Bring a Lantern. It Gets Dark From Here

Today, I turned on a paid subscription. Not because I’ve grown slick or ambitious or suddenly believe the world owes me a living, but because I’m putting my head down and working—truly working—on Psalm of Lies.

I’ll still write the personal essays and the funny bits, the ones where life tilts sideways and I cackle in the dark. I’ll still drag family ghosts across the room. But from here on out, I’m also digging up bones like a grave robber in a blue norther, and that kind of excavation takes something out of a person.

This novel isn’t gentle. It doesn’t care if I sleep. It comes for me in the shower, the driveway, the grocery store line, at school. It cost me, and it will keep costing.

So, if you’ve been here, reading along, nodding or laughing or whispering “Lord help us all” under your breath—and you want to stand a little closer to the fire—there’s now a paid option. No pressure, no performance.

I’m grateful you’re here, however you’re here. But I’m going in deeper. Hold the rope.

—Carol