Dear Reader,
How much Folklore is too much Folklore? I ask for a friend. Lies, you say. This is a self-serving request. You know me well already. I ask for me. Swaying dramatically in the driver’s seat to “I can see you staring, honey/Like he’s just your understudy/like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” at a stoplight. Mouthing each f-bomb (of which there are a delicious, but not shocking or inappropriate amount) as I run to the coffee shop a block from my office. (BTW, remind me to tell you the story of the time a colleague asked me if I swear in my head, and what it looks like in my brain space when I do it. It was a delightfully eloquent conversation about the merits of a good swear, and the space in which it takes to get it right. The balance, she’s delicate.) But seriously: Folklore. I wrote The Right Kind of Light’s really ragged outline in my head at an Ed Sheeran concert (inspired by “Photograph”, thankyouverymuch), and spent the year drafting it to X. Reputation came out around draft 3, and the beat was too strong for my girl Gin, so we stuck with Ed’s ÷. I started querying, and now here we are. But Folklore would have DRIVEN Ginny’s story. Taylor might have taken the wheel and driven Ginny off a cliff for all I know, but I would HAVE BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME, in the backseat, squealing my head off that a.) Taylor took the wheel of my car and holy shit, and b.) how do you groove along to “rosé with your chosen family/and it woulda been sweet if it coulda been me” as you fly like a bird to your death with Taylor Swift and your MC? I have a problem. So the larger question, outside of my Folklore love, and my bow-down appreciation for Taylor Swift’s sister album Evermore: is it bad to let your artistic voice be driven so erratically by another artist’s voice? Once upon a time, there were plot points that were derived directly from Ed’s “Photograph” that I thought were a nod to the concert where I had my grand flash of My First Novel, but eventually all but two of them were removed. (Read my book! You’ll know! They’re very obvious!) Those pieces were removed because they ceased to make sense, they didn’t move the book along, etc. All the legitimate reasons why anything is ever cut from a novel. I sincerely hope that while people read my work, they wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I look a good mellow jam, occasionally intercepted by banging pop Or, Carole King’s entire catalog. There’s definitely a thread (an invisible string, if you will I’M SO SO SORRY I can’t stop), that pulls an album along start to finish, and if a voice is distinct enough, that same thread pulls an artist through a career. Obviously, the metaphor works for writers as well. I like to think that my portfolio pieces compliment each other, rather than fight, and they’ve all been driven by different playlists on my iPhone. What do you think? Is it bad to be so immersed in an album that even your three-year knows the words to every song? Does it inhibit your process? More so, would you miss that music if it was gone? Let me know! Love you to the moon and to Saturn, Stephanie
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When I started this post about self-care for writers, the world was on fire, yes, but that’s basically a background buzz one starts to live with after 2020. The US Capitol had yet to be stormed by a raging mob of white homegrown terrorists. As you can imagine, my direction for this post had to change. I’ve cut a bunch. You can probably tell exactly where I put down the proverbial pen, watched a bunch of white dudes scale the wall at the US Capitol, freaked out, axed most of what I’d written, and started again. Stay safe out there, Reader. This is bonkers. - Self-care in the time of COVID seems trivial. The medical professionals are truly suffering, teachers are struggling to reach their most at-risk students, parents are stretching to meet the needs of their kids and employers. Compare that to my anxieties, and I feel like if I had ability to help others comfort themselves, that’s where my priorities should lay. The problem in this line of thinking, however, is that it isn’t fair to rank suffering. Regardless of experience, our trauma is real. (So freakin’ real.) I realized that if I work through my anxiety without minimization of my feelings or have judgement of how others deal with theirs, it will lead to compassion. There’s a word I think we could all use more of right now. Compassion. What a concept. So I thought about it for a while. Here are a few things you can do to take care of the more vulnerable. Educate yourself. To be extra blunt, our world is on fire, in some cases quite literally. What happened at the US Capitol building last week was unconscionable. What happened to Breonna Taylor is beyond words. People are suffering. Worrying for their family, scared for themselves. My privilege has done a mighty job protecting me from seeing so much tragedy. When George Floyd was murdered, I finally realized it was up to me to educate myself on allyship. I’ve found extreme value and discomfort in reading Me and the White