How do we keep on going when everything is dark?

It’s almost birth month! 🎂

It’s a brutally rainy Saturday as I write this, the last in April. I went to brunch this morning, and a book launch, and now every fiber of my physical body has lit up with pain. I feel like my shoulder is dislocated. That’s neither here nor there, though.

Hello, friends! It is the last of April, which means May, aka MY BIRTH MONTH, is right around the corner, and I am thrilled! I’m turning 30 this year, which is just like…wow. I’m grateful for this milestone, for so many reasons. There’s a lot jam-packed in this newsletter, so I’ll keep this section short. In this letter, you’ll find:

1. From the heart: I talk about gun violence, the state of the US, and how to keep going when it feels like the world wants you to stop

2. From the shelf: a book I have read and loved recently

3. From the page: I work through deciding which project to focus on

Hope you enjoy!

From the heart 💗

TW: gun violence, suicidal ideation

I really wanted to keep this section upbeat this week. Because, well, there’s a lot of shit in the world — a lot of horrors happening in the US, where I live — and I figure you’re all probably well aware of everything that’s going on, and why should I bum us all out? I don’t have the answers, I’m just over here feeling sorrow, rage, and helplessness, and what good will it do any of us to hash that out without solutions?

Then, as I was getting on the train to come home after a super fun early afternoon getting brunch with a friend and going to a book launch, I saw the news: another shooting. A man was firing his gun in his yard, and when his neighbors asked him to stop (a totally rational request!!) he murdered five of them. Just. Killed them in cold blood, and walked off the scene.

It’s nonsense, this reality in which we live, where randos can buy a treasure trove of weapons of mass murder, commit mass murder, and walk off. It’s nonsense that we don’t have restrictions in place to keep guns out of the hands of angry neighbors, disgruntled ex-coworkers, rejected men, or anyone else who can use these guns to go shoot students in school.

It’s nonsense because it’s so much worse then nonsense but it’s also so batshit that the people in power don’t seem to give enough of a shit to do anything about it.

Today I feel sick to my stomach. There are myriad reasons I could feel this way: this country is moving with frightening swiftness to pull rights out from beneath us, and it’s terrifying and discombobulating.

So how do we keep going?

This is not really a rhetorical question for me, because part of how my depression manifests is that I have created neural pathways that basically mean I jump into suicidal ideation when anything goes slightly awry. So if I experience an embarrassing social faux pas, or a romantic disappointment, or a query rejection, or if I think too deeply about the state of the US — I don’t think of solutions, I immediately comfort myself by saying, “It’s okay, I can just die.”

Over the years, I’ve grown comfortable with these neural pathways, and it’s only been in the past few months that I’ve really started trying to adjust my thinking. Six months ago, if I’d felt as hopeless as I do today, I would have been spiraling into suicidal ideation. Today, I’m trying to figure out how to keep moving onward when it feels like immoveable forces are against us.

So, again I ask: how do we move forward?

Ultimately — I don’t know. But here’s what I’m trying1:

1. I’m write. This is both to journal out the negative feelings and to speak to others. I’ve lately taken to writing articles about book bans to fight back. I write author profiles (in this very newsletter!) to promote books that fight back.

2. I read. I read books that give me hope, like celebrations of joy that inspire, stories about revolution that empower, and true stories that life my spirits.

3. I find community. I find this in my online groups, but I’m also trying to foster it IRL. One way is by trying to start a book club in partnership with a local queer community center.

4. I give money. When I have the financial means, I donate to causes and, sometimes, politicians, that I believe in.

5. I yell at politicians. Usually via email, because that phone anxiety is real, but this is a great way to take a step beyond voting to make your voice heard.

There are other ways to keep going. There are other ways to fight2; there are people all around us doing the hard work of fighting injustice and holding the powerful to account. When it feels hopeless, I turn to them, and I try to support them however I can.

Life is hard. And I mean that literally, in the sense that being and staying alive is difficult. It’s painful. It’s distressing and demoralizing. But it’s also beautiful. Life is full of celebration, companionship, laughter, good food, good books, and so much more that makes it worth living. That makes life worth fighting for. So let’s do it: let’s keep fighting.

