A Year of Writing Magically
I am very excited
Dear Writer,
Things have been so weird lately. I’ve been feeling just… off. Not necessarily bad, just off. I’m starting Discovery on the new book, and that’s always a time of weird distraction and saying, “I’m sorry, I literally wasn’t listening,” to people who have been speaking for a while. Which I hate. Because it’s fucking rude, but I can’t help it.
But this weirdness, this offness… it wasn’t about the book or the Discovery. A little, but not entirely.
It’s about not working.
And it’s not that I’m not working at all. It’s just that my “work” is so vague. I’m self-employed, so that kind of life always has a somewhat spongey feel to it. Like, I could do these things, but my boss isn’t going to chafe my ass if I don’t, so why don’t I just play another round of Hearthstone? That kind of thing. I’ve got podcasts to produce, but for the last couple of months since I took time off to get married, they’ve been in hiatus. I’ve been making TikTok videos and trying to think about the next big project, but it’s all felt lonely and spongey and vague, like I knew there was something I should be doing, but I didn’t know what. It made me feel just off. I needed to work, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that work should be.
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Now here’s the thing; I do not believe that we get our value from our productivity. I do not believe in the capitalist work… I deeply resist calling it an “ethic,” but you know what I mean. I think that using a person’s labor to pay them as little as possible while you buy your third yacht is abhorrent. I don’t think people should have to work at a traditional job in order to have food, shelter, health care… this is why society exists. To make sure we all have those things straight out of the gate, no strings attached.
All that said, I do believe that people need to work. We need to create, we need to do things. We want to explore and discover. We want to heal ourselves and others. The need to choose a career for money is financial coercion, and I don’t dig it.
But I love work. I love creating things and organizing ideas and most of all, most of all, I love teaching. I have missed it so much, and when I realized how much I missed working and that this was the thing that was generating my general malaise, an idea came to mind and suddenly… I was off to the races to build my Year of Writing Magically Workshop.
First of all, it’s going to mean I have real work to do, all next year. Second, I’m going to be writing my own book while my students work on their projects. Third, it’s going to be holistic. Yes, we’re going to talk about the stories, and the magic, and the craft, but we’re also going to talk about prioritizing your life so that you can write, refusing to stuff the things that are important to you into the margins of your life where they won't affect anyone else, and prioritizing the regular movement, good food, and comfort that you need to be creative. But what I’m most excited about, honestly, is the community building. The workshop will be a small cohort of people who will be provided the space to connect and bond and work in community at a task that is typically very isolating.
I started work on it a couple of days ago, and my offness is gone. I feel the hum of yes running through me when I work on this project, and so far, the response has been way beyond my expectations. If you’re interested in applying for a slot, there’s a form at the bottom of the website where you can request to be notified when the official application goes up, which should be sometime in the next few days.
Y’all. I’m going to teach again. I’m going to write. I’m going to work.
I can’t wait.
I’m going to take the next couple of weeks off of Dear Writer to enjoy the holidays with my kid who’s visiting from out of town, and I hope that you all have a wonderful few weeks, however you celebrate or don’t. I hope you get time off from your work, the rest you need, the good times that remind us why we work so hard, and a good start to a new year filled with hope and renewal. See you in 2023.
Everything,
L