The Thursday! Newsletter 1-46: The One That's Probably Boring
Volume 1, Issue 46
I don't have anything profound nor pithy this week.
I tried. Really I did. I wrote down five or six different topics I thought might be interesting and worthwhile but none of it really worked. I don't have anything to bring to the table this week.
It happens, I understand. Every writer hits a period of time where they just don't have anything in the tank aside from the mucky stuff all the way at the bottom. The world around me lately has been heavy and full of care, too, which really doesn't help. It is difficult to feel light and creative when you can't open a single news item nor social media platform without reading a tale of human misery caused by increasingly selfish and thoughtless humans. I find myself getting tired of it all with no good way to feel less tired about it.
Of course, if you've read more than a couple issues of Thursday!, you can probably point to at least one where I talked about this very thing and did my dead level best to encourage you to hang in there and create your way to something approximating a little cave-y shelter from the horrible outside world. Here's where you should know something important about me. I suck at taking my own advice. Right now, it's just not there.
So, what now? Beats me. I'm sure I'll be more useful and chirpy next week. I'm still writing poems like the poetry store is running out of them and I'm trying to beat the rush. I'm still posting story prompts for the I Am A Writer Facebook group and on Sarah Werner's very cool writer mastermind Discord channel. I'm still writing my own stories for those prompts. Life goes on. I still do the stuff I need to do, go where I need to go. None of that changes. None of that will change. It's not that bad, really, from the outside even if it feels grumbly and prickly from my point of view.
I'm not sure what that means for you (and this newsletter really is for you, well and truly!). Life is going to suck. It's going to feel heavy. You're going to want to take an extra nap but you're not going to have the time nor space to do it. You're going to have to get through some drudgery and fruitless stuff. You're going to feel low. Can't help it. You're a human just like I am and this is how it is for us sometimes -- more, perhaps, than in years past because the bad stuff of the world can get to us more often and in greater quantity. You won't ever run out of people who want to tell you how much other people suck because they make money and gain popularity off it. Some of them will even stand behind an important podium and tell you how useless half of your neighbors and friends are, because that's what their little playbook says they're supposed to do.
No matter, right? It's heavy and it stinks and we feel nicked and knackered but we go on because tomorrow may not be quite as bad as today feels. We can still make our art and share it and someone else might find some joy in it. We can take that little taste of good and make a little more of it. Slowly. Surely.
That's what I'm going to do today. I'm going to write a poem later and I'm going to hug my wife later and I'm going to store up the anticipation of those good feelings in my head and my heart as leverage against the crappy feelings I'm feeling today.
So can you. If you need. And if you need, I'm around. You can tell me you're having a crappy day. I get it. But also, come on back when you're having a good day. Tell me about that, too.
**Remember that little break I said I'd take a couple or three weeks ago? I've decided how to work it. The issue you're reading right now is 46. I'm going to go four more weeks, to Issue 50, then I'm going to take two weeks off. Sort of. Thursday! will still come out, but without any sort of essay -- just links to the stuff I've written and maybe a pointer or two to some other cool stuff friends of mine have done. After those two weeks, we will start Volume 2, the second year of Thursday! Cool, huh? I think so.
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What I Wrote this Week
Poems
"Mosquito Woe" is my demonstration of the aphorism "When a mosquito bites you, write about it."
"The Blanket that Are Some People" is my demonstration of the aphorism, "When your friend takes up a hobby, write about it."
"Night Never Falls" is not a demonstration of any aphorism, but it is a little creepy, which is always good.
"Morning Never Breaks" is not a demonstration of any aphorism either, but my attempt to write the previous poem about an opposite. You could put this one with that one and have an interesting pair to read aloud.
"A Song About Nature" is pretty much just what it says and it really does need a tune.
"Said the Poem to the Poet, Loudly" is my demonstration of the aphorism, "When you don't know what to write, write about that."
"I Told Your Name to the Wind" is a poem about love and value and just a little bit of fantasy.
Not Poems
"An Apple a Day" most definitely started with an aphorism but did not stay there at all. Oh no, it did not!
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One Last Thing
This is where I ask you to help me out. I can't share Thursday! nearly as well as you can so if you know someone who might like what we have here, forward this along or show them the archives.
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