Get your very own poem

Hey y'all! Daily poems in August is going strong over at Ko-Fi. There are 14 days left of August and only 14 more poems to be written!  I figure, what better time than to mix it up and work towards my goal to get paid for writing this month? 

Want me to write a poem to you? If you donate 2 cups of coffee  (that's $10) to me during the next 14 days, I will write a poem to you and feature it as the day's poem. Make sure you specify that you'd like a poem in the donation! I can only do 14 max requests for August, though, so you might want to hurry!

Love & Gratitude,

Kit

 

Quick reminder! 31 poems in August...

 Hey y'all, just a quick reminder, I'm writing 31 poems in August! Become one of my supporters for the price of a cup of coffee and you can read them as I go at www.ko-fi.com/kitsteitz ! 5 bucks for a poem a day in August ain't so bad, right?

Check it out!

Thanks and much love,

Kit

Nine Years of Blogging!

 It's been 9 years since I wrote it will not last the night. Whaaaat? I can't believe I've been writing in here since 2011! I mean, some years I only posted like... 4 posts. But still! 

I started the blog to motivate myself to start writing again. College & life had sucked the will to write (and a little to live) out of me and I needed a space to start small and find my voice again.

Also? I love writing! Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I struggle to write. Or struggle to finish writing before moving on? This changes all the time. I am hella ADHD, y'all, and I've been working hard to learn how to work with my brain not against it. This gives me the space to be imperfect, but still DO it. 

So here we are 9 years later!

I've learned a lot about myself (and I'm still learning so much). I have white eyebrows and crows feet now. You don't know that, reader, but it's very true.

Today, I walked to the Starbucks across campus to get some go-go-brain-juice and it was a pandemic anxiety o'clock. I was wearing my mask, but none of the groups of students I walked past were wearing their masks. I rolled my ankle. I got back to my desk and just sat there trying not to cry for about 10 minutes. As campus' decide to re-open, frequently as COVID-19 cases rise, scenes like this are familiar to many of us who work for colleges & universities. My thought wasn't "Am I going to post an awesome anniversary post, soon?!" It was, "Am I going to die?" This blogoversary is about reflection and the future!

Since I started this blog, I've accomplished a lot:

1. Published a record of night, a chapbook of poetry that I posted here.
2. Collaborated with friends on poetry projects, such as the Transatlantic Project with Steve Cotterill.
3. Written 2 novels <3
4. Created poetry tiles for my writing
5. Started a 

Right now, my current projects (and hopefully future completed-projects!) are:

1. Poetry project at ko-fi.com
2. Audible of a record of night narrated by Erin Knowles!!! Coming SOON. All the work is done, it's just going through Audible's approval process.
3. Super Secret Podcast about a Space Barbarian named Kitten.
4. Keeping my blog updated! (sup)
5. Finish my trilogy or big ass book.

So I don't have a cool schtick for this post. I will try to think up something exciting for next year (which will be my decade-versary!)

Thanks for reading, friends <3 

HOT OFF THE PRESS!!

Y'all, I am so excited!!! My author copies came in for a record of night!!!

Looky looky!!!

They look so flipping good!! I can't believe how good they look. This is blowing my mind, y'all. 

Want your own copy to have and hold? Click here.

This is how to start my Friday off proper. Have a fabulous weekend, y'all!

Love & gratitude,

Kit

Holy Cannoli & ko-fi problems (boooo)

Okay before the big awesome news, let's do the Ko-Fi update. Get it out of the way.

Ko-Fi updates (boooooo)

So the other news is that Ko-Fi submits my donations in a manner that requires me to have a specific set-up in Paypal. It would have been nice to know this ahead of time, but unfortunately I didn't find out until my first donation. I'm working with my bank and paypal to get it all figured out and hopefully it will all be squared away by Wednesday.

So those who donate during this time have a couple options:

• They can wait until Wednesday to read the posted August poems 
  or 
• they can contact me via email foonalina at gmail dot com and I will send them their very own copies! 
• All who donate during this time will receive a little something extra extra for their patience! 

And now for the good news...

The paperback of a record of night is NOW AVAILABLE!!!! 

If you want to read my tiny chapbook in physical form, go get you a copy!

I mean, just look at this! It's so legit, y'all.

That's it for now, friends! 

-Kit

Thoughts on self publishing and all this stuff

I'm two days into August and my poetry challenge on Ko-Fi. My goal is to get a cuppa donated once a day but we'll see how reasonable that is. 

I have NO idea how to increase my audience, or garner an engaged audience, so I've just started posting to twitter and fb and hoping something comes out of it. It's difficult, because I've kept this blog since 2011 and I still don't have regular readers or commenters. I feel like I'm just writing into the void. Of course I've internalized it and told myself it's because I'm a crap person, writer, poet, and people just intrinsically pick up on that. 

"Why even post, it's already failed."

"Nobody engages with these posts, let alone goes to the text. I should give up now."

"Give upon this project. Nobody cares."

"Nobody cares because you don't have anything new to say, and you don't say it in a new way."

"People don't care about poetry or reading, let alone reading some no-name."

"You haven't don't this a traditional way, so folks will just assume it's vanity without substance."

Woo, it feels real vulnerable to actually type all of that out. These stories feel true to me and I'm not sure how to re-frame them, but I'm working on it because I do give up and quit because of these stories. At least once a year, I completely give up because what's the point. And then I read professional writer's blogs to hype myself up, about how I should be writing to be a writer (typically very prescriptive) and that reinforces my internal narrative that I'm a fake, that I don't know what I'm doing, and that I will never be even moderately successful. 

To counter this internal narrative, I know intellectually I'm dealing with a lot of impostor syndrome. Don't know what that is? It sucks and many folks who have been raised outside of white, heteronormative, dude privilege know about this and experience it on a very deeply ingrained level.

I also think there's some other stuff going into these internal narratives... like how the idea that if I work hard, I'll be successful is so deeply ingrained in Americans. Even though it's just capitalist propaganda that bears no relevance to most of us, I've definitely internalized that, as well as many, many other Americans.  So if I'm not successful, it's my fault for not working hard enough, not producing a good product, or generally doing something wrong. 

If you're reading this, thank you. I want to be clear that I'm not trying to guilt or shame anybody into supporting me- and that concern is a large reason why I haven't been open with this struggle. I want folks to read my writing because it's good and they get something from it, not because they feel bad for me. Oh my dog, please don't ever do that. 

I don't know how to end this. I guess, that's just what's going on with me, y'all. Thanks for bearing with me for this post <3 I'll keep writing, keep posting, keep going regardless.