HeyJaredSmall Gold Objects
A newsletter about writing from Office of Modern Composition, a Chicago-based organization that composes pleasurable moments, weeks and years, books, podcasts, and more.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
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- Sep 30, 2026
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- Jul 15, 2026
Latest issues
What’s the Smallest Thing You Can Do to Activate Yourself? (opens the original)
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The difference between a strong writing session and an abandoned or truncated one—or worse, a not-even-started one—can come down to some very small things. These things are often so small, so idiosyncratic and personal, that craft discussion rarely encompasses them. That’s why newsletters like this one are such a relief. This isn’t something that you would hear discussed in classrooms, but perhaps it should be.Let’s return to the question in the title. What’s the smallest thing you can do to act
An Inbox Full of Scams (opens the original)
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Just so you know, my book is “transformative.”Not only is it “transformative,” it’s also “groundbreaking,” “moving,” “creative,” and “essential.” I know this because about once a day, someone emails me to tell me. And that person is usually a robot.Because I am a published author whose book sales will never pay back their advances, I am the perfect target for a prolific scam that’s exploded in popularity with the onslaught of generative AI. Dan Barry from The New York Times <a href="https://www.
How Much Time Is The Right Amount To Spend on Your Writing (opens the original)
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Hello, dear Small Gold Objects readers! Our September is very busy, so we are re-running this popular post from last year. We will see you next week!The QuandaryFinancial planners report that when an individual or family tracks their spending for the first time, they’re often horrified by how much they’ve been spending on groceries. But the size of that number rarely shocks the planner. The client’s sense of shame about it comes from lack of context. Most people never see other people’s budgets,
The Main Character Dies in This One (opens the original)
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Have you read or written a story in first person where the main character dies? It can be very exhilarating, embodying a character who realizes—sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, sometimes not at all—that their time is at an end.This post is inspired by the story Last Time by Colin Goh. I read it in an anthology called Singapore Noir. I love port cities, and I love noir, so when I saw the book, I immediately said,
What To Cut (opens the original)
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It’s impossible to talk about good writing without talking about the art of cutting. I recently finished a second draft of my novel, and in writing it, cut everything. Only about 400 words from the initial draft remain. Those 400 are true powerhouses, though.In composing the second draft, I got the clumsy versions of new sentences down on the page — as one must — and, once they were safely established, I became a serial killer, shredding most of those sentences to half their original sizes. Some
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