I'm thinking philosophically about friendship

I’ve returned from residency! I flew out to LA on New Year’s Eve and spent 12 days in Valencia, shuttling between a bunch of hotels and the campus of CalArts, volunteering to help the Jan. 2025 VCFA residency run smoothly. It was a great time and also a weird time and also I got really sick halfway through. It was emotional in the good and the bad ways.

And of course, we were so close to LA and the fires. While we didn’t directly experience evacuations or the awful ashy skies, there was something so clarifying about being so near to a tragedy like this January’s wildfires. Clarifying in the sense of helping me see more clearly the toll of climate disasters on humans and animals. Clarifying in that it fels like taking off dirty glasses and cleaning them, replacing them over my eyes and seeing with startling detail just how terrifying, heartbreaking, awful these things are.

If you have extra money and want to donate, check out this GoFundMe page dedicated to compiling various personal funds for individuals and families who are reeling. To anyone who’s reading this from LA or with loved ones in LA, I’m sending you so much love.

From the heart 💗

On friendship and holding loved ones tight, loosely

I’m a bit of an anxious mess on the best of days, and lately I haven’t been having the best of days 🤣

Which is a jokey way to start this section that feels a little vulnerable. Gotta cut the tension with a laugh, am I right?1

What I mean to say is, lately I’ve been feeling anxiety about my place among my friends and communities. I’ve been experiencing impostor syndrome, not just about my career as a writer (that specific flavor is currently a little dulled at the edges, ever-present and uncomfortable but not as present) but about whether I belong anywhere.

I crave belonging like I crave making meaning out of my life like I crave leaving behind a legacy like I crave being beloved: it is deep-seated and nearly immutable need, one that seems to have existed before the dawn of my conception, one as foundational to who I am as my being a writer.

Hi, my name is Karis, I’m a writer and I have depression and I desire more than anything else to be one of you. To be counted among your ranks. To belong.

I think this is why it bothered me so much for the first 30 years of my life that I didn’t have a friend “group.” I was friends with lots of people, but I described myself more as a floater than anything — not in the core group chat, but if you ran into me at the mall you’d be delighted to have me join you for the day.

I was loved, but I didn’t belong. Not like the rest of the crew did.

Throughout my life, I’ve carried this knowledge and so when I did have groups I clung to them fiercely. The small group from high school, the apartment of upperclassmen who lived together my junior year of college, the overnight shift from my years at Citizen, the Sundays crew I have now…I cling to them so tightly that I worry, sometimes, that I might be suffocating people a little?

That maybe, in my anxiety and self-doubt I am doing the opposite of what is needed to sustain a long-lasting friendship, and am instead squeezing the life out of it.2 So I try to hold to things more loosely. I try to cradle the fragile bird of friendship in my hands without squeezing so tight I break it.

Listen — I’m the first to admit that I don’t always see the world clearly, don’t always take things for what they are. I like to read into things. Overanalyzation is my one true love, etc etc3, and sometimes I am simply wrong.

But.

But I do think there’s something to be said for cradling close, loosely. For loving fiercely, without constraints. For letting friendship be a boomerang, sometimes near and sometimes far. If I’m in a “far” phase with a friend, maybe that means allowing them to roam and welcoming them back when they return, rather than trashing things entirely.

Who knows. Surely not I!

From the camera roll 📸

A selfie with a plane, a moon, and some California

From the page ✍️

What it’s like to not write

After the flurry of writing and revising that was the last three five months of 2024, it is exceedingly weird that we are two weeks into the new year and I’ve written…not a word. I’m waiting on beta reader feedback on two separate books, so the pause makes sense, but it is still odd.

I can feel my fingers start to itch to be on the keyboard. I love the way it feels when I’m in a good drafting moment and my fingers dance across the keys and I can watch the insides of my brain take shape and form on a screen in front of me.

My brain starts to buck against the constraints it has — if I have free time, it’s churning away in the background, coming up with ideas4; if I’m in the middle of other tasks, it quiets for a moment, but I can feel it getting antsy.

My thoughts race and I start to have brand-new story ideas. Inspiration, she’s everywhere! And because I’m not writing, because I don’t have a project I’m all-in on, I’m just grabbing them, examining them briefly, marking them down if they’re worthwhile and letting them fly free if they’re not.

I want to be writing, so I end up working on random projects, like a newsletter here or a column there, fiddling with things to see if they’ll satisfy the raging creativity beast inside me. Fun fact, that’s actually how I wound up finishing the verse novel last month, lol. I finished my adult romance earlier than anticipated and just…needed something to do.

I’m spending these next few weeks as I wait for feedback just…ideating. I’m noodling on a potential graphic novel I’d love to script out. I’m researching some things. I’m reading great books and letting myself sink into stories.

Maybe I’ll spend some time organizing my books and cleaning my room, even5!

I’m not writing right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not, like, writing, you know?

You know.

From the shelf 📚

Caught in a Bad Fauxmance6, by Elle Gonzalez Rose

I finally got to dive into this delightful gay romance over the holidays after interviewing Elle for this very newsletter in 2023, and y’all, it was such a blast. I shipped Devin and Julian from their first scene together on the page, and I was wholly there for the progression of their romance — even in all the glory of the initial “we hate each other” phases.

Also, it’s kind of an undercover Christmas romance, which was fun to read around the holidays!

Devin and Julian’s families have a fraught history — and with reason! So watching the two of them fall in love and repair some of the hurts their families caused each other over the years was really satisfying and beautiful. And y’all, I was cackling. This book is FUN-NY. Do yourselves a favor and buy a copy7!

Alla prossima 👋

Well, it’s a whole fucking new year, and Biden is spending the last gasping moments of his administration sending money to Israel to bomb Palestinians in Gaza. On Wednesday, Jan. 15th, the second #Kidlit4Ceasefire auction will kick off. I’ve donated a 30-minute AMA which can be about one of any number of topics, including but not limited to MFAs and what it’s like to get one, querying, newsletters, publishing nonfiction online, etc…

If you have time and money to spare, I hope you’ll browse through some of the items — there’s some rad featured items! — and consider bidding. And if not, we’ll be posting about it throughout the duration of the auction (until Jan 31), so feel free to boost!

Thanks for being here. Luv u.

— Karis xoxo