Hello!
We have a lot of new folks now, thank you for being here, and welcome to our small community!
In the past couple of editions, I showed up although I didn’t want to. Instead of painting my sorrow with broad strokes of optimism, I painted it as it was - leaning into my feeling of sadness without glamorizing it or looking for meaning. For this month’s introduction, I wanted to write about glimmer, and how I no longer see a point in looking for glimmer, and that much like everything else, ‘looking for glimmer’ is also overrated and we would most likely find another trend to replace it with. And it is during times like these that I am grateful to be home. Times when I am forced to interact with people, and not live inside my head, which has been a hostile place. Midway through the month, I increased this interaction to include people outside, which made me feel better. The world may not be a nice place, but thanks to some people, it makes it easier to get by.
Reading Corner
“Acts of God” is a hilarious debut novel by Kanan Gill, but not one of the easiest things to pick up and begin reading. In his own words, the book comes, “pre-skimmed” and expects you to sit through it for the initial chapters where we understand what this world is all about. KG creates a futuristic Utopian world, and instead of introducing the rules of this world, he allows us to get acquainted with this world first at our own sweet pace. There were multiple occasions when I thought to myself, “What is going on?!” with irritation because the narrative switched POVs often and it was hard for me to keep up. It paid off sweet dividends as I progressed. Because right in the middle, we understand why it is called ‘Acts of God’, as we overhear conversations between characters who explain ‘simulations’ and all the ‘logs’. It was also an enjoyable read because there were portions when I couldn’t help but read it in Kanan’s voice ( “I am the narrator. Hi! The wall”). Some questions make you ponder- if you were given the powers of a God, how far would you go to use them?
Writing Corner
No new story/poem appearing in this month’s edition because a) your girl is neck deep in uncovering the plots of her novel b) because she wasn’t spinning off enough stories in her head, she has taken on another writing Short Story Project to keep herself sane.
Maybe this section of the newsletter could be where I write about my writing struggles, maybe it can be a BTS of the writing process. My only skepticism in pursuing it is that I don’t want to come off as boastful. Sometimes when you read about how people talk about their process, it comes off as overtly boastful, and also the internet is saturated with stories of struggle.Oh, the never-ending conundrums, sigh!
Learning Corner
Lounge Corner
I had to find the source of this trending song!