How to defang your suicidality by giving it a personality

This weekend I did some cool things! Well, on Friday at least. For starters, I got my hair cut — short! I love it, it’s so gay and delightful and it’s going to make taking care of it so much easier. I’m hopeful that this short cut will help my hair get healthier than it has been!

The other fun thing I did? I finished the third draft of my adult romance novel! I wasn’t scheduled to finish it until Mar. 21, but I did a huge marathon PUSH and revised/redrafted 10 chapters on Friday, and I got it done! I’m possibly ready to send it out to other people soon? Like, my agent? Terrifying! But thrilling!

From the heart 💗

Would you like to meet Sue? (That’s what we call my suicidal ideation)

A while ago, I told my friend I’d been experiencing some suicidal ideation by saying, “I’m a little sue of cidal right now.” There are so many ways to speak about suicidality, as many ways to broach the subject as there are people living with it; for me, I struggle to use the words, “I’m feeling suicidal.” They feel so sharp and jarring, so strong and brusque.

So I dance around the subject, using euphemisms, breaking the word down, describing the specific action my brain is suggesting I take.

And then, in therapy, I learned about personalization of the thoughts. And so, Sue was born.

Sue is a fairy, a small one about the size of Tinkerbell, but she feeds off despair and loves death. She flits around my head, buzzing in my ear, flicking her teeny tiny wand and showering me with suicidal sparkles.

She’s kind of a bitch, really.

The thing about fairies is, they can’t lie. So she doesn’t. She just…twists the truth. She says things like, your financial situation would be less stressful if you were dead. Objectively, it’s true that I wouldn’t be stressed about money if I were dead. But she leaves out the fact that dying precludes my ability to ever succeed, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to reach a more comfortable place.

She whispers, You’re going to die single and alone, might as well speed it up, princess. She doesn’t let it out that if I choose to stay alive, I have the chance to find love.

Sue is all about half-truths and twists, and knowing this about her, that her fairy nature means she cannot tell an outright lie but is a master manipulator? It makes it easier to discount her words.

When Sue says, your dreams were doomed from the start, I can shrug and say, well, you get off on my suffering, don’t you? So why should I listen to her?

I shouldn’t. I don’t want to.

I won’t.

Sue shows up often. Just because she’s here, being agonizing, doesn’t mean I need to listen to her. She’s just a pint-sized fairy nuisance. I can discount her. I can be free of her, while still living with her. It’s…been revolutionary, to be honest, to think of my suicidal ideation in this way.

I have so much more hope now than I did a few weeks ago. Hope that I will survive. Hope that, even if Sue is by my side until my natural death, I will still thrive. Hope. It’s a beautiful thing!

From the camera roll 📸

Ya girl cut her hair!

From the page ✍️

How it went: revising and drafting simultaneously!

About a month ago, I shared that I was going to try a new, never-before-seen (at least for me) writing experiment: drafting one book and revising another simultaneously.

To recap: the plan was to draft 600 words on HEX, a YA witchy romance every day, and to revise one chapter of REVENGE, an adult romance, each day except Sundays. This felt very doable, and lo and behold — it was!

It was so doable, in fact, that this past Thursday I realized I was about 3,000 words ahead of my goal for HEX, and that I was getting at least THREE chapters of REVENGE done each day. Why Karis, the little raccoons in my brain whispered, you could just pause HEX for a few days and go ham on REVENGE and have it done by Sunday!

Because I am nothing if not easily persuadable, I let the brain raccoons (and some of my writer friends) persuade me, and voilá! I was all set to finish REVENGE by today.

Except then I marathoned nine chapters and an epilogue on Friday night, and finished the book two days early. Oops?1

I really enjoyed this experiment, though, and I think I may keep at it! My draft deadline for HEX is still set at May 31, though at the rate I’m writing, I very well could finish the draft by April, even. And in the meantime, I might do some revising of short stories; write some essays for a nonfiction project I’ve been tinkering with; or, hell, maybe start outlining something brand-new — perhaps my long-suffering middle-grade portal fantasy?

The world is my oyster, truly!

I do think one reason this experiment was successful is that I used two different parts of my brain per project. With REVENGE, it was more about reading and line editing — I wasn’t doing big dev edits or anything too meaty. I did have to write a few chapters from scratch; they were in the latter half of the book, and those moments coincided with me taking a break from HEX.

There was some difficulty at times, given that both books are in first-person and are sapphic romances. But they’re in different age categories and one of them has a whole magic system to contend with, so these differences made it easier to keep them separate in my brain.

Could I simultaneously draft and revise two books that were more similar? I’m sure I’ll try to find out some day, lol. For now, though, I’m going to celebrate the fact that this book is in pretty good shape2 and is off my desk for a bit!

From the shelf 📚

Evocation3, by S.T. Gibson

Ugh, this book was SUCH a delight! If you don’t know her, S.T. Gibson is the author of books like A Dowry of Blood and An Education in Malice, books that are Gothic and sumptuous, with prose that sits on your tongue like a decadent chocolate cake.

Evocation in the first book in the Summoner’s Circle series, and it’s got the same Gothic leanings, the bend toward the occult, the delicious polyamorous romance. It’s set in Boston in present day and follows David Aristarkhov, a powerful psychic who’s experiencing some kind of spirit sickness, and turns to his ex Rhys, whose new wife Moira has a contentious relationship with David already.

But David has things which both Moira and Rhys could use, so they bargain with him. And what follows is messy and delightful, magical and dark and beautiful and broody and oh my god I’m obsessed. I highly recommend this book, and I recommend S.T. Gibson’s newsletter, which you can find at , for craft advice and essays and updates! It’s a grand time :D

Alla prossima 👋

I’m hemming and hawing over my words today. Because I’ve got Friday’s “confrontation” between Trump, Vance, and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy on my mind. There is so much to say about it. About the horrendous audacity displayed by America’s leaders. About the contempt everyone in that room seems to hold for anyone who isn’t from the US. About how despicable that contempt is. About how fucking tired I am of white, Christian nationalists running our government and fucking shit up.

The US has a long and sordid history of messing with other countries’ sovereignty to install or deinstall regimes they disagreed with. The US has a long and sordid history of racism and white supremacy, of claiming with words allegiance to the Christian God while proving with actions that our allegiance is to nothing but capital and power. And I’m sick of it!!!

This country is not special, damnit. It was built on stolen land, via stolen labor, and we’ve been stealing ever since. We have power, yes, but is that really always a good thing? When we’re doing *this* with said power? When over the past three years we’ve used our power to bank-roll a genocide? When we’re cutting off aid to people who need it? When we’re shipping refugees to CONCENTRATION CAMPS? Shit! No, this power is not a good thing.

I’m going to call my electeds. I’m going to yell, and fight, and learn, and dedicate myself to community building and maintaining. To ensuring there is something beautiful and powerful and human at the end of this.

— Karis xoxo