Hello,

It’s difficult to write up and send out a newsletter when things are shit in the world at large.

Where I live, budget cuts of up to 32% were made for arts, culture, tourism and education. Residents are furious, considering the place where I live thrives because of the art, culture and tourism industry. Plus cutting education is always a bad move.

Not to mention how difficult it is to be a queer and trans person right now. Especially trans. Everywhere I turn, my community is being targeted for living.

I struggle with being happy. Not that I’m sad, but that in my personal life things are good. I struggle with the guilt of being okay when so many people aren’t.

I dunno. That’s probably fascism rubbing it’s greedy little hands together and grinning over the fact that it’s getting to me. The disillusion and dispassionate are less likely to fight against oppression.

So we get to now. Even though I’m feeling guilty over being happy, and feeling so explosively angry whenever I look at the news, and so worried about the trajectory of the world; I’m writing a newsletter.

It feels small, but I almost didn’t write this up. I contemplated sending out a quick “No news!” and then calling it a month.

That felt cheap and inauthentic. Because things did happen, and I’m allowed to be proud of them. It’s just hard to remember that among all the anger, and heartache, and anxiety; we’re allowed to have small victories.

Sorry for the big long rant. This is one that my friends and family have heard and sympathized with many a-time. My own complicated feelings aren’t why you signed up for this newsletter, though.

I accomplished most of my writing goals for February.

Some extra accomplishments include:

Given how short February is, and how work just suddenly started one day, I’m quite proud of my accomplishments.

For March, I’m gonna be nice to myself. My only goal is “Write 5k in any wip of my choice”

We’ll see how that holds up.

To everyone’s surprise (mostly my own) I’m working.

Despite being a props person, I’ve been hired on as set dec for the second season of a show I did the first season of. I’m genuinely shocked that I was called because I quit a different show (from the same production company) in quite a dramatic fashion. There were HR reports, accusations of bully, slurs, and an immediate notice of resignation on my part.

Why was I called? I couldn’t tell you. Again, I mainly do props. Set dec is fine, but it’s not my forever.

I’m just a daily, though. That means that I’m asked to come in each day, and could be let go at any point if I’m no longer needed. To be honest, that’s fine by me.

So we’re already at the time of year where I go radio silent for months on end as I do 40-60 hour weeks. I’ve been trying to not completely disappear, but it’s a challenge.

Despite my impromptu break from writing, I’m still querying “From the Sea Fret”. I haven’t heard back from one press that requested a full, but a second one recently requested a full submission as well.

Holy fuck.

One of my closest friends is a killer artist. I’ve wanted to work with them in some capacity for a while, but I wanted it to be something really fun for both of us.

I decided to combine some inspiration from my day job of film with their spectacular skills.

They’re making a book poster in the style of a movie poster.

Right now they just have the lineart, but when the whole thing is ready then I’ll happily share it with you all.

I’m so excited for how this will turn out!

I appreciate you getting this far into this edition. That opening rant was something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and really needed to get out there.

I hope that your next month is fruitful, and filled with the peace that you need to heal.

Thank you.

Stay safe.