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Before anyone gets a little too angry at the subject line of this email, I need you to know it's from a song. This song, to be exact.

If you knew me in the before time (before I became an internet content-making machine) then you know that The Hold Steady was the soundtrack to me going to grad school and bartending on weekends. I mean, The Gaslight Anthem was a part of that too. But occasionally I find myself thinking of little clips of lyrics that used to mean the world to me, and honestly, they're the only way I can explain how I'm feeling in a particular moment.

Something clicked this past week. I'm not really sure what it was. But I'm starting to feel better and not so much like a shlumpy goblin sitting on her throne made of garbage.

No one has ever said this about me. It's just something I've felt. These past two years have been weird, man. And I've been on one of those self-actualization quests that the heroes of fantasy novels go on only to find that they had the magic inside them all along.

Except my self-actualization quest hasn't been so much a physical journey filled with foes and adventure. It's been me at my desk, creating shit for the internet and writing my morning pages and also giving a fuck about my health.

It's admittedly less sexy than the journeys in novels. Also, not a lot of dragons or swords.

But the past week, my morning pages have been good. No rage. No meh. No shlumpy goblin thoughts. Instead, it's been me gassing myself up and writing about how I can do big, scary things.

Sorry if this newsletter is a little more self-helpy than normal. But y'all know me. I got two whole shelves of personal development books, and a desire to get a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies with Emphasis in Depth Psychology.

I only share all this as a little reminder to everyone out there. Shit has been hard and you're probably a lot stronger than you think. Because these past two years? I haven't felt very strong at all.

So. What brought this shift on?

I saw this talk from Elana Johnson at the 20 Books to 50K Conference this week. (Check it out if you're a writer looking for some book marketing info.) It made me feel like I could launch books without metaphorically lighting myself on fire to do so. (If you've ever launched anything, you know.)

And I've been doing some blog and video content planning for 2022. I'll be sharing my process in a YouTube video during Vlogmas. I've been doing some keyword research and checking domain authority. And I found that my site is one point below the website of someone I consider to be a very big deal. It made me think I'm a lot closer to being where I want to be than I thought.

(Domain authority is a way that a marketing firm has defined the worthiness of a site in Google's eyes. It's a good way to see where your site falls in the grand scheme of the internet, and you can see some of the factors that have gone into it. You can check your site's domain authority here.)

So, I'll wrap up this screed with a little quote I learned from Courtney Foster-Donahue in The Course Course.

"Data, not drama."

It's easy to get caught up in drama. Hell, sometimes it's fun. This is the reason I still watch reality TV on occasion. (You can have my Project Runway when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.) But at the end of the day, you have to look at the data. That will tell you what's really going on.

And for me, as a creative person working mostly for herself, I have to remember to look at the data. Not the drama of it all. Because drama on TV is fun. Believing dramatic shit about who you are and what you do? Not so much.

And to bookend this newsletter with another lyric from The Hold Steady, I think we all need a little reminder that we are our only saviors.

Now, because you made it to the end of this newsletter, have this FREE paranormal romance:

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Thanks for letting me invade your inbox! 

Marisa 

MarisaMohi.com

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