📚 Finished reading:

• Freelancing 101: Launching Your Editorial Business by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
• You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins

📚 Abandoning Blue Mind for now, but I definitely want to come back to it.

I’m struggling to write a blog post today or even a short note. My mood is low due to extreme uncertainty in both the wider world and my own specific circumstances.

My kid has been binge-watching Magic School Bus and Thomas & Friends. All I want to do anymore us sleep and play & Final Fantasy VII Remake.

But he and I did just bake a cake together, so in addition to living in about the best situation one can, I’ve got that.

Today in My Son, the 3 Year Old Fic Author: a crossover in which Spider-Man and the Ninja Turtle Michelangelo team up to defeat Dormammu.

Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. I’m a learner who writes.

📺 So is Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist a jukebox-musical version of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend?

I’m sure there are grad students for whom a list of ways to stay productive right now might be useful, but I am not one of them.

I just DMed 6 cosplayers on Instagram to invite them to participate in my study. 5 were in person acquaintances, 1 was recommended by a friend. Feels like I’m actually, you know, gonna do research!

Sometimes, as an exercise to give me insight into what I should be focusing on, where I should put my attention, whenever I’m choosing an activity rather than fulfilling an obligation, I ask myself, What would I do if money were no object?

For at least a few years now, maybe longer, the answer has been that I would learn in public. That’s it. My perfect day would be that I would get up, have a walk and breakfast with my family, take my kid to school, then pop on a podcast about whatever I’m learning, go home and spend the morning writing about what I learned yesterday, and the afternoon learning some more: reading or listening or watching or, most importantly, practicing whatever my new thing is. And then I’d get the kid, and we’d learn something together, and then maybe go for another walk, and have dinner as a family. And then I’d play games of some sort, and eventually I’d go to bed.

It’s kind of amazing that I just banged out that perfect day so quickly, because I’ve been thinking about the perfect day exercise for years, and been stumped, and just now as I was writing about learning in public I realized that this is it.

Something else I’ve been moving toward and that really gelled for me this morning is the idea that, even though money is an object, I can still learn in public. Whatever new thing I’m doing, I can write about it.

And then, of course, I realized that I’ve actually been doing that for years, too.

Hm. And oh hey, look, when I first bought the domain name kimberlyhirsh.com, I even said that the whole point of the thing was to write about what I’m learning.

But now I’m going to do it a little more deliberately, I think. A bit more consciously. I’m toying with the idea of doing something like they do on the By the Book podcast, picking a domain and then within that domain picking a book or website or whatever and then applying everything I learn from that resource, and blogging about it the whole way. We’ll see. I’m starting with Jeff Goins’s book, You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One). He said, “Commit to writing something–anything–today. Maybe… Write it just to get it out. Right. Now.” And here we are.

🎮 I think Tifa is my fave now? I always liked her, but now I like her best?