5 Quick Things #190 🌱

four notebooks, forty years, fallow, and slooooooower

May 07, 2021

Hey there,

How’s your week been? I dusted off my fiction and starting tinkering with her again this week, and it feels good. Surprisingly most to me, I’m toying with this idea of writing the book (or at least part of the book) by hand. Anytime I write by hand I’m glad I did — the final product is better and I had a better time creating it. (Hat tip to my writing accountability partner Sarah for sharing this podcast episode about writing a novel by hand in four journals. I’m intrigued!)

I’ll probably have to pause this practice next week so I can read and grade 26 teen-written short stories, but once it’s done it means the school year is done! All the praise hands. 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

A woman walks in the al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, Palestine.

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. New episode today! Walking is good for us, but it takes a while — it’s not the most efficient mode of transportation, but that’s also not the point. What about the other stuff in our life that can also benefit from slowness? Seth and I talk about being slow to reply, slow to respond, and slow to assume.
2. Favorable conditions never come — yes, yes, yes.
3. I’m so grateful for your kind words and encouragement about the new name of this newsletter. A friend on Twitter pointed me to this commonplace book from a 14th century merchant full of recipes, accounting, poems, and more. How cool is this?
4. Vaccine side effect, or have you just been alive for forty years? (mild language)
5. I really resonate with this idea of languishing vs. dormant because I thought the same thing when I read that piece that’s been circulating everywhere. I felt the malaise more last year than this year, and I ultimately coined it “fallow.” Because of acknowledging it, I sense more growth for me in 2021. I needed to rest fallow.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

The Atlas Obscura Podcast — so many great, binge-able short stories!

Quotable 💬

“Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant.”

― Alice Walker #

From the Community 🏠

This week I asked y’all to share ideas for our short summer book club. We’re looking for a book that takes us somewhere interesting, isn’t too long, makes us smile in some way, and bonus points if there’s a companion movie. Head over if you want to toss in your $.02! We’ll finalize soon and read during June. Looking forward to it!

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