It’s one of those days where you try a hard thing, fail at it quickly, and move on. Kinda. I have been wanting to start an email newsletter for a few years now, and I thought today was the day. I soon learned Tiny Letter is shutting down (this was my proposed newsletter of choice), then I researched possible newsletter sites for an hour, bugged some friends about which is best, joined one, realized you can’t import your address book anymore because it’s illegal (that’s a good thing ofc!), had a mild panic that I’d done something illegal, panicked some more because I couldn’t cancel the free trial, wrote to the Help people like a true Gen X elder, and walked away. If you get a really weird email from me about a newsletter I’m sorry.
Who needs a newsletter? I guess not me or not today anyway. You might also think. well don’t you have this Substack Carley, and isn’t that kind of like a newsletter that people legally and consensually subscribe to? Yes, I think it is.
Still, I like getting newsletters from writers a few times a year about what’s going on in their writing lives, and I guess I’ve long been hearing that a newsletter is the best way to connect to your readers, fans, friends, family, etc…and so I was trying to do the BEST THING. Always a bad idea.
I’m also about to Kickstart a thing and I’m afraid. Many people tell me I am brave, I’m not entirely. I have many fears. One is that I will fail to raise the funds for the Kickstarter. More on the Kickstarter in a bit.
What are your thoughts on having a newsletter? Or Kickstarter?
Now to the Carley 2023 round-up. I see lots of people posting really sucessful round-ups of what they did this year and that’s really cool and great, AND mine has some cool stuff in it, but it’s also just some epic fails that I’d like to share because writing is a long game and failing is a big part of it. I also think if your round up was, “I lived on,” you are in a good place. And, not to be all Maria Bamfordy, but I’m also a fan of “Hey, I quit.”
Some wins, failures, and mids (as the teens say) in no particular order:
Oh to begin, the litter boxes in this small two-room apartment I live in really stink. I have the new crystals cat litter which has changed all of our lives. Can I get a cat paw high five my cats? Nope. I thought so. Still, even those crystals can only stand so much eating, shitting, and peeing. I’m doing laundry today, tried and failed at the newsletter, and after I will change the litter boxes and seal up a giant bag of cat shit that goes in the kitty poop genie, like a diaper genie but for kitty poops, and it’s extremely gross, and I always procrastinate because THE SMELL IS OUTRAGEOUS. I’m also terrified that the poop genie will explode onto me and then I’ll have to kill myself in disgust while my cats look on without a care in the world. Just kidding, they won’t even be looking at me when that happens.
Winning (ish): We got a new kitty named Marina because my kid wanted a more cuddly cat than our older kitty, Pippi, and the shelters were overflowing and I’d just broken up with the last cis straight man I hope to ever date, and maybe I was trying to build my little family. Anywho, Marina is not super cuddly. In fact, she’s somewhat feral and bitey, but I’ve learned a lot about cat behavior, and the cats only fight about 15 times a day, and she is really cute and fun to talk to, and my kid has her own cat, so let’s call it a win. Teen gets teen kitty. Old lady sticks with old lady kitty, but also now has second teen kitty to feed, play with all day, and clean up poops for, and you know, I chose this life for myself. I really did.
Win: Panpocalypse is coming out in German! This is such a lovely, lovely thing and will be my first translation ever. It’s all because a wonderful translator Stephanie Frida Lemke decided she loved my book. She found a publisher. translated it, and I learned a lot about gender and nouns in German. Cutely, it’s called Panpokalypse and Edition Assemblage will publish it in March of 2024. If you are German or love reading in German, please pre-order. Frida and I are hoping to do an event or two in Berlin in May or August. I really hope we can make this happen and I can go to Germany with my dear friend Elke who is German and such a great person. We think we’d have a lot of fun there.
Win: Indolent Books will publish my debut poetry collection, Heart Less in 2024. I have been writing poetry since I was in the second grade, and when I used to dream about publishing books, I always thought they’d be books of poetry. Go figure. I’m 51, and finally making my debut in the poetry world, like officially with a whole book. Thank Goddess for Michael Broder who runs Indolent all on his own, and has a mission of publishing poets over 50 without books. His publishing model is to Kickstart a book, and now we return to my fears, but honestly, I think we can do this. It’s not a huge amount of money, and it’s basically just pre-ordering a book and believing that Michael and I have made something nice and beautiful for you, which we most certainly will be doing. There will also be the cool rewards tiers and fun stuff of Kickstarter and I’m excited to learn a new way to publish because gosh publishing is hard right friends? Stay tuned for details in 2024.
