Lachelle's Labyrinth

These are dark and difficult times. I’m dealing with my second bout of covid this year. I’m trying really hard to keep my head on straight and my heart afloat amid what I can only regard as a societal backslide, characterized by cruel, greedy leaders and ceaseless reminders of the average person’s powerlessness. The devastating genocide in Palestine; the attacks on civil rights; the abysmal cost of living—not to mention the dwindling availability of refuges and resources to address less highly regarded needs like friendship and social interaction. But defeatism has no place here. No matter how futile things may feel as a bystander, I have to remind myself that every action counts. So before I lay down my own musings, I put together a short list of people who also frequently remind me of this. Bisan, Motaz, Lara, Wael al Dahdouh, Mariam, and the Free Gaza Circus are just a handful of the many Palestinians I’m following on instagram. These incredible people are sharing their lived experiences, offering us windows to their pain and grief, but also to their joy and resilience and culture. No one should have to be so brave, but they are without choice. People like Adam, Iman, and Arié are just three of the people I follow on Bluesky who are frequently posting updates about Palestine. If you aren’t on Bluesky and would like to be, I have 5 invite codes to give out. It’s been said that material donations aren’t of much use right now given that Isntreal has refused to let aid into Gaza. That said, Mariam posted this fundraiser in her bio. This program is helping provide eSims to Gazans. The Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund shared this list of further actions to take. Additionally, here is a list of companies complicit in the Palestinian genocide to boycott or divest from. I intend to share more resources as I come across them. Additionally, Bluestockings bookstore is under attack for distributing Narcan. Consider ordering your Christmas presents here to help them avoid eviction. Since my last newsletter, I have switched services three times trying to find a replacement for Substack, which is run by Nazi apologists, and TinyLetter, which is about to become a victim of tech conglomerate greed. This is essentially a clean slate. If anything weird happened as a result of the changes, I apologize. Truthfully, I have begun this newsletter several times, and just could not think of what to say. It’s been another year of balancing school with writing, only this year, school was decidedly at the forefront. I’m not opposed to having it stay that way. I’ve been struggling with the reality of being an indie author for a long time now. I have always been okay with the probability that I will never make a life-changing amount of money; that I will never have a huge audience; that I will never do book signings or see my books adapted into visual media. What matters to me is writing stories that I want to read. I guess what’s changed is that sharing them is no longer as urgent of a matter as it seemed to be when I thought I could make, if not a career, then a side hustle out of this. This isn’t to say that I have no plans to publish ever again. I just don’t know how to prioritize something that has gotten progressively difficult at a seemingly exponential rate—and that I was never really good at in the first place. Promoting my fiction writing without Twitter has been a joke. Instagram is an algorithmic nightmare of a platform, and I have always been pleasantly surprised that people have been able to discover my work through it. This has been the extent of my repertoire. But I am by no means despairing. Based on Goodreads, Storygraph, and Amazon, the majority of my readers have come from somewhere other than my own self-promotion. I’ve seen Darknesses on shelves at Powell’s all the way in Oregon, on the Barnes and Noble website, on shady third-party Abebooks sellers. Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive all things considered; and to be honest, some of the less pleasant feedback has been very informative as I work through outlining the sequel. But it’s hard to keep publishing books with the same enthusiasm when the benefit never outweighs the cost. It may sound defeatist to admit that I just don’t know what else to do in terms of self-promotion and generating hype when I know the type of writer I am—private, secretive, unwilling to share anything until the final product is available for pre-order. I’m not giving up, but I think it’s time to invest in *checks notes* an even more hostile industry than independent publishing: academia! I lost all of my Substack posts so I can’t remember what I’ve said about this past semester. Now that it’s over, I can say definitively that it was the most pleasant so far. I learned so much about my chosen subject (gladiators), but I also learned a lot about myself. Fiction writing had been my sole source of intellectual stimulation for so long, and research has always been a compliment to it as opposed to an isolated endeavor. Now that I know it’s something I’m good at in itself, I’m starting to rethink the whole “writing is the only I could ever do” mentality I’ve had since, like, 3rd grade. Is that growth? I hope so. [Relief of Amazon and Achillia, two female gladiators. The inscription says that they fought so well that there was no victor, and they both left standing. From Bodrum, Hallicarnassus, ca. 1st-3rd century CE] This was a great year for ideas and beginnings—not so much for executions and conclusions. There were so many changes in so many arenas of life that I can’t even consider this a wrap-up because I know I’ll be forgetting a ton of stuff. Highlights: • Darknesses got its first 1-star review over a year post-release! • Read at least 20 research papers • Wrote 2 thicc research papers of my own in one semester • Shelved We Need to Talk About Apollo, though the universe remains intact • Outlined 6 new books, 3 of which take place in said universe • Was my own #1 artist on Apple Music Replay this year I think that’s it! It’s time for my apple juice and VapoRub. Valete!