Get In Loser! I saw the new Mean Girls movie and I have Thoughts.
I'm also about to drop my word for the year.
In 2023 my word for the year was “Moving”. I was just getting my feet under me after a messy 2022 and starting to write again for the first time in a long time. I did The Artist’s Way program, which helped me a lot, and I started using Maggie Smith’s prompts in her book Keep Moving as daily writing warmups. Moving on, moving forward- it was what I had to do.
This year I stumbled on my word in a social media post I made to Bluesky:
“2023 was an incredible year of writing and healing for me. Wishing you all, all the best for 2024 and hope you can build on whatever blessings the year offered you. I think that'll be my word for the year, Build.”
Building on the progress I made last year, building on my memoir draft, and building my writing practice more generally. Taking what I started last year and building up to the next place it, and I, need to be.
Not to be too precious about it, but the word-of-the-year thing really does help me. I chose Service as my word in 2018, just before I was offered the chance to take on the role of president of my quilting guild. My word helped me to accept that opportunity, which turned out to be something I’m extremely grateful for.
Speaking of writing updates
I’m just about done with the current draft of my book, and I had another poem accepted for publication. I’m a little nervous about that! The poem is called “Ash” and will be in the February issue of Bare Back Magazine. I also started a new essay about disenfranchised grief during the holidays which would be fun to place somewhere for later in the year.
I signed up for a personal writing/essay class with Aimee Seiff Christian starting in March and I’m looking forward to that. I need opportunities for feedback as well as prompts and generative work. I’d like to find another multi-week poetry workshop at some point too.
I took a bunch of big swings in terms of submissions in the past couple of weeks. Wish me luck! As Captain Sisko says, fortune favors the bold.
Mean Girls!
OMG so as some of you know I am a huge fan of the Mean Girls musical- I saw it twice on Broadway, with both Reginas, and I can sing the whole soundtrack front to back. Badly! But I can sing it. And I have all the merch. So I was very excited about the new movie, which updates 2004 one for the social media age, and combines it with (slightly updated) songs from the musical. The updates needed to happen; some of the original lyrics were definitely problematic. All of the changes were good ones in my opinion.
Tina Fey and Tim Meadows are back, Lindsay Lohan makes an appearance and my girl Ashley Park, who originated the role of Gretchen Wieners on Broadway, even showed up as a French teacher. Made my day. Renée Rapp was great as Regina (I saw her on Broadway too), and I loved Auli’i Cravahlo as Janice. I didn’t recognize her at first! The last time I saw her she was on the one-season-wonder TV show Rise, which I worked background on a couple of times. Anyhoo the movie was totally fetch. You should go see it.
TV Time
I watched the documentary Escaping Twin Flames on Netflix this week. This is a 3-part documentary about an organization/cult that is still very active, which purports to help people find their true love or “twin flame” via an intensive self-help course. After the first episode it seemed pretty silly/trivial compared to some cults but over the course of the remaining two episodes it becomes clear that there’s a lot of bad stuff going on. I mean, I have Opinions about the whole concept of soulmates and such, but this is some pretty messed up sh*t. Watch it!
Trash Haiku
Peter Pan peters
out. We all grow up someday.
When? I’ll let you know.
Thanks for reading and have a great week!
Congrats on the acceptance and sending good vibes for all those submissions. (By the way, thanks for the tip in a previous message about the Bettencourt series on Netflix. I'd missed it!)
Congratulations on your endeavors! Wishing you all the good luck as you keep going!
Now that I've retired, am wondering how downsizing and wanting to move would fit into one word. And reading and reviewing more.