Finding your way back to magic
through radical acts of hope
November 3, 2024
Hello You,
I’ve been thinking a lot about HOPE lately, and wondering how such a remarkable word has become one that so many people tend to dismiss as useless, childish, and twee. Sometimes it feels as if the air we breathe is saturated with cynical chatter:
“Why hope?”
“Why bother?”
“How stupid can you be?”
A few years back I fell prey to that kind of thinking, and it took everything I had within me, plus the help of loving family members, to see me through those rough, dark times. Maybe you’ve experienced the same? I thought I’d share some of my journey back to hope this week, in case you’re ever in the thick of it and need a kindly voice to guide you towards some of your own.
Optimism is Radical in a Hellscape
The pandemic was for me, like it was for so many, an absolute wrecking ball. It took the lives of people I’d cared for and loved; it cranked my anxiety off the charts and crippled my mental well-being; and it completely demolished a pair of big dream projects that’d been years in the making. Back then, I wasn’t really in a place where I could talk about their demise, but to make two long stories short:
— the small screen adaptation of my first novel The Birth House never got off the ground,
— and a Netflix series adaptation of The Witches of New York (that I wasn’t allowed to talk about at the time) got INCREDIBLY close to happening, only to get killed off by a combination of administration changes, COVID, and notes from the Algorithm. (To be honest, this one still really hurts. I absolutely adored the showrunner and her vision for the show, and I know it was just as hard for her as it was for me to let it go. Sure, the Publishing biz can be a dysfunctional heartbreaker, but IMHO, by comparison, Hollywood is a brutal, confounding vampire.)
I tried to move forward, business as usual, and get on with researching and writing the next novel, but there was a ton of self-doubt in my head, along with the growing realization that maybe doing things they way I’d been doing them wasn’t actually what I was supposed to be doing. If the pandemic taught me anything, it was that it was exceptionally good at showing me my weaknesses and shortcomings, while at the same time extending an invitation for me to make big, important changes— in my own life and in the world around me, hopefully for the betterment of all.
Those are big-ass concepts though, and when your heart is aching, it can be pretty damn difficult to swing for the fences. So, instead, I decided to do what I could and start small. I threw myself into paying extremely close attention to the world around me, and do whatever I needed to do to find the magic of writing again.
I made batches of inks from botanical matter found within walking distance of my house; I wrote and illustrated “crankie” tales that I wound through tiny screens in little boxes; I collected tidewrack from the shore and wrote divinations from the sea; I talked my dearest sweetheart into building a Little Free Library so I could become the resident book fairy of our winding dirt road; I taught myself to clean and repair vintage typewriters so I could write with more purpose and less distractions; I developed and taught creative writing classes (with my growing fleet of extra typewriters); I made small hand-bound notebooks and wrote every strange thing I could think of in them; I started hiking with a typewriter into wild, beautiful places so I could write poetry for strangers. Oh, and I started this newsletter in hopes that maybe I could give a few people, near and far, a little bit of magic for their own lives. Looking back on it now, it’s easy to see that every new experiment was a small but mighty act of hope, but in the middle of it all, it often felt as if I was flailing. Turns out, flailing towards hope isn’t such a bad idea, because eventually the results of those crazy experiments began to add up, and so did my words.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, KEEP GOING, keep flailing towards hope. Let naysayers make fun or scratch their heads or be as cruelly cynical as they like. Hope will always be there, ready to help you find your way. You simply have to embrace it.
A bit of housekeeping
Substack has been sending little gifts out to some of you by offering a free month of the “paid” version of the Cure for Longing. This is totally legit. As I understand it, you won’t have to provide a credit card, but you will have to download their app in order to claim the gift. Substack will actually pay me the subscription fee and you’ll get a month of free access to the Voice of the Moon and the entire archive! If that sounds interesting, keep your eye on your inbox and maybe you’ll get one. (No guarantees, I have no idea what criteria they’re using to send these out to select people.)
Notes from Destiny LIVE CHAT!
I’d hoped to do a Notes from Destiny poetry pop up in the wild this Tuesday while the world is holding their collective breath, but the weather report says there’s an 80% chance of rain here, so I’ve decided to try a new and hopeful Notes from Destiny experiment instead. From 6 - 8 pm EST, Tuesday, November 5th, I’ll be running a Notes from Destiny live chat here on my substack. If you’re a subscriber (free and paid, alike) you can enter the chat once I’ve opened it, via the app on your phone or via substack.com/chat on your laptop. I’ll be writing poems of HOPE on my typewriter at my desk and posting them to the chat, as well as engaging in any hopeful discussion we can conjure up during our time together. Please come and say hello and take some time to decompress! (I think Substack will notify you when I open the chat, but I’ll also post reminders via social media.) See you Tuesday!
The Awe Report and closing thoughts
A mystical bank of fog crept down our dirt road as Halloween evening commenced. What a sight it was to see a coven of wee witches and several other spooky creatures travelling through the mist to collect their treats. I’ll be carrying the magic of it in my heart for days to come.
I’m wishing you wonder and magic and hope and kindness for the week ahead. I feel like those things are our best way through. How are you flailing towards hope these days? What keeps you going? Feel free to leave a comment, and also to come join the chat on Tuesday. A million thanks for supporting my work. It means the world.
I'm sad to hear the shows did not pan out. I was thinking about the possibility of seeing The Birth House come to life the other day. Hopefully in the future that will happen. Til then we eagerly await your newest novel to take us away. Take care of yourself.
Thank you...I really needed this today. I'm also deeply sorry that you lost those amazing opportunities 💜