There is a list for everything.

The world is not ending. I'm just over here making lists like I've always done.

It’s been far too long since I’ve added anything of substance to this substack. For that, I apologize, especially to subscribers. It’s been a season. Who am I kidding, it’s been a YEAR!

I’ve been busy this year editing my first novel - draft four is now complete and as luck and fortune and my guardian angels would have it - I have been given the ultimate gift of working with a developmental editor to hone it in the next phase, something I would not be able to afford otherwise. I’ve also been working on my second novel and as of tonight, I have six weeks left to finish it and 30k words to go. Deadlines are very helpful.

Being a writer is not free. Many of you already know that. I wanted to provide a list of some of the general things I spend money on, as a writer, to help me learn this craft, to propel me forward in this world of writing that I still feel like a complete pretender in.

As I sit here at Hedgebrook, feeling like a pretender and yet incredibly grateful to have been given this opportunity to participate in a pay it forward week (this helps them support their programming, they are a non-profit dedicated to nurturing writers after all), I am in my cabin, stoking the woodstove fire and staying cozy. Outside these stone walls, it is a typical Northwest Fall evening - a dark and stormy night and a wind event is upon us.

Places like this give us writers the opportunity to break free of our routine, to rest, to read, to have time to ourselves to finish a complete thought. In the last two days since I’ve arrived, I’ve recorded more than 14,000 words on the page. It’s more than I have had time to write in the past 6 months, combined.

So I’m going to share with you an insider view of some of the costs of becoming a writer, of learning craft and the costs of escaping the world to dedicate time to this infuriating, maddening, blessed thing I am consumed by, in my life.

$375 /3 mo Wed nights, 1 hour craft class (this is the OG class I first attended when I started writing. 1 hour and we accomplish a LOT - start here if you are starting out.) Sadly, I haven’t been able to join this one recently but I’m hoping to get back to it in the spring. It’s a great place to start if you’re an aspiring writer.

$389 six week flash fiction class by Writers Studio. (Amazing, highly recommend if you don’t have a lot of time but you want to learn a lot and meet great writers.)

Here come the big ones…

I took a course this year called “Publish It” from one of my most trusted teachers, Elizabeth Stark who also runs the craft class listed above. It’s about writing your synopsis, your query letter, making your list of agents and interacting with agents, writers and other published authors, to start your journey of finding an agent. It is a year long course that was worth it’s weight in gold. Not a small investment at $5495 BUT I have all those pieces lined up and ready to go along with my pitch and a long list of agents I will begin querying in January of 2025. If you are ready to go out and find an agent, this is the best recommendation I can make to you, one writer to another.

Another course I took was from my very FIRST teacher - Ellen Sussman (for whom the term Sussing is named). The first class I took with her was right after I’d started writing my first novel, completely untaught and unproven as a writer. It was through a Stanford Extension course one Sunday that I think cost me $40. She told me the most valuable words I have ever heard about writing to this day “Just write your shitty first draft.” When I’m overthinking it, I just remind myself, I have many drafts to follow and plenty of time to refine. Don’t hesitate just WRITE.

The course I took is called “Novel In A Year” and you can find it listed, along with her other class offerings at the link. Ellen is a gem and I find her very relatable and honest - two attributes I think every writing teacher should have, but most don’t. There has never been a moment in our interactions when I have felt that Ellen believes I am poser (though I still feel like one myself most of the time.) This class used to be $6000 but it’s now a new format offered at $4000 and is an absolute steal at that price.

I’m here this week at Hedgebrook putting words on the page for the second novel (in a trilogy) that I started in her class this year in January. I have 6 weeks to complete it and 30k words to go. Wish me luck.

Some other expenses that writers have that most people don’t know about:

Weeklong Writing Retreats: $2500 x 2 = $5000

Travel expenses: Planes, trains, automobiles and ferries, as it turns out, if you’re writing in the Pacific Northwest. $500 x 2++ = $1000

Wine: $16 per bottle (if you’re not drinking the good stuff) = $$

Chocolate: I usually mooch my chocolate from other writers

Socks / jackets / mittens / underwear - $$- all the things you forgot to pack because your dog was barfing on the floor while the phone was ringing and your daughter wanted ravioli.

Monthly subscriptions to other substacks we read: $50

Books we buy at local bookstores or on Kindle, to learn from them for our craft or keep up with recommendations: $12 x 100 per year = $1200

Below are the things I don’t spend money on anymore, so I can afford to pay for the above items, which I highly prioritize over the items below.

• Starbucks

• Manicures

• Waxing

• Tanning

• Clothes / Shoes

• Movies

• Fast food

• Dinners out (other than pizza for my kids, and business travel food which is unavoidable.)

• Plants for my yard

• Antiques

• Artwork

• Hobbies (who has time for other hobbies when you write?)

• Food & Travel magazines

• Print Newspaper subscriptions

  Put it all together - it’s roughly $18,000 I’ve spent this year learning how to be a better writer AND writing my books, AND escaping life, carving out time to have minutes, hours and days, to actually write. It’s not an insignificant investment. So if you’ve ever had the urge to support an artist who is dedicated to their craft, I certainly won’t say no and I will say thank you.

