tuesday update – Jenny Wren

Tuesday Update – Feeling Fruitful

23 June, 2026

Happy Solstice! My corner of the Pacific Northwest welcomed midsummer with unending days of sunshine and heat advisories. Yes, in some parts of the world 85+ degree weather deserves a heat advisory!

Writing has been going well, but I don’t have very many (interesting) updates.

There’s a new essay over on Medium. If you want to learn the secret of life, you can read about it here (no subscription required).
I completed about 4500 words for The Ragman.

Summer is hard for writing, because I have so many other tasks I must tend to so we can cope with late stage capitalism nonsense. We have also had a few new responsibilities on our plate for this beautiful homestead that we are able to call home, as the owner has been dealing with a few emergencies and we are helping all we can. Thus, although the writing isn’t too difficult, finding the time is.

I have set a personal goal to publish on Medium once weekly(ish), and to keep up with Tuesday updates here on the blog. Otherwise, my limited writing time will be dedicated to churning out around 5,000 words on the Ragman project every week. I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t achieve these goals every week, but I am going to try to stay accountable via this blog.

As for daily life:

Today, Mozy and I bottled the rhubarb wine. It needs to age for six months, so it will be ready to drink around the winter solstice. I foresee breaking open a bottle for the holidays!

We also transferred the cherry wine from the fermenter into a carboy fitted with an airlock. We will rack it again in two months, as cherries need a couple of rackings for clarity. After four months of further fermenting in the carboy, we will bottle it and then age it for one year. Yes, cherry requires a bit more work and time compared to rhubarb. It will be ready in October 2027.

Everything is clean and sterilized, ready for whatever we brew next, I’m not sure what, quite yet, but will update once we decide!

Cherry and strawberry season is also upon us. I spent the morning hulling and slicing 8 lbs of strawberries. They are in the dehydrator. I’m debating on whether or not to make strawberry jam. It is the least popular jam in the house and for gifting, and we still have 10 half-pints left from last year. The dehydrated strawberries are excellent for snacking, and I also use them for making dessert toppings and in baking throughout the winter. I may do some more, if the patch produces more than we are able to enjoy fresh!

As for cherries, right now there are 30 lbs in the fridge in need of pitting and preserving. These will become both cherry jam and pints of plain cherries (for use in pies or simply eating as a side, like one would with canned peaches). I have a couple jars of each left from last summer, but we go through a lot of cherries. Possibly because they are my favorite fruit!

Otherwise, life is quiet. We do the usual chores of a household trying to live minimally off the broken systems that rule our current world. We garden, forage, and tend to the property. We bake bread a couple of times a week, and do it ourselves with found objects as much as we can. We look out for our neighbors, help those whom we can, and commiserate with those whom we can’t.

Life is hard, but that is no reason to compromise on the values that make you a beautiful and unique person. Yes, we all make mistakes and sometimes allow circumstances, rather than what we believe in, guide our choices. I know I do it sometimes. That doesn’t mean we make excuses for it — part of being a part of the solution is accepting responsibility for, or at the very least acknowledging, our mistakes. We simply accept our fallibility and try to do better next time.

Two steps forward and one step back is still progress. We all must do our best, especially when it is hard. The good news is, we don’t have to do it alone. I got you!

Always yours in hope,

Tuesday Update – In the Thick of It

We discovered a dawn redwood seedling in a cage full of weeds. Gonna have to clean that up so the little one can thrive!

I do wish I had more news from the writing front to share this week, but I do not. Okay, a bit of a lie. I reworked about 6,000 words of Ragman into a better form. I was hitting a wall. Not so much a wall, but a stumbling block. The issue? I had three strong characters all vying for the limelight – Ragman, Blue, and Indigo (yes, there is a reason why two characters are named after colors that lie close together on the spectrum, although one character is a mostly human woman and the other is a dog, well, a Grim to be exact). Holy run-on parenthetical, Batman!

Anyway, I worked out the head butting that was occurring with these three so that they can share the stage in a mostly sensible manner, so I hope to start moving forward with the story itself this week. I hope to give a more concrete update next week!

