Issue 1 // May 2024
Welcome to the first issue of Ali's official newsletter! Find me on instagram at @penned.by.ali to learn more!
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“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
I’m convinced that my brother poisons me. Every time I visit him, I end up getting sick. But before I woke up with a sore throat, my brother graduated college with a mechanical engineering degree. In two more years, I will be graduating too.
After a long journey of switching my major from psychology to nursing to a few completely unrelated subjects in between, I’ve finally settled on English. As the summer semester is soon to begin, I received an email from one of my professors providing the course syllabus. Our first assignment is to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and its accompanying essays (cultural context, feminist criticism, Marxist criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, and others of the like). I have a feeling I’m not going to change my major again.
Personal issues led me to leave my suburban home in the south to travel up north to the bitter cold where I’ve been spending my days in an uneventful and boring small town. During this time, I focused greatly on my growing Instagram account and my writing. I planned a whole literary novel about unrequited love and girlhood and family issues similar to those of my own. Then I scrapped it. Now, I’m just working on my fantasy novel project tpc and occasionally another fantasy novel that I’m keeping as a secret project for the time being.
On the last day of April, I flew down south to visit my brother for his graduation, which has been an incredibly refreshing experience. Seeing my friends again and having conversations with people my age has reminded me that I’m capable of normal conversation. I work as a barista in a small cafe where my only lines are the generic customer service ones that follow a clear and easy-to-remember script. But since returning to my friends, I’ve found I’m engaging in debates just to prove to myself that I do in fact have the capacity to vocalize my thoughts in an organized way (that doesn’t make me sound completely insane).
Now, thankfully, the snow has melted back in the north and I know that my return will be greeted with the beginning of summer. Though I will certainly miss my friends back in the south and the time I spent being pummeled by waves at the beach and meeting my friend’s cat.
I’ve just finished reading The Poppy War after months. This isn’t to say that it’s a bad book (because I absolutely love Rin’s character and story), but I am surely the world’s slowest reader. One of my goals for the upcoming months is to read more often, so here’s my current reading list//
The Poppy War (and the rest of the trilogy)- R.F Kuang
Kingdom of Cards- Emmaline Leigh
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley (for class)
Animal Farm- George Orwell
The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath
Divine Rivals (and its sequel)- Rebecca Ross
Vicious- V.E Schwab
1984- George Orwell
I have no set goals in mind for when I should complete reading these books. Reading and writing are both hobbies to be enjoyed, so if I were to restrain myself with a strict schedule, I’d only come to resent both. But making a list of the order I want to read the books makes me more excited to read them.
Project tpc stands for Their Poisoned Cups, which is my fantasy novel about cults and revenge that I have been working on since the beginning of February this year. The first draft (02/04/24 - 03/28/24) is complete at 82k words and 46 chapters (excluding the prologue). After taking a week’s break (short, I know), I’ve begun planning out the second draft of tpc, and on April 26th, I began writing. I’ve fixed quite a few plot holes that are obvious in retrospect and made some major (very much needed) changes (my original solution to survive a flood was to make the characters waterproof). Reading over the first draft made me question my intelligence upon multiple instances. But that’s just how first drafts are sometimes.
Now, I’ve reached 30k words in the second draft. It’s fair to say I’m a pretty quick writer. If only I was as quick of a reader…
Bright as the Sun
I hear their voices from down the hall. They hide behind closed doors, But I've learned how to pull myself Into pieces small enough to fit between The cracks. My name is a hiss through blackened lips. Then their voices swell and I hear What I should not. Why do you never defend me? She is silent, a fading star beneath The night's witness. In her absence, There is only one who wraps her arms around me. Because we are similar, the Moon and I. We have both been told that we are not As bright as the sun.
And that concludes the first issue of my newsletter. Thank you so much for reading!
Until next time,
Ali
AHHH YAYAYYA POETRY, this made me so happy to see, it’s a really beautiful piece
Love this!! Looking forward to more updates ali 💪💪