The Newsletter Thingy
The Sybarite Newsletter: Hi, Sorry
It’s been more than two weeks since I wrote one of these, and I have no excuse
Hi, sorry. It’s been two weeks since I’ve written a newsletter, which kinda sucks for the people who publish in Sybarite. Maybe the algorithm will show you their stories without a newsletter, maybe not. We do not know the ways of the algorithm; all we know is that the algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away.
So I like to do my part and send this newsletter every week or so, but I haven’t for sixteen whole days and I really have no excuse.
Well, okay, I do have one tiny excuse: I’m trying to write a book. And when I write stuff for Medium, especially if it’s a heavy lift like this piece about some deep dark stuff, I have nothing left for the book. And I admittedly like writing on Medium better than I like writing the book, ’cause I get immediate feedback and it’s also easier to write a personal essay than it is to weave stuff chapter through chapter.
Also, I feel like a fraud. I can’t write book, obv. And what’s the point, if it will never be published anyway? And then I try to remind myself that writers write to write, not necessarily to get published, and then there’s that thing that Jung said about needing to give a voice to your deeper, darker self so you aren’t ruled by it (paraphrasing here). So over the last two weeks, I finally turned my attention back to the book — which may or may not ever see the light of day, but so what, right? Right? — and it turned out I had no gas left in the tank for Medium, even a tiny newsletter.
This sucks, because speaking of deep, darker things, there is this incredible (I wish I had a different word, for this: amazing? unbelievable? astounding?) piece by Xanadu Allen about sea turtles and how they saved her life. A horse saved my life, so I related deeply to her story and also maybe cried just a little. Fish likes to lick tears off my face, which reminded me that we are saved by animals all the time.
And because the natural world likes balance and symmetry, Sybarite also recently featured this piece by Kris Keppeler, about how to make elderberry syrup, some sticky sweetness to balance out the deeper darker stuff. This is our second sticky and sweet syrup recipe (the first one was for lilac syrup!) for Sybarite’s series called “How Hot + How Long” which is dedicated to food writing that is JUST THE GODDAMNED RECIPE FOR FFS, because we are all sick of scrolling through people’s childhood memories before we get to the chicken pot pie instructions. Damn.
Anyway, I don’t even know anymore? There’s no excuse for screwing over Sybarite’s writers by dropping the ball on the newsletter, and I know this is not the best way to attract new writers, which brings me to the part where I try to attract new writers: if you want to write about real things, things that are anchored in the real world, things that are experiential and true, hit me up by sending a draft to adeline.dimond@gmail.com. Did I mention that I am drunk with the power to recommend stories to the algorithm gods for boosting? ’Cause I am.
Your writing can be frivolous, as long as it’s useful frivolous information, like where to find the perfect vagina-colored lip gloss. (Don’t freak out, everyone knows that’s the perfect lip gloss color, just no one knows where to find it). Or it it can be serious, as long as it’s not one of those rending-of-clothes hysterical pieces, you know the ones.
Anyway, hit me up hedonists.
Until next time,
Adeline, Sybarite-in-Chief
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