Journal

I’m reading Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill. I found it part-way down a particularly deep rabbit hole when hunting for books that might sound good read aloud, barely louder than a whisper. Books that felt intimate, and human. Many books didn’t fulfill the promise, but this one did.

The book uses fragments of life, little vignettes, from the perspective of a single character—“the wife.” Chapter two opens with this delight:

I got a job checking facts at a science magazine. Fun facts, they called them. “The connected fibers in a human brain, extended, would wrap around the earth forty times.” Horrible, I wrote in the margin, but they put it through anyway.

I’m half-watching a movie as I write this, and it struck me how completely unnatural speech is in most movies, even very good ones. It doesn’t seem too strange when you’re watching it, but when you really try to put yourself in the character you can’t imagine ever speaking in the way that they do.

My favorite pieces of audio storytelling are those where the narrator sounds like they’re speaking normally, or normally enough that you don’t notice that they aren’t. I think it’s a difficult thing to do, actually. Truly normal speech would probably be uninteresting after a few minutes.

What does it take, to strike that balance? Hundreds of hours of practice, probably. Thousands even, and then tens of thousands. The Voice Memos app on my iPhone is slowly getting filled up with practice reads. I use the DJI Mic Mini 2, because I can use it just about anywhere.

Aneesah’s sleeping on the couch, and Cacio has tucked herself in the little nook behind her legs. It’s one of her favorite places. Big stretch now, loud sigh, and now she’s flopped her head over a knee.

The strange (but, I suppose, unsurprising) thing about keeping a proper journal for the first time in my life, and especially doing it publicly, is realizing how completely mundane the average Thursday is—or should I say, my average Thursday, perhaps your Thursdays are wild.

The day feels like it barely happened, and now I’m sat here at almost-midnight writing these words. This will sound trite, but how curious that some days feel like they stretch on forever whilst others rush by in a flash, barely recognizable. Was that a day, or did light turn to night when I blinked? I like the days that stretch on forever, personally.

I transcribed the sleep story and tried reading a little aloud. As expected, I was furious that my voice didn’t come out completely differently to how it does on any other day. Early on in the story, the phrase “jammy bugger” gets uttered, and it made me smile. I’ve heard that phrase hundreds (thousands?) of times, and now I don’t hear it at all.

For the weirdos who are interested: I recorded the audio right into Apple Voice Memos using loopback on my Audio-Technica interface, and transcribed it using ElevenLabs. I bought the Audio-Technica specifically for a physical loopback switch, and mostly for audio studies like this. ElevenLabs did a good job, but I needed to tidy up formatting and a couple of spellings (it had heard “chummy bugger,” whatever that is).

On that note, time for bed. It’s been a long day and I’m looking forward to the warm embrace of the duvet tonight. Cacio is already passed out on a comforter that’s draped across the couch. She sometimes goes to bed without us, and then storms back in minutes later indignant that we’ve kept her waiting. She’s such a great dog; all dogs are great.

Woke up early today because Aneesah woke up early. Tried to prototype something on my phone with mixed success. A little AI muse that I could invoke to ask questions about my writing. Surprisingly good questions, a couple of them. Some unsurprisingly bad ones, too. Based on something Elizabeth Gilbert said in a talk once about “having” a genius.

Popped out for milk and came back with sardines and pastries. Came back with the milk too, fortunately, but it wouldn’t be unlike me to have forgotten it. Made a coffee, flat white, decaf. One of the most satisfying parts of the day, to the extent that I sometimes think about it the night before. A bit sad maybe? Who cares. Sardines on toast because I used to have it as a kid and remember liking it. I still like it, turns out.

Tried to read this journal aloud to practice narration and immediately realized it was the wrong thing. Started reading Dear London by Kerrin-Lee Nell instead. It’s a love letter to a place, after all, so what could be more fitting. Much better, but felt at times like it wasn’t written to be read, or at least not read by me. Time to write something of my own I think.

Listened to the sleep story written by Flossie Skelton (or Florence, internet seems undecided, but it’s Flossie on the author’s site and I suspect that they know best) a few more times. It hits my ear just right. The speech, the foley. Need to transcribe and annotate it, but I think if I try to read it aloud I’ll just be annoyed that I don’t have a beautiful Irish accent. How unfortunate, really, that each of us has the accent that we do.

