In which I get real up close and personal about money

She’s back from Boston and she’s writing again 🫶

Last weekened, I trekked up north to Boston to hang out with my friend Ashley. I met Ashley on like day 1 of my first VCFA residency…convinced myself she hated me…and then was proven wrong when she promptly became one of my best friends. Love this journey for me! 😂

Anyway. Boston was a whirlwind. I got $30 worth of chocolate from the Lindt store, I got a new phone, I re-pierced my ears (earring era incoming!!), I dyed my hair…just lots of big things happened!

We also hung out with our other friend Sarah, who’s a total delight and sweetheart. It was just…a really good time!

After getting back to Brooklyn on Wednesday, I had to readjust to life and work and productivity. And one of the fun things I did this weekend was participate in the Story Grove’s 24-hour writing day. We dedicated Saturday to writing all day, and I churned out 4,100 words on my middle grade! I had a goal going in to write 10,000 words, but ultimately my brain hit 4k and decided it’d had enough, so I decided to honor that. What this weekend did hopefully do for me, though, is get me excited about this project again!

Moving on! In this iteration of the newsletter, you’ll find:

1. From the heart: thoughts on money, eep

2. From the shelf: a book I’ve loved recently

3. From the page: on the importance of taking writing breaks

Hope you enjoy! Feel free to share, leave a comment, email me back, or shoot me a quick text with any thoughts you may have. Love y’all! 😘

From the heart 💗

Ugh, money, am I right?

It’s such a hard thing to talk about, at least for me, because it feels like so much of, like…competence is tied up in money. Let me explain that better: we live in a capitalist society that 1000% revolves around money. And if you’ve got it? You’re golden, baby. If you don’t, for whatever reason? If you’re broke, or poor, or god forbid unhoused and broke and poor, the world looks at you like it’s a PERSONAL FAILING. Like you’re incompetent at life.

Of course, that isn’t true. And I know that. I look at people who are broke, poor, unhoused, etc, and I feel compassion because I recognize that the system is built against us. It’s especially so if you’re marginalized in any way, and doubly so if you’re multi-marginalized. Like this is a fact, it’s not some shit I’m making up.

But this section isn’t about facts, it’s about feelings, so here are my feelings: I’m broke as a joke, and I feel like shit about it.

Last September, I had to open a second credit card because my first one was fully maxed out and I wasn’t bringing in enough income to actually pay my bills and live my life. Then I did some impulsive things with that credit card, like book a month-long trip to Italy…then extend that trip by a month…then some fuckery happened with my flight home, and long story short, at the end of June I had maxed out THAT CARD, too. So what did I do? In order to pay things like taxes and grocery bills, I had to open a third card.

God, I hate myself for this.

But why? It’s not like I’m not trying really hard. I am working full-time. I am taking on every single piece of freelance / contract work that’s available, including writing articles, proofreading nonprofit documents, and copyediting picture books. I don’t have much more bandwidth because I’m also enrolled in grad school and work on that for about 25 hours a week. Oh, and I’m uhhh subbing a book to editors to hopefully sell it. Like I’m tapped out, y’all. I’m doing everything I can, and it’s not fucking enough.

Currently, I have two maxed out credit cards and about less than $50 in my checking account. And it’s agony. I feel such shame about my inability to stem my spending, much less save. I feel like I’m failing. I feel like I’m flailing. I know that things would be easier if I stopped spending money, and maybe someday I’ll write a whole issue on my inability to do that and how it’s tied to my mental health, but for now…let’s just say it sucks.

I don’t know how to wrap this up. I don’t have a cute, neat takeaway, a fun twist to be like, “but it’s all okay because xyz!!” I just feel sad and stressed all the time. And I can’t seem to stem the flood of money I’m spending. I am spiraling.

So I guess maybe the takeaway is just…if you’re in a similar situation? You’re not alone. And there’s nothing wrong with us. We are doing our best in this world that runs on money and that isn’t designed to work for anyone who isn’t already rich, straight, white, male, Christian, in power, etc…and I mean that.

I’m not saying everyone who’s a straight white male isn’t going to suffer. I’m saying that if you’re not already rich and in power, and if you don’t fit into those three categories, life’s gonna be a lot tougher for you. If that offends you, idk what to say, man. Truth can be offensive sometimes. The world caters to those who already have, and it takes from those who do not. It’s a fucked-up system, I hope we smash it to smithereens soon, and rebuild a better world. In the meantime, let’s offer some grace — to each other, and to ourselves. That’s all.

From the shelf 📚

If you thought I was going to read Babel and NOT scream about it every chance I get, you were, unfortunately, so doggone wrong.

R.F. Kuang’s alternate history fantasy set in Oxford in the 1830s is a fucking masterpiece.

This book. Let’s start with the writing style. It’s brilliant, it’s written like a dense Victorian tome, and it lulls you into a sense of peace and contentment along with our heroes, before rushing in and bashing you over the head with so many twists and turns.

The characters? I love them. I miss them. I ache for them. They feel so alive to me, leaping off the page and straight into my heart.

And that ending? I couldn’t think of a better ending if you PAID ME. Kuang is brilliant, I will scream that from the mountaintops, and this book, about the evils of colonialism and the intrinsic and dastardly way it wiles into our lives, is a must-read. I’ll probably read it again as soon as I recover from this first go-round. Check it out yourselves!

From the page ✍️

So, I will admit that this advice originally came from another writer, lol. A month or two ago, I read Becca Mix’s newsletter in which she shared about the value of taking a real writing break. Which was revolutionary to me, because I’m always taking project breaks, but I’ve never taken a total break from WRITING on ALL PROJECTS.

So after reading Becca’s missive in which she waxed poetic about the values of this break, I decided to do something similar. I turned in my final packet for the semester on June 4th, and so from June 5-11, I didn’t work on a single writing project.

And the plan was to dive back in on the 12th and fast-draft my middle grade. That…didn’t happen. In part because I wound up signing with my agent on the 14th and immediately dove into revisions of Nat & Cami, lol, and then I ended up accidentally taking another 1-2 weeks off just because of life.

And it’s been…really good. It feels incredibly counterintuitive, that taking a break from the thing you love helps you do the thing you love better, but it turns out it makes a lot of sense, too!

For much of the early part of this year, I’ve been feeling like I was on the cliff’s edge of burnout. Like I mentioned in “from the heart” up above, I’m…doing a lot in order to keep surviving in the capitalist hellscape that is our reality. And in order to keep being the best creative I can be, I think I needed to just take a breather.

During that time, I did things like go to pride, go on a date, go to Boston, and just filled up my days with people time. As an extrovert, that’s the best way for me to refresh myself. And now that I’ve had that people time — and that break from writing time — I think I’m more refreshed than ever, ready to go, ready to dive in and write words and craft stories!

So take it from me — sometimes a break is just what your creativity needs.

Adieu 👋

Hope y’all enjoyed this week’s missive! In next week’s iteration, stay tuned for an interview with the incredible Adrienne Tooley, whose The Third Daughter releases this month! And then we’ll be diving into fun stories about my upcoming residency in Colorado!