I haven't been around in a while.

Life got busy. I had student scripts to read, book revisions to review (and review and review and review), and a major life choice to make. (I said goodbye to teaching. It’s hard to pay the bills on a sessional lecturer’s salary.)

Yet, once I was past all of that, I continued to put off the writing.

Part of the reason was that I got lazy. But I also wondered about the newsletter’s form. Should I send it out less or more? Should I shorten it? Or perhaps I could write about different topics, true stories, or some short fiction.

However, none of this is what you signed up for, so I hesitated.

I asked my writing partner what she thought about all of this. She didn’t have an issue with any of my ideas, but she did tell me one thing: “Be more personal. More vulnerable. Share more of yourself.”

This resonated.

I know I hide behind my words, and I don’t share a lot about my family or my life. The most vulnerable I’ve been on here is when I did my daily fiction challenge last summer (which I ended up hiding afterward).

So going forward, I’ll be trying some new things and share a little more. Please let me know what you think.

Links

Playing catch-up a bit:

• 📖 Read: I read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. This line stuck with me: “I also promised that I would never ask writing to take care of me financially, but that I would always take care of it—meaning that I would support us both, by any means necessary.”
• 📺 Watched: I enjoyed the entire season of Severance. The last half hour of CODA made me cry and feel wonderful things. The Power of the Dog surprised and amazed me. It wasn’t the sad drama I expected, and I loved it. (I also intend to read the book by Thomas Savage). And my students convinced me to watch Velocipastor, and it was the dumbest thing I’ve seen, but still recommend it to those looking for this kind of movie.