Anyway. My daffodils are good.

When a writer says, "I work from 9-5," I imagine them glued to the chair, typing the whole time, and that NONE of it involves goofing off, staring blankly at a wall, or that some of that work is a long walk, or gardening, or reading things. Actual clarity about the process 2026.

"To the Writing Dungeon," she yelled, before falling through a trapdoor, only to land an oubliette of terrible prose.

In good things: The carpenter bees I've been allowing to eat a bench have been absolutely losing their little bee minds over my peach tree blossoms, and the ground bees are both active and plentiful. STUFF IS GONNA HAPPEN!

I mean, yeah. One silly little video with my voice talking over stills my books got more engagement than actual praise from professional critics. I hate that. Did it move books? Probably not! While it's not a requirement, video & social are now part of "being a good partner to your publisher."

Philly writer friends, do the thing! 👇

I have to thin the sprouts in Wee Baby Greenhouse. This means my bunny gets to feast on microgreens like the bougie little beast she is.

I made a reel of my books over 11 years and people are being so nice to me that I need to dig a hole and crawl into it.

Having sufficiently marinated my brain in New Wave, it is now time to listen to ambient atmospheres while misery typing. (Writers DO in fact love writing; complaining about it is one of the more emotionally satisfying parts of the process.)

Kelly Link for a song? Yes, please.

Logged in for my daily medicinal dose of cute baby animals only to see a burly British fellow elbow-deep in a sheep. Lambing season strikes again.

Long Island HOA emails are a whole mood.

17 hours later and I'm still thinking about the trumpet player who flopped his featured song so hard it cleared out half the room.

Ugh. This WEEK. Gen X trauma everywhere. People being rancid about other people's limitations (not in any way separating them from personal dislike). Nuclear war stress. Mad King stress. *REALLY* bad trumpet player. All signs I shouldn't have ditched my pink hair. It was load bearing.

Today!

A good read. Also, re: characters leaving, etc. One of the few constants as the partner of someone who's gone through medical residency is that you're *always* helping someone move.

*lets out breath* ❤️🚀

I've had a DAY. So you get a daffodil. 🏵🌱

I'd guess I'd wanna make very sure that my personal dislike of a public person (or writer) was really *really* separate in my posts from any shade on mental health disorders and invisible illnesses.

Palm Springs peeps! I'm doing an event on Tuesday April 14 from 10:30am-12:00pm at the Welwood Murray Memorial Library in downtown PS. I'll be sharing some stories, reading from The Island of Last Things, and signing books. Come and say hi! #booksky 💙📚 www.palmspringsca.gov/Home/Compone...

your three-bun moment of calm

Anyway. Muting that post. Again, no experience is universal, especially in publishing.

*tiny whisper* I'm supposed to make an unboxing video or some sort of video about my paperback. It's caused me a mental hiccup because I hate everything about publishing that requires authors to make their own videos. My skin is thin when it comes to my appearance, which is part of why I'm a writer.

I had to look up what this "mantasy" thing was about and... Welp. There goes my last brain cell.

ICYMI! 🖊️ 📖 anovelideaphilly.com/book-list/

Once more!!

If you're old enough to remember the '80s a *lot* of real bad stress and grief echos likely resurfaced in these past weeks. It's wild to come all of that agian, topsy-turvy, and this many years out.

Are you a writer in Philly? Check this out!

Hello, yes, I have this and it's VERY good and you need it, especially if you've ever had a headache, or experienced grief, or both, perhaps even at the same time.

Fill your shelves with great stuff. It would be lovely if you picked up the paperback for We Lived on the Horizon, which hits on 4/21. It's about revolution, humanity, aging, altruism, and what a moral life is in interesting times. www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Liv...

Glad to be able to postpone calling all my people to tell them I love them, except for that ONE person who knows who they are and what they did and they don't get the Thermonuclear Armageddon pass because I plan on still being petty when I die.

Update: Despite the harsh winter, there may yet be peaches.

OK. Well. I'm off to plant seeds for leafy greens in my tiny greenhouse, then do some writing. Acts of hope or something. None of us should know that man's every thought, not when we personally can't do anything meaningful about it. Love you all.

Billionaires wrecked my love of space exploration. As that fifth grade girl who gave a class talk about the Hubble, that was heartbreaking. Artemis II, its crew, and everyone behind it brought it back. Small groups of us doing big, frightening things really do lean towards curiosity and love.

Have recently discovered that 2 pages in this notebook comes out to ~1500 words because my handwriting is tiny. Related: I am much deeper into this draft than I thought. Also related: Eye strain.

Time to appreciate how much fall me did for spring me. 🏵🌱

My entire approach to writing novels is basically slow art. I support this. ❤️

The matzah has been made. It's... still matzah. Now to stuff myself on secular chocolate.

👇

Love to see absolutely evil/ludicrous posts from that guy, posts about which I personally can do nothing other than yell at my reps. Best way to start the day. Love that oily feeling of dread. Social media = the besssssst

The husband-like appendage will be making matzah today. I will engage in a fully secular hunt through the living room for chocolate bunnies. We get by.

Paz rocks. Do the thing. 👇

Just changed out the exhaust vent on my dryer. I am a SPREMELY capable human, unstoppable even, and you should all bow down before me.

INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK!

When I say Mochi is about the size of a loaf of bread, my data is good.

I mean, I dunno about you, but I don't often click like on depressing or enraging things. Which, means These Unprecedented Times probably look kinda bad on the old interaction-platform-viability-likey-clicky-woo-meter

"If you read nothing else in this post, please read this: Whatever you prompt in a chatbot, you publish via that chatbot. If you feed an unpublished novel into ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, you have effectively published that novel." ai-humanist.beehiiv.com/p/please-und...

Yet another day in which Waffle House teleportation eludes me.

Love that I was on the Waffle House teleportation beat 2 weeks before the NYT. 😎

Okay, but the Waffle House teleportation conditions are that: A. you must be in great need B. you have to stand in a fairy ring C. the creek did rise D. you named your firstborn Scattered Smothered Covered E. you're carrying a travel visa from the International Pancake Council