Wake up and ache for your life
Happy new year, friends!
I’ve been in a hole for several months—in part because I like to nest in the winter, even in extremely mild California winters. (I’m a hothouse flower!) But also because I’ve been revising a novel and getting it ready for publication.
eeeeeeee!
It’s a sapphic rom-com called Love Where You Work and was originally a short, erotic story that I wrote for Vika’s birthday–because I give porn to people I’ve known for two months, evidently. (She loved it, and it bookended Transgressions, as some of you may remember.)
But now I need your help!
I’m looking for people who want an ARC (advance reader copy) in exchange for leaving a review when it comes out, likely February 8, (on Amazon, preferably, but Goodreads also works if you’re not a fan of the ‘zon.)
If you’re into queer office romances with plenty of laughs and steaminess, click this link to request an ARC. If you’re not sure you’d dig it, you can read a sample and then decide, also at that link.
(The ARC link doesn’t show the the real cover, btw. I made a temp. one on Canva for the time being.)
Speaking of, help me pick a cover?
Two options below. Plus, a poll, for easy voting. (I can’t seem to embed the poll.) Which resonates more with you?
Hot box!
Advice
The Chicago Tribune has been pretty spotty about updating my staff link, but I finally got the go-ahead to post my advice columns on my website. So here are the last few:
The easiest way to tell if you’re compatible with someone
On questioning one’s gender and irregular periods
There’s nothing wrong with your foot or glasses fetish
Book It
As a daily journaler and, I’m always on the hunt for fun notebooks and journals with which to pour the contents of my weary soul.
But I’ve been unsatisfied with the donut pun journal landscape so decided to design some myself. Check ‘em out. There’s a hole lot to like. (#sorrynotsorry)
Promo
Looking for some erotica and steamy romance? Lots of options in this month’s BookFunnel batch, available through the end of January.
New Years-ish Ritual
Like any self-respecting, gay area witch, Vika and I like to do rituals. This year we did one on the solstice called “How to Counteract Lingering Suckages,” which is the best name ever.
Basically, you either sit down with a partner or get out a pen and paper and say or write down 30-50 things you did this year that you’re proud of. These don’t have to be enormous things—plenty of mine involved small tasks like “tried to maintain healthy boundaries at work” or “strove to be empathetic toward people I wanted to stab,” etc.
And “weathering a global pandemic that hasn’t abated in 2 years” totally counts (and is not a small thing).
Other things I was proud of:
Met Vika’s family and vice versa
Released my first indie-published book
Wrote a novel (my third, technically)
(Mostly) stuck to a workout routine — thanks, 7-Minute Workout app!
Went to the dentist (surprisingly hard for me, because I cannot hear people wearing masks at all)
Donated to causes I care about
Wrote query letters to 10 agents
Learned how to change a garbage disposal!
Started an Etsy store and sold 60 lez haiku books!
Read 33 books
And so on. I found the ritual worthwhile, since I, like most people, don’t tend to reflect much on my achievements.
At least, not for very long.
Instead, I tend to fixate on what I lack, what I haven’t yet achieved, or how I’ve failed. (In fact, this newsletter was going to be dedicated to failure and how to keep going in the face of it, but then I decided against it. Maybe next time.)
There’s nothing wrong with having resolutions or goals, of course, (or pondering failure), but I found it really helpful to reverse engineer this idea with the proud-of list.
If you try it, let me know how it works for you.
Poem snippets that are giving me feels
Natalie Diaz (Hat tip to Duc for the recommendation):
“There are wild flowers in my desert
which take up to twenty years to bloom.
The seeds sleep like geodes beneath hot feldspar sand
until a flash flood bolts the arroyo, lifting them
in its copper current, opens them with memory—
they remember what their god whispered
into their ribs: Wake up and ache for your life.”
“I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out. I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.”
“The rain will eventually come, or not. Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds— the war never ended and somehow begins again.”
— from Postcolonial Love Poem: Poems
How to be successful
I really enjoyed this blog post by Sam Altman, especially this part:
Ask for what you want. You usually won’t get it, and often the rejection will be painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well.
Almost always, the people who say “I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I’m going to figure them out,” and mean it, go on to succeed. They are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way.
Airbnb is my benchmark for this. There are so many stories they tell that I wouldn’t recommend trying to reproduce (keeping maxed-out credit cards in those nine-slot three-ring binder pages kids use for baseball cards, eating dollar store cereal for every meal, battle after battle with powerful entrenched interest, and on and on) but they managed to survive long enough for luck to go their way.
It’s been a hard year. We’re tired, we’re sick, we’re isolated, and worn out.
I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels so damn hard there’s almost no tread left.
And yet, here we are, too. Carrying on. Surviving.
Here’s hoping that you are “persistent long enough to give yourself a chance for luck to go your way.”
Also:
xx,
P.S. Mend’s offering a free pandemic burnout support class, with tools, exercises, and resources to help you get through the next (never-ending?) bend.
P.P.S.
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