Kimberly Hirsh

It feels really good to talk about my work and be able to remind myself that I’ve done a lot of really cool things and that I am and for 17 years have been a professional, even when I was also a student.

I’m more than 16 minutes into S3E1 of Star Trek Discovery and I haven’t seen Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Culber, Detmer, Owo, or Reno yet, so what are we even doing here? Also I can never have just one fave on a Star Trek. I always love a lot of the crew. 🖖🏻📺

EDITED TO ADD: I take it all back. There is a cat on screen. All is forgiven.

My kid has discovered Power Rangers and I have a feeling there’s a lot of deja vu in my future except it’ll be my kid asking me to play Power Rangers and not my baby sister.

Good morning. I had fasting bloodwork at 9:30am today, so I’m just eating for the first time today now, and I’m thinking about giving my brain most of the day off.

I really needed to read “Drafting a Personal Essay Is Like Stumbling Through a Dance” today. Here are some bits that hit me hard:

It’s not enough to see a successful dance or personal essay—you can study all you want, but it’s only in the act of doing that you learn what’s right and what isn’t.

The bad news about first drafts is that they are necessary. The good news is that they’re only a starting point.

There are many ways to get better at writing—take classes, join critique groups, read voraciously—but nothing gets you around the fact that you must also write and revise.

…take comfort in the fact that your words are still on the page. You’ve done the hard part and unleashed your awkward vulnerability.

I highly recommend Sara Fredman’s Write Like A Mother newsletter, in which Sara interviews writers who are also mothers. Some bits from the recent issue with Kate Baer resonated especially with me, so I thought I’d share them here.

Mothers were so punished in this pandemic.

This. I’m playing the pandemic on easy mode - working part-time from home - and I still feel this. The social costs and lack of a village are what’s hurting me most. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, I hung out for a long time with other parents while our kids were at the park and it was huge. Pre-pandemic, M & I spent every weekday morning at a co-working space with a Montessori school on-site. My co-workers were almost exclusively fellow parents of young children, mostly moms and non-binary primary caregivers, and at the time I didn’t really appreciate how special it was.

…nobody cares if you’re a writer. Nobody, nobody cares if you’re a writer, except you. If you want to be a writer, then you have to take control of the situation. You have to think of yourself as a writer, you have to treat yourself as a writer. You have to treat this like this is a job… I have to be the one who cares so much about being a writer. And so I think part of that is just filtering out that noise and just taking yourself super seriously, taking the work super seriously.

I have only recently claimed the title of writer for myself, despite having written all my life and having my first paid byline 10 years ago, and I feel this so hard. I’m still working on taking myself and the work seriously.

Want to read: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder 📚

Like the Bloggess, I too look like I have it together when I’m depressed but really think I’m failing at everything and everyone is mad at me and do not require your MLM supplement or need to smile more.

📚 I’m on page 78 of Gwenda Bond’s NOT YOUR AVERAGE HOT GUY and y’all, I’m so glad she’s expanded her repertoire to include humorous fantasy romance. ❤️

M, as we sort Magnatiles: Wow, you’re really good at sorting!

Me: Yeah, thanks, I have two graduate degrees in it.