Swag

I FUCKING LOVE COOKIE BUTTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Just needed everyone to know and have that all squared away. 

Not to be whatever, but the past few days, I have done the most baller and mind-blowing of writing for This Bites 1.2 and 2.1. I’m finally hammering out the last few details about Oliver that flesh out his emotional landscape EXACTLY how I was want it to be. Getting into the meat of part 2 will be so gratifying; I can’t wait to build upon these foundations. I’m slightly struggling in that I’m done with act II, but have two more memories I would like to add in. They’re small ones that I just wanted to use to explore how their dynamic changed over the years; overall nonessential, but I think it would be nice. I also made a change to Noah’s past that's pretty significant. I need to go back through everything prior and make some edits that take it into account. I’m hoping to have part I 100% done and the rough draft of part II complete before the end of this year. I want to do traditional publishing stuff, so that’s when I’m going to look for an agent (since just being persistent isn't enough, apparently (my Submittable is exhibit A on this)). Fun side note: I submitted 6 pieces to the New York Times on December 17, 2024. It still hasn’t even been assigned to an editor. I’m so fucking over poetry. 

I've 100% decided I’m going to pull Hemlock Fields from sale (no one ever bought it lmao) and I’m going to redo some stuff, then republish it (and maybe actually promote it?!). I now have a more solid idea of how I want to portray myself and my writing. Also, I think I probably won't be doing any more poetry, so I may add some of my favorite pieces that would otherwise go unpublished. I just think some of Hemlock Fields is so bad, like word sludge. 

I recently reread A Door Appeared In the Back of my Sister’s Closet. I was horrified—has my grammar really improved so much in less than a year? I can’t  believe I felt satisfied with it at one point. I’m very thankful for the little grammar lessons my friend Sunni Usagi-Koi has given me as they help me edit This Bites. Anyways—I’m going to be editing that…again. I might post it for free somewhere, I haven’t decided. I still want to publish it as part of my short story collection (which is still shelved). 

Oh, the most important part—I know I’m basically talking into the void, but…I don’t care. You, my nonexistent audience, may have noticed that I’ve made many changes to the website over the past few days. Yes! You are not crazy! I uploaded a lot of art that'd been piling up and prepping the site for more visitors (promotion coming soon!). I’m disappointed over the size of my portfolio, considering how long I’ve been doing art, but alas—most of my “nicer” art is not with me anymore and the photos are low quality and hard to track down, meanwhile I lost nearly ten years worth of sketchbooks in a bad breakup. I was sad about losing the art at first, but now it feels more like a blessing in disguise. I feel like I have a clean slate for my artistic identity and I don’t have to be bogged down by nostalgia. 

I made an acrylic painting the other day; I would say this was my first real acrylic piece. I did a lot of research before starting, and I think it shows. It was abstract, the colors very nice, and then I ruined it by squirting Gorilla Glue all over it, lol. Oops. I should’ve done a test swatch to see how the glue would dry, but I did not, and it's pretty bad! It’s okay though; I’ve been brainstorming ways to salvage it and I think it's coming back together. Worst case scenario, I just start over. 

I know I said I was going to go back to reading Drawing Blood. I did not. Right now I’m reading Crash and I’m around chapter 6. Parts are shocking, sure. I mostly find myself growing bored. The only reason I’m sticking around at this point is because I’ve seen the movie and know where its going. I enjoy the exploration of the themes presented—a sexual fixation that will inevitably hurt you and the people around you—but ohmyfuckinggod, if this man says chromium one more time, I may blow my brains out. Why does the book already feel so repetitive? I’m so fucking BORED. He just harps on and on about the same thing every few paragraphs, making the same observations without adding anything new to the narrative. I really hope this will start to pay off or be revealed as intentional as I progress further. 

I also started reading The God of the Woods, as per a friend’s recommendation. I’m intimidated by the size—most of the books I read are ~350 pages. It also isn’t my go to genre, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless. I feel like I’m learning a lot about prose between this and Crash. My only complaint about The God of the Woods is that it's so packed with details and names and jumps perspective and time so often, I’m having a hard time keeping track of what’s going on. I do like the timeskips and shifting perspective, bear in mind, I’m just struggling to keep up. For example, I think some of the descriptions of the settings should have been simplified or delayed to prevent this information overload. Perhaps instead sprinkle it in throughout the story. I really like it so far, though.

I forgot to share my thoughts on The Boyhood of Cain! I really, really liked it. I picked it up on a whim without any prior knowledge and I felt like it fit very well next to some of my favorite books—The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I also think it fits with The Bell Jar. They all have the same pensive tone featuring protagonists who struggle with their emotional experience, although I would say The Boyhood of Cain is much more naive in its exploration (logically, as the protagonist is much younger), and the internal tension is more a result of identity and coming of age rather than mental health or repressed trauma. I must say: it started to lose me towards the end. I think some of Mr. Miller’s behavior and harassment was a bit over the top and it pulled me out of the story. Granted, I could just be approaching it with the wrong perspective or experiences. In reality, such cases are rare, but do occur despite their absurdity. But then…the last chapter pulled me right back in, baby! What an ending! I like how Amherst examined the complexities and shapes of envy—jealousy regarding undefined relationships, a desire for secrets and friendship, the blurred line between romantic/sexual attraction and the desire to be someone else, and yearning for the past as one grows older each day. Epicness.

Musically, I’ve had no preferences recently. It's been all over the place. More Mezzanine by Massive Attack, but I’ve also been into Moon Safari by Air. MG Ultra by Machine Girl. Life is Killing Me by Type O. Knocked Loose and Aphex Twin. Adjacently related—I used to love Youtube. I used to spend hours, days there watching all those videos without a second thought. I feel so bored with it now. It’s all thoughtless, senseless slop. It’s all repetitive, formulaic, algorithmic, carefully curated. Maybe it's because I’ve been reading more and it inherently lacks that same depth. I don’t know. I just don’t really want anything to do with it anymore. There’s all these swelling technological balloons—social media, Youtube, AI, streaming, consumption, ever-expanding and hungry—and I feel like these things will begin to burst soon. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t hate the internet. Once upon a time, it was the electronic wild west—a digital frontier with endless excitement and mystery and possibility. Now it fucking sucks. I hate what the internet has become. Trim the fat, yes, but know when to stop. Too much efficiency kills meaning. 

I have a project and a final I need to take care of before the end of June. I was hoping to finish early enough that I could take a break from school, maybe a week or two (and I could bust out some writing stuff), but I’m struggling with the course material. July 1st, my final semester of college begins. I’ll probably graduate between October and December. Thank God this bullshit is almost over. I've never hated anything as much as I’ve hated my time in college—both UT and WGU. I’m exhausted. God damn, I’m tired. I wish I had infinite time. School, work, life, the zine, trying to build a career. A million other little teeny, tiny things. I feel spread thin, yes, but…I don’t think it's in a bad way. I think I’m at one of those points where I need to adapt to the situation rather than try to reduce my workload. I have this intuitive sense that the overwhelm I’m feeling right now is important for my "personal growth". I need to increase my capacity for stress while working on my management of it. Woof. I'm thinking about facing my fears and becoming scuba certified. Terrifying! Exciting!

H. Salt