I'm Lani Diane Rich, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcaster, and story coach. The Year of Writing Magically cohort class takes up to 20 students every year and walks them personally through the process of writing a novel, screenplay, or other long-form fiction project, while I write and work alongside them. In the cohort class, I am personally available to guide these writers from idea to draft to done.
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This letter is not about what it's about
Published 3 months ago • 6 min read
Hey, Reader,
This is a story that seems to be about one thing, but it's really about something else.
Did I ever tell you that I petsit? I arrange sits through an app (reach out if you want to learn more) and it connects petsitters/housesitters with people who would like to take a vacation and leave their precious furbabies with a safe, vetted person.
Most of the time, it's awesome. I get to do cross-country drives and visit places like Los Angeles and Seattle and stay in nice houses for free while hanging out with adorable dogs.
It is what they call a win/win.
Anyway. Last October, I got this bright idea to do a petsit in Boulder over the holidays. The people had a space they had used as an AirBnb for a while, which meant I'd have a little apartment I could stay in. I prefer guest room situations to sleeping in the beds of people I don't know, which just feels... creepy.
Anyway, the idea was that I could hang with some friends, and Ian would come up during his time off from work and we'd have a fun little holiday in this house.
It sounded like a good idea.
It did not work out to be a good idea.
First, they had two small kids, and getting ready to travel with two small kids is just a miserable thing. I get it. But because of that, they left before I got there and just gave me the code to get in through the downstairs door.
When I opened the door, I got a jump scare.
No judgement if you hunt. But I reserve the right to be freaked out when I see the stuffed head of a very large animal upon entering a space.
As I'm staring down at this massive decapitated deer head, I hear a dog barking.
And growling.
You know... as if a total stranger has just broken into the house he's sworn to protect.
I glance up the basement stairs to a closed door that had a little cat door in it, and through that little cat door a large golden retriever is pushing his snout, snarling and growling at me. I could tell he wasn't aggressive, just scared, but there was nothing to be done; I had to go up into the house. I opened the door, puppo growling and barking at me, and high tailed it out the back door where I sat in the yard, chatting nicely to puppo and telling him I wasn't going back inside until he said it was okay.
He sniffed, he barked, he growled, and then he was like, "Yeah, all right, fine," and all was well.
I got him settled, and then went to check out the AirBnb space, where a huge thing... I was torn between some kind of workout equipment or a ski rack for the top of a car... was taking up the entire floor of the little kitchen down there.
“As I'm staring down at this massive decapitated deer head, I hear a dog barking.
And growling.
You know... as if a total stranger has just broken into the house he's sworn to protect.”
That was when I noticed the smell, an intense moldy sort of smell. I looked in the bathroom and bedroom and found a total of three dead spiders. Then I lay down on the bed and it was... not comfortable. While I was pondering my options, the mold and dust finally got to me. My lungs closed up, my throat got unbearably itchy, and I started to hack and wheeze and cough.
Puppo loved me now, and was following me everywhere I went. He had injured his... paw? Wrist? I don't know. What's the joint above the paw called on a dog? Any veterinarians out there?
Anyway, puppo had this limp and the AirBnb part was in the basement, down a full set of stairs. It was clear he was going to follow me wherever I went, which meant if I tried to give the AirBnb a go, then he'd be trotting up and down the steps more than if I just gave in and dragged my shit up to the owner's bedroom.
Which was... you know... fine.
Ian came up a few days later. The first night, we tried to make the AirBnb work. I hacked and coughed all night, and he woke up in pain from the rock bed.
The second night, we returned to the upstairs bedroom and it was looking like things might be okay until... and I'm not even kidding... the owner's bed broke.
No, not because of that.
The platform was just sitting on these loose boards, and every time you sat on the bed, it shifted a little. Eventually, the boards would just slide out of place.
But we didn't know that at the time. The bed collapsed under us and he looked at me and said, "Yeah... I think I'm going home."
Insert sad trombone music here. My great idea was turning into a total disaster.
YEAR OF WRITING MAGICALLY
The era of the suffering artist is over.
What if you could dedicate time to writing, make a bunch of new writer friends, bond while you insanely draft for 3 months, and learn how you write so you can write a book every year?
But here's the thing; the upstairs part of the house was lovely, the weather in Boulder was sunny and warm for the season, and the location of the house was incredible with mountain views from every angle. I got to spend some time with friends, and puppo was a delight. It wasn't all bad.
So why am I telling you all of this?
Because I am the kind of person who usually tries to make the best of things and see it through. I finished this housesit and fell in love with the pets. Puppo's leg got better and I didn't complain at all because... I get it. Life is hard. They have small kids. They did their best. I did my best.
But I realized while I was there that sometimes things are worth seeing through.
And other times... they just aren't.
And it's important to know the difference.
Finally. I'm getting to the point.
I've been on social media for about twenty years, ever since my publisher basically told me I had to. I've had some great times there, especially with early Twitter. But for a long time now, it's been a moldy, abandoned, basement AirBnb. I've been trying to make the best of it, but the various medias social have gotten all moldy and every now and again, out of nowhere, there's just a decapitated head sitting there, freaking me the fuck out.
But the golden retriever—in this analogy, you—is in that space and I love the golden retriever. The golden retriever is why I signed up for it in the first place.
But now, it's like I'm going from moldy abandoned basement AirBnb to moldy abandoned basement AirBnb, and there are golden retrievers there also, but they can't hear me over all of the shouting and bots and whatnot. And in order to even get into the moldy abandoned basement AirBnb, I have to make short-form content that's designed to trick the algorithm so the golden retrievers might see me, rather than making content I really want to be making, talking about things I really want to be talking about. In addition to this, for all that effort, there's no guarantee that the golden retrievers will even see me. Mostly, it'll be turtles. And turtles are great, too, but they're not who I'm there for.
They don't care about what I do.
And I'd rather talk to five engaged golden retrievers than 5,000 turtles.
So, I'm done. I'm done with Bluesky, and Facebook, and Substack, and TikTok, and all of it.
Well… most of it. I will be doing YouTube videos soon; you can subscribe to my channel to be the first to see the new long-form material when it comes up.
From now on, I'm just doing the newsletter, and eventually YouTube, and everything I've been doing on the various socials is going to be here.
Like writing advice. Letters and essays. Links to video content, as I launch the YouTube channel content later this month. Preview excerpts of my novels. That kind of thing.
I'm Lani Diane Rich, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcaster, and story coach. The Year of Writing Magically cohort class takes up to 20 students every year and walks them personally through the process of writing a novel, screenplay, or other long-form fiction project, while I write and work alongside them. In the cohort class, I am personally available to guide these writers from idea to draft to done.
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