"Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage, while it lasted?"
November, writing news, recommendations
The quote in the title comes from Maggie Dietz’s poem, “November,” which ends with the stanza:
The days throw up a closed sign around four.
The hapless customer who'd wanted something
Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.
That sounds about right for this time of year! Though I try to pump myself up with walks and afternoon green tea, my energy wanes with the sun, and by 4:15 I’ve given in to the cat’s demands for lap time while I read and accept there will be no more working today.
It’s always been hard for me to submit to my limitations, and that sure doesn’t get any easier with age. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that one’s fifties are the mid-November of life (and mine are only starting), but they might be the October, and I am trying to make sure I love it enough while it lasts. “Was I dazzled?” Dietz asks in the poem. I’m trying.
Meanwhile…
Writing Stuff 💻 🎸💙
I’ve been updating my website to make my services for other writers more explicit and less mysterious. The design is still a work in progress, but I’ve got details now, including testimonials and sample pricing. Maybe you’re someone who has been thinking about an MFA but can’t afford it, or you’ve got a manuscript you don’t know what to do with, or you’re just stuck in some other aspect of your writing, and maybe I can help.
Here’s your regular reminder that my next book, A Song Called Home, is available for pre-order, which is extremely helpful for writers, publishers, and booksellers! The wonderful Jo Knowles says, “A Song Called Home is the perfect gift to reassure readers that home isn't so much a place as it is a space in our hearts that we make with those we love."
The first of what I hope will be several articles for DiaTribe is up. It’s an educational and community site for all types of diabetics and their loved ones.
Speaking of which, November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. It’s good to know the signs and symptoms—especially of type 1, which can be life-threatening if unaddressed. Though type 1 has been known as “juvenile diabetes,” it’s an autoimmune disease that can hit you at any age. It’s true! When mine hit at 41, I was exhausted, starving (eating everything but losing weight), and felt like I was dying of thirst. My vision was weird. I got my first-ever yeast infection. Also, because of my age and weight, I was misdiagnosed with type 2. It was a ride that could have killed me if I hadn’t gotten a second opinion. Don’t be me (or my doctor)!
Recommendations 🐈 📚🍿
The Instapaper app. I used this long ago, and I’ve gone back to it after dabbling in other similar apps. What I love about it are the send-to-Kindle options. Rather than having links sit in my inbox or be open in eternal tabs, I send all my longer online reads to Instapaper with one click of the toolbar widget, then I have them sent to my Kindle on a schedule. Once on my Kindle, I can read them totally offline, on an e-ink screen, with full focus and a cat on my lap. And it’s free.
The library! Oh, it’s been good to start browsing (over the rim of my mask) libraries again, discovering reads in the way you only can in a store or library, and holding and picking up physical books. Also: free.
I have been slowly making my way through Franzen’s Crossroads, and it’s poised to surpass The Corrections for me. I was going to say “poised to be my favorite Franzen,” but that’s not saying much as I hated Freedom enough to skip Purity. This one, though, ticks so many items on my wishlist for big modern novels, and as a bonus for this reader, he goes pretty deep on various versions of American Christianity. This, nestled in one of the main character’s backstory, struck me as particularly apt to our current cultural moment (and so many other periods in history since the third century):
“What gave the new religion its edge was its paradoxical inversion of human nature, its exalting of poverty and rejection of worldly power, but a religion founded on paradox was inherently unstable. Once the old religions had been routed, the insurgents became the Pharisees. … True Christian faith always burned from the edge.”
Last year, my husband and I listened to Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing on audio, which was really good and thought-provoking. Now it’s a movie available on Netflix. It beautifully preserves the interiority and ambiguity of the book. If you watch it and are confused by the climactic moment, don’t worry, you’re meant to be. Tessa Thompson’s performance is especially notable. (Also, superficially, the clothes! Swoon.)
What have you been reading, watching, listening to? What are you doing during “winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure”?