Phetasy
Politics • Culture • Comedy
January 27 - The Blank Page
The blank page is a word mine and I’m panning for gold nuggets.
January 27, 2023
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Write about the appeal of the blank page for you. Write about the fear of the blank page. What scares you the most? What excites you the most?

Cursed blinking cursor, daring me to write. Shaming me for not writing. Mocking me for my unoriginal thoughts, my hack jokes. Reminding me of my deadline looming. The blank page presents a challenge, a hurdle to overcome every single time I face it. Do I start with an outline or is this a rant that needs cleaning up? If it’s satire, I start with research and pray the research doesn’t kill all my writing time. Now that there is a baby in the mix, the blank page is a race to see how many words I can pull out of my dome before she wakes up. Put blinders on. Avoid rabbit holes and cliche metaphors.

Fail miserably.

 
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It's the End of An Era, We're Moving to Substack!

The time has come, Pham!! It’s officially the end of our Locals era. This means that starting now, all of our content will be centralized over at Substack and not Locals.

As you can probably see, my life is getting increasingly more bonkers, in the best possible way--but that means dividing my time between two subscriber platforms is no longer sustainable. Consolidating all of the Pham in one place will make it possible to give you more of the focused attention you deserve.

Don’t panic.

  • No action is needed from you right now.
  • Anyone with a Locals subscription will be grandfathered into Substack and automatically moved
  • You will hear from us on Substack if you have duplicate subscriptions.
  • Substack is giving the Phetasy Pham the white glove treatment, which means if you have any problems or concerns, they will be able to help you resolve it quickly.

Locals is where it all began so the move is bittersweet. I have made lifelong friends here. We’ve done writing prompts together. Worked ...

Hello new followers, I hope I don’t disappoint you. I want this place to feel like home, where we can escape the Thunderdome and process the world. Where we can post dog pics and recipes and book recommendations. Where we support each other as we get sober, lose weight, embark on new business opportunities, creative endeavors, relationships and travels. I want this to be your oasis of sanity and laughter in an increasingly mad world. A creative outlet where you can share your spirit with us.

We might not have any control over the news cycle—but we can control our habits and attitude. It all starts with us. And hopefully a little piece of that will start here.

Pham, I know it’s late for some of us, but I haven’t had a song in my brain in a bit. So, here’s one of my favorite poems instead.

Poem of the Evening💙

“Come live with me and be my love.”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44675/the-passionate-shepherd-to-his-love

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January 27 - Girl, Interrupted
You shouldn’t be able to see your own face while you talk about your childhood trauma.

What, if anything, made you laugh in the past 24 hours. If nothing made you laugh, write about something that made you smile. If nothing made you laugh or smile—write about why.

(Sorry for the delay on this prompt—life happened.)

It was yesterday, in the middle of my virtual therapy session...

 

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June 5 - What is a Woman/Man?
The writing prompts are back! And since everyone is talking about "what is a woman?" I thought we should dig into our Factory Settings and find out what we learned about this stuff.

If you are a woman, what messaging did you receive about womanhood? Same question for if you are a man? What messaging did you receive about manhood? From the culture? From your parents? From your religion if you were raised with one?

The writing prompts are back! And since everyone is talking about "what is a woman?" I thought we should dig into our Factory Settings and find out what we learned about this stuff.

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April 18 -

Pause whatever you’re doing, and ask the person nearest you what they’re thinking about (call someone if you have to). Write a post based on it.

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