Letters from the Homestead: March 2023 🌺
Revisions (of books and life) and a lot of "procrastination beads."
Emily Dickinson called her Amherst home “The Homestead.” I lovingly call my apartment in St. Louis the same thing (although I definitely get out more than Dickinson). This monthly newsletter is my attempt to work through what it feels like to put down roots as a writer in my own Homestead.
Lots of revisions (and knowing when to pause a project)
This has been a month of revisions, both of big writing projects I have on deck and some lifestyle choices. The days are getting longer, so my mind is razzing for more hours at the end of each day, prompted by that (amazing, perfect, please never leave me) lingering sunlight.
I’ve been deep in revisions for my new play Margaret Fuller Magick Show, which is set to have a reading this spring, and I’ve also been fiddling with a novel manuscript that’s now seen two years in the querying trenches. Believe me when I tell you that working as a playwright has been a thousand times more natural to me than trying to publish a novel, probably because playwriting thrives in community; novel-writing, on the other hand, feels solitary. Only you can write the novel, and only you can send the dozens of queries to agents and independent presses to see if they want to work with you.
I’ve had enough full manuscript requests with this novel to encourage me, but no offers of representation. The notes I’ve gotten back are a little contradictory, but, overall, there’s a general critique that the book doesn’t quite know what it wants to be: too much worldbuilding/not enough worldbuilding, prolonged exposition, not enough conflict, slow start, too literary, too science fiction-y, too weird. I hear all of this because it’s true—the book doesn’t know what it wants to be.
After two years (!) of querying this novel, I decided to print the whole thing out and just sit with it for a while. I made big structural changes. I edited for tone. I let the voice of the narration stop being so goddamned serious. And, perhaps most importantly, I examined the manuscript with the eyes of a writer who’s spent the past two years trying to get better.
The manuscript is still very imperfect. I’m still tinkering. But I’m enjoying this re-started revision process, even as I’m inching closer to the end of drafting my second (!) novel manuscript. My intention is to finish this latest pass of revisions, send a few more queries, and then just move on. It’s time to move on. I’m ready to ease forward with other projects and not bog myself down with one manuscript that just can’t seem to find a home. God willing, there will be others.
Can I tell you one thing that’s helped tremendously with all this? Something that has nothing to do with actual writing?
I drastically cut down my coffee drinking.
I got super ambitious and tried to quit cold turkey two weeks ago, which threw my body into serious withdrawals but drove home the very true fact that coffee was literally sustaining me. For reference, I was drinking maybe 3-4 cups of strong coffee a day—prepared in my Moka Pot like an Italian grandma, so you know it has a kick.
When I quit, I spiraled. I don’t remember much of what happened over my 48 hour cleanse. It was miserable.
So, now I’m down to just one cup of coffee a day. And, can I just say, I don’t think I’ve ever felt better in my entire life? Honestly, cutting down my coffee intake has made an even bigger impact on my daily functionality that getting sober did. That just blows my mind.
Anyway, the big dip in my coffee drinking has helped me come to terms with potentially shelving a project that I’ve given so much to. My mind is clear, my energy is back, and I’m able to see that there’s never enough time anyway—might as well move forward.
Beads, beads, and nothing but beads.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but I have one major procrastination habit when it comes to writing. If I’m avoiding a project, my first recourse is to sit down with my “bead box” and make campy beaded bracelets like a twelve-year-old Girl Scout.
I got into “the bead thing” last year when I had Covid and got a little trigger happy with Amazon Prime in my personal quarantine—I ended up buying a bunch of beads, and I’ve been happily making silly bracelets ever since. It’s methodical, repetitive, and random; the beads make no sense because they’re not supposed to make sense. It gives me something to do with my hands when I just can’t write any longer.
I am swimming in them. I mostly give them away. But I thought I’d go a little crazy and be entrepreneurial for a moment. Would you like to buy a (mildly tacky) bracelet? For, like, five bucks?
Well, my friend, now you can. There is a store (!) and everything.
Support my procrastination habits and my work as a writer by buying a bracelet! I will mail them to you in a cute little purple bubble mailer, sealed with love. Only $5 flat!
This is just a fun thing I’ve wanted to do for a while, nothing serious. I mean, the beads are real and money is real and you will receive beads if you buy them from me, but, I swear, if you try to send your beads back because you don’t like them, I will ghost you.
Beads! Procrastination! Support writers!
What I’m reading this month…
Push Off From Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (And Everything Else) by Laura McKowen. A new release in the genre of “quit lit.” I’m loving the book. If you’re looking for a fresh take on early sobriety that is slightly different from AA, then you should pick up this book.
In this House of Brede by Rumer Godden. I re-read this beautiful novel every year. It’s about fictional Benedictine nuns. It’s the kind of book that brings me back to myself each time I read it.
Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection by Julia Cameron. What I appreciate about this installment in Cameron’s “Artist’s Way” series is its emphasis on how sobriety was part of her own creative recovery. This makes a lot of sense to me, especially now that I’m coming up on a year of no alcohol and understand what sobriety does to your mind.
How I made money this month $$$
I believe freelance artists should be more upfront about how they support themselves financially, rather than maintaining the illusion that they are fully supported by their art (they usually aren’t). This is me attempting to live out that principle. So, here are all the ways I brought in money to the Homestead for the month of March.
Writing residency with some very cute middle school girls. I’m helping some local middle school girls write the libretto for an mini-opera with Opera Theatre St. Louis.
Teaching with Prison Performing Arts. I love teaching with PPA. Right now, I’m especially enjoying facilitating our writing workshop.
Facilitating online graduate literature courses. Grading papers, etc.
Paid Substack Subscriptions! Thank you so much to the paid subscribers of this newsletter!
The world is hard these days, but spring always comes.
The news is hard. I know you know that already. I’m trying to remind myself that sending out this odd little newsletter is a small gesture of defiance against the things that offend our souls.
I hope you’re beginning to see spring outside, wherever you are.
Tonight starts a new month.
Yours ever & etc., etc.,
Courtney, Mistress of the Homsetead, and Noble Midge the Cat 🐈⬛
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