What to Read When You’re Done Reading Neil Gaiman

July 10, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

Another day, another parasocially powerful idol disappointing us all. People are so jaded by now, at least I’ve noticed just a little less of the same tired discourse: “My unhealthy stand-in father/brother figure who I have never met or who maybe signed a book for me once would never!” “Anyone who can’t separate the art from the artist is a smooth brain who can’t match a fraction of my completely rational intellect!”

Nobody wants to separate art from the artist when the art and the artist are good. I have never heard someone say “Don’t give credit to George Orwell for his work! He’s just an artist and doesn’t have anything to do with his art.” Probably anyone who’s participated in creative workshops has also met plenty of people who defend their questionable art by claiming they are simply misunderstood as artists. From my perspective, people only separate art from artist when they want an excuse to over-identify with a Hogwarts House while J. K. Rowling is the way that she is.

Completely Subjective 5-Star Review: Wylde Flowers

May 8, 2024May 8, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

A lot of canonical cozy games are easy to uncozy. There might not technically be anything missable, but are you really going to let the season roll from Spring to Summer without a large horde of extra crops? Can you really resist the siren song of min maxing? I will often start a farm sim with the intention of ~taking my time~ but that lasts about as long as seeing the cute little pixelated chickens I could buy once I can build a coop, which means collecting enough hardwood, which means upgrading my axe, which means mining deeper, which means buying a new sword… and on and on.

Yes, Actually, You Need to Do the Dishes

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

Attend any writer’s panel, conference, workshop, or class; read or listen to any interview, and you’ll hear the question: How do you make time to write? In a world with working(!), sleeping(!), family obligations(!), housework(!), health-sustaining activity(!), various relationships(!) and, heaven-forbid, other interests(!!), how do you make time to write?

Do Over: Daily Routine

April 30, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

The first chapter of The Poet’s Companion is all about writing what you know. The first prompt I chose to do was about writing a daily, routine task. I found I struggled with this quite a lot. Of course, birds (I know) showed up in the poem, so my overexercised editing voice was roasting me the entire time I wrote for thinking anything good can come of the one trillionth poem with birds. But I am here to intentionally decouple the process of writing from the process of literally anything else, so here’s a quick bird poem, with all its rights sacrificed.

The Do Over Program

April 28, 2024April 30, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

There are diminishing returns in receiving a formal education for creative writing. I have a BFA and an MFA, and consider the experience of earning the MFA to be the greatest regret of my adult life. It’s not that I didn’t learn all the skills I needed to learn: craft, analysis, criticism, cold reading, writing for a cold read. It’s that learning these skills, and perpetually reinforcing them, clutters the font from which the writing itself springs. For me, this eventually meant no more writing.

It’s Backlog, B*tch

April 26, 2024April 26, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

Sometime in late 2021, alongside many unknown others, I started to wake up from my “post”-COVID haze, took stock of my life, and thought to myself, “How did I end up with this many video games?” Hundreds of them, representing thousands of hours of playtime, which were apparently invisible to me until they reached a mass so critical, it became embarrassing. This is my humble backlog post.

Completely Subjective 5-Star Review: Mexican Gothic

April 23, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

One of my hot takes on literature is a lot of the old school, Victorian-era, Gothic novels kind of stink. In classic tale Jane Eyre, the love interest’s deep dark secret—and the deep dark secret of his house—is that his first wife is locked up in the attic? And the reveal is that it’s so hard for him?? Silvia Moreno-Garcia literally would never in her contemporary take on this subgenre of classic, Mexican Gothic.

Completely Subjective 5-Star Review: Harvestella

April 15, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

Harvestella is Square Enix’s major foray into the farming sim genre. As a simp for Square Enix and farming sims, I am basically designed for this game. And it hits the notes. A plotline arc that starts with helping small town folk with their errands and ends with fighting (or becoming) God? An ensemble harem and reverse-harem cast of anime tropes coming to love you? Farming simplified for people who just want to run around with their swords out? Dungeon crawling simplified for people who want to half-play while an episode of Riverdale is half-watched in the background? All checked.

Unnecessary Manifesto

April 11, 2024April 13, 2024 Nicole ConnollyLeave a comment

I started to think I might never write again. Why would I? Around 2018, I noticed it becoming a struggle. I didn’t want to anymore. I went to workshops to make myself externally accountable, and I set aside time to write, and I made it happen (sometimes). But the flow state was hard to achieve. My mind almost never cleared enough to just let the words through.

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