Quick rejections > late acceptances
Soft Hobbies #4: What I read, wrote, and made this week
Hi softies, you’ve reached this week’s checkpoint!
It’s been a rough week, but I believe good things are coming for me soon — and I’m believing that because I feel I have to. I’ve never understood the phrase “just have faith” because I’m not religious, but I think I’ve started to understand it more in the past few weeks. Believing in something, channeling your willpower and attention into it, “manifesting” etc. can all be powerful tools for changing your situation. But even if they don’t change your situation, they can at least help with your mindset and emotions around what you’re dealing with.
I feel like I have to make the choice to have faith, because if I don’t believe in the future and hope for better things, the alternative is to feel hopeless and lost. I have been trying to break out of binary modes of thinking like this for about three years, but it is definitely a lifelong process.
Here’s what I got up to this week.
3 things I'm reading:
Finished my copy of Circe! It’s eminently readable and I devoured it. It’s also the most beautiful book I own (see video below).
Started Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez, read about 100 pages (my threshold for a book I don’t like), and immediately returned it to the library. Ugh, I wanted to like this one because I read the author’s interview on The Creative Independent and was intrigued by the premise. But I can’t get over the way she writes dialogue…it’s just not how real people talk to each other at all. When I read literary fiction with a modern setting I need the characters to speak in a believable way, otherwise I’m annoyed. I don’t have this limitation with other genres because dialogue realism can often matter less in other genres, or be more easily stylized.
Reading an episode companion guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s so great. I bought this guide and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine companion guide (which is gigantic and harder to find). Both are essential if you’re a hardcore fan who loves knowing about the folks behind-the-scenes, easter eggs, and random trivia. My boyfriend and I happen to be two such freaks, so we’re delighted by every page.
3 things I'm writing:
Submitted a nonfiction piece and got the fastest rejection of my life (4 hours!). The editor was very kind about my writing and offered some feedback, but overall my piece wasn’t right for the publication.
Been writing a lot of cover letters, outreach emails, and resume/LinkedIn updates for my ongoing job search :|
This newsletter. Lol.
3 soft hobbies:
Did some watercolor on Sunday for about an hour! Just slapping paint and water on paper, honestly. Then I wrote “dinner list” on a painted page and wrote down all the meals that Ethan and I like to make for dinner, so we don’t forget our options in a time of great hunger.
I go for a walk every day for at least 20 minutes, usually in the afternoon. Here’s a neighborhood crow with a ton of grass in its mouth.
So…I have an “oyster guy” now? Hahaha. Basically, I wanted to learn how to shuck my own oysters, since I love eating them and they’re suuuper expensive at most restaurants in Seattle. So I got the idea in my head to find a direct supplier for buying oysters in bulk. I called the number on a sandwich board in front of a restaurant near my house, and on the other end was a nice oyster farmer called Kevin who sells them by the dozen for $1 per oyster. Can’t get a better deal than that. I’ve purchased oysters from him twice now and I shuck them immediately in my kitchen! I learned how to shuck oysters by reading this article and asking my neighbor, who also loves oysters, to help me out. I couldn’t be happier about this whole situation. If you need an oyster guy, email me and I’ll give you his number lmao.
Your turn! What are you reading? Writing? Making? How do you feel about oysters? Let me know, and thank you for your time.
Softly yours,
Auzin
omg having an oyster guy is such a flex lol