This week’s free-to-read newsletter is a little late, because I’ve been finishing my next novel: my Thucydides-in-space reflection on war, nationalism, and the struggle for better human thriving. It’s almost ready for my beta reader, and then it’ll be off to my agent!

But today, it seemed relevant to talk about the challenge of writing fiction in our deeply hurting world. What's the work we’re really doing, when we tell stories in such hard times?

#WritingCommunity #SFF
https://mlclark.substack.com/p/why-in-blazes-do-we-write

Spent the week fighting my urge to write through the night and get All the Things Done All at Once.

Challenging. I'm not *quite* finished with novel revisions, because I'm putting myself to bed instead working through the night, but I *am* up every day in time to run, and improve overall energy before my first task and writing windows of the day.

The first few weeks of any new routine require patience when full results take time--and a commitment to celebrating the little wins along the way. 👌

I watched an old episode of Call the Midwife today, and I had a good chuckle at how freaking grim this deceptively gentle production gets. It's generally sweet, because everyone's more or less striving to do the best they can in hard circumstances, but the episode in question had this hardluck story about four children put through horrific neglect... then saved! But as a throwaway closer, the narrator informs us they were sent to Australia, where they would be horribly abused again. THE END. 🙃

Today is testing my New Year's calm, because I almost ran into the fellow who'd been lightly stalking me for months, while out on my walk.

Luckily, I'm always very aware of my circumstances and saw him before he saw me. But boo to him still popping up. He doesn't work or live in my barrio, so there's no reason for him to be hanging around these streets - and yet, in the past my street network would tell me he was around asking for me.

Crisis averted, though!
Stress levels will subside soon. 👍🏻

My neighbour puts music on blast while cleaning midday.

And I just can't ever seem to block it out, so... time for a wee walk, because I just can't concentrate on these edits until she's finished.

Good excuse for more fresh air, at least!

Just wrapping up today's newsletter, but I keep coming back to this statue and chuckling.

This is a depiction of Thucydides - but take a look at the pose chosen for immortalization.

If someone were going to make a statue of you...

a) what pose would you prefer to be in; and

b) what pose would be more accurate to how you lived your life? 👀

#RandomThoughts

I'm in the mood for lighthearted classics today, apparently.

#CoSoMusic

https://youtu.be/whmzEXywq40

Tossed and turned for hours, and woke up all achey and sore, but *still* with the energy for a run, which is a great sign. My body's remembering how to push again, as it regains muscle after a rotten few months of muddle and stress.

Every day, it's a gettin' closer~🎶🏃‍♂️

https://youtu.be/ZZ8erxalpm4

Back to revisions we go.

Off for the evening. 💛 See you before first light, if you're up.

Sleep in long and well, if you're not.

#MentalHealthBreak

I just fell into a long series of articles about awful things happening right now.

I spend a little time every day thinking about the fact that we 8 billion are family.

It doesn't always seem like it--we've got distant cousins doing awful things to one another, & cousins closer to home also being cruel--but we are.

And *so* many cousins are making the world unbearable for us all right now.

But we also have cousins trying to do better--& for that, I sorely thank you all. 🕯️

And... now, to trick my wandering brain. :) We're going to the mall, which *doesn't* have good internet, so that I'm stuck finishing the last of these revisions offline, with minimal distractions, so I can send the novel on to my beta reader later today.

Fingers crossed! 🤞#AmEditing

Great timing, @LiseL!

The World Economic Forum released its Global Risks report today, and it's being reported around the rise of mis- and disinformation to our top concern for the next two years.

I of course go a bit deeper, and highlight some *very* troubling analysis in this report.

It's not just the bad data.

It's that we can't even necessarily trust our states to *want* the situation to change. We're in for a rough ride, while trying to tackle other issues today.
https://onlysky.media/mclark/false-information-our-top-global-risk-in-2024/

TV-review article finished and submitted, and now off for my predawn run. 💪

It's nice to accomplish things while everyone else is still in bed, and the day star isn't yet in the sky. Makes me feel like a very productive vampire.

💪 Early morning CoSo crew in the house. Greetings, lovely bones!

I want to do more writing before bed, but dagnabbit, I need to stick to my dawn runs and new schedule if I'm going to keep healing this darned body.

Bedtime. 👌🏻 Hope you all had good days.

(If not, good riddance to them, and may tomorrow be kinder to us all.)

😬

...Are we secretly cats?

Taking a pause from revisions tonight to revise a friend's novel, and later this week my reward for sending out my own book to the beta reader will be time with another friend's poems. :) I have other literary work to do in the interim, but these are the real joys on my schedule. I love seeing what others dream up, and watching them excel.

Get yo'self some friends who create!

(Food, knitting projects, art, music, literature... maybe even a lil' mayhem, if you like a life full of surprises!)