Hi moongazers! We're getting a waning gibbous moon for a Saturday Halloween this year and I'm hyped 🌖🎃🦇

In this update:

• My mental health is tremendously improved
• I’m close to finishing my Viper revision
• My 25-year search for a particular childhood book is OVER

Current Phase

I’m always a little annoyed when standard advice turns out to work. “You’re depressed? Have you tried doing yoga?” I used to be a runner, but suffered a pregnancy-related connective tissue injury in 2022, and after that couldn’t run without hurting myself. I’d sprint after a bus, and the next day OW OW OW. But earlier this month I needed to run and… it wasn’t a big deal? I was fine? I’ve carefully worked my way up to an entire mile and the effect on my mood has been absolutely unreal. I’m way less anxious, and I can focus again! I can write multiple paragraphs in a sitting.

This has been incredible for my wordcounts. That "finish this draft of Viper by Halloween" goal felt so generous four months ago, and then I spent three of them more or less vibrating in place. Now I'm raking in a cool 643 words per day 😎 This sounds puny but it's adding up fast. I think I can make my goal, if Halloween costumes don’t get in the way.

Quick Picks

When I was twelve I used to live on Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, where I checked out Gems by Mab Wilson from the garrison's tiny library over and over. I've wanted to reread it for years, but couldn't remember the author, and you don't get far searching a title like "Gems". This week I worked backward through every nonfiction "Gems" title on Open Library and the Internet Archive, from 2000 until, apparently, 1967. And the book held up! Wilson has strong opinions and a knack for description (important in a book with black-and-white photos.) Her history of the Sancy Diamond reads almost like a short story from the diamond's perspective. She personifies it in a hypothetical way to start—here’s what the Sancy might have thought—but gives it more and more voice, until by the end she grants it speech:

Looking Ahead

Next month, I will rest, indolent and beautiful, on my laurels... Okay, no, I’m going to keep running (with my newly functional pelvis), finish my Viper revision (by Halloween?) and then do a polishing pass. And write a short story, since apparently past-me signed up for a writing contest and then forgot about it. How does this keep happening to me?

See you next time the moon's full!