I’m Kristen Tate—editor, writer, and proprietor of the Blue Garret. These emails will be weekly until the spring, when I will likely go back to my every-other-week schedule. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of this email. Thanks for joining me at the garret!

It is week seven of 2024. How is the writing treating you these days? February can be a stormy month in all kinds of ways, so give yourself a break if you need one. Get yourself to an art museum or go out and do something you’ve never done before. Shake out the brain cobwebs and come back to the work with fresh eyes.

Here at the garret, I’ve been quite busy, which has suited me just fine. Books have always been an anchor for me if I’m feeling emotionally unsteady, and they operate exactly that way when I’m working on them as an editor too. The rhythm of moving through the sentences, doing a check here and a polish there, steadies my breathing and calms my brain. It helps that this week I’ve been focused on a savagely funny takedown of Silicon Valley masquerading as an innocent rom-com. (Okay, that’s just my interpretation, but read either way it is a delight.)

My trip to Sydney feels like it happened a month ago, not a week ago, and I’m still adjusting to having my son be on the other side of a Zoom screen or WhatsApp message rather than down the hall. Thank you for all the kind, reassuring replies to my last newsletter! After most of a Sunday in Sydney and fourteen hours on a plane, I landed in San Francisco just barely ahead of a bomb cyclone that shut the airport and knocked out power around town (though luckily not for us), and I dragged my way through another whole Sunday. I felt lucky to be doing it, however, and also lucky to discover that my semi-regular insomnia seems to make me immune from jet lag.

Big news on the book front: After another big push, I have a draft of Novel Study ready to send out to beta readers this week. I’m writing this on Saturday evening after spending six hours and most of my mental energy on the draft, so this newsletter will be short. But let’s look at my stats:

February 10 snapshot

⏱️ 64 hours to date

☑️ 97 to-do list items

✅ 34 to-do items completed

📑 Draft #3: 232/232 pages

Previous installments: Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5

If you’d like to sign up to be a beta reader, you can do so right here. Thank you to everyone who has already signed up! I expect to send out the beta reader version early this week and will ask to have feedback by March 4.

I haven’t figured out which of my to-do list tasks I’ll focus on while beta readers have the book, but you’ll hear about it here next week.

Our Thing of Joy this week is sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom’s smart analysis of the Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs performance of Chapman’s “Fast Car” at the Grammys last Sunday. I hadn’t quite been able to figure out why his cover in general and this performance in particular made me feel itchy and angry rather than encouraged until I read her piece. Here’s a link to Chapman’s original if you need some pure joy. And if you need some more cathartic rage, here’s a bonus link to McMillan Cottom’s thread about it on Bluesky, which is now wide open to anyone. It’s my favorite post-Twitter place, so come check it out. (And if you do, message me and I’ll help you find the #AmEditing feed.)

Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights.

Kristen

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