So be it! See to it!
we will write our books
Hello friends! This is Ursula Fan Club, where I share what I’m writing, reading, and seeing in the world as I write the first draft of my book. If you’re interested in speculative fiction, the climate, ancestral stuff, textiles, living in a human body, and balancing a creative practice with whatever this is *waves wildly around*, you’ll probably like it here.
Our PARAKEET goal for this month seemed simple—write 5,000 words in your manuscript. I wrote over 15,000 words last month, with 5,370 of those in my manuscript, so I grinned at the challenge. I got this, I thought to myself. Until I didn’t.
As of mid-February while I write this, I’ve barely squeaked out 500 words and I took a week off of writing when I came down with a cold. While sick, I read lots from bed instead of watching TV from the couch (a choice I’m proud of) and have been working through some more macro questions of structure and voice for my book. So, not completely lost time, but I have some writing to do if I’m going to hit my goal this month.
Easing back into writing was made easier with my PARAKEET writing accountability buddy, C. We met up last Saturday morning on Google Meets for an hour and a half to catch up, talk about our books and writing progress, and spend 30 minutes in silence in each others’ company writing. Since then, her words repeat in my mind—touch the project—until I make the space and time to do just that. Writing for 30 minutes each day still feels sustainable, but I’ll have to put in a couple sessions each day or commit to more than just 30 minutes to hit around 500 words a day and make up my word count in this short month.
Does all of this feel trivial and small when held alongside the catastrophe, the enormity, of the news? It does for me, sometimes. Often. That’s the intent of those in power, of course—to make each of us feel small and inconsequential and to rob us of agency. I’m holding onto the conviction of writers I look up to, who believe or believed in their own capabilities and creative offering to the world, who also lived through their own catastrophes, both great and small.
Octavia Butler was one such writer ancestor. She was a Black woman in America. She wrote about enslavement, queerness, Blackness, and weirdness of all glorious kinds. She had every reason in the world to think of her writing, her worlds, and herself as small. But she believed in her books. If you have never seen pages from her personal notebooks before, I’m sharing one of those here. I wish she could see the best seller lists now, with her books on top, over 30 years since publication and nearly 20 years after her passing.
Holding these words close, today and this year: I will find the way to do this! So be it! See to it!
What I’m writing
Outlines are leading to scenes and different timelines, different voices, with secondary characters I want to bring more to the fore.
What I’m reading
Finishing Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles by Beth Pickens for book club! More on this in a future post… aiming for end of month! A great companion to read if you’re jumpstarting your writing practice at the start of the year.
Started The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground by Ron Jacobs for book research.
Starting What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson for another book club, the climate change book club I began five years ago and organize. This one is long so aiming to start by this weekend.
What I read
I finished re-reads of both The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Truly two of my favorite, most formidable novels from different points of my life that have clearly informed my desire to better understand and write about the Arctic. I’ll write more on The Left Hand soon, because I observed some interesting structural elements that I’ll reflect on here.
Top of Bookshop.org’s best seller list is On Tyranny by Timothy Synder, so I bit. It’s a short, powerful companion for these political times. I listened to the expanded audio edition on Spotify (for free, if you have Spotify Premium) and I’m still listening to the remaining 8+ hours of material of Synder giving me a full-on lesson in Ukraine history. I am RAPT. I also subscribed to Synder’s Substack. Finally, someone saying what I’m thinking.
This post from novelist Sarah Thankam Matthews is still living rent-free in my mind. If you click one link in this entire Substack post, let it be this one.
A helpful thing
In case you missed it, here’s what I’ll be doing to fight fascism this week. Join me!
Take care of yourself and each other, friends.
I’m reading an Octavia Butler book right now, and it was so cool to see her note here - how inspiring 🥰