Your Weekly Dose of EEE #7: Substack meets Masterclass meets The Economist meets The New Yorker

Where can I sign up?

Two visits to Independence Park in Beverly, MA, in one week, and the second was definitely the highlight. Good company, good weather, and the sound of crashing waves. Photo by author.

Hey there,

How’s your week going? Well, I hope. I’ve been mashing away at the keyboard in hopes of getting literally any words written in the When We Were Mothers sequel, and I’m happy to say I’ve finished, like, a chapter so far! One chapter is better than zero chapters, and after six weeks of brainstorming I’m just glad to have something on paper that’s not an outline or idea web or endless string of script no one can decipher but me.

I wanted to remind you that if you’re interested in following along with my writing progress, you can sign up as a paid member of Nicci’s notes, where you’ll get access to my weekly-ish updates on the process to create a sequel. You can do that by pressing the blue button below, or if you prefer you can reply back to this email to discuss! Thanks to all of you who are already supporting me with paid memberships! You are showing the work I do is valuable to you, and I couldn’t be happier!

What’s Exciting Me?

The excitement is waning a little around here, as I take a bit of a break from publicity and focus more on writing. But, here are some cool things that have happened recently, or that are going to happen soon:

• Three recent events: Author’s table at Lowell Book Company; Author talks at my local public library and a great little brewery in Beverly, MA called Coastal Mass. Brewing—I sold and signed books, met folks, and had a really good time!

• I wrote words on pages for the WWWM sequel! I know I mentioned it above, but it’s really exciting and I needed to repeat it.

• I have been approached by, like, 5 different book clubs about appearing at their club after they’ve finished reading WWWM. I am nervous as hell about this, but also very excited!

What’s Entertaining Me?

I decided to do a better job curating this section rather than just spewing out all the things I’ve been consuming. So, one recommendation from each modality:

📺 Succession is back, and while it took me a minute (okay, half the first episode) to jog my memory about the previous seasons, I just love hate these characters as much now as I always have. Roman is definitely still my kindred spirit, but the characterization is really excellent in this show, and I watch because I really am invested in the story despite mostly hating the characters. Also, I really want to know what the company was that they were going to be pitching at the beginning of Episode 1. “Substack meets Masterclass meets The Economist meets The New Yorker”? I won’t be an investor, but I’ll be an employee if it’s something that gets creators freaking PAID!

(Yes, I know it’s fiction. But he got me excited!)

📖 I just really enjoyed Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. I finished it in 3 days as a part of the Trans Rights Readathon on TikTok, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a take on the classic “violinist makes a deal with the devil” story, but in an entirely interesting and exciting way. Katrina is a trans girl who runs away from an abusive and unaccepting home with mostly just her violin and the clothes on her back. She meets a violin teacher who has promised to deliver one final soul to hell so she can fulfill a contract she made 48 years ago. And there are intergalactic refugees who somehow fit just fine into the story.

I found while reading these stories this week that, while I’ve always been accepting of people no matter how they identify, reading books with trans characters helped normalize talking/thinking about their experiences and also illuminated aspects of life as a trans person that cis people might not know about. In general, I highly recommend reading well-written books with diverse characters!

🎵 A friend has me listening to Manchester Orchestra. It’s the kind of music that’s fine in the background, but that also carries a cohesive message if you pay attention. So I try to listen at a time when I can pay attention. The album I started with is Simple Math.

What’s Enlightening Me?

Thanks to

J.E. Petersen

's latest and some other conversations I’ve had this week, I continue thinking about the balance between living in the moment/enjoying the work I do and trying to make a living from it. In the last couple of lines of this post, he suggests a solution, at least as far as the balance of punctuality versus living in the moment. But I’m not sure how capable I am of striking that balance with any kind of “enjoying the moment”-type thing and looking ahead to the future.

What about you? How do you strike the balance? Or do you even bother? Share your secrets, and any entertainment recommendations you have, down in the comments section!

See you next week.