Fake Lashes, Real People, & Voice Memos FTW
"Nobody actually wakes up like this. That's a lie we all pretend is possible while scrolling Instagram at 6am with crusty eyes and questionable breath."
I've discovered fake eyelash clusters and I'm obsessed.
Not the full drag queen situation—nothing against drag queens, they're fucking fabulous—but I'm talking about those individual lash clusters that make you look like you woke up pretty without actually waking up pretty.
Because let's be real: nobody actually wakes up like this. That's a lie we all pretend is possible while scrolling Instagram at 6am with crusty eyes and questionable breath.
But these little lash things? They're my new favorite form of delusion. Slap them on and suddenly I look like I tried. Like I have my shit together. Like I didn't just drop sandwich rolls on the floor and leave them there because I was too tired to bend over.
Speaking of tired—my fingers are staging a revolt.
I'm slow at typing if I'm being honest, and after weeks of enrichment where I'm answering 20+ questions per chapter to add sensory details and emotional depth, my hands are basically like "girl, no."
So I stumbled into a new workflow: I formulate my questions, answer them into a voice memo, and have it transcribed.
Game. Changer.
Turns out I can tell my story way faster than I can type it. Who knew? (Everyone. Everyone knew. I'm just late to the party as usual.)
But here's the thing that really hit different this week:
I met a client in person.
She was in town from out of state and it was only the second time we've seen each other face-to-face even though she's been one of my very first clients. We've been working together for over four years.
And y'all. There really is something about meeting in person that just hits different.
You can give someone a hug. You can look them in the eye. You can talk about business and ask questions in real time instead of through Loom videos and Slack messages.
This client is a busy-ass woman—founder of her company, always moving. Since my cancer diagnosis, we've literally spoken twice in 18 months. Twice.
And yet the work continues. The trust is there. The relationship holds.
But that hug? That in-person conversation? That's the stuff that reminds you why you do this work in the first place.
I'm a people person by nature, and I've been living on caffeine and Zoom calls for so long I almost forgot what it feels like to be in the same room as another human who isn't my family.
It was grounding.
On the publisher front:
I've started looking at different publishing companies to see what the process looks like for sending in a pitch. What would a formal publisher look like? What does traditional publishing actually entail?
And I'm not gonna lie—it's scary.
But also? I'm kind of a dork about this shit. I love pitching. It's the sales slut in me. Give me a room and a chance to tell you why something matters and I'm in my element.
So yeah, I might start scheduling meetings and moving forward in that direction.
Because eventually this book needs to leave my computer and go into the world.
Eventually I need to stop enriching chapters and start letting other people read them.
Eventually is getting closer.
Manuscript Update:
Current Status:
· 19/19 chapters complete (structure)
· 16,158 words across first 5 enriched chapters
· Chapters 4 & 5 enrichment: Complete (~2,400 words added this week)
· New workflow unlocked: Voice memo → NotebookLM → enrichment (game changer)
· Chapters remaining: 6-19 (14 chapters to go)
· Self-doubt status: Kicked in the teeth by productivity
What I'm learning: Sometimes you need to stop typing and just talk. Sometimes fake eyelashes are self-care. Sometimes meeting a human in real life reminds you why you started building this business in the first place.
The goal is still 65,000-70,000 words. We're getting there.
One voice memo, one lash cluster, one real human hug at a time.
