March was a tornado. I am not going to list everything that I just went though, but my torso was cut open and stitched back together again. Not a metaphor, that actually happened.
My abdominal muscles split years ago from my pregnancies. I healed the diastasis recti by doing the right exercises. However, I’m ambitious and prone to over-exerting. The core weakness caught up with me and I developed a hernia, which exercise doesn’t fix, it just makes it worse.
So I decided to have it all repaired at UC Davis. They took my brain offline with general anesthesia, a surgeon cut me open, sewed my core together again, then glued me shut. Actually the surgery is a metaphor, but for everything else that happened to me that month.
Now I can’t lift anything for another four weeks. So instead I’m laying down burdens. Accepting help. Decluttering my mental and emotional life, instead of my basement.
This is just a brief update for the lovely people who follow my content, to let you know where I’ve been, and where I’m going.
Last month I did a 28 day challenge where I said YES to everyone.
It was a harrowing experience, I don’t recommend it for the meek. I’m going to write about it because I’m a writer. Ultimately, that’s why I do anything really, to gather material so I can sort through it and polish the interesting bits and share them with my fellow humans. If you’re curious about what happened when I said YES for a month, take a second to subscribe or follow, I’ll be posting that story shortly. I didn’t post about what I was doing or tell anyone around me, as that would have affected the requests and situations that came my way.
This month, my challenge is to finish my novel exploring the tension between commitment (long term relationships) and sovereignty.
As of today it is at 65,000 words. Around 80,000 the rough first draft will be officially done. Right now it feels like I’m laying out a handmade quilt on the floor and seeing where it is missing squares. In my mind I can see what needs to go into the blank spaces. I will share some overview and excerpts soon, and may seek advice on which parts to develop to round the whole thing out.
The other thing I’m doing this month is learning about Web3.
I’m following my instincts here that I ought to learn everything I can about this frontier. I see only a vast prairie and tumbleweed, but there’s some wagon wheel marks in the dirt and rumors of gold in the small towns I pass through.
So I figured, why not combine these two deep dives? I can work on my novel and learn about Web3 at the same time. I can explore the platforms by using them, hands on.
Full disclosure: I’m a nerd. That’s why I overthink things and do month long challenges. I put on my hazard lights when I stop to check the mailbox.
I’m also wild. I’ll start the dance floor at a Vegas nightclub any day of the week. Sober. The moment the DJ drops that first hint of bass. I’ll say the thing out loud that everyone is thinking and no one has the courage to actually say.
We are complicated creatures.
My intention is to find a comfortable and welcoming home for my work on Web3. I just published a short story on Mirror.xyz. I wrote it a couple years ago. It is somewhat surreal and explores how relationships glitch. Readers on mirror have an option to collect my work. It is essentially the same concept as turning my story into an NFT.
My goal is to support myself with my writing.
That’s been difficult here, in the saturation and financial culture of Web2. I get direct messages about how much impact something I wrote had, or how I made someone cry (in a good way) or empowered them to make a tough choice they needed to make. But it’s not a culture that is generous with money.
I keep writing despite that, because it is who I am.
I suspect that Web3 is different. That the world as we know it is evolving, and now, we can support ourselves (or be supported) just by being who we are.
By showing up.
If you enjoy my writing and want to encourage me then please subscribe to me here, and on Mirror.xyz. There you’ll be able to collect my future posts. I will celebrate by buying myself a latte (single shot because I’m small). I will drink that latte while sitting in the sun and then I will come home and write more.