Skibidi Slender Man

Am reading

I came for the species-transcending bond between a man and a herd of traumatized elephants.

I got that…between shootouts with poachers, earth-shattering storms, bush fires gone rogue, deadly snakebites, and intricate webs of tribal politics.

I’ve never been more prepared to oversee a wildlife conservation in Zululand.

Am sipping

We just passed the first flush season but here in Spring-Wait-Summer-Hold-on-Sleet, it still feels like early spring, so I’m still enjoying a delightful First Flush Darjeeling. It’s a bit astringent for me—I’m a big baby when it comes to bitter flavor—but the initial bite is worth it for the fruity-floral finish with a honey sweetness. The brew says Spring to me far more than the light, airy, floral-scented blends that are promoted around this time.

Writerly updates

I’m glad I gave myself a long release period for Book 1. The story is, finally, ready to go. I could send it off to ARC readers today…if I could pick a fucking cover design.

For weeks, I was seized by the urge to physically embroider the cover. The fact that my embroidery experience consists of a beginner’s kit I barely started, and that it took me literal weeks to patch a pair of jeans, did nothing to abate this desire. Putting needle to fabric finally exorcised this craft demon. Four attempts before I stitched a barely-recognizable series of hearts on my hoodie sleeve was the reality check I needed.

The overall extent of my skill.

Unfortunately, that left me nearly bereft of ideas, and here I am digging deeper and deeper into May, flailing in Photoshop.

Do the Greeks have a muse for graphic design? If so, someone please give her my number.

FAQ

- How do you find time to write?

In short? I set aside a designated time in my schedule and adhere to it.

It sounds simple, but trust me, it has been anything but. I shifted my day-job schedule to do it. I carved out two chunks of time a week and I guard that time fiercely. I have to fight for my writing time—I even fight myself. Guilt plagues me—how dare I write when I could be working more hours, making dents in our endless household to-do lists, etc? I force myself to make this time sacred. If I don’t, life will absorb it in an instant—if not work, then appointments, errands—the responsibilities of parenthood and adulthood in general are endless, their appetite for time is insatiable.

Some days, I have to give myself a pep talk, like morning affirmations: It’s okay to prioritize your art. Financial benefit is not the definitive measure of value, and keeping house is not a moral virtue. Your time is your most precious commodity in this late-stage capitalist hellscape and you must guard it with your life and not let it be stolen by societal pressures and grind-culture grifts designed to keep you quiet and complacent and afraid-

Okay, I don’t have to turn two mornings of writing time into an act of ideological protest, but you get the point. I have a strictly enforced, consistent writing time. Easier said than done, but done nonetheless.

Do you like dark, sexy books that make you question your own sanity?

Check out Twenty-One on e-book or in paperback.

Interested in a series about an aimless college dropout who stumbles into a job as a vampire’s henchman?

Then follow me as I write it!

Find me on INSTA and FB.

Current Rabbit Hole

Largely thanks to my offspring’s rapidly-developing assimilation into gen-alpha culture, I am currently fixated on the study of culture and speech of children—called childlore in scholarly circles. I’m fascinated with the way children create their own, entirely unique subculture, generation after generation. Yesteryear’s nursery rhymes and local folklore evolve into movie references, deep cut memes, glitches in video games, and brief moments on a twitch stream isolated and elevated to internet immortality. Yet it’s all the same. While they struggle to navigate and understand an adult-run world into which they’ve been dropped, children create their own language, rules, rituals, and mythologies. I am obsessed with this phenomenon, and my side-quest obsession is the confusion, condescension, and fear with which older generations always respond to their kids’ childlore, as their parents had with their own, and so on back through recorded history. Even Socrates had an “Old Man Yells at Cloud” reaction to the youth of his era. Why does this pattern repeat so consistently in human behavior? Why is cultural transformation so inherent in the young and reviled in the old?

…Can I pursue a degree in this?

Hot Take

Off the heels of my childlore fixation…Gen Alpha’s slang isn’t any more ridiculous than any other generation’s. Your kids delight in shouting “6-7?” We wrote 80085 on every calculator we could get our hands on (iykyk.)

Kids are easily entertained. That’s part of their appeal. Leave them be.

Wait, what? Poll time!

How do you read the majority of books?

Until next time. See you soon, and keep reading.

Alice