"a minor cyberspace"

on pushing myself out of and into the dirt

My dad died.

I finally split up.

Spring came full on strong.

I’ve had nothing to say.

I communicate with myself into a menagerie of notebooks that are in the same room as I am at all times.

Kentaro Miura died.

I didn’t get the grant.

I was rejected from a writing workshop I was hopeful to get into.

I ran my own 4-week intensive workshop the next month.

Now I’m loving my friends. I have been connected to estranged family.

I’m unwrapping things in plastic and putting the plastic in the trash and thinking—sometimes i speak it—we’re going to hell.

There were some years back, recently, where I was coming to terms with the grief for living through watching the world change, in profound ways—when I noticed the clouds changed and don’t make certain shapes anymore, like in my childhood. The weather is different.

“There’s a storm coming”

I figured out something fairly important with the manuscript the novel the draft the WIP all that’s left, and I feel encouraged. I feel encouraged because I also quickly wrought and tempered a place for storytelling work—a minor cyberspace—apparently useful to its attendees, and functioning to its initial design, responsive to feedback. I’m very pleased with that, yes.

So I’ve been grieving.

Some of the grief is not even from my lifetime. And much of it is expressed through my body, the flesh.

Saturn remains ever an influence, though I step out of the 1st square after its return—something that felt like being looped back to a version of myself from those years right at the turn of puberty. (7/8ish yrs is when the 1st square occurs, the 2nd around 13/14yrs, and the 3rd around 21ish, before its return at 27/28ish.) Now I’m under Martian influence. What a refresher. The go-getter. The fussy aggy bitch. Sure, I say. I’m ready.

So. I have a proposition for some of you:

I started a sub-newsletter, BETA All That’s Left, and I’m looking for beta readers. Beta readers read fic(tion)s and give the author feedback for an improved iteration. So I will post the in-progress chapter drafts of my leering, grieiving drama about dispossessed cyborgs and their many borders and webs, All That’s Left, and anyone who is on the list is encouraged to offer feedback—critical, thorough, random commentary, etc. Sometimes beta readers and authors form collaborative relationships, or become meganerd friends and shit. If ur a fanfiction person, you already know. Are you into this? Did you reaaally like Real Work You Deserve, my tentative opening arc? [UPDATE: Apparently everyone already sub’d to this newsletter is automatically on the list for the sub-newsletter, even tho it gave an option not to do that??? So if you are already sub’d here, please disregard these calls to sign-up.] Then I invite you to sign up for the first draft drop, which I’ll send out towards the end of this month.

For real, click that link if you’re interested because you have to actively subscribe to it. I chose not to automatically add everyone to it bc fuck being auto signed up for shit. [Again, ignore this lol]

Now.

The Mercury Intensive, how did that go?

I’m still waiting for the anonymous feedback from a handful more attendees, and then I’ll share my thoughts in full.

And now that I’ve unpopped this cork on the newsletter, I expect you’ll be hearing from me more frequently once again. After all that’s gone on, I’m having a beautiful summer and I thank allllll my lucky stars for it.

I’ll capture my voice soon, as usual. Till then.

Monk
@}-}-;——-