My reading has been all over the place. I am almost finished with TJ Klune’s “In the Lives of Puppets.” Barring something horrible happening in the last couple of chapters, which I am not concerned about because I adore Klune’s work, this will be a whole-hearted recommendation for anyone looking for a bit of queer fantasy lit. I typically describe Klune’s work as pre-hopecore. Why? Because he catches that fleeting bit of time when the dystopia is dying and hope is just about to be sown anew. Klune’s work leaves me heartbroken but hopeful, which is quite powerful since the real world we live in also leaves me heartbroken but overflowing with hope each and every day.

I’ve also been plowing through various bits of non-fiction. I finished my re-read of Mark Boyle’s Moneyless Manifesto, I will finish Live Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies tonight or tomorrow, and I will begin Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics tonight or tomorrow. The first two are recommends, for sure, and the last one likely will be as well. At least for those of my readers that are sick and tired of what the industrial revolution has resulted in, economically speaking.

Seriously – we industrialized just so we can make squishy toys and Pokemon cards? Really? This is why I read hopecore fantasy for relaxation, people!

Finally…FINALLY…we are doing so much work on the property. We dug out a sawmill from 18 wheelbarrow loads of partially composted sawdust. It had been overtaken by blackberries that had rooted in the sawdust (the sawmill sits atop asphalt, so the blackberries couldn’t root any deeper thankfully). We have hauled so much scrap to the brush pile that we may need to build a new one. We also discovered an entire sequoia tree buried underneath blackberries at the foot of our lane. The tree is healthy, and will likely be more so now that it is exposed to the light.

We also found time to start a batch of cherry wine, to dehydrate 15 pounds of rhubarb, to celebrate Mozy’s birthday (my partner), to pass all of my university courses this quarter, tend to the garden, do general (non-clean-up) yard work, work at the bookstore, drink beer and play darts, practice violin, and somehow, miraculously, to sleep.

Summer is both my favorite season and my busiest, which is exactly how it should be!

Go forth in hope, friends!

Tuesday Update — Time Off

I took a week off, simply because we all sometimes need to take a week off. A week off from blogging or publishing an essay doesn’t mean a week off from life, of course. I fit a lot of living into the week, although most of that wasn’t with a pen in hand or in front of a keyboard.

No, my week “off” was spent tending these beautiful 12 acres that we are privileged to share with the owner, our good neighbor and friend. We cleaned up the orchard, so that it can continue to flourish and provide 90 percent of our fruit needs (and desires). We did battle with the blackberry hedges lining the lane before they devoured all.

{Note: I have a deep belief that blackberries will eventually be classified as carnivorous. They envelop and ensnare all who venture too closely to their thorns. As their hapless prey writhes and dies in the bramble, the bodies then decompose and feed the soil, and thus the (carnivorous) blackberry canes can feast.}

We cleaned up areas of our neighbor’s property that he has trouble tending to, because aging is a bitch. We weeded and trimmed, and swept out areas where accumulation tends to, well, accumulate. Much of the debris was organic, with the worst bits going to the brush and mulch pile in the woods, and the best bits going to the compost pile. What wasn’t organic was sorted, cleaned, recycled, or disposed of, as was fitting.

I can look out my window and see the results of our labor. It feels good. This is why I will never be anti-work, although I am anti-pointless work for profit instead of for good sense. There is a difference and there is nuance. It is best that we remember that.

Some of the week was spent on indoor pursuits. I dehydrated a metric ton (slight exaggeration) of rhubarb for snacking and baking. We started a batch of cherry wine. I baked bread, lots of bread. Our daily loaf, of course, along with a standard loaf for grilled sandwiches and lots of buns for summer use. These go in the freezer, a useful contraption. The mending pile is empty, all the socks darned and the seams repaired. I even began working on the gift list items for the latter half of the year!

You see, I spend a lot of time working with my brain, for what it is worth. Sometimes it is better to work with one’s hands. This is the type of week it was, and my hands and body are grateful for the chance to be useful.

Life is for living. Go live it!

As always, yours in hope,

Tuesday Update — Discombobulated

26 May

Remember the change I mentioned last week? It has discombobulated me a bit more than I thought it would. Side note — isn’t discombobulated a simply delicious word? I love it!

