I choose to believe in me

Hello from a finally-breezy Brooklyn 🍂

It’s been a busy week in Karis-land. In a move not seen since the days when I actually worked from an office, I was out and about for five straight days, Tuesday through Saturday. I co-worked with friends, went to libraries and coffee shops, went to book events, caught dinner in the city with a crew of five strangers. It was frantic and busy and delightful and my god I could sleep for a week now.

But it’s been good. It reminded me that I’m alive, something I forget more often than not. It reminded me that my life has begun, even if it doesn’t always look the way I’d like it to.

From the heart 💗

I worry that I’m not good enough.

No, don’t roll your eyes and mutter, Karis! under your breath. I’m serious here! I am having a moment, a breakdown, a total collapse of belief in myself! Yes, I know I did that just yesterday too but this time I need you to listen to me.

I worry that I’m not good enough, and that I’ll never be good enough, and that my dreams will always exist just mildly out of reach because I’m unable to stretch to meet them. I can see them, they’re right in front of me, but my wingspan is just a few inches too short and I can brush the very tips of my fingers up against them in a featherlight touch that only succeeds in pushing them further away.

Why do I feel this way? Why am I choosing today, of all the glorious weather days, to have this breakdown in your inbox?

Because I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling this way. I’m tired of not believing in myself; more accurately, I’m tired of how I actively disbelieve in myself. It’s not a passive thing, you see, this lack of belief. I feed it, water it, nourish it and grow it, tend to it with all the passion and care of a germinating plant. And I’m sick of it.

At the same time, though, I am scared to do the opposite. Terrified of putting faith in myself because what if I am too weak to carry the weight of my own hopes and dreams? What if I crumble under the pressure — I’ve done it before, spectacularly, I can do it again, but I worry that this time I won’t survive the crash.

But what is my alternative, truly? To live of two minds, plunging forward toward my dreams while holding myself back with a lack of belief? The agony that comes from having faith and not having faith in the same breath?

No, that’s no longer an option.

I stand at the crossroads and I see that I have two paths in front of me: one in which I abandon my dreams entirely; one in which I plunge forward but put my faith in me.

And I take a step, tentatively, on the path of faith.

Fuck it, I say, I’m going to believe in me.

From the camera roll 📸

From the page ✍️

Today feels like a good day to give y’all an update on my WIP. It’s been bringing me oodles of joy as I draft, and I’d love to share that with y’all.

The book is a sapphic adult romance called GIRLS JUST WANNA GET REVENGE (nickname: REVENGE). It follows Summer Bowman, a 26-year-old who sought refuge in the church eight years ago, as she reconnects with her mother and, as a result, becomes friends with her mother’s coworker, none other than Hollywood darling Ruby Jha. Summer has had a celebrity crush on Ruby for years — and you would, too, if she were real, cause she’s gorgeous and funny and talented and sweet and kind — and when a shitty man fucks them both over, the two women come together to plot his downfall.

As they do so, of course, the forced proximity of it all works its magic and love blossoms. There are shenanigans! They travel together! They attend glamorous premieres and hang out in Summer’s shitty apartment and there’s kissing (and more) and jokes and deep bonding and my god, drafting it has brought me so much joy lately.

I’m just over 30,000 words into the draft, and every time I sit down to click clack my way through ~1,000 words, I end up grinning and with my heart racing. I’m having a blast with this book, and that is so delightful.

Real talk, I burned myself out quite a bit with my last project HEX. I was racing to have it ready, hoping to send it on sub this year, and when that took a turn, I nosedived deep into despair. My month away from writing helped for sure, and so did diving into this project.

Adult romance is new for me, I’ve only ever written about 14,000 words of adult projects in a different book, and I’ve been scared that I’m doing it wrong, that I won’t be good enough (lol), that I’m gonna fuck this up somehow.

But through all the fear and uncertainty, there’s a rippling thread of delight.

Summer and Ruby are a joy to write. I am loving spending time with them. And I hope that someday, sooner rather than later, you all can get to know and love them too <3

Alla prossima 👋

In Brooklyn, it’s lovely and breezy and I’m sitting on my couch with my laptop writing this newsletter. Yet half my mind is across the world in Gaza and the West Bank, where Israel is continuing its indiscriminate genocide of Palestinians.

This week, we saw an American activist, Aysenur Eygi, shot by an Israeli sniper. Where is the outrage by the political elite? We saw dozens of Palestinians killed in Gaza. We saw the way Israel is encroaching upon the West Bank, famously not run by Hamas, and the way their flimsy lies about how this is all to destroy Hamas are being disproven by their military’s own actions.

I close my eyes and in the darkness I feel for those who have suffered 11 months of unbroken bombardment. Those who’ve had family members wiped out in precision strikes. Those whose lives — so full of potential and vibrancy and right to be lived — have been wiped out. And I feel an impotent rage. Eleven months of this. Eleven months of my money funding genocide, of my government approving these murders. And before that, decades of the same.

The US is reeling from yet another school shooting. It seems to be the solutions are obvious, yet our government is unwilling to take action. I don’t know what to do. I simply cry out in anger and heartbreak, and I promise to never forget.

And I recommit to doing what I can; to writing my electeds about Palestine and gun reform; to donating when I have money so that we can help Palestinians who want to flee Gaza do so; to calling, every day, for a free Palestine.

May we live to see a better world.