Web Time Wasters

How was your week, friends? Mine was mostly full of those back-from-travel necessities we take vacations to escape from. Doctor appointments! Taxes! Boring obligations! Oooooh, it’s hard to be back.

Links for you!

I know HEAPS of people who are writing/have written books and the publishing industry isn’t what it used to be. (Self-financed book tours? Hiring your own PR person?) Every author should read this: 10 ways to market your book before it’s written.

What do vegans eat every damn day?

As a recovering ‘I don’t want to do it unless I’m good at it’ person, I really appreciated this post from Alison.
I think it’s hard to be a maker in our family because we like everything to be already perfectly made. And we tend towards criticism. When things are still in process, we interrupt creators with discouragement.

I grieve that I have perhaps taught you to point out imperfection rather than to participate in creating.

So I am trying to make more imperfect things.

I am exercising the muscle of creativity in places that are unfamiliar and awkward and maybe even pointless.

If Chinese pastries aren’t really baked, what’s with all the bakeries in Chinatown?

Oh dear. Are you making these mistakes in your sales copy?

I loved this: If literature’s “complicated men” were on Tinder. BUT WHERE IS MR. DARCY???
Name: Holden Caulfield
Age: 19
Occupation: “Jobs” are for phonies who “care” about phony stuff like “bills” and “food”
About Holden: Only looking for casual dating, because everyone’s a phony except for me (obviously). Sidebar, I’m not totally sure that “phony” means what I think it means.

5 unexpected things happy people have in their kitchens (I have several of #3)

Related: Have you taken my free, 5-day More Money, More Happy Bootcamp? It helped one woman pinpoint her spending triggers and find a new job with a $10,000 pay raise! Did I mention it’s free?

I loved this. Iconic Black Sitcoms of the ’90s: A Visual Homage to Their Style and Influence. Denise on A Different World FTW!

In case you need it: permission to fail.

Related: my first attempt at surfing and my new Instagram policy.

An important read: Monica Lewinsky: Emerging from “the house of gaslight” in the age of #metoo
“I’m so sorry you were so alone.” Those seven words undid me. They were written in a recent private exchange I had with one of the brave women leading the #MeToo movement. Somehow, coming from her—a recognition of sorts on a deep, soulful level—they landed in a way that cracked me open and brought me to tears.

Yes, I had received many letters of support in 1998. And, yes (thank God!), I had my family and friends to support me. But by and large I had been alone. So. Very. Alone. Publicly Alone—abandoned most of all by the key figure in the crisis, who actually knew me well and intimately. That I had made mistakes, on that we can all agree. But swimming in that sea of Aloneness was terrifying.

Who doesn’t love a good, cheap mini-home makeover you can do in a weekend?

Two delicious things: sweet and salty yogurt snack + parsley pecorino biscuits

Hope you had a lovely week!

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash