Tag Archives: amwriting

Announcement!!! <3

I am independently published! I have an essay, “Death is a Noun,” in an anthology “SLEEP, NAUSEA, ANXIETY & PAIN.” The editor is a colleague of mine, Lee Bullitt. We met at a class taught by the wonderful @SarahNumber4. You can find Lee on medium or on her website at www.leebullitt.com.

This is the first time I have ever been published, and it is a big milestone for me. I wrote “Death is a Noun” during that class, which was my very first workshopped writing class. It was also the first time I let others know I had a mental illness.

Lee has been working on the anthology for a while, so it was great to finally receive my copies in the mail, personally gift wrapped in red spotted gauze by Lee for me. If you want a copy, it is available to buy on Lee’s shop here: https://www.leebullitt.com/sleep-nausea-anxiety-pain. It even has a bar code, so it is very much real. I warn you, it is a limited edition, so if you are interested, act fast!

I still remember getting the email from Lee about the idea on May 8th, 2018. The title of the email was “Calling All Sad Girls.” It was very effective in getting my attention. The idea was to create an anthology we would be proud of which expresses the pain women feel across many spectrums. Mine, as you may guess, was my struggle with mental illness, specifically how it began when I was 18.

All my life I’ve dreamed of being published, but only recently did I mature enough to realize that was not my endgame. My new goal is simply to write often, and to make finished products I am proud of. Of course I will still seek to be published, and it feels damn good to finally be published, but what I really want is to look at a short story or essay or memoir or novel I have written and revised a thousand times and finally say, “It is finished. I am proud.”

For the fact is that “Death is a Noun,” even as it is published, still requires a lot of work to be truly done. I simply chose it as is because 1) Lee requested it and 2) I didn’t have the time to meet deadline. However I don’t mind having something rough “out there.” After all, these blog posts are very public, with my real name on them, and they are a bit rough; however I stand by them. Gone are the days when I am ashamed of anything I write. I never write anything I don’t mean anymore, except in my journal, which is safe for anything.

So, welcome. But in the meantime, any positive comments or congratulations are welcome, and “Hello, World”: I am a published author. Come at me!

Comfort Blog

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a blog solely devoted to depicting comfort? Every morning you would drag yourself out of bed and debate whether you should make coffee or just die on the couch. Eventually you put the kettle on in preparation for the easiest coffee – french press. Then your favorite part of the morning begins. You walk to your ergonomic chair that cost you almost as much as your rent back in the day, sit down, feel your lower back begin to loosen, click the ergonomic mouse, and your computer wakes up – slowly, like you. As the monitor lights up, the rush of light propels you to open your favorite browser (Chrome, duh) and go to yourcomfortblog.com (is that a real website?). Gradually, the white changes to light pinks and blues and you see pictures of merchandise from your favorite movies (The Dark Crystal) and art featuring your favorite foods (cheese!). Then you get to the good part, the blurb. It reads like Virginia Woolf, but happy. It describes a big comfy t-shirt and a hot but not too hot cup of coffee made from thin air and some retro steam punk designed technologies that are still ergonomic (good, you like that). It describes the thoughts that go into writing and thinking and it all feels very meta the way a comforter feels very soft on the skin.

Your tea kettle clicks. Time to grind the coffee. Your morning visit with this paradise website is over. But never fear, because you have your light pink “Git it Gurl” shirt on over the fluffiest pajama pants you ever owned and you’re using your favorite light blue mug and you’re going to sit on your light blue couch and watch the steam come out of that Raven’s Brew coffee (which also sounds cool as a bonus) as the waves of puget sound rock in the far distance, outside where wind and rain exist.

But not inside.

Wouldn’t it be nice.