Hello! And Other Lies.

Welcome to my substack :) This letter is about what I can promise you and a little bit about me

We all fib a bit to start, no?

I’m not hungry but I’ll have a fry— just one fry— from yours, thanks. I’m wearing Patagonia baggies and Tevas in my instagram post so duh, I’m outdoorsy. I want the job because the company’s vision and mission perfectly aligns with my daily praxis, not because the proverbial cash in my virtual wallet would make me feel a little better tomorrow.

So my lie is that you’ll hear from me weekly on the Substack,

but really it will be when the guilt of my creative inertness gives in, causing me to collapse forward at the shoulders, articulating my stiff bones into the ready-position of Writer At Her Laptop, or a girl ashamed. Those are non-exclusive states of mine. Sometimes the venn diagram is a circle.

The hope is that one day my writing will come from a habit of mind that I’ve cultivated— that it comes from positive external motivation, dare I say, in the shape and spirit of inspiration— rather than from that internal, crippling guilt-trip. Maybe writing under the novel premise of “publishing” will tide me over until the habit gets to form?

In any case, starting this Substack feels like a green smoothie for my shame-gut on a hungover morning. Maybe it’s practically superficial, as in wheatgrass and ginger can’t cancel out last night’s consumption, but symbolically significant, as in it felt like the right thing to do for my health, and isn’t this just what people in my situation do?

Here’s the smoothie concoction:

• 1 part: I have some old writing I want to put out there

• 1 part: I read half an article from the London Book Review and decided I liked it, so mayble I’ll… make that? About health and nutrition? About short fiction? About audio and anthropology?

• 1 part: journal entries reflecting on my interactions that seem too long at the outset to write by hand, so I may as well type them in here

• 1 part: audio doodles

I’ll make you a glass, too, if you subscribe. :)

In the face of that lie (the one about publishing weekly), here are some other part-truths about me.

They’re part truths because this is just how I introduce myself. Nobody slops the whole casserole on your plate, right out of the oven. This is just the first serving,

just a: Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Bianca and I am the year of the snake and I’m the type of person who is confused by can openers but gets the can opened by any means necessary.

—Just a: I want to research and produce non-fiction audio and writing in my own practice but subliminally resist consuming it unless it’s packaged like fiction, because I love short fiction the most.

— Just a: I wear tons of rings on my hands when I’m nervous and about to meet new people because that’s the first impression I want to give: someone who curates and collects beautiful things, and gesticulates thoughtfully, and who has little smatterings of beauty all about her person, between (hopefully) her outfit and her tattoos and (self-indulgently) her smile, so you’ll never know where to look. I just met new people 30 minutes ago on Zoom, but as soon as I shut my laptop I shed my rings so I could type nakedly.

— Just a: My degree says I’m an anthropologist but more tellingly is my nosy nature.

If you’re still reading this, you’re probably already my friend, or you’re about to become one.

Thank you for reading. You already inspire me and are a part of my creative unfurling where I get to sit more upright to face the blinking cursor.

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