I think I shall never not be a little bit scared when I send out a story, no matter how many sales I have under my belt. There's always a deep fear that *this* is the one that'll make editors realize I've been a sham of a writer all this time.

Well! Keeps me sharp, at least. 🙃 Night CoSo!

Keep doing the things that scare you - so long as everything's consensual, and nobody gets unduly injured in the process!

#WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity

If anyone needs a little literary home to hold their sadness for a while, this poem by Jason Schneiderman might be just the ticket for achy hearts and grieving minds. #Poetry

Hope everyone's afternoons are faring wonderfully. I'm just about to (finally) slip a story into queue and move on to tomorrow's newsletter and a news brief.

Much love to all of you.

Yesterday I was reminded that even if Tolkien didn't read The Ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic (wherein Glaucon tells the story of an invisible ring used to great harm to ask Socrates how to live), it would've come to him through the medieval poem Iwein, influenced by the same.

Literature is humanity speaking itself to itself over time.

Everyone who engages in this conversation is part of a continuum with consequences greater than we might ever live to realize.

Happy writing, #WritersOfCoSo.

Good morning to everyone, but especially to everyone taking a page out of Camus today, and imagining Sisyphus happy.

(Rough mental health weekend? May the week ahead be ever so kind. ☕)

You guys make this odd duck feel so much at home I can't even put my gratitude entirely into words.

And no, that's not tonight's alcoholic indulgence talking.

Amplifying, maybe!

But not talking. 😉

G'night CoSo.
Much ❤️ from this odd 🦆.

Colombia has a wonderful middle-class restaurant franchise, Crepes & Waffles, that expressly employs women, with a huge emphasis on helping women supporting families. So you bet your bippy I dropped by to support the business and thank the mums there working so hard to serve other mothers out for a Mother's Day dinner. I just wish more of the folks in line wished their workers the same. Special days in our cultures always have their class divisions, don't they?

Paragliders are a common sight on weekends along my mountains, but oof. Buddy! Cutting it a little close, eh? 😬

#Colombia

Happy Mother's Day to folks for whom the day has deep meaning: in whatever form that takes.

To the mums missing their children.
To the children who've found family well outside their mothers.
To the people grieving departed loved ones.
To the people who get to celebrate with living loved ones today.
And to the people working through even messier feelings on this hyper-Hallmark'd day.

May you all be so gentle with yourselves.
May there be love for you to lean on somewhere, either way.

🌺 🕊️💌

@stueytheround! Your kingdom brought it! 😯👌

Lo! A public Patreon post arises! 🎉

This one mentions what Patrons can look forward to soon, on all available tiers, while also outlining the wide range of online platforms that this creative is leaning into, while adjusting (as are we all) to a markedly changed media landscape. (Broader industry talk emerges from the specifics therein.)

This is a "fun" era we're living through, right?

Is everyone having fun?

#BetterWorldsTheory
#WritingCommunity
#WritersOfCoso ⬇️
https://www.patreon.com/posts/creating-in-82924726

Still don't know if I'm going to be publishing a piece on Kissinger's century as an obit or for his 100th bday, but boy howdy, either way that's going to be a piece that requires MANY THINKING WALKS to rein in all that could & should be said. 🙃

History is such a ruinous outing, friends. One gains so much wisdom from knowing how much buffoonery, chaos, & abject cruelty underpins the modern world... but then the catch is, you have to go on *living* with that wisdom. 2/5 stars. Rarely recommended.

I hate this timeline.

Have i mentioned lately how much I hate this timeline?

https://fortune.com/2023/05/09/peter-thiel-palantir-unprecedented-demand-ai-artificial-intelligence/

You know, I talk to *everyone* in my neighbourhood, irrespective of background, which some folks find bizarre, but I gotta tell you: it's not altruism. If you treat everyone in your community *as* community, your home grows safer for all.

So today I learned that a fellow who's struggling with addiction on my streets has a nephew in Cincinnati and a mom he's visiting for Mother's Day. And now I know one more person as the human they are, rather than a vague potential risk on my commute. Win/win.

I woke from two nightmares last night.

Not sure why, but so help me, this better bode well for creative practice today.

Happy Saturday, CoSo. 🫂 May all your dreams serve you well.

I'm really enjoying Past Present Future. I'd say it's a good listen for fans of the LRB Podcast, deep diving into political history through rich conversations about resonant literature and key geographies.

This piece, on life in East Germany under the Iron Curtain, offers some terrific insights into the role of consumerism in identity formation and idealist thinking even amid the devastating pragmatics of revolution.

#Podcasts #History
https://pca.st/episode/510db907-b163-4a63-a160-f61b2aeeb373