Morning darklings,
Right now, I’m sitting on a chair against the wall, surrounded by boxes and small tables. There’s a couch in my bedroom because we couldn’t get it down the hallway to its rightful home. My transport chair is in the middle of the room, as is a box of china I forgot I had. The room I plan to use as my creative space is crammed with furniture and boxes and medical supplies and a litter box.
I’m at the tail end of a move. That time when everything is in the new place, but so much is where it shouldn’t be. Energy is depleted, pain is roaring from the previous few days, excitement is wearing off.
I’ve not only moved homes—away from one that felt unsafe for both me and the hubs, that hurt us because it was loud and the ground vibrated and the neighbors played with RC cars on the street at odd hours and there was a meth lab and a chop shop—I’ve moved my newsletter/blog—away from a place that agrees with would-be-dictators and thinks nazis are fine as long as their hate speech doesn’t incite violence, which we all know is impossible.
I, dear darklings, am just moving.
I’m moving towards my goals, towards creativity, towards kindness and doing things with intention and enjoying the company I’m with and eating real food regularly again.
To note: I have, in fact, had two slices of homemade pizza, red lentil noodles, unmashed beans, and another piece of pie.
Much like now, with my home. That creativity, intention—that life I want—is nearly in its place. Almost. Things are being shifted, dusted, settled, bought, repurposed, repainted, fixed, and thrown away. Things are beginning to shine, come together, become cohesive. Who I am as a human in this fucked up world is showing through in my creativity, my design, my work.
So now, I tell you about my next steps.
As this is my last Substack, it will be one of two left on the platform in the coming weeks. I need to make sure I have the content saved, comments screencapped, etc. For one never knows when they will need your words of wisdom.
Again, if you are subscribed, nothing changes. If you follow, however, you can decide now if you’d like to follow me again. This time, it’ll be elsewhere. A new venture. The beginning of yet another playing season. And oh goodness how much I have planned this year.
The new newsletter/blog is called Just Another Haunted Body, instead of Little Darkness, but the content is the same. A new name just felt right. And you know me, I’ll follow those blisses til forever.
You can read it online here or sign up to get it in your inbox. There will be inbox-only content along the way. How much? I’m not sure. It just feels right to cultivate the closeness of that. In these times, I don’t know if I’ll have to move platforms again, so your email addresses are how I’ll bring you along. We want to keep in touch, and no company can come between me and you if we go direct.
Hopefully, I’ll see many of you there—in the inbox or on the website!
If not, you can still find me on my website https://justanotherelizabeth.com. I’ll be putting out a collection of the best essays from the past few years, along with many new ones sometime later this year. I think it’ll be an annual or bi-annual thing. Best to stay in touch for that, as well.
Claw Machine
Beyond a newsletter switch, I would be remiss not to mention that today is the first day of the Kickstarter for Claw Machine!
Can you believe it’s time already?
I think moving put me in a time warp. I had so much time, then suddenly, I’m editing over a dozen stories at once and making sure the Kickstarter looked good enough people would want to support it.
But what’s the best is… the stories are overwhelmingly great.
There are spooky, emotional, dramatic, breathtaking, and sad. There are lyrical, cerebral, modern, timeless, and old school stories. There are issues being discussed in a collection of stories focused around a claw machine.
I mean, I asked for them.
I said, please add in the real.
I said, please give me something more than just a good story.
I said, consider the under-repped characters, the unsung heroes or villains, the Little darknesses.
But I couldn’t have imagined.
Body issues, wealth disparity, wish fulfillment, fear, bullying, bucking systems, escaping bad marriages, and more snuck their way in to stories featuring claw machines. I did mention that bit, right? I did mention that the anthology theme was just a box filled with stuff that you’re supposed to win via a claw grabbing it, right? No one gave me ordinary. No one gave me boring or expected.
So when I ask you to back this Kickstarter, I’m asking you to help me pay the authors who wrote the unique, the delicious, the wonderful.
For more information on the authors, the anthology itself, and all the tiers from the Kickstarter, just click the link. There are early bird prices too!
If you back, you’ll also get emails throughout the month it’s running with answers to three fun little questions I asked each author. They all gave one to two sentence answers, so it’ll be a quick read to introduce you to them as you wait for the book.
NOTE: I’m not asking for this so I can make bank, though $1,700 looks like a lot of money. I won’t actually get paid until we get to $3k. This is truly to pay the authors for their work and to print the books. It’s what Mr. Frond would call a passion project.
And now, I step away from publishing on Substack. The next time you hear from me, it’ll be from my new blog/newsletter. We’re journeying into unknown waters here, but together, we can get through any stumbles, bumbles, brambles. Too many –mbles, do we think?
Until next time, harness the Little darknesses and embrace the Little things.
I’ll be continuing to follow you and look forward to future newsletters. I am so excited for Claw Machine!
Farewell, Buffey. See you Elsewhere! 😁