From the shelf 📚

I both am and am not reading fast enough to keep up with this section, lol sob. Regardless of all that, today I want to talk about a book I read at the beginning of April, that I absolutely adored and devoured in less than 18 hours. That books is My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix, by Kalynn Bayron. This is book six in the Remixed Classics series by Macmillan, a series I’ve been devouring since 2021 and whose authors just keep on understanding the assignment.

This instlament was amazing, y’all! In it, Henry is a young Black boy in 1880s London who falls in love with another young Black boy with whom he attends the London Medical School. Like I said, I devoured this book over like 16 hours and I was so swept up in the story. I loved so much about this book, from the creepy gothic mystery of what happened to Henry and who is Hyde?? to the boys’ relationship with each other to the exploration of being Black in a time and place that doesn’t respect you because of it. I was enraged and I read with bated breath and it was just…so good.

My one and only thought upon finishing each book in the Remixed Classics series has been, “I could read six more books following these characters by this author,” and that was true for this one, as well!

Know of someone who’d love From Karis? Feel free to send them this post!

From the page ✍️

I’ve been feeling scattered lately, in my writer brain. You see, I committed (only to myself, but still, it counts) to spending the rest of this semester working on a middle grade portal fantasy. Kitty’s Not the Chosen One follows a 12-year-old who falls through a portal and into a magical world where she’s, well…not the chosen one. There’s other shenanigans, and I’ve been sitting with this story for over a year and finally have figured out a good general direction I want to take it in, and sometimes I’m even really excited about working on it!

But sometimes all I want to do is write my next YA romance, Girls Just Wanna Get Revenge, which is all sorts of things I love including celebrities, sapphic yearning, fake dating, and uhh…revenge on shitty men.

I’ve spent many an evening over the past few weeks completely immobilized by my inability to just make up my mind and work on the MG. It’s fun! It’s magical! It’s out of my comfort zone and that’s great because I’m paying oodles of money every semester to learn how to write new things and THIS IS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY FOR THAT.

So why do I just want to sink into the comfort of what I’m familiar with?

Probably because there’s a lot going on in my life that isn’t comfortable right now, lol. I’m in a perennial state of freaking out over bank accounts, the state of the world, and my querying journey, and the last thing I want is to make my brain stretch itself and write something new and hard.

And as I type that out, I’m reminded that, yeah, I really ought to just commit to the middle grade. Why? Because, well…I’m paying thousands of dollars a year to learn new things.

When I started 2022, I knew I was going to be diving into my MFA at VCFA, so I made a commitment that I would grow. I wanted to deepen my analysis, expand my horizons, stretch and become uncomfortable but ultimately reach greater heights. I had never written anything outside of prose YA when I started at VCFA, and now I have! I’ve written a picture book, a graphic lit short story, parts of a verse novel, and of course, the middle grade. That feels good. Knowing that I’m reshaping the boundaries of what I believe it is possible for me to create? It’s a delightful feeling.

Another reason that I have to admit for wanting to work on my YA romance is that I’m scared nat & cami won’t be successful in the query trenches, and I’ll have to query again with a new project. And because I want to sign and debut with YA romance, because that is my groove and my happy place, I have this sense of urgency about diving into projects in that genre to ensure I have something to query.

And…that sucks. I hear so often about how important it is to write for yourself, write for joy, write for craft, and I simply do not know how to take my head out of the publishing anticipation for long enough to just breathe in creativity. Maybe what I really do need is to slow down, focus my sights on improving my craft as a writer and storyteller, and not think that everything I create has to be marketable and publishable and money-earning-able.

So…I guess I’ll stick with Kitty, after all. Even though my constant playlist of Taylor Swift ballads has me wanting to sink into a romance. Even though I’m scared I won’t have what it takes to write a great middle grade, or a great fantasy. Even though I’m scared I’ll never get an agent.

Because ultimately, even if I don’t ever get an agent…I’ll still write. I’m doing this for me most of all. Onward, Kitty: let’s go slay some dragons!3

Note: this is not meant to be an advice post. I’m not telling you what to write or how to choose between two projects. I’m just processing for myself :)