Reinventing Oneself and Other Terrors
A quiet update with everything that's keeping me steady this month.
May is here! How have you been holding up? It seems like everywhere we turn there’s some new struggle—our own, our community’s, our world. In my corner of the world I’ve been focusing on joy where I can. We traveled down to NYC the other weekend to celebrate a big birthday for a dear friend, and there’s nothing like cheering someone on into a new decade of life to lift the spirits. I began a new day job at the end of April and it’s nothing that I ever thought I’d do, but the company is small and welcoming and inclusive, in that gruff New England fuck-you way. In the chaos that has been the last few weeks, I also drove up to say goodbye to the house I grew up in. It's filled with complicated feelings, and a thousand ghosts of who the three of us used to be. And in my dad's case, maybe literally. We spread some ashes and stared at the wind through the trees during golden hour.
The past year feels like metamorphosis. Turning everything that's made me "me" into soup and remaking something that's the same as it's always been and yet unrecognizable outside the cellular level. Or maybe it's the soul version of the Ship of Theseus--same human, new self. It’s funny, reinventing oneself. Half the time I wonder if the folks around me look at my transition the way people saw Jimmy McGill picking up his Saul Goodman persona. A silly little man, legal DBA and all. And most of the time, that doesn’t bother me.
In the writing sphere, I’ve received all my feedback from my three beta readers for Eir Lahren, and it was exactly what I needed to make this book shine! I’ve started querying, which is a bit like selling one’s soul by hawking it at an open market stall. If you’re interested in following that journey, let me know—I could start a query series if folks were interested. I plan to query for a year or so and if the book doesn’t get bites given the current climate, I’ll widen the net. It’ll be an interesting journey regardless.
The new job has a long drive, and I’ve been thinking a lot about death and gods and the point of all of this. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I think it has something to do with sweat and arms sunk into soil and laughing too hard and long, quiet looks as the sun slinks down the sky.
MUTUAL AID
We need support for our communities, both local and nationally. In addition to supporting the organizations below, I am working locally by using Buy Nothing groups to share resources, trading egg cartons for eggs, and giving away our excess produce that we grow. Please join me.
BOOKSHELF
I recently shared my review for Lou Wilham’s Fresh Kill, which I adored reading (no surprise.) I also shared an interview I did with Authority Magazine discussing how to create compelling SFF worlds, which you can read here:
In April I released two shorts. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read them, you can read them for just 0.99 each. Harbingers follows my science fiction love interest Lin during the events of the fifth book, Fugitives. And if you’re looking for a taster for my new world, you can check out The Curse of Seewiif Strand with its mermaids and gruesome revenge.
We’re on season three of HBO’s His Dark Materials, which is still amazing so far. I also watched Your Monster, a ragey rom com which is like Beauty and the Beast meets Fido meets Black Swan which I highly recommend. And I spent one evening transfixed by Daniel Craig in Queer—it’s an incredible, slow, vibey film filled with humid heat, cigarette haze, and longing.
Folk songs seem to be the soundtrack for my long commute recently and some notable repeat listens include “More to This” by Marc Scibilia, Adam Lytle’s “At Your Command,” and “The Devil” and “Grief is Only Love” both by Stephen Wilson Jr. You can see where I’m at, mentally.
As for this month’s freebies and sales for you:
As always, happy reading and take good care.