A Very Intimate Present (and Thom Yorke)
Newsletter 003
Dear Writers,
In the spirit of the holidays, I feel inspired to share how one of our first writers, editorial intern, and budding film critic, Orion Rea, views the simple act of writing a Switch-Lit story for himself (and perhaps for other writers too):
“An invitation to engage in Switch-Lit is a very intimate present, one that I can imagine many would love to receive. It’s an opportunity to connect deeply with someone they don’t know that well in their life. “
Thanks for receiving our invitation into Switch-Lit and the next chapter of your story with an outstretched imagination. Who are the people in your life who might love to receive an invitation into Switch-Lit?
Happy holidays :)
Did you know?
Musician and songwriter Thom Yorke of Radiohead wrote tracks of his album Anima through a turn-based collaborative writing process:
“We watched Flying Lotus in the early years on tour with us, and we watched him with his live set-up performing all his loops and thought, ‘Well, that’s interesting,’ because it’s a live performance, he’s improvising.
We suddenly realized this is a new way to write stuff.
I would send [Nigel Godrich] completely unfinished, sprawling tracks and he would focus in on the bits and pieces that he thought would work, build them up into samples and loops, and then throw them back at me, where I would start writing vocals.”
Read the full interview, watch the surreal Anima music video on Netflix (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson), or listen to my favorite track “Dawn Chorus” below, inspired by the chorus of birdsong that we may hear at the start of every new day (and whose audio frequencies map closely to the electromagnetic waves of the Earth itself).
Tips and tricks
Learn some helpful tips and tricks in using the Switch-Lit app:
Locked Stories — If time expires on your chapter, then your story is “locked”. This means that now your partner has the power to unlock the story, which resets your time limit and gives you another chance to finish your next chapter.
"Fortunes” — In the bottom right corner of your writer’s Dashboard, you’ll see a new little quote, or “fortune” as we call it, to inspire you each week.
Colors — All the colored circles you see throughout our Substack are the colors of actual Switch-Lit writers like you. If a color looks familiar, it might be you.
📟 Ping us with any questions or requests about your app experience:
editors@switch-lit.com
Prompts
This is the last week for December 2023 story prompts inspired by our inaugural theme of tea. If you want to write a story with the December prompts, then start a story before they disappear on January 1st!
Next week we will be releasing a fresh set of five (5) story prompts, inspired by a new theme for the entire month of January 2024.
Don’t give up…
“Freedom is the right to write the wrong words.”
– Patti Smith (visit her Substack)