Inkpot Droplets | March 2023

Hello, dear readers! How are you doing? How was your month?

March was such mixed bag, wow. In some ways, it had a lot of highlights! My Mom and brother both had birthdays I got to celebrate with them. I got to see some friends and have DnD night. I wrote almost 20,000 words of my WIP (!!). Yet I also had some pretty intense depression flare ups (including some dealing directly with body image/internalized fatphobia/my eating disorder, which honestly hasn't flared up in a while, so that's been a challenge to deal with). Work is absolutely kicking my ass and has been ridiculously frustrating. And my MFA program has more hoops to jump through than I ever imagined possible.

So, as I sit to write this update, I'm feeling a mix of everything. Gratitude and pride to being completely overwhelmed and overworked and stressed.

Content Consumed

I've read a few things this month, but not nearly as much as I wanted to!

• The Outlaw and the Rogue by Lily Riley (actually finished it this time)
• The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart
• The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan

I really want to get back into the habit of reading a SFF during lunch, an antiracist book when I ride my stationary bike (so, Thursday, Friday, Saturdays and Sundays, ideally) and a romance book at night. I haven't read at night all month, practically, so that one, in particular, I'd like to get back into doing.

Other media I've been enjoying includes:

• Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: we were required to watch this movie for my grad class and wow was it so amazing! Definitely a mindfuck in a lot of ways, and completely off the cusp in others, but at its core, its a powerful, heartwarming story about overcoming generational trauma by discovering one's true self--and healing the relationships you hurt by not doing it earlier.
• Diablo IV Beta: Y'all, this game, goodness. I'm not usually one for top-down style video games, but I am having so much fun with this. I really wish it was already out in full, because it's all I want to play right now. Destiny 2, while I love the updates, has made the game WAY TOO HARD, now, so my desire to play it has dwindled to near zero. And I don't have anything else I'm really playing/enjoying at the moment, so come on, June! Though, the DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West comes out in April, so I'm excited to dive into that!

Highlight Hello

This month, I want to highlight some cool things a few of my editorial clients are doing!

• Veo Corva is running a kickstarter for their second novel, The Beautiful Decay. It's fully funded (yay!) but if they get up to $5,000, then they'll actually get an advance/make a profit on the novel, which would be great! You can find more details here.
• One of my clients, Michelle Piper, is part of a group of authors writing a dark romance anthology. This time, it's Twisted Desires: An Anthology, and all proceeds will be donated to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital located in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can learn more about it here!

Advocacy Action

As I'll share in my Allyship Check-In post over on the blog on Friday, this post, "How White Women Can Decenter Their Whiteness" by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, has really stuck with me. It was a guest post for the ARD, which I subscribe to and read daily. Yet these authors also wrote an entire book on this topic and I feel like it should be required reading for all white women. And I haven't even read it yet (though, it is now on my to-read list).

I'd recommend checking it out and buying it yourself, or another in your life, who this could be helpful to learn from.

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you all for joining me on this newsletter! I hope things are hanging in there for you. No, not just hanging in there, but flourishing! (That feels like a tall order, honestly, but I hope life truly is treating each and every one of you well). Spring is slowly trying to combat the stubborn winter here in the midwest. And I am personally very ready for some warmer weather and the mental health boost that might hopefully come from it.

Until next month!

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