Thank you for my free trial of Thursday, but it’s not for me. Please take it back and send me a Friday instead.

Oh this is going to be fun.

Busy day tomorrow! Discovery call with a book publisher followed by audition calls with three lit agents. Yes, I know I got those backwards, but being invited to the former made me realize the need for the latter. Life, eh? Just hope I don’t wake up with a zit on the tip of my nose. Again.

I want to clarify thar my point here is to treat writers politely, even if you don’t plan to publish what they’ve submitted. We tend to have long memories and don’t let go of offense easily, or we wouldn’t have so many things to write about.

Two literary journals rejected the same story. Tier 1: personal rejection declining at this time but please submit more in the future. Tier 2: basically said fuck off. The former is no fee, the latter charges for subs. I subscribe to both. Guess which I won’t be resubscribing or resubmitting to?

I don’t usually care about or comment on these types of events. But I think anyone attending the #MetGala this year in particular—given Jeff Bezos is chairing the soirée—can and should be judged, at best, as enablers of technofascist kleptoligarchy. And, more likely, as collaborators in it.

Just heard an Instagram ad boasting about limits on who can contact teenaged users, age-appropriate restrictions & sleep hours when notifications are silenced. (Whole post in alt text or image)

Do we have the Tradwife nonsense to blame for all the ridiculous ruffles and bows now or is it the general loathing the fashion industry feels toward grown women?

If you see this, could you please tell me to get back to writing my damn book?

Happy birthday to my favorite “whiskey-soaked, leather-clad, foul-mouthed ruffian.” This quote belongs on every woman’s mirror.

Ah, I don’t know why I didn’t think about posting my earlier 17-post thread as a screenshot of my tweet at the other place. Thanks, @rj-palmer.com!

We are manipulated to think our vote has power when corporations & foreign lobbies can make UNLIMITED campaign contributions. We are manipulated to think our vote has power when entire groups of people are suppressed. We are manipulated to think our vote has power in a plutocracy. We are manipulated

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. 🧵

60 more minutes and it’s gonna be…

Buckle up. This is creative nonfiction from a magnificent cultural critic and also one of the best stories I’ve read in some time. Spoiler: You might want a shower once you’re finished.

There’s no room for the undecided. If by now you don’t know by there’s one imperfect side that doesn’t want to enslave you, and there is an absolutely evil side that hides their amorality and cruelty behind a cross and flag, you’re dumber than toenails clippings and probably part of the latter.

Anyone else tired of hearing and reading these things while @schumer.senate.gov and the rest of that lot sit wringing their hands and doing absolutely nothing of import. Never been more disgusted with all three branches of the government in my life.

Why I love Joy Williams: “We must reflect the sprawl and smallness of America, its greedy optimism and dangerous sentimentality. And we must write with a pen—in Mark Twain’s phrase—warmed up in hell. 🧵

Sometimes I wonder if the government’s disregard of education, art, and literature is to convinced people there’s nothing worth spending their leisure time on besides social media and the ads they’re forced to consume online. But, no, surely no one’s that evil, right? Right???

Today’s email total: Six tiered rejections of three different stories with invites to submit my writing in the future. Lesson learned: If you submit in bulk, the rejections may come in bulk. And it feels like getting punched in the same place. In bulk. Now I’m off to go drink martinis in bulk.

Mood = unchanged.

I saw this morning that my tax payment check finally cleared and it dawned on me that the social contract now forces us to pay taxes funding murders, wars, and monuments we don’t want, while we get nothing in return except the promise of surveillance and jail if we don’t comply. Thanks Congress.

The tiered rejections from a certain literary journal which all end with “We hope you’ll share more of your work with us in the future” started feeling sadistic after the third story.

Finished edits to a story I’ve been wrestling with for a month. Submitted to two places before I could talk myself into another round of edits. Sometimes, you just have to kick the thing aside so you can move on to the next one. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Great interview with @jordanharper.bsky.social in the NY Times today about A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE and writing really, really bad first drafts. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/b...

So, they weren’t using metal detectors at the doors? How odd. I mean, it’s good enough for school kids.…

Apparently, I’m on some bot target list for old people they think will be likely marks for donating to help fake children and I think they have seriously underestimated how much IDNGAF about most people these days.

Today was not too hot, not too cold. All I needed was a light jacket. #perfectday #april25

What would be the final straw for you, the one that made you decide to walk away from society and live in a shack in the woods? (Why, yes, I’m crowdsourcing ideas for my next writing project. May I pick your brain?)

Dear @bsky.app, Please, please, please enable “turn off reposts by this user.” Sincerely, Everyone

Every writer should read this wonderful article.

Mark your calendar! 🗓️

Took a break from creative writing on a new fiction project to do my day job (which is also writing, but non-fic) and thought I’d be able to pick up where I’d left off. But, no. My brain is out of words.

For a writing project, I researched a very specific, uncommon tumor using a private browser window. Cleared my cookies after work. Today, I’m seeing stories about that type of tumor in my news and Meta feeds, and streaming TV ads for a medication that targets it. I hate surveillance capitalism.

Good morning. Keep writing! ✍🏼

If anyone needs me, I’ll be trying to find all the pieces of my heart and glue them back together after reading Amy Hempel’s story about volunteering in a dog shelter. electricliterature.com/rick-moody-r...

I recently saw a writer comment that they don’t read books in their genre — none — and my head has been hurting ever since.

Used bookstore rule: “If it haunts you, go back and get it.” So I did.

Setting aside the slimy feeling you gave me (the natural result of you feigning interest in a post solely for the setup), consider the utter ridiculousness of asking a writer you don’t know — and who has no idea who you are — to let you see their unpublished work. Sit with that and do better.

What would be the final straw for you, the one that made you decide to walk away from society and live in a shack in the woods? (Why, yes, I’m crowdsourcing ideas for my next writing project. May I pick your brain?)

Just finished writing a story I’ve been fighting with for a month. Absolutely nothing about it is what I thought it would be. What a giddy, terrifying, addictive feeling that is. More, please.

This Is Just To Say I have turned off the AI features that were in the update and which you were probably hoping to monetize Fuck you they were stupid so unnecessary and so annoying

And books. I need books. But private planes? Yachts? More bathrooms than I could use in a day in a compound that could house hundreds comfortably? And they STILL want more? There’s a poverty of the soul that comes with riches. I don’t want that. No one should.

Writers: what story did you read that unlocked your style? The one that, while reading, made you say OOOH, that’s how it’s done. #writers #writingcommunity #reading

“That is how it works.” 👍🏽

Wonderful story from @ellenbirkettmorris.bsky.social. Enjoy!

You can’t fix what you don’t write. Get it on the page. Let it suck. That’s okay! The zero draft is about figuring out what story you’re telling. Every draft after that makes it better.

I was there for a writing class taught by @brandwrites.bsky.social but I may make this a regular hangout. I love my Plaza library branch, but the stacks aren’t as deep and there’s no piano. (Plus, how amazing that they make a public phone available to people!)