It's Ottessa, bitch

Every now and then, I open the folder on my desktop called “Old Work” and read something at random from more than a decade ago. For me, it takes about ten years of neglect for a piece of old writing to shift from embarrassing and dumb to hilarious and interesting. The point of digging these things up is to remind myself that I can always write stuff I have no intention of finishing or showing anyone. I can just “express” myself freely. Here’s some writing from March, 2015*.

Hi! First some boring announcements: I’ll be doing Zoommeetings (instead of chat rooms) about writing once a month. We had a great meeting on Saturday—thank you all for coming! Next month we’ll meet on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10th at 11 AM PDT/2 PM EDT. Paid subscribers will automatically get the Zoom link a few minutes before we meet. (You can keep your camera off.) There’s a back-to-school special on subscriptions going on until September 20th.

Hello and welcome! School is back in session. This summer I found out that my eyes were messed up and needed a break, so I minimized reading and writing and intensified my three-dimensional life of touching and feeling things. It went okay. I mostly touched my dogs and the thick stalks of the g*d-d*mn giant birds of paradise ruining my yard. 'Dictionnaire de Medecine' (1877) by Emile Decaisne and X.

Do you have a question about writing? Pay to subscribe and send your questions to itsottessab@gmail.com. Every month or so I will pick one or two questions to answer in this column. Paula Rego, Dog Woman, 1994, Dear Ottessa, I’ve been writing poems since middle school, but I’ve never shown my poems to anybody. I’m twenty-seven now. I always thought I was probably a bad poet, or not even a real poet. A fake mediocre poet, maybe.

Emails with my bestie in NYC when we were 25. I'm illustrating this post with images of drunk LA celebrities from the 2000s just because I love them. Dear readers, While I was in New York last week, I got to reconnect with my best friend from college, “Lauren.” We hadn’t seen each other in over a decade. Later I got nostalgic for the olden days and started reading through our correspondence from the 2000s. Below, I share an email chain from TWENTY years ago.

Hey, it’s Ottessa. I’ve been a little quiet on Substack the last few months while I was finishing a novel. It’s done now. And I want to think about new stuff. So! Let’s proceed with another installment of “Writing Advice.” My friend and novelist Josephine Sloyan sent me an email and asked a good question. We decided to chat about it over Zoom… Do you have any questions about writing? Pay to subscribe and send your questions to itsottessab@gmail.com.

Hello, I often get asked how to “build a believable character.” I think every writer’s process, and every project, requires its own strategy. But here’s one approach… Mine your own interior for your hang-ups and obsessions, then work whatever you discover into “believable” characters, based—if you must—on real people, or real-sounding people, people you think other people might think they should know about.

These chats are always really sweet and lively. You bring questions about writing (any kind of question), and I do my best to answer. Chat-room style. Paid subscribers will automatically get a message in their Substack chat. P.S. Paid subscribers also get access to ALL the stuff on my Substack. If you hate it, you can cancel. It’s good to try new things. Or go back to something you tried once. See if you like it. I went on a rollercoaster today, and it was cool.

Rick Moranis in HISTK. “We’re all the size of boogers!” Hi Mrs. Moshfegh, You seem to be really good at writing male characters, especially in your short story collection, Homesick for Another World. I’m able to understand them in a way I don’t like, they make me see gross parts of myself, but I never feel condescended to.

I finally met Robin in person a few weeks ago on the occasion of her SPOTLIGHT show at the Flag Art Foundation in New York. This is the work about which I wrote an essay. Also below, images of the Degas and the Gauguin I talk about toward the end of the talk. “Language Model,” Robin F. Williams “Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer,” Degas “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” Gauguin More soon! xo