Anyway, here I am, a full week in and I made the mistake I always make, I thought I could do everything with a dash of even more. Usually this starts well enough, but ends in flames. I think, maybe, perhaps, I caught this before I exploded into a fiery ball of burn out and exhaustion. How did I do this? I’m taking a day, today in fact, to sit around and restructure my time and to freaking relax.

It’s raining, that pleasant and invigorating rain of early summer. Playing hooky today is also invigorating, as any sort of rebellion tends to be. Wish me luck!

Writing Updates:

No weekly Medium essay this time. This is part of my playing hooky and reassessment of my time usage. I fully expect to be back in fine fettle next week, so I shall deliver an essay then.

My other main writing work has been either for our friend the Ragman, or it has been personal exploratory work as I figure out the shape of my life for the next few months, at least. Not the sort of stuff I share publically, although it is the sort of stuff that future essays are often born of. Think of exploratory writing as the Orion Nebula — a nursery for the future words that will ignite into new stars.

Reading Updates:

I finished rereading Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing. I’m still working through my reread of Mark Boyle’s The Moneyless Manifesto.

In new reads, as in I haven’t read them before, I am chugging away at Sanderson’s Elantris — I adore this book, but it is slow going because it is a heavier epic fantasy with lots of moving parts, and my summer brain isn’t quite up to the work. So a chapter a day, most days, is my limit. Still, read Sanderson if you haven’t. He’s a nice break from the “romantasy” that has taken over and watered down my favorite genre.

Of course, three books isn’t enough, so I also started reading Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest Callenbach. I read his classic Ecotopia years ago, but wasn’t aware that there was a follow up. The suggested reads on openlibrary.org revealed it to me, and lo and behold, it was available to borrow for free!

Survive & Thrive:

Two words for you — rhubarb candy! We have so much rhubarb and it is mainly useful only when heavily sugared in a dessert. True, I like it sliced fine in a slaw, or stewed down as a base for a barbecue sauce or dressing, but its usage is fairly limited.

On a whim, I tossed some sliced rhubarb with some honey and chili powder, then dehydrated it in the electric dehydrator. Oh my! It’s a lovely tart treat with a flavor reminiscent of Mexican chamomile candies and a texture like a gummy bear! A delicious addition to certain rice and wild rice dishes, chicken salad, or any salad really. I even sprinkled some on top of a pesto pizza and it was divine. Anywhere that you would use dried cranberries, raisins, or a bit of tart fruit in a savory dish works well. I imagine it would do really well with pork dishes, too!

The rest has been standard — we transferred the rhubarb wine to a carboy to finish out over the next three weeks, then we shall bottle it. Our next decision is what to get into the fermenting bucket next! I gave all of our herbs a haircut and dried the excess for future use. The beans, peas, lettuce, mustard, and spinach germinated, but my cucumber and zucchini seeds may be too old so I will likely be picking up seedlings somewhere this week.

We had to put netting over the strawberry patch because the squirrels are eating all the leaves! Usually we don’t need to protect them until they start to produce berries. We also tended to a lot of chores. Like weeding around the trees, mainly to remove blackberry vines that tangle around the trunks. We also cleaned the moss and tree debris off our lane. I like how it looks, but that much debris is hard on the asphalt and it can become slick to drive on, so needs must.

There is also the usual weekly stuff I don’t really talk about — making all our meals at home, baking bread, tending the garden, foraging, fixing stuff that breaks, hunting down or making replacements for things that can’t be fixed (and preferably doing this without spending any money), drinking beer on the deck, chatting with neighbors and friends, playing darts, and practicing my fiddle. You know, the stuff of living.

As always, yours in hope,

Tuesday Update – Compromise

A harvest from a year or two ago. Hoping for another abundant summer!

Everything can and will change. It doesn’t matter if it is our own hand that sets change in motion, it can still be a bit discombobulating when it descends with one fell swoop.

I was swooped by change, which I set in motion, on Friday. The swoop came in the form of a job — wage pay — which was something I had hoped to be done with when I left the plant nursery last autumn.

It’s only part time. It is at a bookstore, thankfully. It will eat up some of my writing and living hours. I’m ambivalent, but right now a wage is integral to survival on our own terms.

Wish me luck.

