You folks are menaces! 🙃 We have four chains going, and some very clear rule-breakers (but all in good fun).

If you want to see how the stories are progressing, here's the flowchart so far.

Check the thread if you want to add more! Each vein is going in a very different direction!

#ChainStory #WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo

@JGSchaeffer @AskTheDevil @corlin @Christmas_Snow @cassandra17lina @EileenKCarpenter @AverageCitizen @misterfive

And yes, inevitably the story will fork as people try to post at the same time. :) That'll be part of the fun, to see how many different tales emerge in the end!

Okay, more data entry.

Shall we start a #ChainStory today? Something with a spooky theme, perhaps?

I'm thinking one line at a time, with each person adding more chaos, intrigue, adventure, and shivers to the last.

This opener is inspired by M.R. James and @JGSchaeffer ❤️:

"After my last visit to the coast, where we cast my grandfather's ashes into the wind atop a cliff he'd walked every day for half a century, the ocean followed me wherever I would roam."

#WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity

I love that on CoSo I can start my day with a deep poli-sci discussion AND share some silly and creative moments at the same time. 🤗 Morning, gang!

I have a slew of tasks today, so #Zine stuff will post later this evening.

There will be two open calls, so please post or DM if you're nervous about submitting, yet would like to try to create An Art to share with the class.

I promise that most of us don't bite unless there's enthusiastic consent! 😅

TFW you planned to go for a walk an hour ago, but you ended up finishing some admin work first. 🙃 And almost found yourself slipping into the first full editing task of the day, too.

ML! Go talk to the trees before you start your work day! FFS.

A few wee admin tasks before bed, but I came across a simple folksy tune that I just had to stop and listen to twice.

Hope it finds some of you in the right mood, too. 💛

'Night, CoSo.

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/V7TAOyU8OeU

And now, I'm going for a walk.

Maybe some fiction-writing tonight? (I have a story about grief I want to finish and send off soon, which suits the day.)

However you need to grieve, and however you *come* to your grief for the world, know that it's important work you're doing--*healing* work, for you and the world around you.

I'm grateful to be walking this path with so many people who come to this work from such differently vital points of view.

🕊️

This one was tough, so I needed two days to write it. We're entering a period of remembrance for October 7, and yet it's been impossible to do the work of memorial properly, because many false stories about what happened to victims were used to fortify the world in its leap to an ongoing nightmare of war.

The dead deserved better, and still do. So too do the living, who suffer today because we have not learned how to grieve responsibly.

Will we ever?

#Death #Israel
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/how-we-remember-matters

More mindless data entry for an hour or so.

#RandomQuestions

What's the scariest story you can tell in one sentence?

Morning, CoSo!

The world says hello~

(At least, that's how I'm choosing to translate this. If the dawn is actually saying "Tremble, mortals, for time is fleeting and you are small and squishy", that works, too!)

It doesn't help that most of my relevant pieces from OnlySky in October and November are now offline (*way* tougher to go through all the sources from the spreadsheet holding my data until I can rehouse it on another website). So I'm trading on a lot of my memory of deep-dives into related topics when trying to track down all key sourcing.

But! An added day won't kill me, and I'm sure the end result will be stronger and more empathetic for it. 🤞