🐟Lil Treasures #129: Believe In Yourself and a Chaotic House Piranha
We're talking Andre DeShields and writing hacks
Happy Friday! I’m on vacation this week but I did save some good treasures and tweets for you, because I love you.
Hope you have the best weekend! Leave some good treasures for me in the comments so I can indulge upon my return.
Without further adieu, here are this week’s treasures!
🎭 Currently obsessed with everything about the musical Hadestown, and even more obsessed with this video of Andre DeShields singing Believe in Yourself (an original from from the Wiz) to close a show this past week. A freaking delight.
📰 As a writer, I appreciate good journalism and have a soft spot for local newspapers. The New Yorker put out an article earlier this week about the Uvalde-Leader News and their account of the day of the shooting at Robb Elementary. Please take a minute to read it if you get the chance.
✍🏾My friend Stephanie is an excellent writer and editor over at Baker Books. She is the realest, and has a weekly newsletter catered specifically to writers called SLANT LETTER. I recommend it to anyone who may dabble in the writing process! Here’s a preview of her most recent newsletter on the topic of the rituals of resistance:
Resistance is the pushback we experience to our creative lives, whether through the frustration of interruptions, the burn of rejections, the paralysis of writer’s block or self-doubt, the shame of procrastination or unmet (unrealistic) expectations. To create is to give shape to something new, but resistance is the counterforce we are met with when we try.
It’s terribly disempowering to be pushed and feel you have no resources to push back. But this is what the creative process makes of us, if we let it, we become people who show up to the work, and push back to resistance.
The good news for all of us is that we get better at pushing back through practice.
If you are looking for a terrific resource to help you grow as a writer, I highly suggest following Stephanie. To subscribe to THE SLANT, click here!
🍰 This video is me every single night.
💗 Tressie McMillam Cotton wrote this article for the New York Times about the societal issue of selective caring, in light of so many larger and difficult issues that have been looming in our current lives. It’s a tough but important read.
Let’s do the Tweets!
Hoping your summers have kicked off to a great start! Can’t wait to come back from vacay and take in all of your beautiful comments like a warm, virtual hug. Cheers to you the weekend!
Good morning from... VACATION. 🙌🏻 It’s actually happening! My sisters (henceforth known as the Cinderella sisters, thanks to Jenny T 😂) managed to give me a cobbled together string of days that more or less amount to a week. There’s a single night where one sister was unwilling to change her (non-essential) plans 🤨 so I’ll have to be on hand for my mom, but Mom decided to join me instead of making me return home in the middle of my time away. It’s not perfect, but it’s what I could get.
I’m using these days as a personal retreat, a chance to rest and read and do some deep work alongside creative activities. The amount of books and tech I brought with me is ridiculous! I’m also planning a few binge watches, and there will be a shameful amount of rich foods and unhealthy snacks. Heaven. 😊
I’m only an hour away from home, should anything arise, but I booked a hotel suite on a high floor with all the city sounds and the sunrise outside my window, and it’s exactly what I needed. Today will be lazy — a chance to release all the adrenaline from a full week of writing aaaalllll the caregiving notes for my sisters and thinking about every tiny aspect of living with our mom. I’m exhausted from just prepping to get here! But so very thankful that it’s all working out. Thanks to everyone who kept me hopeful and acknowledged the challenges I faced to make this finally happen. I needed all that encouragement! Wishing you all a lovely summer.
Y'all, I am tired! My mom has been here since 5/27 and doesn't leave until 6/6 living with another person is hard all her routines are different than mine. This is probably the most time we've spent together since the pandemic and it's been a challenge to find things to talk about she's been very quick to anger with things I don't understand and it's just off-putting. I'm hoping this weekend goes well and the bright and early Monday she's on her way home! Overall though it's been helpful in seeing some holes in our relationship that I thought I only had with my dad, so ya know more stuff for my therapist 😭😭
Treasures:
I handlettered a window and work with our new summer hours which was fun and the patrons that saw me working on it were very sweet about it.
I spent most of Monday sewing and finished my newest outfit. I've never worked over the summer as an adult, so I'm still trying to figure out what to wear esp since most of my previous spring/summer professional clothes don't fit. Suggestions welcome!!
I finished the new Simone St. James on audio these week and it was so good! She's writes great ghost stories that are just the right amount of spooky for me!
We're going to Fiddler on the Roof in Charlotte tomorrow and then dinner at Tupelo Honey which should be delightful.
See you in the comments, friends!