The Questions I Would Ask You

Hi friends.

Greetings from the Denver airport. I spent the past few days in town consuming all kinds of art, including the opening of a show my friend Miranda Lash curated at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver called COWBOY. It was a refreshing interrogation of the legend of the American West, featuring work from a number of brilliant artists of color. Also if hot, queer cowboys sound appealing, have I got an art show for you. (Here’s some wonderful coverage of it in W Magazine.) It felt groundbreaking and I was excited to be there. My brain felt full.

Now I’m almost ready to start writing again, pushing toward generating a messy new 20,000 words by the end of the year. Loose, easy, carefree, non-judgmental. Just piling them up.

I have been feeling lately like I wanted to check in with all of you, to see how your projects are coming along. We’re closing in on 34,000 subscribers now, and that number feels both fun and totally imaginary. It’s enough people to fill a stadium! Not like a Beyonce-sized stadium or anything but definitely a respectable college stadium. A stadium full of writing nerds. I’m sorry but that would be incredibly cute.

Although I prefer to think of you all in your homes, sitting at a comfortable desk wearing an oversized sweater, preparing yourself to work for a few hours. Maybe you’re sighing and looking at your laptop and trying to get yourself psyched up. And maybe I’d call you to see what was with up with that book you’ve been working on all this time. As if I were your accountability partner, and you were mine. And you would say, “Oh thank fucking god you called,” and I would say, “What? Tell me everything.”

So let’s pretend for a moment we’re checking in on each other. Here’s what I would ask you:

How’s your work going? How many words do you have right now? (Honestly any number of words is pretty good.) What do you want to accomplish by the end of the year? And when do you want to be done with this project? Tell me your timeline. The hard facts of it all. Let’s just get that out of the way.

Here are some more questions: