2025 week — less "reading log," more "diary blog" this week
spring break week off... including taking "off" some reading
This week was my spring break!
The thing with a week off is, unless you travel, or maybe if you have a specific big home project or something, it is almost inevitable that you’re going to end up feeling like you squandered it. Or so is true for me, anyway.
I mostly spent the week reading and writing, doing some various lit journal tasks, relaxing and letting myself be lazy, and I even did a little grading, which is an encapsulation of a kind of perfect week… and yet, here on Friday, at the end of my week off, it is hard to feel like I shouldn’t have written more, or read more, or graded more and gotten closer to caught up, or just been even lazier. So it goes.
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The week was pretty great, but today was pretty meh. Felt it weighing on me that my week off was over, or just feeling tired had me feeling down, or feeling a little depressed had me tired. Cue Fred Durst voice, I guess. (“just one of those days”)
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I was “bad” this week — with keeping up with my daily story reading, with my daily to-do lists, with my “one line a day” memory book my gf got me for Christmas.
I started reading a short story every day almost a year and a half ago now, and I’ve been really good about keeping up with it, and a big part of being able to keep up with it has been brushing off whenever I miss a day. I don’t beat myself up about it, I don’t feel like I have to read two stories the next day to make up for it.
A big thing I’ve come to like about my daily story practice is the ritual of it all. I drink my coffee and I sit and read a story, before I’m on my phone, before I do work, before life gets in the way. It feels like a good way to start my day. If I miss a day, that’s ok. It isn’t an assignment or homework. It’s a treat.
And so, this week… I read a few stories, but also a ton of submissions, for both HAD and SSL, which is a different kind of reading, but fun in its own way… and now I’ve got a bunch of stuff I’m super excited about getting to publish and share in the coming months!
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Over the weekend, I finished my friend Susan McCarty’s novel, 2008: A Novel, in order to blurb it. At this point in the semester, I was worried I wouldn’t have the time or focus for it… but it totally sucked me in, making me want to read it with every free moment I had. I ended up racing toward the end, and then immediately missed being in the middle of it. I tried to capture some of that enthusiasm in my blurb:
2008 pulled me in from its very first pages like a book hadn't in a while, but like I hope for from every novel I pick up... and then never let me go. By the final act, I found myself devouring it faster than I even wanted to, totally engrossed, addicted, so under the book's spell it was all I wanted to spend time with. I'm already excited and can't wait to recommend it, to shove it in people's hands, to talk about it with others who found themselves awed by it and similarly under its spell.
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I did a spontaneous pop-up HAD call. Announced it on Bluesky, Twitter, and Instagram; was open for just about an hour and got 211 submissions. I sent the final responses Tuesday evening, about 32 hours later, having accepted 21 pieces.
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Gf and I went to the DIA. We walked around some, and then holed up in the courtyard cafe and she worked and I wrote, and then we walked around some more. One of my fave places to write, one of my fave date days that we do every now and then.
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I published a new story by Jeff Chon on Short Story, Long this week, and it’s such a knockout. Jeff’s collection This is the Afterlife was one of my fave books I read last year, and I am so excited to get to publish him, in general, and this story, specifically, is the kind of story makes me love being an editor.
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I met with my writer group buddies and we talked about the most recent chapters for my novel-in-progress and they continue to be pretty excited about it, which is encouraging. The book feels pretty different from anything I’ve written before, and like probably the most ambitious thing I’ve tried yet.
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I went to the coffeeshop this morning, as I’ve been doing every Friday this semester, and wrote for two or three hours. I’ve never kept a schedule like this through a semester before and it’s been really great.
After meeting with my writer group buddies last night, I was excited about the book and excited to work on it… but I had no idea what could or should come next. I spent almost an hour staring at the blank page, unsure how to progress. This was the first time so far with this book that’s happened.
I wrote down a super quick synopsis of every chapter I’ve written so far. Jotted down the timeline, to remind myself. Took a few notes for ideas… and then suddenly, there it was!
Like every chapter so far, I answered and/or built on an idea from a previous chapter, I wrote a scene, I introduced a couple loose ends that might act as seeds for a coming chapter. And now I’m excited for next week!
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I was going to go to the gym, but then I just didn’t feel up to it. So, I didn’t, and instead I let myself be lazy and lay down and read An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance by Diana Oropeza.
A couple weeks ago, after listening to his interview with Brad Listi, I (finally) signed up for a membership for Tyler Dempsey’s podcast, “Another Fucking Writing Podcast.” I think Tyler is doing a really great job at the pod, and like Shea Serrano sometimes tweets, “the rule is the same as always: if someone makes something you like give them money so they can make more stuff for you to like.”
I didn’t even really care about the member benefits, I just wanted to support the pod, but members get something of a care package of books, handpicked by Tyler, and he sent me a box of 5 or 6, all of which look super interesting. This was one!
I read maybe 1⁄3-½ and then fell asleep for a bit. Woke up and read some more. Got a snack, read some more and finished it.
A perfect little ~80 page book from Future Tense Books that’s one of my favorite kinds of read — a single sitting or two, unique and confident in what it’s doing.
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Thanks!
—Aaron
This post inspires me to actually do what I said I was going to do in the mornings, which is read stories not my dumb phone.