Onward! Yes, another update

The "intuition notebook" / creative journal, Secrets You Forgot to Tell Yourself, should have arrived at your domicile by now 😊 In the USA, that is — naturally international shipping takes longer. Please let me know if it hasn't reached you! Non-USA: Wait like another week first, then hit me up?

Also, everybody, definitely ping me if anything ever arrives damaged. To my knowledge that hasn't happened yet... but I don't know unless you tell me.

I want to do a blog series showing ways to use the notebook, but I probably won't get to that before 2021 (theme of this email, ugh). Sneak peek, I tackled "birds don't talk because they're justified..." since I think it's the least scrutable prompt:

Speaking of the impending new year... Well, first here's a recap of what I owe you and when:

• God zine — November (already late 😢)
• Wanderverse zine + update — December (not yet late... but will be)
• PDF bundle of every 2020 zine — "by the end of the year"

To be clear, I'm definitely still doing all of that; the works are in progress! But I'm not going to hit those deadlines. I overpromised and am poised to underdeliver, when of course my goal is the opposite. However... not a huge surprise. All year I've struggled with my publishing cadence. And I so appreciate that you've been magnanimously patient!

Like I said last time, "one month is simply not enough turnaround time for a solopreneur (if that solopreneur is me) to ship a cohesive physical product." I think that other people could do it, but it seems that I can't, at least not currently / not at quality level that I feel is warranted. Most recently I was derailed by surprise issues with my printer — but in general shit will come up and I need to be able to handle it. The failure is mine.

Given that I chronically overestimate what I can deliver in a given time period, it seems wise to turn a critical eye toward my 2021 plans:

• A luxe print quarterly, the evolution / replacement of the zine project
• One book chapter per month exploring the dimensions of 🔮 possibility 👁️
• Wanderverse continued, both commissions and personal contributions

When I finish the book, I'll get a beautiful hardcover printed and of course you'll receive a copy as part of your membership, plus a big ol' PDF and ebook.

This proposed arrangement doesn't feel quite right. Mainly for the project-management reasons detailed above... For example, I really want to build out Wanderverse, but it's probably not realistic to triple-focus on writing an unrelated book at the same time while also compiling a badass quarterly mega-zine. (Much as I hate admitting that my ambition outstretches my capabilities!) Each project would suffer at the others' expense and I'd feel stressed, guilty, and dissatisfied. Not ideal for doing my best work, and my A-game is what y'all deserve to receive.

On top of that, I adore the snail-mail aspect of Sonya Supposedly. The prospect of sending you mail 4x yearly instead of 12x simply bums me out. I make a habit of listening to my instincts, and my gut insists that the delight of receiving an irl creative surprise every month is an important part of this whole [vague but emphatic gesturing] endeavor.

So here's the amended program, which could be tl;dr'd as "never mind about that book idea":

• monthly Wanderverse happy mail, with the digital versions contributed to the CC0-licensed corpus
• luxe print quarterly (probably with rotating themes)

Logistically, happy mail has a much shorter turnaround time than a full-on zine, because I can do the printing / fabrication myself at home. More granular control of physical production makes a big difference. Stochastic aggravation is nonetheless guaranteed, but the fixes are quicker.

Aaand... that's it, aside from behind-the-scenes reports like this one and my regular "what's on my mind + links" newsletter. I still want to write a book, obviously, but I want to do these things more, and I need my commitments to be sustainable as well as salable.

Feedback welcome! Just hit reply and let me know what you think.

As ever, thank you for supporting me, and for listening 💖

Header image: "Marble fragment of a volute krater" featuring a carving of Dionysus.