Below I’ve added a bonus piece, one I wrote in my recent flash fiction class this fall. It was written before the election and before I learned of the sad demise of poor Peanut the squirrel (God rest his little soul). I’ll call it a thought piece, because it made me thoughtful, about the choices we have to make in our lives, the moral dilemmas we have come up against and those that we might come up against in the future of our world. I’m curious to hear what comes up for you. I definitely surprised myself with this one.

It’s not meant to be a political piece. I’m not a political person. Politics is part of our world though, so let it be seen through your own filter and lens and please let me know how / if it affects you. I’m eager to hear your thoughts and your own personal take on it. Keep being good humans, walk your dogs and love your neighbor.

Manna 

Ali Crook 

“This latest batch is bitter”, my sous chef warns me, straining his sauces into dinged up, flat hotel pans where they will cool before being portioned. We measure them exactly for each serving, part of the expectation these days, one more minute detail of the exacting pressure we push through in this dreary kitchen day after day. 

“Are you saying you need more salt?” I ask it warily, eyeing the limited amount remaining in our monthly rations. I reach for a spoon, to taste it myself, the blood rich broth, silky and earth toned, so inviting. Not wanting to taste it again, I hesitate, knowing it’s my job, knowing at the end of the day that it’s me who is accountable for every grain of salt we use. If we need more, I’ll be the one signing the requisition order and taking heat for it. 

Ethan’s done good work purifying them today though, boiling off the froth of fat and impurities that rise to the surface several times before running them through the sieve. I am determined to honor his work and his process, to honor the unfortunate beasts that lost their lives to feed the masses today. 

These life giving sauces are the basis for everything we serve. Stewed from pounds and pounds of roasted bones which first arrive raw, still carrying slivers of flesh, sinew and fat which we painstakingly clean before they can hit the oven. No flesh is allowed in this kitchen, only the bones. We’re not rated for preparing the flesh. 

“It’s been nagging at me more lately, I think I may have lost my palate”, I say to Ethan dejectedly. I honestly can’t tell what the broth needs. It’s the moral dilemma though, not my palate, that really steals my appetite. I face it every day, the harsh realities of our present laid bare on the butcher block table before me, which I must take my knife to more often than I’d like, to pare away flesh and make short work of dismantling what’s

left of each pitiful creature in order to do my job - to cultivate nourishment for those who remain. Many of them are weak. 

Ethan sets a steaming mug of tea on my desk, the earl gray with lavender I find so comforting. He makes it himself, from his garden stock and shares it here, generously, among the staff, the lavender lifting spirits as only it can do, a rare source of fragrance and freshness in our lives. 

“You read my mind.” 

I pat his hand which rests on my shoulder as he surveys the mountain of forms I still have to sign. 

“I don’t envy you this part.” 

He is stoic, shoring me up with a quick shoulder massage before returning to his next task of grinding the bones, to transform them into flour. They’ll be mixed with a gelatin and potato starch mixture to become the base for our heavy flatbread, dense and toothsome, the manna that has kept so many alive for so long. A recipe dictated from the all powerful health advisors on high. 

“Do you ever wonder how we got here?” Ethan asks aloud over the grinder, and I can tell it’s more of a big picture question he’s asking than a question about grinding bones for bread here today. 

How has society slipped so far? How had everything gotten so far out of hand before it was solidly gripped in an iron fist again and kitchens like ours were created overnight and tasked with working miracles under the worst of conditions? 

“Honestly, I try not to think about it Ethan.” 

It’s a lie. It’s the only thing I think about anymore.

With every paper I sign, I’m overwriting the history of the creature behind the bones. Erasing their story with every swipe of my signature, reducing their lives to truly unusable portions, the awkward joints and calcified knobs rejected by the grinder - those pieces that held their inner jelly together - only those pieces are buried in the mass grave. Does anyone return to mourn them there? 

“It doesn’t feel right. I know that. But if we didn’t eat the liars, the proven spreaders of disinformation, there would just be more lies. How would we ever know what was true and what would we eat?” 

That’s what they told us anyway, to justify feeding people to people. “I just try to remember that it’s better than letting innocent children starve.” 

Ethan nods, considering my words as he tastes his broth again. He’s added salt. “It’s gotten a little better now anyway.” 

We both know he isn’t referring to the broth, but to the fact that things have calmed down significantly since the first harvest two years before. I shiver, remembering those early days when unscheduled deliveries would arrive, packages dripping with blood, only partially processed and too recognizable in their human forms. 

“I’m glad they organized the system so quickly, that was a real nightmare.” 

I haven’t slept through the night since then, try not to nod off now as the light fades outside my window, trying not to miss how Willow, my golden lab would press her nose impatiently to my knee at this time each day, begging for her evening walk. She was relentless in her pursuit of our excursions and wouldn’t let me escape without our walk. Which is probably a big part of what kept me healthy when everything in the world fell apart. I don’t want to walk home alone again today, missing the friendly wag of tail and her playful barks along the way.

It was inevitable though, when the famines hit, when the port strikes delayed the last of the food, left it sitting on the ships, then heaved it, rotting, over the sides of the ships, before they began butchering the liars and cheaters, the canceled celebrities and failed politicians, they made us round up the innocent pets and eat them first. 

Ethan sees my breathing has quickened, squeezes my shoulder, knowing me well. Knowing how deeply I still mourn her. 

“At least they tasted sweet.” 

I nod softly and sip my tea, fogging my glasses even more, then slide the next form off the top of the pile and sign my name.