Do you wanna write a guest post?
Hello you parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
In slightly unusual Platypus fashion, I come to you this week with a commitment, an opportunity and an offering.
The Commitment
Way back in January of this year, I declared myself a wannabe writer, and since then I have been quietly chipping away at this intention. I have learned that external accountability generally helps me make incremental gains with this type of work, so my friend Erika and I have continued to meet semi-regularly to write together over the year. Specifically, while practicing writing through these dispatches every week, I have also been developing a story outline, building a world and creating characters that I might be able to turn into an actual book. And so after many months of slowly but surely making small gains towards this mammoth goal, I am now at a point where I feel like I might actually be able to do this for realsies.
Therefore in the spirit of continued writing accountability, I am officially declaring my intention to win NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) 2019. What is NaNoWriMo, you may ask? Basically it is a community of thousands of people around the world who-- for the month of November each year-- come together and each try to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. You are essentially competing against yourself to write a novel in a month, and "win" NaNoWriMo by reaching the 50,000 word target by the end of November.
I feel like with the prep work I have been doing over this year, the timing is right and I am as ready as I will ever be to take the plunge. So there you go! One more month, and I will be in full-on novel writing mode... eep!
All of which brings me to the opportunity portion of the dispatch this week...
The Opportunity
I love writing these dispatches every week-- it has been a wonderful habit to take up this year, and I have gotten an enormous amount of perspective out of the thinking, writing and sharing that goes into putting this together every week. However, these are pretty time-and-head consuming to write, and if I am going to take this NaNoWriMo thing seriously, I may need a bit of space. Don;t worry: I am definitely going to continue these weekly dispatches moving forward, but to preserve as much writing mojo as possible in the month of November, I wanted to put out a call to see if there are any friendly platypi out there who have been inspired over the year to take up the pen themselves and want to be a guest dispatcher during the month of November!
You can respond to something that I have written over the year that made you think, that you disagree with, or perhaps you would like to provide some more nuance to a point I tried to make, for example. Or you could write about a completely new topic from your own unique point of view. Or maybe recommend a favourite book you think people should read. Or maybe you want to use the opportunity as an art space to out something new, wacky and wild. The weekly-dispatch-world is your oyster!
If you want to contemplate claiming one of the four spots available and share your thoughts with our 133-person strong platypus community, drop me a line by responding to this email (or write me at info@earnestplatypus.com) and we can talk about it together! When you reach out, let me know on which Sunday you would like to post (November 3, 10, 17 or 24) and a bit about what you want to write about (if you know the general direction you might head), and we can go from there!
And so to share a few bits of myself this week, I thought I would do a quick check in on some of my current favourites from around the internet/ life in general
Recent Favourites
I unfortunately can't remember where I read about this suggestion, but essentially, I am getting more into using google calendar lately to keep track of what I have going on, but also to just generally check in with myself. So for example, I have set a daily calendar reminder at 1pm every day to ask "Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?" There are lots of questions one might ask oneself so feel free to experiment, but I have been enjoying the little reminders throughout the day to stay tapped in to what I care about.
And if you like the idea of talking to yourself, you can also send emails to your future self. I have shared this service before, but I just got an email from past-Amy the other day, and I was reminded of what a small pleasure the whole exercise is. So go ahead! Stop whatever you are doing and write your future self a quick little love letter. I will wait...
I have talked about the hugely impactful book "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado Perez in previous dispatches-- but in case you don't want to read the whole book but are interested in the topic, she has started sending a weekly email newsletter out about the latest in gender gap news, including sections such as "Women's Toilet Line of the week". It is a messy, beautiful romp of a newsletter and I have really enjoyed it each week-- you can learn more and sign up here if interested!
Walk Off the Earth's homemade music videos are always great, and their most recent cover of "I'll be there" does not disappoint.
I am not a big ambient-scent person generally, but I have been LOVING the smell of sandalwood incense lately. Maybe it is the cooler temperatures and cozier evenings, but that rich, complex and earthy scent is giving me alllllllllllllll the smoky, spicy autumn vibes right now
This is not really something to recommend per se, but more of a favourites declaration: I do love people and socializing, but I think I love my home and living by myself even more. It is such a joy to feel comfortable and connected to the place you live, and to have a space that is your own. Maybe I will do a dispatch on it at some point, but I have really been feeling extra grateful to occupy my own little corner of the earth lately
I love throwing bunches of aromatic bits into my teapot to see what they taste like after I pour hot water on them and let them sit for a bit. A favourite infusion lately is fresh ginger (2cm knob), a lemon (peel and juice), 1 tsp of honey and a whole clove or seven. Such a nice concoction to sip in the evening
But wait! Are all these favourites a distraction, and is this exciting opportunity to potentially write a dispatch feeling a bit too overwhelming on a sunny Sunday morning? Then please enjoy being confronted by this extremely overwhelming but fascinating article on Qualia computing: revealing the computational properties of consciousness. We have dabbed in qualia and consciousness before, but this article takes the attempt to create a systematic understanding of consciousness to a WHOLE other level...
So if you weren't feeling overwhelmed, then you likely are now. If so, then please check out a few of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize winners. Ah, ivory tower academia!
From one goal-setting person to another, I am glad that we can find space to challenge ourselves and hold each other accountable together. I hope you enjoyed this dispatch, and have an ambition-filled week!
Until next Sunday,
The Earnest Platypus