The only reason I am on time with this post is because my printer is running out of ink. quashing my plan of printing stickers. May as well get on to the next task. Storm is well aware that she owes a blog post, and will be subjected to an additional photo session in order to make that happen. For now, we will go forward.
At the start of a new month, I like to pick a theme for my planners and sometimes journals. Novel notebooks are a different story (pun intended) because they don’t depend on real life timeframes, and have their own, especially the historicals. Some months are easy: January is New Year, February is Valentine’s Day, etc. May? Mother’s Day is tricky, so that’s a no for themes. Housemate’s birthday is in May. I have given her the option to choose an element for the planner deco, and her only request was “cool colors.” That fits well with the theme many in the planner community follow: Mermay.

I like mermaids. I have always liked mermaids. I do have mermaid themed/coded supplies already, which fits well with my resolve to use what I have. In therapy terms, let’s act as if it’s safe to use our stuff. We can stay where we are. There will be more stuff. This may seem like a no-brainer, but trust me, this is something I need to do consciously at the moment.
Keeping to a theme for planning/journaling helps me to be more creative, because I know what I have to work with for this particular venture. That’s also another reason I am diving fully into my novel notebooks, which, surprising no=one, I am blundering into in my usual blindfolded in the forest with buckets on my feet method. As long as it gets me where I need to go, that’s fine.
A while back, I posted about things they don’t tell you about writing while homeless. I am not linking it, but it’s easy enough to find if you’re really curious. Right now, I feel like I am currently learning things nobody told me about writing while no longer homeless. We just renewed our lease. We’re good. I have a new desk, new computer, will soon be receiving new printer ink. I have papers, I have pens, I have tons of cyber-storage. What’s in the way? Isolation and crippling doubt. Thankfully, I have a good support system, so onward I go.
This would probably be an appropriate place to make some sort of comparison between my own journey back to my writer self and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. Disney’s animated version was fun. I haven’t seen the live action remake, but the original text, that’s a classic. I would have preferred to have an HEA ending, but that’s what retellings are for, aren’t they? I am not saying never to a mermaid romance.
What are you doing to celebrate or lean into May?






















