Newsletter.1024
The Road Awaits
Hello –
Happy Full Moon! I’ve been excited to write to you today for a number of reasons. First, I’m going to share my new vision for this substack channel, along with some changes in how I’ll be posting on here. Then, I’ve had a few breakthroughs in the development of the novel that I’m excited to share with you. At the end, I’ll drop a few recs of things I’ve been loving recently. And there’s the roadmap! Everybody buckled in?
Canary Moon
You may have noticed the rebrand on this channel! I’m excited to announce Chapter Two of this project: Canary Moon. When I started the Substack, I knew it would take new shapes over time (that’s why it was originally called Proteus, after the shape-shifting Greek god, but I discovered another lit mag called Protean that’s far more established than little old me, so, uh…not great for branding). Anyway, on Canary Moon, I’ll post twice a month, once on the full moon and once on the New Moon. In the next iteration of this project, I’d like to focus on giving things their own silos, so the New Moon will be for Novel updates and the Full Moon posts will be for more personal ruminations. In a bit more detail, here’s what I envision for both posts.
New Moon posts will basically be the same newsletter I’ve been sending out, but I want to try to focus more on chronicling the process of learning the craft of writing in the coming Newsletters, so you can expect a bit more of a focused reflection on developments and ruminations regarding writing going forward.
Full moon posts could include poetry, short stories, essays, letters…I’m not putting any parameters on this besides a theme. I intend to use this space to express my thoughts on personal developments, themes, and questions that have emerged in my life over the past month.
Speaking of…I would love it if you could comment on this post with a theme prompt or two! I’m comfortable choosing a theme if nobody responds but I think it would be fun to get some reader-participation :)
So that’s the vision! I’m excited to see where this chapter leads, and am grateful y’all are here with me as the journey unfolds.
The Novel Road
To write a novel is to go on a journey. You walk a road, building as you go, conjuring tools and inspiration when the need for them arises. You’ll think you’ve left something behind, and then the road leads you back to it. In this way, writing is magic.
I’ve attempted 4 different manuscripts of my YA novel at this point, all of which have made it to a certain point and then hit a wall because the story has stopped working for me for one reason or another. I’m okay with this, btw. That’s just my process! Compare the first draft I wrote in the summer of 2023 which was a mere 58 pages to my most recent attempt, which was 217 (go me!), and it's clear progress is being made.
My fourth manuscript was the closest I’ve come to writing a complete draft of this story. As I was writing this draft, I thought a lot about collaging. I took pieces from previous drafts and broke them into fragments that I arranged in new ways. For a while, this worked really well for me, but as the shape of the draft began to come into focus, I felt like something important was missing. Eventually, my energy petered out and the writing started to feel stagnant, so I did what I always do when I hit a wall. I took a step back, touched some grass, and then I went looking for inspiration.
This led me to a Bauder Lecture at HCC with the brilliant Elizabeth Acevedo, who in her Q&A afterwards, said something to the effect of “Worlds are defined by the people who inhabit them. Who gets to be included in your world?” It stuck with me. My grandmother once described our family to me as “ultra-Conservative”. My parents put me in a Catholic school consistent with that worldview from grades 3-12. In other words, the people who shaped my world had a very narrow answer to Elizabeth’s question. Elizabeth’s question shed light on the way that narrowness had been hiding in my writing. I realized that I was inadvertently still centering that eye-of-the-needle worldview. And once I realized that, the next section of the road revealed itself to me.
So I have embarked on a fifth draft, and this time I’m writing with a specific focus on who I’m writing for, who gets the spotlight in my world. Things feel like they’re clicking into place again, and I’m excited about what that means for this world, this story…
Recommendations
Agatha All Along: The newest Marvel Television project is really scratching my itch for witch content. It’s got the gayest cast in a Marvel project ever, and many characters in the story are explicitly queer, which I think marks an exciting shift in one of the biggest tentpoles of American pop culture regarding representation. Not to mention the show is a clear love letter to the history of Witchcraft, queer magic, and the hero I’ve long claimed as my favorite: Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. The latest episode, episode 6, made me laugh out loud more than once. It’s funny, empathetic, elevated writing. I just can’t get enough of Agatha.
Grimes: Guys. Be serious for a second. Why am I just now discovering how much of a bad bitch Grimes is? While I’ve been over here doing whatever it is I do, she’s been making music for elves with giant swords, see: Player of Games, 4ÆM, and Realiti. And before someone tries to cancel me because she married Elon, I’d like to remind you that upon announcing her divorce from him, she called paparazzi to photograph her in full cosplay reading the Communist Manifesto, which I take as a suitable middle finger to him and all he stands for. As you were.
Haunt Sweet Home: I picked up a copy of Sarah Pinsker’s Haunt Sweet Home at the Baltimore Book Festival (in addition to some nuggets of knowledge from the ever-prescient Jabari Lyles) and I’m loving it. It’s about a woman who gets a job as a PA on a haunted house show, and it’s a fun, spooky read. The narrator’s voice is sharp and well-defined, the reading easy and well-paced. Also, Pinsker is based in Baltimore, and it's always cool to read local! I def recommend this as an October read.
Yellowjackets: So I’m a few years behind on this one, but Showtime’s 2022 hit Yellowjackets just popped up on Netflix and I’m finally watching it. It’s really good, y’all. I’m a lit nerd, as we all know, and the premise of the show is so Lord of the Flies, if it were made in the 2020s with a 90s aesthetic. Even though I think this show isn’t technically an adaptation of that book, I’m catching tons of references (the captain of the Yellowjackets team is named Jackie, for example), which always adds to my personal viewing experience. But if you like gorey, supernatural mysteries, you’ll love Yellowjackets. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!
Alright, we’ve reached the end of the road! (Have you picked up on the theme of this newsletter yet? XD) It’s been a pleasure. I’m excited about the next chapter of this journey, and hope you are too! Thanks, as always, for reading, and don’t forget to shoot me an email if you’ve got any questions, suggestions, or just wanna say hey!
Until soon,
E