Writing Updates:

My weekly piece on Medium is live. I took it easy this week and simply polished and printed one of the rambling pages from my journal. If you read it, you can see how I tend to organize my thoughts on paper when I think no one will ever read it.

How Can We Opt Out of the System That Is Killing Us All?

Most of my words this week, those not destined for my personal journal at least, went to my friend the Ragman. Literally. He finally stepped out of the shadows fully alive and ready to chat. Over the course of thousands of words, he revealed who he was (mostly), how he was, and even a bit of why he was. Not all of it, of course. A fellow has to keep a bit of his mystery.

He showed me the rules for his universe and introduced me to the web of hope, which stretches out along the Ley lines that connect time and place, moment by moment. I finally understand the world he has been inviting me to see.

I don’t really understand him, but I’m not sure if anyone really can. I’ll share a bit soon, but not yet.

Reading Updates:

I finished Katherine Hibbert’s Free. I will no longer link to it, nor will I give it further press after this. It was an engaging read, but something about it was setting off alarm bells. Perhaps it was the way that she scrounged after money the entire time she was squatting. Perhaps it was her refusal to hold any sort of ideology beyond getting whatever she could for free. Whatever it was, I decided to look up the author.

Ooooh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Seems to me that she is a sell out and traitor of the worst kind. Apparently, her squatting adventure was simply a buildup to launching her own “guardianship”company, which has been in the news for fee/rent-gouging “guardians,” who are basically tenants with absolutely no rights who are “hired” to live in empty properties to keep squatters out. Hired in this case means unpaid. In fact, the guardians pay a fee (rent, if we are honest in our nomenclature) for the privilege of “guarding” the property. I find it sickening.

For nonfiction, I’ve moved on to re-reading two books: The Moneyless Manifesto by Mark Boyle, and Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing. Since I have read these both before, I can already recommend them. Both books have some issues. Boyle’s only issue is that one needs a healthy dose of idealism when reading his words, which is only a problem if the reader lets the idea of perfect get in the way of good enough. The issue with any of the Nearing’s writing is well known, and based off the fact that they glossed over some important details on how they financed the “good life,” but there is still so much good information in there (and I believe their hearts were in the right place), that I still recommend it as foundational reading.

As for nonfiction, I am still working through Sanderson’s Elantris. As I mentioned last week, I am on a nonfiction kick, so I am only reading a chapter or two a day.

Survive & Thrive

Beyond a wage job, we’ve been thriving a bit around here. The rhubarb wine gets siphoned into a demijohn today so that it can start its long ferment.

I’m working through the last of the fruit I canned last summer. A jar of blackberries went into two batches of scones, which I shared with some friends when I attended a get-together at one of their homes last week. I also present these friends with some jars of jam. As for me, I came home with a bottle of nice sparkling wine.

The garden is planted. Unfortunately I didn’t start any seeds this year, since I was unsure how I was going to garden with no existing beds and a deer issue. The procurement of the raised deck beds from the local Buy Nothing group solved the challenge. I planted lettuce, spinach, peas, cucumber, beans, carrots, and zucchini from seed, as I always have luck direct sowing these plants. Our older son’s partner gifted me tomato starts (and I returned the favor with some young raspberry canes and plant pots).

I visited a local grower for the rest, and did well. For minimal cash outlay ($8.71) I was able to get eight cabbage starts, four pepper starts, and 24 onion starts. We already have garlic growing in the raspberry and blueberry beds, as well as a healthy strawberry patch. For herbs we have sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, and tarragon. There are also elderberry and currant bushes, although these are still young and not very productive yet. I’ll expand more next year, but this is a good start.

We are still harvesting nettles and rhubarb, of course. Life is good, with the only thorn being the need for a wage job. That is the cost when one is on rented land, though. As much as I despise it, cash — not effort nor personal worth — is king.

Yours in hope,

Tuesday Update – Writer vs. Sunshine

The woods behind our home are carpeted in Pacific bleeding hearts. It’s much lovelier in person!

These non-stop blue skies are going to ruin the northwest girl. My expectations are being compromised. This may be the first spring that I am longing for rain instead of my usual longing for sunshine!

It is hard to do things indoors when the weather is so fine. Fortunately, there is a lot of work to do outside, too.

