What I'm Doing Now
We gotta do something
Hi friends,
Several of you, but only several, were annoyed I opened my last newsletter with a direct call to vote for Kamala Harris. You are welcome to the opinion that I should “stay in my lane” or stick to sports, so to speak, and I do not care one iota about it. I want you to have your opinion! But your opinion has no bearing on my actions, and if you don’t like the occasional mention of my personal political beliefs, well, you don’t have to read this newsletter. That’s true every day, all the time. If you don’t like that I talk about query letters all the time, you don’t have to read this newsletter! It’s just a newsletter! I hope that you are not so sensitive to the breadth of opinions others might have in this world that this one is a deal breaker for you, but again, you are welcome to your opinions, as I am mine. You don’t have to TELL me about it though. It might feel good to do so, but honestly, it’s not necessary. Go in peace, and I hope all your queries get answered the day after you send them.
NOW, for most of the rest of us reading this newsletter (probably ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), the results of the US presidential election were a shock. Or, it was a shock to be shocked about it. I’m still processing. While I do that, I’m going to DO some things, big and small, and I hope recent events were galvanizing for you as well. I am also chewing and thinking and reckoning with the fact that many, many other people have been doing these things, for these reasons, before me, and these are not in any way original ideas. In fact, they are ancient ideas. I have just been too blind to see them.
So here’s what I’m going to do:
Write Another Book
Why? Because I want to. Because I love it. Because I’m not getting any younger. Because tomorrow isn’t promised. Because, if all goes according to plan, it might make another person smile one day, and that is enough. Because it will make me smile to create something and that is worthwhile even if no one ever reads it.
Seek Out Mutual Aid
Millions of people before me already knew this, but the government is not going to save us. We can’t wait for institutions to get around to fixing systemic problems. So I’m going to start in my backyard. I’m going to seek our mutual aid organizations in my surrounding communities, and farther afield, especially in areas of trans rights and aid, food insecurity, and helping the unhoused. That’s what’s top of mind for me, and I am sure I will find others as I do this more.
Read More Books
I’m going to put down my phone and read more books. This may not help the world at large (except for my local bookstores and library, and the authors I read) but scrolling Instagram Reels isn’t helping me, or the world, either. I’m not even looking at anything good. I don’t need to give Mark Zuckerberg any more attention! Reading literally any book is better than that.
Shut Up and Listen
I’m not even particularly vocal online about my political and personal beliefs, beyond reposting things to Instagram stories, let’s be real. I do not feel the need to become particularly more vocal, this post notwithstanding. I can see now who and what I was listening to, and how that lead me to be so shocked by the outcome of the election. So now, I’m going to shut up and listen, to the scores of people who have been talking and writing and working and screaming about local, personal, radical change. My voice isn’t particularly needed in this, but my time, money, and privilege is. The first step is just shutting up and listening.
Maybe this post is a waste of time. Maybe you don’t care or already know or feel the same or feel the opposite. That’s fine. You can do whatever you want. The primary way I deal with things is to write about them, and I have done that here. That’s my first step. What’s yours?
OXOXOXOX,
Kate
Thank you. Yes. For those of us who are affected by the election, which is all of us, politics is our fucking lane. Thank you, Kate.
I've experienced many tragedies in my lifetime but the most profound and also the one with lasting reverberations to this day, was when I went to bed on a Sunday in April 2000 and woke up the next morning to find my husband dead. I was three weeks away from giving birth to my fourth child. As my entire life upended itself, for years afterward I walked around in a daze, like I'd been hit in the head with a ball bat and I was still vibrating. No one understood how I felt, no one could relate, and over time I began to feel like a freak, a head case, an aberration who didn't belong in this world. More than twenty-four years later I woke up this past Wednesday morning to that same feeling. Like someone had bashed me in the head with a ball bat. I suspect I'll be vibrating for years from the blow. The big difference is, there are others out there (like you) who know the feeling. So thanks for not keeping quiet. Please don't ever keep quiet.