Slices of life
Writing and life updates — freshly baked, with a buttery crust.
After I go radio silent on friends, I’ll reappear by phone, in the form of four-inch gray bubbles. Those text messages will acknowledge that I fell off the face of the earth, then provide novel-esque accounts of my whereabouts. They’re smeared little windows into life and all the things filtering through my brain. All rough drafts.
It got me thinking.
To nurture anything online requires consistency, which in the fast moving digital world also means immediacy. Immediate ideas, immediate making, immediate sharing, immediate availability. It can feel hard to write on and for the Internet these days, when the flow of NEW is relentless, forget about how thoughtful any of that ‘new’ actually is.
In blogging/newslettering again, I’ve noticed a lot of internal pressure to make sure my words add something to the conversation. The pressure is even more acute when self-doubt whispers in its mean-ass snarl, If you’re putting it out there, you better make it REAL good.
This is all a roundabout way to say—curious, after so many years spent online—I think I’ve had a small bout of stage fright.
But in real life, those texts are chaotic and free-wheeling, chock full of random anecdotes and shower thoughts. Rough drafts only. As I rebuild my writing & sharing muscles, maybe my approach here should be the same, at least most of the time.
So let’s sketch out a first draft. This week: some slices of life.
Things I’ve been working on
I updated my website! This felt monumental! Herculean! Not for the admin of it all, but because declaring snack-sized things about oneself is a professional form of torture. (All the more so when you’re in transition. Hi, I’m a bit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at this exact moment, but stay tuned for greatness and hire me in between!)
Making books! I get a little bit 😬, talking about my writing projects. The thought process goes something like, If none of these come to fruition, then not only do I feel like a failure, I feel like a public failure. But then I remember all the years I dumped writing into a pot on the back of the stove and set it to a bare simmer, ignored, and how awful and panicky I felt all the time. It literally kept me awake at night.
That was the failure, and that feeling has abated. I sleep great these days. So, here is some news about words!
Memoir things. Last year I wrote over 65k words as part of a broader 100k word goal to get some stories onto the page. When I got to that point, I scrapped the goal and paused, because I knew I’d need to throw out about 80% of it and do a massive rework. That’s what I’m working on this year. Here’s a hard-hitting process update: writing a memoir is hard. You are author, protagonist, narrator, and at times I find it difficult to parse the three. But it’s been interesting to revisit scenes I wrote as far back as 2017, and observe how my perspective has changed along with what descriptions feel truer than ever.
I made something someone liked! An essay I submitted to the Writer’s Digest Personal Essay competition last fall placed 12th! For all my agonizing over the piece, my name will appear in a list of winners later this spring, and the work will not be published. But it placed! And that was so cool and honestly very exciting! (I think I may publish it here at some point; stay tuned.)
I’m workshopping again! In a wonderful, fantastic, very fun children’s picture book workshop. I participated in the same one last fall and found it incredibly generative. I’m back at it again, hoping to revise and/or finish two new manuscripts, with the plan to seek representation for those plus another finished manuscript later this year.
Design things I recently helped my friend Julia with a fresh new website for her cookbook, out this May. It was funny timing, making an author website when I’ve learned so much about the publishing world in the last year! I really enjoyed it, so if by chance you are also an author who needs a website, hit me up.
Real Big Slices
Last week Violet flooded her bathroom. You see, instead of a bath, every now and again my three-year-old daughter likes to take a shower. It’s a ten minute break for her parents, and “inside rain” for her. Win-win! On the night of that night though, she had a thought. Perhaps if she closed the drain, the tub could fill with water, just a little bit, and she could swim in the rain. Cut to Mom’s POV: Little Violet, standing at her bedroom door, hair dripping rivulets. Her contrite voice mews, Mama, uh, there’s a lot of water in here, just as the first wave of bathwater soak-swells into the bedroom carpet, like a sponge.
We’ve added it to the list of things to bring up at her 16th birthday party.
My husband turned 40 years old, which means I’m not far behind. I remember my mother turning 40, how old she seemed, how I bought her an “Over the Hill” mug from a gift shop in the mall. (Remember when people used to say that about turning 40?! Over the hill, all a downward slide from here. Pish posh!). They say It all goes so fast, and of all the aging cliches, this one is 100% true. Forty years has gone by in a flash.
My Dad was 44 years old when he died and it’s unfathomable to think about that scenario in my own adult life, with my husband in Violet’s life for only four more years. Unfathomable, yet humbling. Perspective is the fuel to gratitude.
Reading
I finally picked up You Could Make This Place Beautiful (*affiliate link), and just like everyone says, UGH, IT’S SO GOOD! Have you read it yet? Would that all books play this fast and loose with structure to keep things interesting!
A thing I won’t shut up about
This microcurrent device (*affiliate link), purchased when I wanted to hop on the shock-your-face bandwagon, but just couldn’t stomach spending $400+ on a NuFace, especially because a lot of reviews mentioned them breaking a year after purchase. If you’re a Prime member, this one is $47, and all I know is, I got my brows waxed last week and my gal (who is also a master aesthetician) was like, WTF have you been doing to your skin because the texture is ridiculously good.
Also reading: these really good links
When Vanderpump Rules met Something’s Gotta Give. | Aside: Are you kind of over Scandoval? Like, really over it?
Art but make it sports! | Yes, OK, the Internet is still making great things!
Taylor Swift and the Good Girl Trap | If you’re not already a paid subscriber to Culture Study, let this newsletter be the thing that entices you.
How that “Camping” episode of Bluey reduces me to tears | Every damn time! I’m so glad this episode was discussed and dissected because it happens to be my favorite and yes we’ve watched all three seasons, yes including “Cricket.”
Parenting, Kids, and Anxiety | There is so much talk about whether the kids are (or will be) alright, and I don’t think one can have that conversation without also talking about anxiety. This article is a must-read for anyone with young kids.
That’s all for this week! Here’s to any rough drafts you’re working on,
Victoria
