Letters from the Homestead: November 2022
Early darkness, being a Grinch, and a novel-writing update...
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.
Dealing with the shorter days…
The time change shocked me this year. My circadian rhythm was bungled by the newly dark days and “time” finally felt like the construct it is. I would fall asleep for a late afternoon nap around 3 pm and wake to darkness, my sleepy eyes never really recovering.
When I worked as a professor who had a daily commute, these shorter days were especially bad. My carpool group would hop in the car at 3:30 pm to head back to St. Louis, and we’d watch the sun go down on our ride home. It was usually dark by the time we walked in our front doors. The early darkness made me feel like I’d given over the entirety of my day to work, even though it was realistically about 6-7 hours. I hated it.
Working primarily from home, I feel the short days even more precisely. I spend all day with a window in front of me, and I can tell you precisely how the seasons change on my block. Just yesterday, the Silver Maple in front of my apartment finally dropped the last of its leaves. The dark-eyed juncos returned last week. The winter season is officially here.
I’m trying to do a few new things this year to help me cope. It’s not that I completely despise the dark days; it’s just that I need a little extra help adjusting.
Here’s what I’ve been trying:
Dollar store candles. Okay, so Dollar Tree is now a $1.25 store (the treachery! inflation!), but the cheapest and sturdiest candles around are still at the dollar store. I buy big batches of the glass pillar candles used in churches (sometimes called saints candles), and I light them as soon as the sun goes down. They last for a long while, and they are cheap enough that I don’t feel precious about burning them.
Five O’Clock Coffee. You may not do well with late afternoon caffeine, but it’s essential for me this time of year. I use this ritual to mark the break in my day. It helps me catch a second wind so I can treat the “night” as part of my day. Oreos are involved.
Trying to become a “night person.” I sleep in a little later in the morning so I can be mostly awake at night. There’s a lot to do in the evenings, even with the sun down! I’m also trying to get myself out more in the evenings, rather than hibernating like the hobbit I am.

Trying to finish a new novel while still querying another…
If you’ve been reading Letters from the Homestead for a while now (she’s 2+ years old!), then you know that I wrote my first “real” novel during the pandemic. I’ve been querying her for a whole year and a half—with no luck. The flip side of my bad fiction luck is that my playwriting work has been going really well. I’m finally beginning to feel established as a playwright in my city, and it continues to be my dominant medium as a writer.
But, alas, I have yet to break into literary fiction, even though I pay many of my bills by writing very non-literary romance novels under a pseudonym. 😂
That’s okay. I’m a full-time writer, and rejection is part of the game. I literally get 1-3 rejections per week for all the opportunities I submit to, mostly from literary agents I’ve queried but also from presses. The novel I’ve been querying is a Southern Gothic, literary-speculative manuscript. It’s like if Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower was more southern and more queer. I’m proud of it. I’m not giving up on it yet. I’ve gone through a couple of different titles for it, but these days I’m querying it as The Feeling of Health (a line from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass).
I made a promise to myself that I would start writing a new novel while I queried this one. It’s helped me keep moving, and it’s driven home the reality that a writer is a person who writes, not someone who sits around waiting for query replies. The new novel is past its halfway point, inching its way to completion. My goal is to finish it during the post-Christmas haze—my favorite time of year. This new one’s working title is The Children of Pope Joan.
I may not be having much success right now with novel writing, but I do love it. It’s given me insight into my own “flood subjects,” as Emily Dickinson called it, and the slowness of it all is unexpectedly intoxicating.
On not being a “Christmas Person”…
I’m a Grinch. I don’t care.
During Advent, I do some cozy things, like putting up a tree and listening to the Six Pence None the Richer Christmas album, but I prefer to be a no-frills holiday person. The commercialism and the Christmas muzak grate on me, and the whole season generally brings up memories of a lot of bad married Christmases where I couldn’t make anyone happy.
My favorite Christmas in recent memory? Christmas 2020. I stayed home with a partner, made french toast, and watched It’s a Wonderful Life. Maybe we played a little Scrabble? I hardly remember because the whole day was so chill and unremarkable—and I loved it.
I’d say my favorite part of being an unmarried adult woman is doing whatever the hell I want during the holidays. I still make time to see my family, but I take real pleasure in taking things easy. No big expectations. No craziness. No drama. No insane daily itineraries that accommodate everyone.
If you are also a bit of a Grinch, I stand in solidarity with you.
What I’m reading this month…
The High Sierra: A Love Story by Kim Stanley Robinson. I don’t really know anything about mountains, but now I can tell you what a pluton and a batholith are, and that feels notable.
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. The St. Louis Science Center recently hosted a Jane Goodall exhibition, so once again I made Jane Goodall my entire personality. I like that she refers to herself as a “naturalist” and not a scientist. The openness of this term resonates with me so much.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (with Camille Kingsolver and Steven Hopp). I read this book in graduate school when it seemed like everyone (including myself) got swept up in the fad diets of the 2010s: paleo, keto, zero grains, etc. It was refreshing then and it’s refreshing now. In the new year, one of my resolutions is to think more critically about where my food is coming from and adjust accordingly.
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 November.
Online graduate literature teaching/facilitating. I’d say I grade four papers about The Awakening every week and ten on Jane Eyre. This is great remote work for my academic background, and I’m grateful to have it.
Writing graduate courses for an education company. Another great gig for a recovering academic. Right now, I’m writing a new graduate course about literary analysis for secondary educators.
Teaching artist work through Prison Performing Arts. This month, I’ve been working through writing from incarcerated artists as the foundation for a new play. I’ve also started facilitating a new writing workshop for PPA Alumni and local writers.
Paid Substack subscriptions! Thank you to all my paid subscribers of Letters from the Homestead. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber (!), scroll to the bottom of this email for more info.
Cheers to you in the darkest days of the year.
I had a very relaxed Thanksgiving holiday, and I’m settling in now for a slow Advent season. I’m also mourning the loss of my Granny, who passed away early this month. She was an icon, and one of my intentions for this season is to actively honor her legacy of hospitality and independence.
Tonight starts a new month.
Yours ever & etc., etc.,
Courtney, Mistress of the Homestead, and Midge 🐈⬛