Happy July!
I decided to stop putting a picture under the title. It doesn’t really serve much of a purpose except to look pretty, and a text-only email will load much faster in your inbox. (Of course, things that only have a purpose of looking pretty are still good and worthy, but my personal photography isn’t THAT pretty, and I think you can get by without it.)
Sharing goals always helps me to actually come back to those goals. When I tell myself I’m going to write something, I may not actually follow through, but if I tell 50+ subscribers that I’m going to write something (and then have to disclose next month whether I actually did it)? Boom. I write best under pressure, and there’ll be lots of pressure (okay, a little bit of pressure) if I tell you what I plan for this coming month (July).
So, in July I intend to experiment with some shortform (writing very tightly concise pieces under 500 words), focus on books (write and publish at least one book review/analysis) and edit/rewrite a humor piece that has a good premise but has not yet found a home.
Is this too much for one month? I hope not. I tend to waffle between feeling as though I need to fill every spare moment with productive creativity (often putting myself under unnecessary stress) and feeling as though I’m doing too much and desperately need a rest. Maybe July will be about finding that middle ground. Hence the emphasis on shortform, not a massive word count goal.
I did not write as much in June as I would have liked—you will get only two new links today—and I really didn’t read as much as I would have liked, either. In part the lack of personal writing is because I was quite busy with summer school, and also because I was writing, but it was a project for my church that is still in progress and is not yet shareable. The book thing is, I am ashamed to admit, mostly because I spent too much time scrolling my phone and not enough time flipping pages. I did read a couple of good titles in June, and started several others which I did not finish.
It’s never been easy for me to rattle off exactly what kind of books I like, or what I’m looking for in a book; the best approximation is that I know what I’m looking for when I find it. It’s much easier for me to explain why the first few chapters of a book didn’t grab me. I won’t name-and-shame the historical novel I picked up recently, but it serves as a good example: I made it through five chapters before calling it quits.
A few reasons why: I felt nothing for the protagonist, though I’m sure I was supposed to; I felt presumed upon, as the reader, to already know the ins and outs of a culture that existed in another country, over 100 years ago (the fact that I do know a lot about this time period and setting is not relevant; in fact, it served only to highlight that no real illuminating details were included), as not much was given to help me feel as though I were there; the romantic interest irritated me from the first time he was introduced, and I don’t think that was purposeful (the heroine was instantly attracted to him, but I was not); and last but not least, expository dialogue and expository letter-writing gave a heavy-handed backstory that felt forced, unnatural, and shoehorned in. It did not seem plausible that the characters should express their personal histories so completely and cavalierly in casual conversation; all the voices sounded alike; there was nothing to distinguish Haughty Mother from Working-Class Hospital Matron.
Most saddening of all, there were no magical details that made me feel like I could not write. Having just recently come down from The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, this plod-along read felt almost childish by comparison. When I read a truly good novel, I want to be made to feel that my own efforts are paltry and insignificant. I want to be simultaneously inspired and humbled. But with this book, I found myself thinking, quite sneakily, “I could do better.” An easy thing to say when one has no published fiction and the author of this particular work has dozens. But it felt true when I said it to myself, and that is the death knell of any book for me.
What makes or breaks a good book for you? Do tell me in the comments!
Now, as to what I published in June:
Fitting Family Time into Inconvenient Lunch Breaks is a bit of a scrapbook and a bit of a love letter. I published it in my personal parenting blog, I Should Write This Stuff Down, because it is exactly the kind of stuff I want to write down lest I forget someday in the busyness of middle age.
(Note: Starting in early May, I pitched this piece to a few different editors and got no response. I don’t think the topic is sufficiently relevant to a wide audience for a big publication to be interested, but this is one of those times when I decided to just ignore the rejections and self-publish it anyway. This piece is very special to me and I wrote it to please myself; which is a good and worthy thing in and of itself.)
Here’s What Happened When My Toddler Got the COVID Vaccine, another self-published piece that I hope might encourage other parents who may be wary about the newly-approved shot for children under 5. Much as Americans may wish to delude themselves into thinking otherwise, the pandemic isn’t over. I’m thankful my son is now on the path to protection from a severe case of this disease!
That’s it from me for June, but I read a few excellent pieces by friends and acquaintances around the Web, and I’d like to share those links here, too:
Planting Roots by Jenny Reed
“Walking up the front stop with heavy armloads of Wal-Mart bags, I marveled at the tenacity of the gardens, luscious and bright despite our lack of attention, and this time the blooms shouted: Believe in the future! Even if it is not your future. Believe in the future of this place and the people you don’t know, who will one day live here instead of you.”
I read about an old experiment and now I have a question (for you) about your writing by Linda Caroll
“It’s real easy to ‘write what pays’ when bills never stop flowing and money is how we keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I get that. But, I think there’s merit to recognizing when we’re proud of the work itself, and when we’re proud of how much it earned. Neither is wrong. Just different.”
A voice is heard in Ramah by Hannah Comerford
(I want to just copy and paste the whole of this beautiful and heartbreaking poem of lament rather than share just one part, so instead of choosing an excerpt I will urge you to go read the entire poem, and then read it again.)
Fractured by Jeremy Wingert
"What happens to a country when half of its residents experience an intense mental trauma while the other half doubt that any such trauma needs to exist? How do we all unify and move on after such an intense fracturing of our lived experience?"
I’ll close this on a lighter note— a few tweets that highlighted my month!
Well, I guess that hopeful observation about the email loading more quickly is no longer true—but now you are armed with my snackish discoveries and can sally forth to the Great British Bake-Off. All’s well that ends well.
Thanks again for reading!
Yours,
Amy
P.S. From the archives…
Let’s Recognize the Fathers Who Are Truly Making a Difference in P.S. I Love You
You Can’t Eliminate Bias From Your Media Consumption in The Bigger Picture
The Monotonous Love of a Bedtime Bath Routine in P.S. I Love You (my last piece for that publication before it lost funding and shut down last year! Boo.)