We're All Lost Here
Another email in which grief figures strongly, and in which there is no new writing news. Again, like last time, feel free to take a pass.
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Hello-hey-hi, oh me oh my
Wow, the world is a lot. Like, a LOT a lot. Between US politics and horrifying wars around the world and the Olympics and wildfires destroying cities and God-tier weather fuckery and…
Yeah, you get the point. I can’t look at my general social media feeds for longer than 5 minutes before my brain decides to melt. I’m cherry-picking a few folks to engage with in public, no one I know TOO too well. Otherwise everything I’m doing socially is hella private.
Which I’m thinking is probably okay because I’m also fighting some illness flares over here. Apparently this is a time for rest and recovery - June and July certainly isn’t the BEST time for this kind of thing, but it’s been good because I’m recapturing what it feels like to do as much nothing as possible, to look at the world and just breathe and be.
But of course, that means things aren’t getting done and people aren’t getting virtually hugged and work isn’t getting the incisive work I’m supposed to give them and and and…
So. Yeah. More than a little lost right now.
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What about your writing?
I'm still writing when I feel up to it (when the grief doesn't tear apart my focus like a new puppy with a cloth toy). I have a new story I'm working on that I'm really excited about, and I've received lovely feedback on it. However, so far I'm still at 0 acceptances for the year. I have twice as many holds as I did this time last year, which I'm trying to regard as an indication of improvement. It's tough, though, when I'm trying to write a newsletter about my writing and I have nothing to share in that realm.
That said, I've been really surprised at the number of submissions some magazines are getting. New speculative fiction magazine Skull & Laurel was up to 1300 submissions when I added my story to the queue. Well-known mag Apex was over 1600. In my 5 years of submitting there, I've never seen them swamped like this. Many short story markets are receiving floods of content, but no boost in subscriptions to help them manage.
It's a weird time.
What else is going on?
I finished The Siege of Burning Grass and holy wow, the language in there is so extraordinary. The ending is a bit fast for me, but it brings all the nightmare threads Mohamed weaves together into a close that I wouldn't have expected.
I've been reading more short fictions, and Phantom Heart by Charlie B. Lorch really got me in the gut. Content warnings for murder, intimate partner violence, and police brutality, but it was all worth it for me.
I'm quite charmed by the webcomic "Sidequested," which is only a few months along. Great trope-twisting in here.
Sounds good. And?
Yep, as per usual, here's a puppy:
(also, please forgive the slight changes in layout. My email service removed some options.)
With love and weirdness,
~Risa