writer in wred

One aspect of blogging I really struggle with is the urge to turn everything into a performance. I don’t want to calibrate everything I do and wear and eat for optimal clicks. I don’t want to take so many pictures of my food that I forget to eat it, and I refuse to turn Josh into an Instagram Husband. I want my blog and my photos to serve my life, not the other way around. So a holiday break was just what the doctor ordered. I had a lovely Christmas in the woods with my family, and I didn’t take any pictures. Every artist should remember the difference between spectators and friends.

That said, I’ll be doing lots of posing and preening in the dresses I got for Christmas. Especially this vintage one from my mom. Would you believe I didn’t own a plain red dress before now? I’ve been such a loud dresser for so long that I’ve sorely neglected basics.

Dress: vintage, via The Art of Vintage Dressing

Cape: from a friend

Everything else: thrifted

In other news, as of a few days ago, I am officially three stories away from finishing the short-story collection I’ve been working on for…ever? (Probably.) It’s tentatively titled Watchers, it’s sort of New Weird/Flannery-O’Connor-meets-Toni-Morrison, and I am very proud of everything in it. The lineup:

The Undertaker’s Parasite (finished, my favorite story I’ve ever written)
He Called Himself Messiah (finished)
Regicide (finished but could use editing)
How to Leave a Cult (finished, previously published in an online magazine)
Orexia (unfinished)
Lolita the Second (finished)
Isolde (unfinished)
The Housewife’s Helpmeet (finished, a companion piece to The Undertaker’s Parasite)

Plus an untitled New England gothic project that’s rattling around in my head but that I haven’t actually started writing yet. It might go in this collection; it might not. But I’d like it to, because 9 is a better number than 8.