I’m changing the format of the monthly recap post to be more manageable. Rather than telling you all the things I read, watched, listened to, and experienced in April, I am going to limit myself to 5.
April was National Poetry Writing Month. I wrote a few posts about my experience with reading and writing poetry. I was happy that I successfully surrounded myself with poetry and read The Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke, a book I know I will be returning to over and over. Below you can see my posts from April linked.
I read the novella The Deep by Rivers Salomon after some folks at work mentioned it. It is an example of Afrofuturist literature and had a very imaginative plot and storyline. I went into the book not really knowing the background of how the story came about. It wasn’t until the afterword in the book that I realized The Deep (novella) was in conversation with The Deep by clipping. (song) which was influenced by the music and worldbuilding of drexiya. Learning about these threads and how these works were communicating with each other, doing worldbuilding and mythmaking, kind of blew my mind. I hope to come back to this in a future newsletter.
I found myself thinking about the kind of videos I want to create on YouTube. I landed on seeing YouTube and what I create there as a way to explore, experiment, and share what I am learning as a result of the experiments. I shared one video where I talked about my journey to improve my communication skills. I want to be more creative with my videos though, which will mean spending more time on creating the videos, and not just sharing to share…although sharing to share is also fun.
This month I signed up for a writing workshop and was disappointed and sad when I realize that I don’t actually have the two hours I thought I would have to join the three class sessions. I think I am finally coming to terms with this limitation in the current phase of my life. I know in the future, when all my kids are older and don’t depend on me so much, I will have more time on my hands. For now, I will cherish that I get to spend time with them and will continue to write and learn about writing when I can.
Related to writing, in April I started reading a few craft books, like Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Leguin, and Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison. Both of these are really great. Steering the Craft has lots of exercises, and Meander is such a new way of thinking about story and plot. I would love to read these with other people who are also interested in improving their craft.
Thanks for reading my April recap. I’d love to read some of what you were up to in April in the comments.
Hola Diannna , suena interesante el libro que comentas The Deep , luego leer en ingles me cuesta más trabajo entender y termino leyendo más de una vez 😅 ojalá puedas hacer un resumen y así ver si puedo conseguirlo es español. Saludos :)
April was a month of frustration sprinkled in with a few very joyful moments: anniversaries, wildflower hikes, new business opportunities.
I always love hearing about what you’ve been up to and reading 🥰