Three things I'm enjoying recently

Because Ohio is on fire and my brain is tired

Happy Friday, everybody! It’s been A Week. I don’t know about you, but I am pathetically grateful that we have reached the weekend (almost.) My sister and I have been redoing our kitchen, which as anyone knows, is the most annoying room to be without, second only perhaps to the bathroom. I’m so glad and grateful that we’re in a position to be able to do this, but it’s meant that I haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t microwaved or from a restaurant in nearly two weeks.

Things are annoying and stressful and generally Bad in the world at large at the moment, so I wanted to write today about some things I’m enjoying, as a break from the last two weeks of wtf-ery. In case you missed it, Pilot Cosplay man actually spoke to a news outlet about the first AITA post I talked about, but he seems to have come around to the necessity of therapy, so that’s one good thing.

#1: Two Contrasting TV Pleasures
I generally consider myself a binge watch girlie, but two shows airing recently have done their bit to change that: The Last Of Us and Poker Face. Both of these shows have received extensive media coverage—TLOU because it’s a big prestige video game adaptation on HBO Max, and Poker Face because it’s Rian Johnson getting to do Columbo fanfiction on a major network’s streaming service. Both shows are pleasurable in their own way. Poker Face, if you watch it, might come across as slightly boring. In a lot of ways, it’s the anti-prestige show; there is the barest nod to an overarching season-long storyline, but the show’s beating heart is Natasha Lyonne’s character Charlie Cale wandering from idiosyncratic group to idiosyncratic group, using her preternatural ability to sniff out lies to solve murders before moving on to the next gig. It’s tremendous fun and calls to mind the episodic zaniness of shows like Murder She Wrote. In a lot of ways, though, Poker Face reminds me of my all-time favorite show, Midsomer Murders: the writers manage tremendous depth of characterization for characters we know we won’t see again. One of my favorite episodes so far is episode 4, “Rest in Metal,” which follows a washed-up one-hit-wonder metal band named Doxxology, doing a shitty tour as a last ditch grab at fame. Chloe Sevigny plays Ruby Ruins, the band’s lead singer, who in everyday life is an orange-vested peon at a big-box store. But Ruby’s not able to transcend the mediocrity of her life onstage, either; the band’s one hit, the one drunk people call out requests for, wasn’t written by any of the current members. It was written by their former bassist, who collects royalties every time it’s played. Ruby and her cohort don’t see a cent. Enter a superfan drummer and the song he’s written that’s guaranteed to be their next big (real) hit—only this time, they’re determined to profit.

An extremely silly setup for a murder, but the way each episode is constructed allows you to spend time with the characters. By the time Gavin, the barefoot superfan drummer, has been electrocuted by his own drum set, the motivations behind the murder are understandable, if not quite excusable. And watching Charlie unravel the web of lies is enjoyable, campy fun. I know none of us *needs* another streaming service in our lives, but Peacock might be worth it for this show alone—and it’s been renewed for a second season, thank God.

The Last Of Us is a very, very different show. I never played the video game that it’s based on, but friends of mine who have say that it’s a very strong adaptation, taking the best parts of the game and building something new on the scaffolding. Pedro Pascal (hot) plays Joel, who lost his daughter in the first wave of what the show calls the Infection, where a fungal invasion begins taking over people, turning them into mindless zombies. Twenty years later he’s eking out a life as a smuggler in one of the uninfected Quarantine Zones, when he’s tasked by an underground rebellion to bring an immune girl Ellie (played brilliantly by Bella Ramsey) to a lab that might be able to use her to synthesize a cure. Not groundbreaking stuff, to be sure: this kind of macguffin Gotta Get The Cure To The Scientist plot has been played out a million times, but showrunner Craig Mazin and the game’s creator Neil Druckmann have chosen to concentrate on the human element of the zombie apocalypse. I didn’t watch The Walking Dead, which I am told did this kind of thing, too, but there have been several episodes which barely featured the infected. They’re an offscreen threat, unseen but felt, and the people we watch are just trying to make the best of it before ol’mushroom head comes through through the gates.

There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled about Episode 3, “Long Long Time,” which follows survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman, who will win an Emmy or I will set something on fire) and his relationship with survivor Frank (Murray Bartlett). Frank stumbles into a trap outside Bill’s idyllic survivalist compound and instead of shooting him, Bill cooks him rabbit and serves him Beaujolais, and Frank recognizes a kindred spirit. Bill is desperately, desperately lonely, and has been hiding parts of himself long before he stole parts of the power plants’ electric fence to keep himself safe. The episode is nearly an hour and a half long, and (spoiler alert) you spend the entire thing on tenterhooks. You know something awful is going to happen to these two men, who have found love and one another in the most improbable circumstances. When the awful thing happens, it’s almost banal—and absolutely fucking heartbreaking. (The morning after watching the episode my eyes were puffy and swollen shut from crying.)