Writing Updates:

I have been sinking deeper into a big writing project. That’s right, The Ragman. Blue, Indigo, and the Ragman himself are becoming most insistent about their story being told. Thus, I must oblige!

What does this mean? My short story output and submissions have nearly come to a full halt. I’m even having a bit of trouble focusing on my regular nonfiction essays. Having trouble, but still managing to soldier on a bit!

If you need something to read, I put out an argument against clock-watching, with the help of the neighborhood dads (the jovial cock-robins). You can read Living Life On Robin Time, free of charge, on Medium.

The newsletter has been a tough nut to crack, but I still have this feeling in my bones that it is time to write one. You can read, once again free of charge, about my struggles with the newsletter, Substack, and (un)social media expectations. Read it here: I Don’t Know What I’m Doing On Substack, and I’m Cool With That.

Reading Updates:

Much of my reading is still taken up with that required for class. In that vein, I read an assortment of Phillis Wheatley-Peters’ poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and part of the Decameron.

For pure entertainment, I finished Tress by Brandon Sanderson. This was my intro to Sanderson’s writing, and I must say I will be back for more! I loved the style, particularly of the narrator. It reminded me of the non-Xanth works of Piers Anthony, as well as the Princess Bride, but it was still a perfectly unique work that didn’t feel like it was aspiring to be anything but itself.

Survive & Thrive:

Mowse the kei truck is still in the shop. No word back yet on whether he can be repaired. Fingers crossed, because I would love to begin acting upon the idea I mentioned in last week’s update.

As for surviving and thriving around here, we are doing our best. We spent the weekend building a sunshade for our deck. The goal was to spend no money, and we achieved it! We built it from old lumber (we always stop to pick up lumber, whether it is from a free pile on the curb or lumber that has dropped off along the roadside from a poorly secured load). We did need one piece that we didn’t have, but a neighbor came through for us with just what we needed! I will spend the morning today painting the sunshade frame with leftover paint from past projects.

It’s also the week to put in the garden, so I will be busy between writing, school, and other tasks. Growing your own food, free of the industrial system, is a radical and revolutionary act, so I will find a way to get to it all!

Go forth in hope, my friends,

Tuesday Update: Mobile Creative Third Space Dreams

(Not Mowse, but similar) Photo by Julia Volk on Pexels.com

We had our first unbroken week of fine spring weather here in the perpetually damp Northwest. For those not privy to the PNW mindset, lots of sunlight makes us a bit crazy. We know that it will never last, so we run outside to soak up as much of it as possible.

Here on the little homestead, this meant lots of weeding and outdoor projects. We managed to sand down and repaint our entire deck, as well. This, of course, meant we had to host a bonfire and cookout. We also attended a bonfire that friends hosted.

Why yes, I do smell perpetually like a campfire. Why do you ask?

It also means that I am behind on my usual writing output. Life is lived, and sometimes the living of it leaves little time for writing about it!

Writing Updates:

Some work was put in on the novel project (working title “Ragman”). I’m still playing around with characters and plot, so most of this work went towards character development, but I also wrote a few sample scenes so that I could start to get a better feel for how all the pieces will work together.

I’ve outlined and begun a few essays, which will be hitting Medium and Substack next week.

Reading Updates:

Spending time working outside also means I slowed down on reading a bit this week.

I am still working my way through “Tress” and “The Future Is Degrowth.”

I also finished “The Way Home” by Mark Boyle. I reread this book every six months or so. It’s a comfort tool at this point. It is also an inspiration, because although I don’t want to live exactly like Mark, I do wish to emulate many of his choices in my own ways. This is Mark’s last public work, which he wrote in a note with a pencil after he decided to follow a life without wasteful modern tech. He contrasts his journey against the Blasket Islanders, a group of people in Ireland that lived cut off from the modern world in many ways until they were forced to evacuate their homes in the 1950s. I consider this book one of the great inspirational works in my life, so of course I recommend it!

Survive & Thrive:

It’s hard not to thrive when the sun is dealing out photons like candy. Vitamin D is my favorite drug!