Supremacy by Layla Saad. The book is broken into short chapters with journal prompts that make you answer questions about how you interact in the world, and where you’re dropping the ball. I picked up the book curious about allyship and I left it (before returning to it time and time again) knowing so much of what must change falls on my shoulders and on the shoulders of people who look like me: blonde. White. Green-eyed Midwestern women. Donate. There are groups in your community that need funds desperately to keep motoring along to fight. Find local groups dedicated to preserving (or breaking!) traditions and problems that are of personal investment to you. Here in Sioux Falls, the annual Pad Party is going on this week – the drive to stock up our food pantry with menstrual product supplies. Pad Party 2021 (Menstrual Product Drive) | Events | Facebook. If you’re local, consider donating. More details are in the link. Gift cards. Particularly to small businesses. Its so imperative to keep money local, especially right now. And the recipient can curb-side pick up a nice treat. Mute/block/unfollow. Your mental health is worth it. Finally, do not recommend self-care, if the person you’re talking to doesn’t want to hear it. The house, like I said, is on fire. There are only so many eucalyptus-lilac infused bath bombs to tolerate. Rather, listen. Support. Ultimately, take care of yourself and those around you, even the random coworker or neighbor who seems like she has it together. She might. But she really might not. And enjoy that eucalyptus-lilac infused bath if that’s what works for you. We’ll get through this. Somehow. I'm still learning. I want to be the best ally I can be, and I know that means not leaning on others to teach me, but to do the work on my own. If you're learning too, please - let's continue the conversation. --- A word about what happened in Washington DC on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. My platform is new, but my voice is not: what happened that day and has been stewing away underground and behind closed doors for years is domestic terrorism. It scares me to my core when I’m not talking about it, let alone when I stop and remember. It feels even worse because I think we all know its not done. If you find yourself struggling to a larger extent than what you think is normal or within your ability to cope with safely, I deeply recommend you reach out for help. A lot of employers have Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that foot the bill for a predetermined number of therapy sessions. They’re confidential and hugely valuable. You aren’t alone. Yours in compassionate action, Stephanie ![]() At the end of 2019, I started this blog and launched this website with the intent of claiming my space on the internet to market my writing career. It was great. I felt good about it, I was getting followers and clicks on Pinterest, and I opened an Instagram to grow my space. Mid-March, I was sitting in the Starbucks near my office one late afternoon. My phone blew up as I packed up: the first case of COVID-19 was in South Dakota. COVID had been in the US by that point for a period long enough to have sent my family to Sam’s Club to stock up in a frenzied way (as opposed to following a realistic shopping list), but the fear wasn’t real – not REALLY real – until I was outside under low clouds in the misty parking lot, dumbfounded and calling my mother. Her birthday had been two days before. I’d met my parents at a favorite low-key bar to celebrate. Mom and I took selfies. We had no idea it was the last time we’d go out for lunch. As I write this, I paused just now. How to explain, summarize, what happened in days after I left that Starbuck parking lot? It felt like an eternity. Doors slamming shut. Locking. Afraid to even leave our front door – how did COVID carry in the air? Did it linger? Sanitizing the mailbox before opening it. Letting my kid binge Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and run up and down the hall with flat garbage bags like he was the school mascot waving a giant flag down the sideline on homecoming – all because my brain was churning to keep up. Keep my baby safe. Keep my parents safe. I need Brett to be safe. Over and over and over. It was all I heard. But we all lived that. None of this is news to you, reader, because you suffered the same experiences, and possibly worse. At least we had toilet paper from that ill-planned Sam’s Club shopping spree. As vaccinations are now on US soil – my husband, who is a nurse, volunteers on Saturday mornings to administer the shots to his fellow medical professionals. I live in a state that’s making international news for how poorly our state government bungled this, but I’ve learned that I too must come back to life, if only from my basement. But how? I’m an introvert, so I easily settled into making our world very small. I have a lot of regrets around COVID but setting up a permanent office space in my home is not one of them. So how do I come back from this? The only answer that’s come to me repeatedly: reinvigorate my professional passions. Listen. I’m a writer. Before I was