Dear readers of Last Word on Nothing: This will be my last post for some time, as I need to buckle down and focus on a book I am writing. The book is about the tricky ethics of our relationships with nonhuman animals in a world massively influenced by human activity.
I will miss writing here but it has to be done. Focusing on a long, complex project in 2019 is nearly impossible. Some of the tools I am using to focus include the Freedom app, a writing residency at a beautiful desert location here in Oregon, bribing myself with bath treats and baked goods, and saying no to things. I have a massive stack of books about animals from biologists, philosophers, and other experts to read. I have notebooks full of my own reporting on the intersections between animal welfare/rights and species conservation. I have a brain filled with book spaghetti. It is time to get down to work.
I still have a few articles that will come out during my “book leave,” I’ll still be working on local climate activism in Southern Oregon, and I am going to allow myself a teensy bit of Twitter, because I am a hopeless addict–but you may hear quite a bit less of Emma Marris for a few months.
I’ll admit that I am a bit nervous about going dark-ish in a world and an industry that rewards constant public presence. I will miss talking to people through my pieces and through social media. But–oh–the conversations we can have once the book is out! I really do hope that the book growing in me will change the way many of us think about “wild animals” and how we ought to treat them. My own thoughts on this are shifting in unexpected ways.
This week, the river that connects the place I live to the sea was recognized as a person. The youth climate movement is changing people’s minds about the extent of our obligations to fight for justice for nonhumans and humans not even born. We are living in wild, turbulent, painful, and transformative times. I hope that by retreating now I can create a thoughtful exploration of the ethics we need to find our way through these times, one that will be helpful–or at least thought-provoking–for many.
See you on the other side!
Thank you for the heads-up. I would have missed your byline and your words, and wondered where you were.
For big projects such as yours, focus is the only solution, everything else needs to slip away.
I look forward to hearing from you again, perhaps about the process, certainly about he book. Good Luck!