My thoughts have turned towards finding more ways to cope within the confines of a capitalistic system that doesn’t value, well, anything of true worth. Unfortunately, the system is set up in such a way that fully eschewing it and remaining part of community is difficult. So, I constantly seek ways to live between the lines of capitalism and to thrive within its margins.

I’m playing with a brainstorm right now. I have a little Japanese Kei truck named Mowse. This used to be my work truck when I was gardening, but the economy and my failing rotator cuff is only going to allow me to work for a couple of regular clients going forward.

What to do with Mowse?

I’m still noodling, but here is my idea. What if Mowse stands for Mobile Outreach Wonder SpacE? And, what if this mobile space showed up at local parks or other public areas, similar to an ice cream truck. But, instead of ice cream, what if this space set up an arts and crafts table, where kids and adults could come and create something beautiful and happy, together? What if this space was actually a mobile third space, free of charge, for people to gather and create an impromptu (and, even, perhaps, a lasting) community?

Yes? Yes!

We’ll make books from recycled items, share poetry, have music jams, create art from what is available, read stories to young and the young at heart, and teach the kids and the kids at heart new ways to make, well, anything!

Maybe we’ll add some display racks to the back of Mowse. Sell some art and writing, but not really sell. Suggested price, sure, but I imagine a “pay what you can” model, especially since most of our creations in this household take time but very little money since we scavenge nearly everything we have. I’m not aiming to make money, so much as making sure we can continue to provide art and words and craft and community to everyone!

Things are hard out there. We gotta make it better.

As always, go forth in hope!

Tuesday Update – Spring Is Springing

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

Folks, it happened. Spring arrived in a torrent of sunshine and 70 degree days. The green haze that was buzzing around the trees suddenly erupted into actual leaves. Flowers are blooming, weeds are invading the garden beds, and the insects are back.

A mating pair of ravens has moved into one of the sequoias. I can see the tree from my desk, and all day, every day, two ravens take turns sitting and hunting. Whether there are chicks yet or just eggs, I do not know. I do know that both of them took a break from the nest yesterday to catch the air currents above their tree. I watched them swirling higher and higher, in a perfectly choreographed dance, before they lazily floated back down to only start the climb over again.

Ah, to be a raven on a perfect spring afternoon!

Writing updates:

I wrote 12,482 words last week. These consisted of:

“The Daily Ramble”: 4,128 words.

This is what I call my daily free writing practice, which is where the seeds of many of my story ideas first take root. Normally, the ramble’s word count is a bit higher, but I took a couple of days off because I could.

Medium: 1153 words. “Hope Is Collaborative.” Go ahead, you know you want to read it. There’s no paywall!

Cunning Creatures: 1050 words. “Can Creatives Change the Systems That Destroy Us?” This weekly newsletter is free, so please subscribe!

The balance was written on various other projects, primarily fiction. I didn’t make any submissions this week nor did I hear back from any submissions I have out. It’s like that sometimes!

Reading Notes:

I finished the second book in Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot duology, “A Prayer for the Crown Shy.” These books encompass a vision of the future that I desperately hope we have a chance of realizing. Sure, it’s fiction written about a fictional civilization on a fictional moon, but it is still a vision of hope for me!

I am currently reading:

“Tress of the Emerald Sea” by Brandon Sanderson. This is my first introduction to Sanderson’s writing, and I am enjoying it. I’m about five chapters in, and I expect this to be a quick read because it has a nice pacing to it.

“The Future Is Degrowth” by Schmelzer, Vetter, and Vansintjan. I am reading this for a book club, but I am also deeply invested in what the authors are presenting. I hope to share many, many thoughts on this in the coming weeks. Right now, I am only one chapter in.

Survive & Thrive:

Spring makes me think of food, mainly growing and foraging it. I don’t believe that artists should be starving, and I feel that securing good food for ourselves should be part of our individual creative manifestos.

This week, Mozy and I built four raised garden beds. I scavenged these beds from a local Buy Nothing group. They are the nice deck-style beds that have legs and a shelf beneath them. The gentleman who was giving them away also gave me a can of cedar garden bed oil.

So Mozy and I carefully cleaned, sanded, and re-oiled each board before reassembling the beds on Friday. Our neighbor/landlord offered us a bunch of garden soil he had in his shed, which he is cleaning out, so between that and the compost pile I set up last year, we won’t need soil. We shall have a free garden on the deck, which is protected from the deer.