Will start writing something though. I’ve always said that this project was a love letter to California, but it only dawned on me recently that I might write it like an actual letter. It might simply be a love letter to place, but starting with this place. Anyway, I like reading letters, especially the goofy ones; unserious, but not. I hope I’ll like writing them too.

Starting to get sick. Catching up to Aneesah who’s been sick for a couple days now. Enjoyed being the one in good health so I could take care of her a little. We’re taking care of each other now (the usual arrangement).

Listened to the same audio story maybe 10+ times yesterday, each time listening for something new—pacing, tone, levels of foley used to score specific scenes. Thought I’d get bored of it but I didn’t at all.

Trying to pare my project down to the next smallest step, and dismiss anything that feels like an excuse. Thought: record readings of this journal and mix until happy. That might feel like a really small step, but there’s more than enough to do: treating the recording space, figuring out how I want to speak, tidying the audio up, playing with levels etc.

I could go even smaller (and maybe I should): just practice reading out loud. Recording helps, but I have ears. The journal exists, I have my voice (for now). Nothing stopping me. No excuses. Read until it starts to sound right. Every reading is progress. One very tiny step on the journey.

I’m sure that reading this journal won’t be very interesting, but that should force me to write something that makes for a more compelling recording. I’ll annoy myself into doing the work (which is a horrible strategy that actually works—morning pages proved that to me).

It’s a holiday today. Just made coffee and wrote my morning pages whilst sitting on the couch. Sam Cook on the record player, Aneesah to my left reading a book under a blanket, Cacio stretched out to the right. I listened to Andrew Scott reading that sleep story again whilst making coffee. I’ll probably listen to it many more times today whilst doing chores.

You know that feeling when you just feel so privileged to have something in your ears? I do, and this story felt like a great privilege. The story itself (written by Flossie Skelton) is great, but I also love the way that Andrew reads it. Slightly informal, intimate, warm. It almost stops feeling like fiction, because it’s read with such heart. Truly, a sensory gift.

The work that I most enjoy is work that moves me somehow. That’s the kind of work I want to make. Work that causes a small shift in someone. In their heart or their mind or their perception of the world. Work that makes the world look a little different, even if barely perceptible. Even if only over a long time, with many reads or listens or whatever.

Anyway, mostly planning today and thinking about the tools that would help me to share the kind of things I want to share. I’ve resisted planning over the months, but I’ve come to realize that I need it more than I thought I did. I’ll listen to great work whilst I potter around, because exposing myself to great work helps me to make my work better.

Steering things in the direction of the work now. I’d hoped that keeping a journal would force me to first clarify what it is that I actually want to create, and then to make regular progress toward it. First day writing about the work properly and it’s already helped me to do that.

I need to write something longer about this, but the short version: I want to tell audio-centric stories about the Californian outdoors. It’s a love letter to this wonderful place, and to place in general. I’ll be writing, taking photographs, making short videos, and recording binaural audio, but it’s all in service of telling stories through audio, with heart.

The cool thing about having so much to learn is that I have almost no excuse to do nothing. There’s always something small to do. There are no real blockers. If I can’t get out to Point Reyes or it’s absolutely pissing it down, I probably can’t go and shoot great video of the coast, but that’s just one step of so many steps in the long creative journey.

I listened to Andrew Scott (of Fleabag etc.) read fictionalized love letters on the way to pick up a curry tonight, and it struck me that I could riff on something similar to help me learn more about mixing, scoring, microphone technique and so much more. There are zero dependencies, I’d just need to sit my ass down and actually do the work.

Taking any photos would make me a better photographer, which would serve me for this project. Writing any poetry would make me a better poet, which would serve me. Listening to the world would make me a better listener. Creative work isn’t linear, it’s messy and it’s beautiful and it’s about showing up, even on the days when it’s harder.

When I started putting some more shape around the work today, I felt that impulse that I think many people feel—to structure and sequence everything in a really neat way. It needs more structure than it has now, but I’m going to resist coming up with the perfect plan, because I just don’t believe in that. Take the detour, miss a turn, live a little.

