This week? This week has been a bit rough for me.

But I am still writing. And we are still podcasting! Gasp!

I am still doing this because I think that writers write. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

Say it with me, okay?

Writers write. That’s all it takes to be a writer—the actual writing things down.

We write rebellion. We write acceptance. We write through grief. We write through joy.

Sometimes our work is absolute poop, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we write, that we give ourselves voice no matter what.

Do not stop writing.

100 words a day? 30 minutes a day? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that your voice is there. Yours.

You matter.

Your voice matters.

Your writing matters.

Here are the things you need to do:

You need to:

1. Follow your writing wherever it takes you. Let the words carry you.
2. When you ache, write it down because that ache? Someone will connect with it. Someone will feel less alone.
3. The best writing is full of yearning. That yearning helps inspire us all to make a better world.
4. Whenever you feel joy, lean into it. Don’t worry that you don’t deserve it. Take it when it happens. Let your characters have it, too. Dance around the house. Sing in the shower. Catch raindrops. Even if you feel like the world is shattering around you. Allow your work and your self to be human.
5. When you write, you take power. You take the power to look at pain, at problems, at issues, at grief right in the damn face and you make it into art, into action, and into power. That’s a big deal.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Keep fighting for what you want.

COOL EXERCISE

Take 30 minutes at most. You can use no more than 500 words. Gasp! I know! I’m terrible.

And in that time and word count, I want you to write about one image that happened in the last week and has stayed with you.

Write down details.

Now, I want you to connect that concrete image to what you yearn for.

COOL PLAYLIST TO DO THIS TO

I picked songs without words for this one. Songs that feel like yearning to me.https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6geuR3LwqThjiMydkhsHwA

PLACE TO SUBMIT

Parentheses Journal is a Canadian biannual.

You can send in up to two poems, flash fiction pieces, or short stories (max word count 2000).

Its reading periods are from November 20— March 10 (so now) and May 20—September 10.

Deadline: 10 March 2025

RANDOM THOUGHT LINK

Our random thought came from here.

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.