One critic writing for New York Magazine seems convinced the show isn’t that good, simply (I think) because everyone else seems to love the show. Listen, I get it! It’s annoying when everyone says they like the thing! But sometimes, the thing everyone loves is actually good, and The Last Of Us is that thing. The most recent episode featured an attack from the infected that you absolutely knew was coming but was still a shock—and it wasn’t even the most moving part of the episode.

I probably haven’t said anything new about either of these shows, but I hope that if you’ve been on the fence about either that you take the leap and watch them. I completely understand if you want to wait until all the episodes are out, however—sometimes the anticipation is just too much.

#2: Scrivener’s Outline feature
I mentioned in a couple of recent newsletters that I’ve recently finished writing a romance novel. I’m going to be self-publishing that puppy in a couple of weeks, and as I get closer to that I’ll have more to share about what the book is about and the cover and things like that. At the beginning of the month, though, I started drafting book 2 in the series, and I wanted to have a different drafting experience this time around. For context, I wrote the zero draft of the first one in about a month, writing 3-4 days a week. That draft ended up being about fifty thousand words, but it wasn’t consistent and needed a lot of work to get it into shareable, let alone readable shape.

This time around, I didn’t want to spend time after drafting floundering for more than was necessary, and I decided I needed at least the suggestion of an outline. I didn’t want to zoom through the zero draft on vibes alone, only to reach revisions and realize I was light on hijinks. So I laid out a kind of general path (which has already changed, lmao) that has been incredibly helpful for both reaching word count and gaining momentum in the plot and relationship where it counts.

Please pardon my dogshit redaction abilities here, but this is the way I’ve got it laid out. If you’re in Scrivener, click on the button to the right of the windowpane and this view will come up. POV used to be called Label, which I didn’t find helpful, so I changed it. You can change everything in the dropdown menu to fit what you need, including the colors; I changed the Statuses so that it would be more helpful for my process.

None of this is really new for diehard Scrivener users, but it’s new for me, and I have been able to add nearly ten thousand words to this draft this week as a result of the preplanning I did, so this is the method I’m going to go with for the time being. It makes me happy! Another thing that makes me happy: you can set word count targets for each section, so a little progress bar will fill in as you hit those goals. It’s the Scrivener equivalent of a gold star.

#3: A full-sized refrigerator
This one is Extremely Specific To Me, Actually, since it’s a byproduct of the kitchen reno. We knew we’d be without a functioning kitchen for at least three weeks, so we saved the microwave and the coffee maker and donated our fridge and range to Build It Green. That still left us with the question of what to do with, say, milk for coffee and condiments that needed refrigeration. Neither my sister nor I wanted to buy any bridge appliances like a big minifridge or anything that we would then need to get rid of when the kitchen was done, so I had the idea of taking the fridge Abby got me for my birthday last year to hold my skin care stuff (shut up it’s amazing) and using that instead. And it worked! Sort of! The problem was we couldn’t keep anything larger than condiments in it—no takeout, no frozen food, nada. It was useful but only to a certain extent. Our big new fridge came in on Tuesday and let me tell you: having a working freezer is an absolute game changer and I will never take it for granted ever again.

That’s all for this week. What are you enjoying? What’s bringing you hits of dopamine and joy? Leave it in the comments or reply to the email!

WHAT I’M READING

I gave in to my urge for completionism and started rereading Uprooted by Naomi Novik and I am really, really stuck with it. Agnieska is like El from Scholomance: impulsive, irritable, and quick to anger, only instead of being incredibly knowledgeable she doesn’t know anything, and things keep having to be explained to her (a huge pet peeve of mine.) Even a mid Novik book is still fun, though, so I’ll keep going with the reread.

HOUSEKEEPING

I know I said last week that I’d talk about the romance novel this week—technically I did, but I want to have a few more things in place before I talk more!

As for the rest of it, you know the drill: I’m available on Reedsy, around on the AFN Discord, and actively neglectful of Twitter.

THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY

I watched the Rihanna concert—yes, the Super Bowl—and all I can say is that if *I* can tell the calls were bad, then they were really, really bad. I think the Eagles were robbed. Elsewhere, did you know that Keivonn Woodard, the actor who played Sam on Episode 5 and 6 of The Last Of Us is a deaf hockey player in Maryland? His team got a grant from the Capitals to install assistive devices that let him see with lights and signals when the whistle blows! He’s the top scorer for his team! His nickname was Hollywood even before he got cast! I love him! Also, this is an official Valentine from Sportsnet:

READING: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
WATCHING: The Last Of Us
LISTENING: Chaise Longue by Wet Leg

This has been A Faster No, a dispatch on publishing, writing, books, and beyond. Is there something you’d like me to talk about? Leave it in the comments or reply to the email! You can support the newsletter here. If you purchase a book from any of the links to Bookshop.org I get a small commission at no cost to you. I am available for developmental editing and editorial assessment services via Reedsy.