anything (a marketer, a girlfriend, fiancé, wife, mom), I was a writer. Translating that into something that I can make personally fulfilling and valuable for outside consumption has always been the struggle. I realized I started merging the two on this blog in 2019. My social planning calendar was drafted, and I was in the beginning stages of writing a business plan, all while wrapping up edits on The Right Kind of Light, being present with my family, and working a 40+ hour job. I. Was. Killing. It. Then everything happened. And I ran out of words. I posted here this summer, about how I had no words. Contradictory, I realize, but I managed to string together something eloquent enough that I wasn’t ashamed of publishing it. There it was. I could still write creatively. It made my blood move. I could feel it, the want, the drive to create again, swirling under my surface as summer faded to fall. Passion. I felt it. So I sat down and planned out what this blog, and my social media presence could look like if I tried this again. To shift my voice from the fluffy side of writing to a discussion on what the industry might look like and how to break in now. To reassure fellow parents in similar boats to mine that yes, this time is nuts, but you’re not alone. To talk about my home community (shout out #onesiouxfalls), not from just a Sioux Falls-based perspective, but how we help small businesses stay afloat and help our communities that are struggling and will be for some time. That’s what I want now. To lend a voice to an energy I feel brewing outside my basement walls. Swirling, like wind, like the blood in my veins as I wrote this summer. So, I have a plan. And I’m back. Won’t you join me? To never giving up, Stephanie As Lin-Manuel Miranda's King George says: I'll be back.
In the meantime, follow me at: Instagram: stephanielogue_writes Twitter: @StephanieLogue3 Pinterest: @stephanie_writes See you JANUARY 4, 2021. ….
…. …. Shoot. It’s been weeks? Yikes. …. Kid goes back to daycare. His parents are essential (one of us actually is), and so: keep job with health insurance to care for the kid and husband? Or keep my husband, who is giving something valuable to the community, from working? Husband goes to work. I get my monitors from my office and dust off my desk from college. Should I buy a new chair? …. .... I buy a new chair. Its June already? It got warm outside. I didn’t notice. But I watched the leaves unfurl on the branches outside my window, slowing unfurling, and filling the sky from my new chair in the basement. My day job keeps ticking. My kid keeps going to daycare. My husband washes his scrubs separately from the rest of our laundry, and moves his shampoo and body wash from our master bathroom to the basement bathroom with little fanfare. …. Our mayor stops giving daily updates. Stores open again, and I venture out to get Starbucks. Weeks pass, and I get brave. I’ll get my hair cut. I deserve it. My split ends are killing me, our positive test numbers are down, and when I call for the appointment, the lady on the phone assures me hand sanitizer and face masks are on every person in the building. Five days later, with cute hair and the rock in my stomach crumbling to pebbles, my state’s health department calls me. “You’ve been exposed. Self-quarantine.” I test. I’m negative. My husband’s coworker’s friend got the same call I did, the same afternoon, and notes were compared. It was our stylist. He went to Florida the week before resuming work. I melt back to my basement office, and pull my hair from my eyes. …. I find a writing group online. Reading other writers concerns about publishing, the industry, and all of their beautiful work makes my heart beat. It takes a lot to tamper down my drive. Even if I’m not moving, my brain is, with incessant buzzing in my sleep, splicing hazy dreams with my to-do list for both my careers, my kid’s school, my husband’s schedule, and now a global pandemic. I used to think it was who I was. Now I know it’s what I do. It’s a clear problem; I haven’t gotten to the root of it yet. I start leaving the house again. Grocery shopping here, Target there. My kid is never with. I used to dream of lazily wandering aisles again, not having to distract as we speed-walk past the graham cracker box with Olaf on it, or the entire dairy section because he melts down when we don’t buy another gallon of chocolate milk. There’s nothing leisurely now about shopping. I balance my palms on the cart, and bump the cart along with my Quarantine-15. In. Out. Unconsciously hold my breath as I pass the woman wearing a mask like a chin strap. Watch a guy knock a box of masks off a grocery store greeter’s table and tell her they’re a “fucking joke.” Watch her pick the box up, and dust it off with bare hands. Feel a lump press upward in my throat. Wait to cry until I’m in my car. .... Wait for a vaccine. Wait for the election. Wait for the leaves to turn yellow and pile in front of my basement window. Wait for my husband to bring home our kid every day. Wait until I have anything valuable to say about this. About any of this. …. |
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