometimes when I'm at the park, I always stop to stare at the squirrels. Does that make me weird? The squirrels, they just give me the side-eye from up in the tree.

Expand full comment
author

Years ago, when MTV was new, critics decried its fast cutting because they said the human mind couldn't look away. Our ancient prey instincts forced viewers to watch and determine if each new moving image was a predator. So critics claimed that fast editing was unfair to the viewer. My guess is that that predator/prey dynamic is what compels us to watch the moving object. In effect: Will it eat me? Can I eat it?

Expand full comment

That's fascinating. A week ago, I was searching for info on snakes because an object in my story is a twin-headed snake ring, except one of the heads is broken off (particularized my object!).

There's a YouTube video of Jordan Peterson talking in a classroom. And Jordan was describing how chimps react when they see a snake. They basically make this special snake cry to alert the other chimps. They use the same brain circuitry that we do when we curse. And he said that the chimps become transfixed by this snake. They could monitor this thing, he said, for up to 24 hours. But the presence of this snake put them in a dilemma. They are fixated on this snake because they want to know what it does, but they have to keep a distance because it's a snake.

One last thing. Personally, whenever a tiny bug lands in front of me, or on the windowsill, I have to watch it try to navigate! It's just crazy how much focus it demands.

Expand full comment
founding

This was a really fun story to read! I like how the bagel is a mini portal. I think all of us who have worked in a cubicle farm wishes something this cool would happen.

Expand full comment

haha every day. Thank you

Expand full comment

I got groundhog day vibes with this one and though you took it in an interesting way you didn't do enough. The dialogue between coworkers was too short create more tension. I didn't feel the tension in the story and then when the centaur comes around again too short, I did feel the tension but you could have done more. I got blood on myself I would have freaked especially from a centaur. The coworker comes around is no way I'm parting with the bagel it might be my only chance to escape the hell hole I'm currently in. Increase the stakes, you didn't get me fun invested

Expand full comment

It was pretty cool, made me think of the book "flatland" for some reason.

Expand full comment

Loved the straightforward, “no-bullshit” dialog in this, particularly the opening line.

Expand full comment

Finally got around to reading this. Would've liked to seen a longer story. More interaction between worlds, more depressing, monotonous life on this side of the bagel. But I agree: great job, Benjamin Davis.

Expand full comment