Win: I’ve been working on a new novel for the last two, maybe three years now, and I’ve revised it about five-twenty times now, the last revision, being one of those huge ones that makes you crazy and wonder if you even have a book, and did you even make it better or ruin it completely? Best human and smartie, Amy Shearn, just read it for me and she thinks it’s pretty great, so I’m hopeful it can maybe find a nice home. Failing that, I will know that I didn’t give up on it and made it as good as I could, which is all I can control. Winning is also having two stellar writing groups who have helped this book become the best version of itself.
Win: I went to my first Pilates class yesterday, and I really liked it. Also, the studio is a block away, and I have needed something super close because my body and its disabilities does not like to get out of the house especially in the winter. I’ve done mat Pilates before and that was a fresh hell, but this is with the machine called THE REFORMER which is sub leaning switch’s dream come true. Yessss, please do reform me, because I have been very, very bad. I’m going to a second class at six today, after I change those litter boxes, so yay, maybe I can get my butt back a little and not feel joint pain all of the days. Now to just make some more money to pay for the Pilates. Who ever said I wasn’t a Brooklyn cliche?! Not me.
Win: I started doing stand-up. My friend Elke (see above) asked me to try for her 50th b-day party and I did it while also making some people laugh. I did it again in September and people laughed again. Weird. I’m doing it again this New Year’s Eve with a bunch of real professional stand-ups, so come out if you are in need of cheer and dancing. I have a friend code too for a discount. Just ask. Also, if you want a preview of me doing stand-up, you can subscribe and see my whole first set in the previous post.
Fails/Mids/Wins: I queried 34 agents this year with my aforementioned novel, and I did not get an agent. I got very close with one, and had five or six agents ask to see the full, so something is working, maybe I’m getting close. This has felt like major soul-sucking failure to me throughout the last year of querying, and I also know it’s part of the querying process. Now that I have this really strong revision I will go back in and try to not quit until I am rejected by around 100 agents. It’s not fun, but if you were my Writing Boss client, I’d make you do the same thing. It’s also important for everyone out there reading to know that trying to publish is about a lot of rejection for most of us. Like a lot, a lot, a lot. I have had four agents in my writing career. Three I queried, and one I inherited. Two I left because I was writing things that didn’t speak to them, and one left me. One left the business the night before we were supposed to go on submission. Left is not the right word, but these are relationships that mean a lot to writers, and having an agent can mean more money, approval stamps, and getting your book seen by bigger houses. I’ve also, with the exception of my young adult novel, ended up kind of finding my own homes for my books. So what to say, but shrugs all around.
Fail: My novel got rejected twice by the same publisher. Sometimes I do this to myself, like I just have to be sure that I am or my work is not wanted. For clarity. For the extra funs. Lol, it’s okay. It’s the right thing, but saddening.
Win: I’ve started writing personal essays again. I really love writing personal essays and of my three genres, it is in some ways my most comfortable. The first big one will hopefully be out this summer. Creating this Substack has been part of the journey back to the essay, and a huge win is having you all read my subbies and share them and sometimes give me money for them. Substack is fun. I like it here.
Mids: I have worked on a lot of my chronic health issues, and by “worked on” I mean, I’ve been to so many doctors and tried to figure out a lot of hard stuff to help myself feel better. I have started HRT (small bits of estrogen gel and testosterone cream which have really helped my energy). I got an IUD which put an end to my truly awful periods. I continue to try to figure out my IBS (hypnosis seems to be the best for it these days but I still have a lot of annoying dietary restrictions). I’ve also been working on my three year eye malady of having a weepy right eye. I have ruled out many things, but no answer yet.
Wins: I’m teaching some new classes for adults through the very wonderful Writing Co-Lab. They are about feeling like the world is utter shit and writing anyway and Autofiction. I would really love to work with you and it’s a much cheaper way of getting some Carley teaching without paying me privately or enrolling at NYU. Also, what a line-up of classes and teachers. Wow, so many classes I’d like to take myself.
Fail: My bio family. Sheesh, they tire a lady out. Saving this mostly for the personal essays, but estrangement is a blessing and a bitch.
Fail: The world. You know what I mean. Goddess, these wars, I cannot. If you are every wondering how I feel about genocide, I am one hundred thousand percent against it.
Ceasefire now. Don’t stop complaining, yelling, protesting, all of it.
Okay, those litter boxes aren’t going to clean themselves are they? Why couldn’t we have made AI to do the literal shit work instead of the joyous creative stuff. I don’t know because I don’t want AI and no one else I know does either.
Enjoy the typos! Don’t forget to hit the heart button, share, and subscribe. If you got to the end, I send you a thousand gold stars through the air. Do you feel them? They are landing on you right now as we speak.
Please tell me your wins/mids/fails too if you feel like it. I’d love to know.
Carley
❤️❤️❤️❤️