Winter isn’t messing around in the Northwoods this year. It is beautiful and magical and cold and horrible. I try to embrace my hygge-ness but I long for the desert or the ocean, or just anywhere I can wear my flip-flops.
I feel like I am the only person who did not watch Stranger Things as the final season episodes came out. I cannot handle the loss right now and preferred just to wait until it was all over, and y’all have confirmed every detail about it – who lived and died – and I can watch it without any emotional weight. I will likely still cry when I do watch, but it won’t be as heavy. I will cut the weight with “oh that’s where that meme is from.”
I am currently re-reading The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordby Ron Hansen. I rarely read a book more than once (so many books, so little time) but was called to this one again. The writing is so impressive I can hardly stand it. I am so envious. Do you know any books with similar vibes? What should I read next?
I send out a lot of letters. You might have missed some. Maybe they got lost in the mail. I got a little obsessed talking about literary journals last year. Over the holidays I sent out some freebies, because I wanted to make sure you had plenty of resources and reading for the new year. Sinners was my favorite movie of 2025 and I wrote about it here before I knew that it was going to be my favorite film by far. I went back and looked at what I wrote about a year ago – I talked about working on my novel, and failing at the word count goal. I tried to pump myself (and you) up to write a lot all year. Guess what! I didn’t finish my novel! Not even close! I wrote a lot of essays and letters and started a romcom but didn’t finish my novel! Oh well, maybe this year!
I have yet to talk much about my trip to the Author Nation Conference except for when I told this storyabout getting this pieceaccepted for publication while I was there.
I am still planning to write more about it. I will likely write more than one piece. I want to write about the conversations around AI that were happening there. And the “oh shit” moment I had there that I am still processing. I want to write about those taking advantage of writers in the self-publishing world (of course not something that is new, but it is growing in wild abundance, and I saw more evidence of that at AN). And I want to write about the conference itself and conferences in general. Some of the things I want to write about will stay behind The Private Draftsbecause I don’t really want to make a practice of publicly shitting on other businesses, while still being honest and being able to provide examples and evidence. I don’t really have the energy or debate strength or funds to fight battles in public right now if someone decides to retaliate. I’d like to keep it in conversation between us.
I will leave you with this picture of a slide I took during a lecture on TikTok on how to pitch your book on socials. Why did I go to a social media lecture when I have no social media (except Pinterest)? Because I am always looking to learn about this business and share what I learn with you.
