Monday Morning Mind Dump

I feel like this is the first week of the rest of my life. Funny how I only vaguely realized that the book tour took up so much space in my brain for pretty much all of 2014, eh? I mean, I could articulate that fact at any time during the last ten months, but it still didn’t fully set in until this morning, when I was all, “Whoa. I’ve got some wide open space before me. This is awesome.”

As I wrote in my newsletter on Friday, “wide open space” does not = nothing to do. I returned home from my travels with pages of notes on ideas both new and old, only one of which is related to the idea for my next book. Over the next few weeks, I’ll experience a mighty shake-down, the result of which will be an ability to focus on the most immediately viable of all the ideas.

Anyway. Home. I’m over the jet lag that kept me down last week. My kid has recovered from the most intense parental absence he’d yet endured. And I’m thinking about all sorts of things I want to tell you, some of which I want to get out into the world before I dive into the week. Here goes:

• I did a podcast interview with Elise Blaha Cripe, and she was so much fun to talk to that I wish we’d had a chance to sit down in person together for approximately nine hours. Alas, here’s our half-hour chat.
• Some blogger love for Make It Mighty Ugly from Poppytalk and Shalagh Hogan (who wrote about our book-tour event at the Smithsonian [more from me about that soon!]), and Rose City Reader is reading from the perspective of her creative experience at work in her law practice (I hope she follows up on that!).
• I’ve ordered books and bookplates, and assuming I can get a shop up and running in the next week, I should be able to send signed books and stickers out in time for holiday gift-giving. Stay tuned! (Twitter, Instagram and my newsletter are probably the best ways to stay up-to-date.)
• I Skyped into a Michigan library’s Mighty Ugly workshop on Saturday morning, and it was a ton of fun.
  

  Great fun this morning w/Kim Werker, making ugly creatures, & battling those inner demons who tell us we can’t create! #mightyugly

  — White Lk Twp Library (@whitelakelib) October 25, 2014

• Throughout Make It Mighty Ugly, I refer to my love of the CBC Radio show Q, hosted until yesterday by Jian Ghomeshi. Yesterday, the CBC fired Ghomeshi, and the story involves some very serious allegations against him, related to physical and sexual abuse. I reserve judgment until verifiable facts are available, but I will say this: when the Toronto Star described his accusers as “educated and employed”, they made this a story about our collective inclination not to believe women when they say they’ve been abused. This is the best analysis I’ve read about this whole thing. In a larger feminist context including Gamergate, I hope we do some serious, fair, public discussing of how some men treat women who speak up.
  • Ann Friedman wrote about this two years ago, specifically regarding workplace harassment. It’s important to read it today.

Ok, that’s it for now. I have things to edit, other things to write, soap to make, emails to send, and news media to obsessively check. Have a great start to your week!