This is Mendl, my new taxidermy friend and officemate. He’s going to hang out on my desk and be my cheerleader while I work on my writing projects this year.
Getting Down to Business
With Mendl here cheering me on, how can I fail to meet my writing goals? Two whole working days in and I’m doing it. One of my friends restarted her daily Zoom writing group for the month of January and it’s helping me as I work on a tricky chapter of my book, write a haiku a day, and do that craft reading I promised myself I would do. I’m continuing to submit work, too, and collect more of those sweet, sweet rejections.
I might try to regulate my time further, by, say, working on an essay on a certain day, or what have you, so I don’t lose track of all the things I want to do. But I don’t like to be too rigid about it, either. I don’t have a ton of workshops in the offing right now, just a two-day flash fiction thing in February, so I should try to get some things on the calendar. Workshops do a lot to energize me and to help me think of myself as a writer.
I was pretty chuffed to find that Haiku Universe chose one of my haiku as its feature on Christmas Day. You can see it here. One of my flash pieces came out the other day on The Elysian Chronicles, Edition III: Metamorphosis, if you’re interested.
Book Updates
I added a few new titles to my collection on writing:
Thinking About Memoir, by Abigail Thomas, came to my attention via the excellent Substack, Memoir Land. The book is out of print and I bought it from Biblio.com. If you don’t know Biblio.com, they are a great resource for used books from independent stores.
Gentle Writing Advice, by Chuck Wendig, is a book I heard about somewhere. Sorry I can’t remember! From Bookshop.org.
Not exactly a writing book but a general motivation book, Mindset, by Carol S. Dweck, came from the YouTuber Jazer Lee who does piano videos. I like business books and often find them beneficial. Maybe you will too. I got it from Santa.
Also, Elsewhere
On my blog I did a deep dive into my reading for 2023- books I read, different categories, fun facts. Too much to reproduce here. But you can check it out if you want.
Reading
I finished Bora Chung’s short story collection Cursed Bunny, which I recommend if you like offbeat and edgy fiction. The stories combine folktales, horror and fantasy in the modern world. If you like Kelly Link but you want something more out there, it might be for you. The first story is the most gross, so if you make it past that one you’ll be okay. The last is heartbreaking and worth the effort to get there.
TV Time
The Gilded Age (MAX) ended its second season and I sure do hope there is a third for this drama set in, well, Gilded-Age New York. This show is delightful popcorn for the Downton Abbey crowd. Created by the same showrunner, Julian Fellowes, it stars Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon and Louisa Jacobson among others. Love.
I finished watching the third season of the French Netflix show Lupin, which may or may not be its last. Season three ended neatly but left the door open for further shenanigans from our favorite gentleman thief played the compulsively watchable Omar Sy. Time will tell. I need something new to watch on Sunday mornings now.
Trash Haiku
Nothing stays in my
mind long. If I don’t write it
down I will lose it.
Thanks for reading. Happy New Year and have a great week.
!
Totally agree that the door is open for Lupin S4! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! My goal is to do a little of each big something that needs to be done each day. When I was still teaching, we did a faculty book club for Mindset. Interesting ideas.