I’m a remnant of the contributor era of the 2010’s. I wrote stories about tabletop designs during the day and I submitted to publications the rest of the time. Then a curve ball the size of a decade hit me and I concentrated on libraries and family and the writing went to the wayside. The only thing that remained from that era was that I continued to watch movies and shows, and I continued to talk endlessly about them.
I posted on Medium and made it into a few publications, but I wasn’t consistent. I soon got bored with the paywalls I was pushed to put up for content and I found Substack about three years ago.
Substack found me at a low point and so the page was filled with existential musings and the B-movies that I gravitated towards at that time. A funny thing happened around 2024. I started to remember how things were before the pandemic, the recession, and everything else that fell in between. I used to be someone that enjoyed writing and my work.
I’m here now. Older, wiser, same level of impulse control, but thankfully the same height. I don’t know what will be accomplished moving forward, but I’ll keep doing it until something sticks.
Below are a few places you can find me:
Around 2016 I posted articles here in the hopes of being featured in larger publications. It was officially my first online portfolio, but I was on blogger before that, those were the college years where all of the articles were about my hair.
I opened Linkedin a little over ten years ago when elder millennials were using it as a hook-up app to find liked-minded individuals with full-time jobs. It evolved to a place where we checked on former classmates and coworkers to see if any could afford the house we dreamed of on Zillow. Post-pandemic it’s a site where you show a more professional, positive version of yourself hoping that if things don’t pan out, there’ll be the chance to find something that will.
A story I actually got published. It was such a great time in my life. I’d quit my first post-college job to become a published author. I went to the gym in the morning, I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, took an afternoon walk, and enjoyed lunch before sitting back down at the computer. I built my first website at this time and this story was picked up by The Moonlit Road. I really liked where my life was headed. Then my mom told me that she didn’t put me through grad school to clean her pool once a week and meditate. Three months later I was working a marketing gig and traveling to tradeshows. The next great American novel has been on hold since. I wouldn’t change a thing, but it doesn’t mean that I’ll stop trying.
It started as a place that I posted graffiti and cool inanimate objects. Then I started posting my lonely bar pictures from the trade shows. It’s next life was pictures of coffee cups and books. Mundane photos to the casual observer, time stamps of moments for myself. Then I began adding in photos of milestones because I was hitting them. Now I post from time-to-time as proof of life.
I approached this at first like Goodreads. A place that can house everything I’d seen. It transitioned to a place where I talked about films I loved and shit-talked film characters that reminded me of people I’d come across in real life.
Back in 2020 when we were all sheltering in place, I was prepping for my move to Los Angeles. I landed a gig as the features writer for the Mandalorian Fan Club page on Facebook. I just wanted to attend D23 and grab all of the free swag for my friends. I wrote reviews on Clone Wars and Mandalorian and scored a few viral Buzzfeed quizzes on the show as well. You cannot pack up a home and move across the state as well as continue reviewing kid shows. What I took away from this experience is that the witches of Dathomir are the strongest in the galaxy.
What’s Next…
I had sabrinamonet.com for over a decade. I recently forgot to renew it and within 24 hours it was swooped up and I’d have to pay to get it back. Not happening, sabrinamonet.net will work just fine for Substack.
I usually post a few family photos or my tattoos to represent me, but I don’t have those files readily available so for now, let’s just post this. Will I ever finish a manuscript? Time will tell. Am I creative? I can write reviews, I can rant about something I fixate on, and I can design cakes like no one’s business.
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