TRACKERS AND BOOTY PORTRAITS

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Slow unfolding: I'm about halfway through Shy Creatures and it's really picking up! And the story is totally changing for me, compared to how it began. Once the book hits its inciting moment, everything changed (which is...the point of that moment in a book) but it was still fun not to see it coming. The main character (no spoilers, I promise) gets pulled in the peculiar psychiatric case of a mute, paranoid man. But we the reader have no idea why...This book is slow and wonderful, but also keeping me very hooked. I actually had a free hour this evening before dinner and grabbed it to keep the story going (and also detox my brain from too many zooms!)

Writing: I've got not one but TWO scenes done of Evangeline and a promise to us both: this first, very dirty draft will be done by the end of October. Yes, I'm making my deadline public. Yes, it's for accountability. Yes, we will stay accountable here. And in the meantime...any writers out there who are having a tough time “making time” read this post by my writing coach Julie. And also this Word Elf app is bringing me immense joy. It helps you set a cadence, a word count goal, and a time line...and sends reminders/check-ins...and has great gamified features that makes me WANT to log my count. Funnily enough, I found this app via a deep hole on reddit to figure out what would help me track toward my deadline, one word count log at a time. And this was exactly what I was looking for.

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history.

How to AI: Practical Business Q&A with Three Experts. Kara Swisher is always a super reasonable voice in the world of big tech. This conversation had some really great debates, and some great Q+A, for both the “I never use AI” crowd, and also the “I couldn't live without AI crowd.”

The Futile Search for the Bullshitless job. By Anne-Helen Peterson in Culture Study. Anne is endlessly smart. I love her pod Culture Study and recommend episodes to you here often. But this essay was a real home run for me. It made such a good case for why independent workers feel the way they do. Why Corporate girlies feel the way we do. And instead of absorbing that blame as individuals, she pushes our attention back on the system. Super interesting stuff.

Flood of Content: Where the “Woke” Debate Burns Hottest: In Incredibly Long YouTube Essays on the Likes of RFK Jr. and Ms. Rachel. In Vanity Fair, we get a look into where deep commentary is going...where debates rage on...where it seems attention spans are NOT being blunted. I am always interested in people's use of the internet in ways that feel foreign to me....and it makes me wonder that if so much of our lives are getting lived online...and no two onlines are the same...what does that mean for the shared human experience? What is it? Where is it? Questions, I suppose, for another day.

Other stray links: I got my aura read at Lorde's spot (me too!!)...Reconnect to your work for more happiness at work (my class on LI that's getting a glow up this month!)

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

I don't remember when I began to embrace my ass (it's...not small?), but I'm guessing it was around the time I began to embrace everything that was quote TOO BIG unquote about me – my height. my curly hair. my voice. An entire chapter of You're Not Lost was dedicated to this experience of giving up wanting to fit in, because in trying to fit in we lose parts of ourselves.

Well, earlier this year I met the ridiculously talented artist Alejandro Giraldo. My bestie Barbin was in town for the Savannah Book Festival and noticed his work, arranged for a studio tour, and the next thing I know I'm commissioning a 30x40 portrait of my backside. Today, I got the unveiling!!! And I'm both so happy with it, so amazed by Alejandro's talent, and so celebrating how far I've come...from a teenager who was worried about being too big, to a grown woman so proud of all that is big about me...so much so I had it captured on a canvas :) A reminder to love our body, love our much-ness.

Woman on xx