Aurora Kelly

This morning I woke up to sunlight streaming through my curtains, my partner’s cat already stretched out in it. As I messed with her because I’m an unjust roommate, she bleeped, fairly unusual for her. So I grabbed my phone to send a picture to my partner who, poor soul, had left for work hours ago. I’ll add that photo at the bottom but the lighting was so good, the pixels so crisp, I was inspired to not only stop scrolling and actually get up, but to take some new shots of my books.

In my very brief stint as a bookstagram author, I thought flatlays would be easy. You just lay stuff down. Boom, marketing. And then I tried. And tried. And tried. And cursed the existence of my shadow. And tried. And ruined some very nice wrapping paper and called it good enough. Don’t let their simple elegance fool you, that shit’s hard.

But, this morning , with very low stakes and a cat who was pissed I made her move for ten while minutes, I think I did ok. It’s hard for me to admit that perhaps what I was told as a child about how to get good at something was actually true and not just something people said to placate you because you suck. Let this be an example to me that practice can produce improvement. (And allow me to hope that it extends to writing.)