Thoughts on Social Media, and a Plant That Would Not Die.

What the heck is a newsletter anyway?

When I created this newsletter I think I had a very vague idea of what I wanted it to be, but I’ve gotten side tracked and tipped asunder over the months and my poor little list of friends here has been neglected.  I’m going to change that in the coming months.

On my instagram account I try to be as honest and real as I can by while maintaining the bookish aesthetic I am aiming for, but honestly the visual media is still tricky for me. I was never a photographer. I’m a writer. As much as I enjoy writing captions on instagram, I feel hemmed in by the fear that my captions will be too long, and that the paced culture of instagram means that no one will read to the end of them.

I think this newsletter is the perfect place to write longer, more intimate conversations about the literary life.

I know that the online writing community can feel like an unimaginably large mass of people all shouting into the void, begging to be read. My hope is that my letters in your inbox will be  a welcome little break from all that hubbub. As I am writing now, I’m imagining us sitting in my kitchen drinking coffee and eating snacks, talking about writing foibles and the things we read.

Remember tumblr?

For months I have been turning over in my mind the question of how or if I should expand my social media presence. Before beginning my indie authorship journey, I had cut almost all social media out of my life. I was living like a nun, happy in my little house with my tight little circle of influence. My family, one or two friends.

But I knew when I started writing again that if people were to buy my books they would need to know that the books existed, which meant downloading social media apps again.

I like instagram. For all its flaws, I like the beauty of it. I’ve cultivated a feed that inspires me and a few friendships. I worry, though, about having all my eggs in one basket. I’ve known it would be wise to have at least one other platform, but I didn’t know which. I toyed with TikTok but I found the FYP and algorithms frighteningly addictive. As soon as I downloaded the app I was losing hours in a mindless scroll. I’m prone to long periods of dissociation-by-internet and as much as tiktok is hyped by the book community, I just know that it’s not a path I can trust myself on.

I miss tumblr. Tumblr was the last bastion of the Old Internet, with its chronological feed and truly, authentically strange users. I know tumblr still exists, lurking beneath the radar of the internet monopolists of our time. I just feel like I can’t possibly return to it now. It’s been too long. I’m too old.

I’ve decided on twitter, and I am determined to make my twitter experience as positive as possible. I’ve had my account ready for a couple of months but every time I opened the app I got overwhelmed and closed it again. Now is the time. I’m committing to at least making a good effort to find my people in the twitterverse.

If there is one skill I can boast as a child of the digital age, it’s finding those ten or fifteen people who make any social platform worth its ugliness. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.

Zombie cucumbers

In the spring I planted a cucumber vine in a big bucket. It got too big for the bucket and I couldn’t keep it watered so I carefully moved it to a garden bed at the back of my yard.

It promptly died. Withered into a husky white tendrils and laid parched on the ground while I planted other things around it. I don’t know why I didn’t pull it out. I liked to punish myself every time I went out to tend to the thriving jalapeños or lettuce, by forcing myself to look upon the desiccated corpse of the plant I killed.

Then something odd happened. It came back to life.

Friends, when I tell you that cucumber plant was dead, I mean it was dead. It was crispy, it rattled in the summer breeze. It was in the process of becoming one with the soil. I stepped on it more than once.

It bloomed for the second time in early September. I don’t know if it will have time to produce before the cold sets in, but I go out to look at the foolish spray of leaves every day when I water my one (1) living pumpkin. I want to make a cucumber salad on Halloween. Let it happen.

A brief writing update

Progress on book two of Silverton has stagnated. I’m struggling with a particular chapter, having been poking at it for over two weeks. Yesterday I made the difficult decision that the entire thing had to be scrapped and written again from the beginning. I’m consoling myself that it was not a waste of time and effort, rather a valuable lesson in what not to do when I try again. I’ll be glad when I get past this chapter for good.

I think I’ve rambled on quite enough now, so I’ll say goodbye for now. I hope this letter finds you well. If you have cats, please send them my love as well.