📚Journals and News 🎊 (Patreon)

Hey hey, Everyone ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶ How are you all holding up? Does anyone have any good news to share? Bad news we can commiserate with? Need a hug? I'm here👐 (<--creepy hands, sorry).

I got a nice email I think I can secretly share. It involves the above photo. I may have hinted at it a couple posts ago. It's one pm and I just realized I forgot to drink my coffee, so you can't depend on me to remember much.

So here I am, going through my very own Saiō ga Uma story. Good thing, bad thing, good thing, bad thing. And mostly I'm just trying to get back in touch with my more meditative, aware self. My more "Ah, let's just stay calm and pay close attention to how all this plays out" self. And not my "Oh my GAWD if I don't fix this right NOW the world's going to end" self. #mixedresults

Every morning I wake and go say hi to the sunrise and the crows, sometimes a couple bats who are dawdling on their way home. Then I read an entry from 365 Tao: Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao along with other things throughout the day to help me vibe better with the beat of the Universe. So hard not to spiral down after reading any news at all.

Anyway. I'm keeping two journals.

[Lordy, do I love notebooks and any kind of writing instrument.]

The two pretty journals are:

The bottom bigger one is the everything journal, brilliant thoughts, To Do Lists, sketches of Richard sleeping with his phone pressed against his nose, story ideas, twigs my crows bring me, letters and postcards I get from people. It's a hunker and receptacle of All.

I also kind of have Julian Cameron's Morning Pages idea going here. Just write, write, write. Just looked and there are a lot of videos about Morning Pages, but also her book The Artist's Way is worth reading, too, I think.

The smaller one is divided into very short entries. One page has three days on it. I think it's a three-year diary. But I use that for my Homework for life by Mathew Dicks. I highly recommend listening to or reading him if you're a storyteller. Basically, you find the story material in your everyday life and jot it down. But he really captures the way a writer thinks all the time and how it can work for non writers, too. Fun guy.

I do that + noting any synchronicities that have happened during the day. This one is definitely not going to last three years. I think keeping track of synchronicities is kind of mind blowing. It's amazing how many we forget, simply because something small but incredible happens, we notice it, are impressed by it, ... then the next thing happens to pull our attention away and *poof*. That little nudge from the Universe is gone.

Where am I going with this?

Oh! News!

I pitched an idea to my editor. It was quite the long shot, not something this particular imprint does (fiction), but some back and forth, some sample chapters with a touch of commentary, enthusiasm on her end, but impossible deadline (again). It's really hard for me to stand my ground on things like this, but I did (for health both mental and physical reasons) and even though that made it a bigger long shot (they're quick on the turnaround from signing to publishing), the team really liked the idea and the sample chapters, and said they were fine with the longer deadline. Lotsa details to be worked out, but I got the green light to start working on it.

*Waving my hands woo-woo-like around the air*

(without saying too much)

This is one of my dream projects, writing my own retellings and re-imaginings of some of the lesser known yōkai and ghosts of Japan. The stories won't be very long and will all be dark to horror-themed and will have a short commentary by me. Also, each one will be illustrated. I'm not sure by whom, but maybe Michelle Wang who did the oracle cards and folklore book.

I am so ready to dig deep into these more obscure creatures and learn everything I can and then assemble all that into Story. I think it's about time for fresh tales and over the moon-elated to spend the next (almost) year doing this.

Which brings me to the topper-most photo. I ordered two notebooks for the journey.

The green one is lined and I'll keep track of all my research and outlining and writing story ideas there. It'll be messy.

The black one (I'll tape something cool and horror-esque on it like my teenage-self would have done) is a sketchbook. Here I want to channel my inner Guillermo del Toro (be still my heart...I love that man💕) and keep sketches and drawings.

From his Cabinet of Curiosities sketchbooks

Correction: Looking at it now. I think I'll keep my research along with the drawings in the sketchbook and the lined one will just be for long handing the stories.

Why so analogue? Because I love the process of writing pen on a paper and sketching and doodling and water painting and also f%ck ai.

I do have a public post I want to make about my loathing of it and what's happened, happening, will happen regarding ai, but I'm trying to condense all the emotions. I think my take is a little unique, as Richard introduced me waaaaay at the beginning and during the Uncanny Robot phase we were still being told they were only using in the public domain materials. Things went off the rails quickly. That's another horror story for another day.

Today I just wish all of you the ✨very best, big hugs, and protecting energy to keep you safe✨.

The next UJ episode is almost ready to put up here (ad free). I'm working on the video today. It'll go out via all the other platforms this coming Tuesday.

Have a creative and joyful week, XO, I'll be back here soon ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

t