xii. what 2024 will mean for this newsletter
Doing less in a modern era that demands doing more.
muse: (noun) a person or personified force who is the inspiration for a creative artist (verb) to be absorbed in thought; to gaze thoughtfully at.
A newsletter in which I, Ashia Monet, think about writing and aspire to be the sort of woman who would make Lilith proud. This is my curated corner of the world, so I invite you to dim the lights and find something lovely to drink. Here it is calm, here it is quiet, and here you are always welcome—though I cannot promise that strange things do not lurk in the darkness here.
In late October, I had a Wednesday lunch date. I immediately went from that date into a three-hour class for my graduate program. Afterward, I came home, packed a suitcase while nibbling on dinner, and went to bed just in time to wake up for my Thursday morning class (again, three hours long). I then hopped straight onto a four-hour train to NYC. From there, I spent the weekend wandering overcrowded streets, visiting old friends, and doing too much shopping. I traveled home on Monday (another four-hour train ride) and was surprised to find I was burnt out by the time I walked through the door.
Most of my days resemble this, in some shade.
It is no surprise, then, to hear that I am presently interested in having time to process. Things are moving quickly. Far too quickly. Being back in school means I can’t keep up the breakneck creative pace I’ve had for the past year and a half. Social media is fractured, with everyone scattered across what feels like hundreds of different platforms and apps. And I cannot even begin to dream about keeping up with the amount of new media to consume.
I find myself thinking less about producing and more about settling and digesting. And so I have decided to take a deep breath, slow down, and stop trying so desperately to keep up. The weather is getting colder, the trees are growing barer, and this newsletter is taking on a new shape.
I’ve been tracking my word count all year, across projects, across days, across hours. My newsletter ranks as the second project I’ve spent the most time on. I’m proud of that consistency and my ability to stick with something for a year straight—again, I’m not the most consistent person in the world—but in 2024, I’m interested to see how my time looks when I dedicate more of it my fiction and formal essays.
Updating Lilith’s Muse twice a month worked in 2023, but it does not fit into the shape of my life in 2024. I know that if I keep up that pace, the actual quality of the newsletter will suffer. I’ll toss words on a page simply to be able to say I wrote something—even if it’s trash.
I don’t want this to become a space of mindless drivel. A space of musing, yes, of course, always. But there is beauty in dreaming, however formless it may be, and that is my goal with this newsletter. An enchanted sort of wandering. Less maddening, more inspiring.
And so, I present to you the new schedule of Lilith’s Muse for 2024: updates will be posted every other month for free subscribers and once a month for paid subscribers. Not much of the actual content will change—there will still be creative meandering and thoughtful reflections—but this lighter schedule will allow me the space to produce consistently in terms of both quantity and quality.
I do hope that you will follow me forward into this new era. And that you too, perhaps, will take a few moments to slow down and breathe.
book updates
Our Black horror anthology ALL THESE SUNKEN SOULS is OUT NOW!!! :) I indulged in a very emotional reflection over on Instagram so I won’t repeat it here. You can buy your very own copy of ATSS wherever books are sold. The old preorder links here should still work for immediate ordering as well.
recommendations.
We watched a few scenes from Couples Therapy in my Monday class in order to discuss couple relationship dynamics. I immediately went home and binged Season 1. I’m on Season 3 now, as I type this. As much as I love this show, there definitely is something odd about seeing a setting as intimate as a couple’s therapy session on TV, but all parties consented, so I guess we’re free to be nosy.
I grabbed this Aritzia cardigan while I was in NYC for Halloweekend and I’ve been living in it ever since. It is so soft, it is so warm, it is my go-to layering piece. I love clothing items that bridge the gap between comfort and fashion and this one has been a welcome addition to my wardrobe.
I’m not finished reading The Hurting Kind but I, like many other readers, find myself absolutely blown away by Ada Limón’s poetic voice. The poems in the first section focus on nature, but also on love, grief, and identity, in a way that feels both massive and so relatably personal. It’s also the perfect read for the onset of winter and the end of the year.
As a bonus: enjoy this essay on the importance of having a fluid sense of self, which I think I found in a
post by Haley Nahman? I think having a fluid sense of self is incredibly important for those of us who are writers, or aspiring writers, in the traditional publishing industry. It is so easy, and so dangerous, to let “writer” be the only thing you use to define yourself—but I invite you to pad your identity with as many nouns as you possibly can.where to find me.
Website: ashiamonet.com
Twitter: @ashiamonet
Tiktok and Instagram: @ashiawrites
I ADORE Couples Therapy. I feel like no one else watches it, and it's so, so good.