freelance & fancy-free 🌕 scorpio full moon letter
Unemployment, #MerMay, and Agatha All Along
Here’s the headline: I’m Unemployed!
Mixed feelings: Ah, sweet freedom and Shit, I need money.
I’m in my ✨ freelance era ✨
The good news for you, dear readers, is that I have more time to devote to writing: newsletters, flash fiction, essays on fairy tales, my next video essay on Cinderella films, my next books, and my other Substack on film.
I am not above pity-the-unemployed-author sales, so by all means let my unemployment news lead you to purchase my book, Ebony, Blood, and Snow, from Amazon1, or anywhere!
This full moon is in Scorpio, which is my sun and moon sign, so apparently it’s a very emotional time for me… But I’ve already been laid off and crashed out in the past two weeks, so I’m ahead of schedule!
Tomorrow, I begin what I fondly call ‘Cannes from my couch’ which is when I spend a week watching movies all day every day ‘at’ the Cannes Film Festival Marché du Film Online. It’s part of my job as a film programmer and frankly, every year I get less jealous of my colleagues who actually go to Cannes because I get to stay cool and comfy on my couch while they run around between theatres in the heat of the Mediterranean. I went to the Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas last June and, despite staying only a 10-minute walk from the venues and wearing high SPF, I got 20 years of sun damage in one week. (I am but a pale Canadian! I belong in my cloudy homeland of Scotland!)
Creations
I’ve revived my Rated F Substack by posting some oldies ‘from the vault’ (my old blog) in anticipation of more film writing to come. If you’re into film, and not in a snob way but a ‘let’s talk about how we feel about what we watch’ way, please subscribe!
MerMay with HCA
I’ve designated Sundays ‘Sunday Fundays’ and give myself permission to do no work (not even for myself) and instead do fun things that I never do because there’s always something more productive to be done. But I was still struggling with choosing which fun thing to do. So, I wrote down all my fun things I like to do (breaking it down as specific as each streaming platform to watch a movie, each video game console), then cut up squares of origami paper, wrote one thing on each, folded them up, and put them in a jar. Now I have a fun jar to save me from decision paralysis!
Curiosities
Everything Is Sludge: Art in the Post-Human Era
I watched this in my post-book launch week when I was realizing I was burnt out after a month of working a film festival and going hard on book marketing, and considering ditching TikTok and simplifying my social media content production. I suggest you watch this if you’ve ever found yourself watching the so-called “sludge” videos of TikTok (two videos playing at once, one telling a story and one just something visual captivating) and think about your consumption.
Consumptions
Agatha All Along and WandaVision
I watched Agatha first because: witches. And then out of curiosity watched WandaVision but you don’t need it to enjoy Agatha. And now “down, down, down the road, down the witches’ road” is constantly running through my head.
50s Shopping Music
I saw a reel of someone making fun of their friend’s driving music but I was like- that’s like some of The Sims music, which is one of my ‘chill’ playlists to listen to while working, so I compiled my own ‘shopping’ playlist and it’s a perfect vibe for getting work done.
The Great Canadian Baking Show
Along with Bluey and other children’s animated shows, this is what I call ‘soft TV’ that I like to put on, ostensibly for ‘background noise’ but end up just watching because it’s gentle, nothing ever goes wrong, there are no stakes, and it feels nice and soft on my tired brain.
Cards
I pulled a three-card three-month spread with my Beltane Oracle Deck for the beginning of May (Beltane is May 1). And then I said to the cards, “Well, I don’t have a job and I dunno what to do. What do you have to say about that?” and it gave me Morning dew. Stillness. It begins, “Take pause, dear one, for right now is not the time for action.” Phew! I took the card’s advice and allowed myself to actually take some time “off” from my own work instead of trying to go right into a new working-for-myself schedule.
Feel free to take this as your own sign to take a fucking break, if you feel that’s what you need. Sometimes, stillness is the next step on your path forward.
Keeping an eye out for lilacs blooming,
.tish
Remember: Amazon may be the devil, but it is still the biggest market and highest royalties for self-published authors, so please exclude self-published authors from any boycotting! I’m not selling my books myself, so Amazon is the best place to order and review, to help the book get visibility to other book shoppers!