The Work of Writing Regularly

Dearest gentle reader,

This author wishes to apologize for the extended hiatus between her last publication and this current one.

I’d like to blame my absence on being busy watching Bridgerton, but the truth is that that only accounts for about three days missing. It feels like the first paragraph of this blog continues to just be excuses about why I haven’t been writing, which I am very tired of writing! Nothing terrible felled me this past month—in fact, I haven’t been sick at all since my last post. I just haven’t been writing.

Explaining my lack of blog writing here is really reminding me of what I was doing at this exact point last year—explaining my lack of thesis writing. It’s disappointing to look at it that way, since I started this blog to try to work through some of my struggles with academic writing. I’d like to think I’m taking some tiny step forward by recognizing that, and by skipping the explanation this time.

It’s different now, which is both good and bad. Mostly because a year ago, writing was the main thing I was struggling with doing regularly. Now, being unemployed and clinically depressed, there’s not a lot that I regularly do regularly (how’s that for redundant?). I think the most regular thing I do is, about once a month, try to convince myself that this time will stick, this time I’ll start doing some task or chore or even hobby regularly. It’s almost as Sisyphean as doing laundry or washing dishes.

I assume I’m not the only person who feels this way, although I certainly feel isolated from friends who seem to be more comfortable in their daily inaction and monotony. I’m writing this post over multiple days instead of just one afternoon in hopes that I can come up with something hopeful to conclude this with.

I think I have to build hope for myself by valuing what I do accomplish in these little spurts of energy. It’s a lot easier to use energy feeling bad for yourself than feeling good or doing things that could make you feel good in the future. That recognition of accomplishment is kinda the reason I started this blog, but I haven’t felt like I have much to recognize lately. I will try to recognize some smaller things.

Crafting Interlude

Speaking of recognizing accomplishments, I finally finished this godforsaken cross-stitch! It was truly taking over my life. Now I will return to letting knitting take over my life, which is such a relief.

Feel free to tell me it’s gorgeous, of course I agree. Right now, I’m mostly just happy it’s done and I can move on.

What I’m Reading

Since we last spoke, I finished Echo and finally collected all the current volumes of The Summer Hikaru Died (3.08in) from the library! I spent a couple hours reading them and I’m so excited to read more when more comes out. You can see more of my thoughts per volume on Goodreads. Overall, I am deeply enjoying this story, although the country accent Ajane Oloye has translated them into is truly diabolical at times. I really hope we get more dips into the queer side of this tale; it can certainly be obvious but I think the use of horror’s capacity for metaphor is masterful.

Hikaru is one of those horror stories that weaves the line between adult and YA horror, in that it works well with the tropes of YA but may be straying too far into gore to classify. I found The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim to be a good example of this phenomenon, because it feels like a YA novel but is a little too much about eating human eyes to be put in teen sections. In my last post about Hikaru, I said I’d recommend this to anyone interested in a “cutesy romance manga” featuring an eldritch horror. I’d like to clarify that genre to more “coming of age” than romance, although both aspects are certainly there. I’m sure I have a terrible scale for how much horror the typical reader can handle, but I’d really recommend Hikaru to anyone looking for coming of age mangas, eldritch horror fan or not.

I’ve also had my first DNF of the year in Leech by Hiron Ennes. This book was somehow both too sci-fi and too fantasy for me. It’s the sort of fantasy that recalls Brandon Sanderson, at least in the Mistborn trilogy. There’s this completely new world unrelated to ours, similar to our Middle Ages, with legitimate magic that has a pretty strong scientific basis. It’s hard to call this sci-fi, which tends to be more forward-thinking, but the understanding of science that underlies the worldbuilding seems quite distinct from typical fantasy. All that to say, I’d recommend this book to a fan of Brandon Sanderson and Gothic fiction (its cover includes a quote comparing it to Wuthering Heights), but it’s not right for me right now.

I realized that my last post failed to include overall measurements, so I will be adding last post’s 2.57in to this post’s 3.08in. Before that, I had 62.23in left, and I’ve read 5.65in, so I know have 56.58in to go. Thanks for reading, and good luck writing to us all!