By now, practically everyone has heard of IKEA, thanks to their increasingly expanding set of stores as well as Jonathan Coulton’s excellent tribute song to them. (“Billy the bookcase says hello” by the way.) And anyone who has any firsthand experience with IKEA knows that while they offer timeless modernist style at scandalous prices, it also comes with a time commitment. » Read more
How Mindfulness Changed My Writing Life
It took me a while to climb aboard the mindfulness train. I viewed mindfulness with suspicion.
It seemed like a flimsy buzzword, something that I had seen pedaled by privileged elite who seemed like they were trying to work backwards and find a reason for their success (as opposed to an accident of birth, » Read more
What I Did When a Powerful Person Said Bad, Untrue Things About Me in Public
It’s been a weird sea change for me the past few years, building up an online presence. It wasn’t like this at all in the past. I worked on the sidelines of publishing, mostly as an editor at some literary magazines with occasional publications in little magazines that nobody really read. Won some writing awards only a handful of people cared about (but which did help me pay my rent, » Read more
Is It Time for You to Get Down With the Sic-Ness?
I have a confession to make: I used to be one of those people who would correct other people’s grammar and spelling.
Sometimes I came right out and did it. Especially when I didn’t agree with the logical premise of their argument, I’d turn into the proofreader that nobody hired. Instead of actually addressing their argumentative contentions, » Read more
8 Reasons Online Writing (Yes, Even Blog Posts) Can Be Helpful
Long before I became a writer with a decent Internet following, I was a huge consumer of online reading material. If I found a blogger whose work I enjoyed, I would often binge read their entire site over the course of a few days — even if this entailed going through years and years of writing. » Read more
Don’t Forget That Writing Is Ultimately a Form of Communication
Every writer has a different story of how they got into it. When they started. Why.
My own story starts in the third grade. Because for a few years prior to that point, sure, I could read and write. But I mostly did so in order to function in the world around me, » Read more
Are You a High Self-Monitor?
Do you consider yourself a social chameleon? Or are you the kind of person who embodies the saying “what you see is what you get”?
It all depends on how much you self-monitor.
Self-monitoring is when people pay attention to their own behavior and modify it according to the particular social context they find themselves in. » Read more
An Abundance Mindset Can Help You Write and Create More
As I’ve written many times before, when it came to polyamory, I was not someone who was a born natural. Where a lot of other polyamorous educators I’ve known and worked with say they’ve been polyamorous their entire lives, I honestly haven’t always known it was a relationship style I’d be interested in pursuing. Instead, » Read more
Hey, Why Don’t You Write About [TOPIC]?
In the course of running Poly Land, I get a lot of feedback from readers via both public comments and private messages.
I do hear a lot from folks seeking advice, and some of these conversations are turned into advice columns. But I also get a lot of outreaches in which the letter writer is advising me somehow. » Read more
It’s Easy to Knock Polyamory If You Haven’t Seen Any Healthy Examples of It
It’s late into the party, likely the final quarter of it judging by the sharp drop-off in energy and attendance. A lot of the guests have gone home. Most of the ones who are still here have gone inside. Out by the fire, it’s just me and my friend Z, the reverse canary, » Read more