CONSPIRACY THEORIES, DEEP WATERS, AND A PURPOSE AUDIT

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Deep waters: When I was in London this summer, the bookseller at Daunt Books (known for their recommendations) suggested I read In Ascension. Since I had loved Orbital so much, she thought I'd love this one. Where Orbital is a small novel, In Ascension is huge. It's been dubbed “literary sci-fi” and a “space opera” ...and I love space. Since buying this book, it seems as if it's everywhere – newsletters, podcasts, bookstore windows. I'm only about 20 pages in, and we're still very much on the ocean floor – metaphorically and per the plot but I'll let you know next week where our deep-water scientist main character, Dr. Leigh Hasenbosch, takes me with her microbiology. Stay tuned!

What I'm writing: My seven key scenes for That Second Novel got the green light from my writing coach, so now it's onto the character sketches. The seven key scenes are the plot anchors of the character arc: what internal and external changes do they go through as a result of the events in your book? How and why do they change? (opening scene, inciting incident, midpoint, all is lost, dark night of the soul, climax, and resolution). I was particularly happy that out of this exercise came one very solid piece of clarity: where my book begins. I also did a little bonus for myself and mapped out potential themes for subplots, and which supporting characters could represent those themes. Some that came up: the occult and spiritualism, public perception, moral dilemma, family honor, and gender equality. I'm starting to see both the forest and the trees!

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history. A few for the canon:

I often joke that in my youth, I was “highly susceptible to cults”. Pretty sure I've grown out of that, but I still do love a good conspiracy theory. It's fascinating to me how our brains can pull on one thread and turn an entire set of events upside down. I will say this gets a little scary when you throw AI-generated images and videos into the mix, but that's a deep dive for another day. This Culture Study podcast about the intersection of gender and conspiracy theory was an interesting listen! “The Feminine Draw of Contemporary Conspiracy” hits on everything from Kate Middleton to Beyonce and all the made-up shi*t in between: and why.

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

Last week I was invited to kick off Savannah Bee Company's retail managers summit. We got to dispel some myths about purpose and get to the heart of what this looks like in our daily lives. Personal motivation for the win! Anytime this topic comes up, I share Tiffany Dufu's definition of purpose: Purpose is simply commitment inspired by experience. I love this definition because it captures what is true: our purpose doesn't have to be a static, overarching, untouchable thing. In fact, it's something flexible for the future, based on the life you've already lived.

As part of the session, I took the group at Savannah Bee through a purpose audit. While this newsletter isn't the right place for the entire experience, I wanted to share some prompts that can help you begin to locate your internal compass:

What activities make you feel the most alive (be specific)?

What part of your work day, or of your community contributions, is most meaningful to you and why?

What challenges and problems do you get excited to solve? (as opposed to stressed)

What did your younger self-love doing before the world got in the way? (Call your older sister! Call your Dad! Call your 5th grade teacher!)

Notice what you notice! And respond back to this email if a Pinpointing Purpose workshop would be fun, maybe I'll host one of these soon!!

Woman on xx