Well, I screwed up my first task by forgetting to put everything on airplane mode before recording. 😅 Ah well. It was raining and there were far too many highway sounds already.

So, I'm checking off "Messing Up" and moving on to Task #2. I'll try recording again tomorrow.

Paso a paso. Tea & OnlySky now.

Oof. I'm feeling task paralysis this morning.

I have Too Many Things to do.

One at a time. Starting small. 🤞🏻

Thanks so much for a lovely and reaffirming couple of hours, you beautiful humans you!

@stephen_a_allen @JakeA

Woo! CoSoCall activated. 🎉

This one is a writerly meet-up: to say hi, to talk shop, to kvetch about the state of the industry, to stare into the void of creative practice until the void stares back...

All that good stuff!

@thedisasterautist @joycereynoldsward @stephen_a_allen @JakeA

& any other #WritersOfCoSo #Writers are very welcome.

https://call.counter.social/GaONuQhAaI

(I only ask folks not to undermine anyone else's experiences. I think we've got a good group here, though, so all should be well!)

Early walk in the park, and then... CoSoCall for writerly folks at around 6pm my time, 7pm EST?

#WritersOfCoSo #Writers

Okay.

I went through the collection again today.

What a NUMBER doubt can do on a writer's mind.

I mentioned this in yesterday's newsletter, and I'll talk about this again in a BookTube, but shame & sadness this past week wiped out my readiness for an indie launch in a way that *acutely* speaks to the value of having a team.

(Speaking of: thanks for the cheerleading, @nnlightsbookheaven & @JakeA!)

Will reboot promo tomorrow, now that I'm out of the woods for the deepest lows. 👌

Cheers, all.

Sigh.

TFW someone whose online friendship you've enjoyed for years decides to leave the cesspool of Twitter for... Threads, Instagram, and Facebook.

Ah well.

Maybe in another watering hole, in another lifetime, we'll meet again.

Just a quick note about dropping the ball on a few other projects this past month.

Thanks to all new subscribers on my YouTube channel; I will get back to videos soon, after I tackle an indie publishing hurdle today. (More on that in an upcoming Patreon, which I also need to step up! So much to juggle in the #indie hustle! 🙃)

#WritingLife #WritingCommunity
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P7X-Scvhkhg

🙃 Corporations will appropriate every bit of activist rhetoric we feed them.

If our praxis isn't consistently grounded in genuine presence with one another and the struggle in the worlds we inhabit, they'll set the narrative for us, *again*.

#SocialMedia #Humanism #MutualAid

Sometimes, on my best game, I dream whole storylines. Last night, it was a murder mystery. Legal office, but with a twist. Intrigue between the cleaning staff, not the lawyers, provided the deeper world of love, loss, longing, and betrayal, which only the intern staying late to read discovery started to figure out.

Woke up thinking it wasn't half bad, but was I *sure* about the intern's whisky of choice? 😅

So... Morning, CoSo. May you not get hung up on details except where they really count.

Night CoSo.

Keep your little grey cells as well as you can. 💙👌🏻

I finished 3 of 4 writing tasks today.

Not bad.

Mostly, though, the Shame & the Sad are no longer playing their greatest hits. I still have to jiggle the switch to get my heart to feel invested in the future again, but with the rest subsiding I can address the last-minute doubts I had about the collection tomorrow & upload the paperback version.

(Paperback is print, for a collection with super personal components. It suddenly felt all too real & I shut down. Indie publishing learning curves!)

Any #WritersOfCoSo want to hop on a CoSoCall and talk turkey tomorrow?

I'm asking in advance for a couple of reasons:

1) #Writers have different expectations for chats - some to vent, some to boast, some to take turns listening politely while everyone with a fur-friend in view pays the cat/dog tax - so I'd love to converge on a general feeling of what folks here would love to lean into for this call first.

And, also...

2) Logistics. What time of day is best for any folks interested?

Do you have a poem, song, story, or film that hit you in completely different ways in different eras of your life?

This one used to hit *so deeply* as a clear affirmation that my absence would make things better.

Then a couple of years ago I reread it and realized that it was a *much* more holistic piece than I'd initially thought: all about how going forward is a way of healing what we leave behind. But I was *stunned* to realize that the other reading had been in this the whole time. #Poetry

Any Vibe Check #Podcast listeners here?

These sisters are so healing. They do talk about a lot of pop media that I don't actively consume, but always from places of deep insight about how we care for and show up for each other and ourselves.

This episode discusses the delusions that are healthy, necessary (especially if you want to create), & unhealthy... with a bell hooks informed actor (!) who's *much* more grounded than the stalker he plays on TV.

#Wholesome #LGBTQ
https://pca.st/episode/229c21e5-bca9-4380-9bce-15faa4f60a4f

So I *definitely* made a wee mistake by watching Aftersun (2022) the other day. Thought I was in the right place for it, but I was wrong.

Folks with mood disorders on the regular might know what I'm talking about when I say that I feel like a really important inner switch just won't turn on.

(Working on it, though. I have lots of coping mechanisms to cycle through.)

Just - be careful with yourselves, eh? Living in a body in this world of ours isn't easy. Keep your self-care routines strong. 💙