Jordan Mechner didn’t know he’d be a beloved artist when he started writing the journal that he’d end up publishing. Brian Eno, on the other hand, already was when he started writing his. It made me think that I’d find fewer examples of “normal life stuff” in his journal from 1995—but it turns out that humans are, you know, human (most of the time).

I opened the book to a random page today, and the entry that caught my eye captured in so few words both the realities of being a human in the world and the hint of a mindset that helps you to… well… do the stuff that Brian Eno had done by then (and the things he’d do after).

Beautiful day after bad night. Anthea also ill. Irial can’t keep anything down. To chemist early for tummy things. Made drawings for Self-Storage pieces. Suddenly I have millions of ideas.

This is pretty meta, but I’m trying to get used to the idea that a journal entry doesn’t have to be like a typical “post” (by which I mostly mean longer, more literary). Some of my favorite entries in The Making of Prince of Persia are just a sentence or two capturing bits of life around the creative project. I’ve been reading more of it to get some inspiration—or I guess, permission? But from whom; for what? Brains are weird.

It’s funny, I thought that I’d write these sort of “filler” posts until I was ready to “start” the journal, but I post every day—it was already a sort of journal. Yesterday I made up some title for the post, but today it felt strange to do that, so I didn’t. I’m starting the journal, I guess.

One other sticking point for me (and I was like this with morning pages for a year) is that I just can’t imagine missing a post or not keeping it around forever, but I’m learning to let go of that too. I suspect that I’ll tuck many of the posts on this site away soon—available still, but not in the list to peruse. This blog is for me. It’s for thinking; for progress.

I’m aware that this post—and the past couple posts, and the next few, more than likely—are meta. I’m writing journal entries about writing a journal. If I can’t use the journal to learn about my practice and teach me things about myself though, it might not be much of a journal. I’ll try to take it less seriously. There are no rules (except those I impose).

I do want to steer the things I write here toward the creative project(s) that I want to pursue, but I’ll give myself a minute to get there. When I do, maybe I’ll opt for a clean start. There’s something symbolic about starting again, and something cathartic in letting go of a perfect streak. Who knows. I’m just trying to say that it’s fine to do that.

So, welcome to a few days of me sounding absolutely incoherent. I’m not sure that’s markedly different to anything else on this blog, but I feel some sort of lightness in it. There’s something comforting about writing about nothing in the plainest of language. It feels like blogging—real, old-school, bona fide blogging. Catch you in the next one.

I’m going to be turning this daily blog into (mostly) a journal. A maker’s journal. A tool to help me talk about the work I want to do, and to force me to actually do it. If you want to write about your work, it turns out you have to do the work. Some stuff to figure out first though.

One of the first things on my mind is which tools I’ll use. At the time of writing, my tech stack is super simple, because it doesn’t need to be anything more: trusty old Jekyll, hosted via GitHub pages. It doesn’t get much more simple—I just push markdown to the main branch and it’s live in minutes. I love it. Always have. But will it serve me?

The answer is probably “probably.” I’ve never included images in my posts here so far, but inevitably I’ll want to in a maker’s journal. I’ll probably want to include video occasionally, too. I’ll want to include audio (and I’m not sure how yet). I can do all of that with GitHub and GitHub pages (with LFS for the images and video) but it always feels a bit icky for some reason? I’m not sure why. It’s probably fine.

The other thing I’m thinking about, probably prematurely, is that I’d like some sort of newsletter functionality. The work I want to make I’ll eventually want to offer to people, and it would be useful to start (slowly) understanding who those folks might be. I don’t have any analytics, I don’t collect emails, I just put stuff out there and occasionally it comes back. Plenty of options here. Buttondown, Ghost, whatever.

Ghost is probably the front-runner, actually, but I’d need to let go of my obsession with markdown files. If I can’t let go, I’ll just keep things here, figure out the large file stuff, use something like Buttondown, and crack on with it. There’s always just something so tempting about the idea of the tool that does it all. They never do though, really.

In some ways this is the first journal entry, but it doesn’t really feel like it. I’m thinking of three tags: journal, essay and meta. There would be a journal post every day, but I might occasionally post something meta about the journal itself (like this) and will definitely spin out longer essays. Kind of like A Year with Swollen Appendices. kind of.