This means free food. We also take care of the neighbor’s orchard and can pick all the fruit we want. Our yard features a blackberry hedge, and I helped someone divide their raspberries last year in exchange for the excess canes, so we have those to look forward to, as well. There are also blueberries, artichokes, and strawberries that we put in last year, from plants scavenged from a big box store’s composter. I won’t even get into all the herbs I have in pots and growing in the ground.

Last fall, I stuck a few garlic cloves into the ground. Soon I will be harvesting the scapes for stir-fry, then after that I can harvest the bulbs. I noticed nettles poking up in the wet area of the property, which means it’s time to harvest a bunch for soup, pesto, and tea. Bigleaf maple blossoms are also popping, and we use these to make lovely little pancake-like fritters.

I could spend this time on social media, but it is better used outside growing and finding food. Social media doesn’t inspire my creativity, but digging into the dirt and watching a leaf slowly unfurl does. Plus, it ensures we can survive and thrive on our pauper’s budget.

Go forth in hope, Friends!

Tuesday Update – Stepping Over a Wall

We aren’t stuck. We are waiting for beauty to grow. Photo by The Daphne Lens on Pexels.com

Sometimes we hit a wall. Fortunately, walls come in all sorts. Most start out small – a retaining wall that you may be tempted to step over, or a rickety wooden wall you can kick down. The problem is, you keep stepping and kicking and eventually that wall is going to get taller and stronger. Next thing you know you are banging your head against a concrete monstrosity with its top lost in the clouds.

Don’t turn small walls into big walls. Sit down on the retaining wall, lean against that wooden fence. Find a way to take a small break, and the wall will crumble on its own.

That’s where I ended up last week, with a low wall to stumble over. I expected it – I just started a new schedule, after all. So I sat down. I let a few things slide off my plate. Some I let go of entirely, others I postponed. It’s a new week. I’m refreshed. That wall? It was just a few rocks, after a rest they scattered on their own and I’m able to go on again.

Writing Updates:

I submitted a grand total of nothing last week, because I had to respect the wall and rest.

I didn’t hear back on any of the subs I have out, but glancing at my spreadsheet I can see that I probably won’t hear anything back for at least a week or two. That’s cool. Writing is a waiting game and there is little room for the impatient.

Two new non-fiction pieces hit:

Blooming Late Doesn’t Mean It’s Never Too Late.

~ and ~

Death Is the Deadline

Let me know what you think!

Reading Notes:

I’m working through a couple of books right now, but I only finished one:

“1000 Words” by Jami Attenberg Another great book on writing. This began as a project on Attenberg’s Craft Talk newsletter over on Substack (a great newsletter, I recommend subscribing). The book consists of essays, by Attenberg and a collection of other writers, that focus on the act of sitting down and getting the writing done. Not every essay hit home with me, but enough did that I would definitely recommend this.

Survive & Thrive:

I know, surviving, let alone thriving, feels problematic in the world we are living in right now. We are in a situation where the cost of housing takes over two-thirds of our income, and we have a killer deal that is well below the low-end average rental costs in our county.

Spring makes it easier, though. So do other people. There’s been an explosion this year of people throwing together simple, free events for themselves and strangers. Nothing crazy, nothing high energy. Things I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen since well before the pandemic:

Stranger picnics – calls to anyone and everyone to come down to a park for pickup games of horseshoes, frisbee, basketball, etc. Bring your own picnic, along with something to share if you like.
Silent <fill in the blank>. There have been silent discos where you come and dance in a public place with a bunch of other people that are listening to whatever is on their headphones. Another common one is the silent book club, where you simply show up somewhere and read whatever you want with other people. In both cases, you can stick around afterward to mingle and talk. What a wonderful way to foster community without the need for economic investment.
Group walks, group rides, group runs – that aren’t part of some charity or corporate event that requires registration fees or other costs. Just show up and participate.
Community sharers. I wasn’t sure what to call this. Generally, it’s people sharing their joy without trying to monetize it. There’s a guy that blows huge bubbles on the beach, and he invites young and old alike to try it out with his home built bubble wants. There’s a group of space enthusiasts (my son is one of them) who drag their telescopes to public places and invite all to look through the eye piece. Impromptu gatherings spring up around these people. Friends are made. Money never changes hands.

