pride month updates!!!
🏳🌈🏳🌈🏳🌈
hi all!
happy june!!! i hope everyone’s had a good pride month so far! i’ve really been enjoying the late spring/early summer this year—i’ve gone to prides and concerts and the school year is nearly over! i’m going to miss all my students a lot, but i can’t say i’m not extremely looking forward to summer vacation, both for rest & relaxation purposes, and also because i’m hoping to get a ton of writing done.
![an open book. on one side, in large font, the title of the poem, [to see sappho], followed by the author's name, pronouns, and location. Rebecca P., (she/they), 23, New Jersey. The second page contains the poem. There is a light purple grid design behind the entire page. Above the poem are some sketchy purple triangles, and below the poem is an eye, in a similar drawing style.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEMZ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F83268dd5-48ae-43b0-9024-60660fe4a569_1143x857.jpeg "an open book. on one side, in large font, the title of the poem, [to see sappho], followed by the author's name, pronouns, and location. Rebecca P., (she/they), 23, New Jersey. The second page contains the poem. There is a light purple grid design behind the entire page. Above the poem are some sketchy purple triangles, and below the poem is an eye, in a similar drawing style.")
i’ve been continuing to enjoy working on my second draft. a few fun things from the past few weeks:
i passed one year since beginning to write my first draft! i began my first draft may 30, 2023. i also first started to brainstorm this story in about spring 2022, so these characters have been living in my head for over two years now!
i hit 70k words in my second draft! and even as i continue along, i am constantly envisioning different things i can go back and change once i finish this draft. there are certain events i want to move around that i think might make more sense for character arcs/relationships.
i also am starting to look a little more into the world of publishing. it’s something that’s been at the back of my mind since i began this story, but as it takes shape and slowly inches closer to being a finished thing, i will need to start to seriously consider publication options. obviously, if i am able, i would love to be able to be traditionally published, but if not, then i have a lot to learn to start the journey of self-publication.
some other fun life updates! i was accepted into grad school and will be starting my master of information and library science program in the fall! i’m incredibly excited, both because i’ll be getting back to school and moving into a new chapter of my life, but also because i’ll be moving out to live on campus, which is quite possibly what i am most excited for.
i’ve also been to two prides and two concerts in the last few weeks! i love going to pride—it’s always a ton of fun to be surrounded by the community and to feel that sense of safety. this year was my fourth time going to pride—my first time was in 2019, and it was amazing (and then due to covid, my state pride wasn’t held again until 2022). but this year was amazing and fun and very fulfilling, just as it has been every other year before. i especially enjoyed the parade this year at my state pride, and i was very pleased to see the pro-palestine group marching in it—it was the first time i’ve really been able to see any pro-palestine group in person, and i was left extremely relieved and hopeful upon seeing how well-received they were by the other people watching the parade. the festival after the parade was very fun, as there are always really cool small businesses and organizations set up! also, from one vendor, i got a free bead bracelet just because i was wearing a chappell roan shirt.
i also saw hozier perform in camden two weeks ago, and saw chappell roan and reneé rapp at the governor’s ball just yesterday! the camden concert was my second time seeing hozier, and it was a ton of fun. my sister and i had general admission seats for the lawn, but got lucky and grabbed a spot by the front. by total chance, one of my childhood friends was also going, and we ran into each other right before the show started, so she sat with my sister and i for the concert!
going to gov ball yesterday was my first time at to a music festival! my sister and i walked through a few of the pop-up shops to get free stuff before making our way to the main stage to get a good spot for chappell & reneé's sets. we got multiple free dunkin gift cards and munchkins (and got to use their free wifi!) and we got to make posters at the sharpie truck (mine said ‘proud member of the pink pony club’ on one side, and ‘let’s go lesbians!’ on the other).
the sets were amazing! i’ve been listening to chappell roan since 2018, and she’s an incredible performer with songs i’ll never get sick of. i especially loved how she came out dressed as the statue of liberty, and then demanded freedom and rights for trans people, women, and all oppressed people in occupied territories. she also played a brand-new song which was incredible!! i can’t wait for her to drop it—until then, i'll just keeping rewatching the video i took. before getting the tickets to gov ball, i’d only ever listened to a couple of reneé rapp’s songs, so i only started listening to more of her stuff back in april, but she was also amazing! the show was very fun and energetic, and her voice was incredible, especially on snow angel.
music i’ve been listening to recently:
i hate boston - reneé rapp
how’d you make me hate boston?
the whole thing is haunted
how do you sleep?
that’s me - abba
don't you realize
i may be an angel in disguise?
it's lonely to be free
but i'm not a man's toy, i'll never be
subway (live) - chappell roan
i saw her green hair
beauty mark next to the mouth
there on the subway
i nearly had a breakdown
books i’ve read recently:
last month, i read the last book in becky chambers’ wayfarers series, the galaxy, and the ground within. i’ve really enjoyed this entire series, and will definitely read more of this author’s work in the future! as a sci-fi book, i really enjoyed how this was the first in the series to not feature any human characters, and how that completely changed the structure of the story. i liked the examination of different alien cultures, and how those reflect on real life. in the end, it was a very interesting series that i highly recommend!
after that, i read a restless truth by freya marske, which i really enjoyed. this was a super fun and adventurous story—all i needed to hear to be interested was ‘lesbians on a boat’ and i was in, but thankfully the story held up to my expectations! i thought the setting of this book was very well-done, and the characters were very engaging. this was the second book in a trilogy, and it left me very excited to read the final book.
next, i read the familiar by leigh bardugo. i’d been waiting for this book to come out for a few months, and was not disappointed. the atmosphere created in this novel is absolutely incredible—it’s not a setting nor time period i’ve ever read about before, with incredibly crafted and realistic characters. the slow build to the tragedy was incredibly cathartic to read—the author tells us in the beginning that we are not reading a happy tale, and when the first characters begin to fall, it feels earned. it is also not a meaningless tragedy, and the antagonists of the story get exactly what they deserve. i highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a darker historical fantasy. the prose is beautiful, the world is well-researched and thought-out, and every character, even the most minor ones, are incredibly engaging.
i also read the vampire lestat by anne rice because i’ve been watching (and extremely enjoying!) amc’s interview with the vampire. the show’s been expanding out into some of the other anne rice books, so i am now reading queen of the damned to try and catch up with all the lore.
i’m really looking forward to this summer. i hope it will be productive, both in terms of writing and other life events (grad school, etc). i do also feel, with grad school approaching in the fall, that i want to get as much writing done as possible. i imagine once i’m a full-time student, the time and energy that i have now for personal writing will decrease significantly. that said, i will do my best to balance student writing and personal writing. hopefully i will be able to make progress on my project in between writing essays!
i’ve also been considering sharing some more writing on here—not necessarily from my book, yet, but from other short stories i’ve written over the years. if that’s something you all would be interested in, let me know!!
anyway, this summer is shaping up to be a good one. coming up, i’ve got my summer job, my 24th birthday, and a trip down to the beach!
for now, happy pride, and i will see you all soon!
becca 🌈
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