August 21, 2023

look for the light

thanks to the Twitter rebrand, the announcement that it’ll be ~powered by AI~, and the frankly befuddling statement that the goal is for it to become a major financial institution1 (???), I’m finally off Twitter. before using a service to delete tweets in bulk, I spent time deleting select old tweets by hand, especially snippets and art, because I knew there was some stuff I wanted to find and save before yeeting the rest.

it’s been a weird experience, deleting tweets by hand.

there are many things I have no memory of. like a terrible but fun movie called “My Santa” (2013), starring Matthew Lawrence, that I watched and livetweeted much earlier than I remember livetweeting anything. or a blog I apparently updated regularly even though I have no memory of having that blog. or a day camp at the botanical gardens with a pirate theme that I don’t remember running.2

it’s also weird because many of my old tweets make me sad in different directions.

sometimes they make me sad for now. because Baby E, while she had her problems and I know what they were and how they affected her, lived in a world pre-Trump and pre-COVID and still thought the world could be saved, which is a feeling I increasingly struggle to hold onto.3

other times they make me sad for Baby E. before every semester of college, she tweeted some variant of “school starts tomorrow and I’m nervous.” at the end of one semester, she tweeted, “I thought I’d get some writing done over Christmas break, but instead apparently I’m going to sleep for three weeks and be tired again by summer.” she tweeted about calorie-counting and trying to keep up with an exercise regimen I know she hated. and she often tweeted like “things I should be doing: writing / things I’m not doing: that” or about trying to write through a sick day.

Baby E just so clearly felt like she had to do all the things and work as many hours as possible and write every day and keep up her grades and try to become thin and beautiful on top of it. and I know that’s often what your twenties are—doing absolutely everything, or trying to, because you feel like you have to, and trying to live up to some weird, arbitrary societal standard—and I know without the reminders that that’s how I felt in my twenties. but seeing proof of it written down hits different.

sometimes I wish I could go back and tell Baby E that she’s doing great. and that she will find a good balance to life, mostly. and that she still has worth if she’s not a supermodel. and that pole fitness is where it’s at.4

also that she’s queer and neurodivergent and will be happier and more comfortable once she realizes those things.

maybe, in exchange, she could tell me that, despite all evidence to the contrary, she still believes everything will be okay.

auction: books for maui

as you may be aware, the Hawai’ian island of Maui was devastated by a wildfire earlier this month. in response, a group of Hawai’ian publishing folks are hosting an auction to benefit several different relief funds. the auction opens today, August 21, and will run through August 25.

auction items include signed books, book bundles, AMA sessions with various publishing industry professionals, school visits, critiques, and more. I donated a signed hardcover of Remarkable Retirement, some book-themed stickers, and a 30-minute AMA. see my listing here.

for details on the auction, how it works, and where the money will go, check out the listing on 32 Auctions. to browse auction items, click the dropdown under the pink banner and choose a category (or choose “all” to see everything). register on 32 Auctions to participate.

thank you in advance for helping with the relief effort for the people of Maui!

camp nano wrap-up

as you may recall, I spent July fast-drafting a cozy mystery about a grumpy old lesbian lighthouse keeper named Nettie. pleased to announce that I did in fact finish my draft on July 31 at 60,819 words! it’s a short first draft for me, but then cozy mysteries are generally much shorter than fantasies.

the first draft is (predictably) a dumpsterfire, a little bit because I fast-drafted and a lot a bit because I don’t actually know how to plot a mystery. so for now I’m shelving it, until such time as I’ve read approximately a thousand more cozies and feel up to excavating the story from the dumpsterfire.

but it did its job: namely, proving to me that I do in fact still remember how to finish a first draft of a novel, even though, prior to this point, it had been two years since I’d done so.

upcoming book events

summer has been full of book events, which is a bit exhausting. on the plus side, this is the kind of thing I want to be doing, so whatever. better than being exhausted by my day job or the general state of the world. in June, I joined the Local Author Showcase at the Dana Women’s Summit. in July, I spent a weekend at the first-ever Columbus Book Festival. and in August, I visited my favorite indie bookstore’s book club to talk about Remarkable Retirement, and then went to a National Book Lovers Day celebration up near my hometown.

I have several more events left this year, so here’s what’s coming up:

• September 3 - Parking Lot Party & Author Fair at Gathering Volumes, Perrysburg, Ohio (rain date September 10)

• October 14 - Writers Block Book Fair at Franklin Park Mall, Toledo, Ohio

• October 17-18 - The Novel Bunch Book Fair, Virtual

• November 25 - Small Business Saturday at Pan Yan Bookstore, Tiffin, Ohio

keep an eye out on social media and my website for details! although I’m not posting on Twitter anymore (except about the auction for the next few days), you can find me at elizmanderson on Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky (and Tumblr, but I’m mostly there for fandom shitposting).

odds & ends

recent reads

• finally read Al Hess’s World Running Down, a queer cozy dystopia (yes, you read that right, it’s cozy dystopia), and enjoyed it a lot! I would die for Osric, not that he’d probably let me. really loved how one of Valentine’s greatest strengths is how much he cares and wants to do right by other people…but that also ends up being one of his greatest flaws for reasons I won’t mention because spoilers.

  • better add the book on goodreads to find out!

recent watches

• Good Omens S2 (Prime) and o h m y g o d I am deeply obsessed. I binged it then immediately rewatched it more slowly, my Tumblr is largely devoted to reblogs of gifsets and fan edits, I’ve been reading a fanfic, I am obsessed. I enjoy the book and S1, but S2 was made for me. I am devastated but also extremely very here for the whole thing.

• Only Murders in the Building S3 (Hulu), which is actually only dropping an episode a week like in Ye Olden Times, so I am unable to binge. not yet sure how I feel about this season overall, but I can say with certainty that I adored Meryl Streep’s song in the third episode and have already added it to three different playlists.

  • plus it’s very timely, being about lighthouses and love. although of course that made me think of Our Flag Means Death and how you ought to avoid lighthouses, actually. but it also WOULD make me sing it all over the streets of Duluth and sell everything I own to see the show it came from, Donna!!

  • (side note: WHENST will we get a release date for OFMD S3)

• Haunted Mansion (2023), which predictably wasn’t as good as the 2003 film (imo) BUT was pretty good overall. I particularly loved LaKeith Stanfield’s performance (also predictable, since his whole deal is the kind of thing I write with frequency), and I cried a little bit when Travis said, “I hate it everywhere!”

  • also, LaKeith Stanfield has ridiculously expressive eyes and this is me asking him to pretty please play Kiernan in the film adaptation of Remarkable Retirement.

• Knives Out (2019) - I realize I’m late to the party on this one, and I actually saw Glass Onion first because it was the only one still on Netflix. but whatever. Knives Out is very different from Glass Onion while having a similar feel and overall doing a similar thing, but my god I was stressed out for most of the movie, wondering how things would turn out.

recent birds

• American redstarts, which I normally only see (if at all) during spring migration! there were several on campus the other day, and luckily despite their activity I was able to get a good enough glimpse for an ID.

until next time!