We are people, and we are also creatives. We need community to survive and to thrive. The corporatocracy has tried to convince us that there is no community without an entrance fee. They are wrong. Third places still exist, we just have to make them ourselves. We’ve spent too long depending on businesses to give us our third places, then complaining when we can’t afford it.

Make your own third space, or become a part of a third space someone else is building. All you need are flyers, or a social media post, or a community thread on something like Reddit.

Thrive. It will help you survive.

Go forth in hope, Friends!

Tuesday Update – Another Trip Around the Sun

I’ve made another full revolution around the sun! Last Friday, I celebrated my birthday by simply turning another year older. There were also some meals with loved ones, gifts, a bit of beer, and perhaps a few more fun things. These, obviously, were unimportant compared to the arrival of an AARP envelope welcoming me into “being damned old enough to belong to the American Association of Retired Persons.”

HAH! Joke’s on them, I’m a writer and an American citizen, so I will never be able to retire!

Oh. Ugh….

Ah, well, onward and upward! At least the skies have been blue, and temperatures have left the arctic zone (for me, that means it is 60 F outside instead of 45 F). Shorts and beer garden weather, which is why it is my favorite time of year.

Writing Updates

I don’t want to say it was an unproductive week, although looking at my spreadsheet, it appears less productive than past weeks. I have a good reason for that, though.

I’ve mentioned before that I do a timed writing prompt every morning as a warm-up exercise. Well, over the course of several days, my prompt writing began to link together. Not a huge thing, this happens, and often, I get a full-length short story out of the prompt writing.

This was a bit different. I’ve put a novel idea, which I call Ragman, on the back burner to cook a bit until summer break, when I expect to have time to give it the attention it deserves.

Apparently, Ragman is not very patient, though. Three mornings in a row, Ragman kept creeping into my morning warmup with new characters and directions. Things I hadn’t even had on my radar. Does this mean I need to start focusing on Ragman now, while still in the thick of the university season?

Perhaps. Perhaps…

That is not to say I was completely not hitting my goals! I finished revising “Dendrolatry” and have sent it out into the world. Two submissions this week, but planning a few more over the coming weeks as submission windows open at a few places.

I received a rejection for “From Little Mice.” It was a nice rejection, not rude at all, from the journal Hearth Stories. I also received a rejection from Jeopardy for the flash story “Myths of Each Other.” Also, a nice rejection, but I also know the editor personally, so perhaps they felt they had to be nice. I jest! Plus, I have two more stories submitted to that publication (with different editors, though), so they may still accept something.

Published this week is “Is It Capitalism, or the New Feudalism?” over on Medium. (Free read friend link below, share it wide and far!) It’s an exploration of how we can create room for creating and creative thought in the system where we currently find ourselves.

Reading Notes

I finished Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers and have moved on to the second book, Prayer for the Crown Shy. I went into these books knowing I would love them. I love every single thing that Chambers writes, from now until forever. I love how she plays with the idea of gender and speciesism and nonbinary/nondualistic love.

What I didn’t expect was how much I was going to specifically love these two books. They are library books, soon they will be my books because I placed them on order at my local independent bookstore (you know I am not ordering them from some online retailer). I see myself carrying these books in my bag, just so I can read a passage or chapter whenever I am sad, confused, or need some inspiration.

These books are that good. Go read them.

I also finished Laura Goode’s Pitch Craft. Another excellent book, for different reasons, obviously. Goode does an excellent job breaking down the state of the writing and publishing world as it is right now. Most of the craft books I find on the publishing industry are woefully out of date or have put all of the eggs into the self-publishing basket. Pitch Craft is both up to date and it is an engaging read. I rarely read books like this cover to cover, but I did this one. It’s another one that I am adding to my reference) bookshelf.

The sun is still shining. If you are familiar with the PNW in April, you are also aware that this may change at any moment, and it will once again be cold and rainy. Thus, I am going to find a beer garden to sit in so I can soak up the sun, people-watch, and get back to the business of writing.

As always, go forth in hope, Friends!