Back in the beginning of this decade, I started a new website Michele Cacano Writes. The intention was to host a blog as well as offer events like classes and workshops. I booked space for six workshops in 2020-- one every two months. The first one, "From Page to Publication" went swimmingly. The second one, "2020 Vison: Taking the Leap" had 15 signups, but one attendee. It was Feb. 29th, 12 days before the Lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. 

I didn't make the shift into online classes. I just didn't have them. I never wrote another blog post there, either; not that I've been so very active here, either. Like many, I've struggled with managing my time and expectations, my goals and my reality. While I am still (forever) a major night owl, I find my self awake but not productive most midnights. And that is OK, but I do feel less anchored to writing time than I was pre-pandemic. I used to do much of my writing in cafes, but I no longer go do that (they all close too early now and I'm on a different schedule). I am still planning on resuming events, though, later this year. 

At the start of the 2020s, I mused over what the coming decade might look like. Would it have a catchy nickname like the 1920s? I posited mostly rhyming alternatives for the Roaring Twenties, leaning towards the "Restoring Twenties," for myself, as I was just 14 months post-diagnosis for my anemia. 

So, here we are in 2025...how's it going?

I still don't have the energy I used to...the physical stamina and brain fog is real. Whether it is a leftover of my anemic years, my ADHD worsening due to perimenopause, or some other fatigue, I couldn't say. No matter what the reason, the effect is just as discouraging. But, I'm still working towards better health and energy. 

 I shift between periods of active periods of writing and submitting and less active periods of low energy and brain fog, where not much gets done. 

The Meetup Mess

For 17 years, I ran the Seattle Writers Meetup on the Meetup site. Meetup was a great hub for community: Anyone could join for free, select their interests, and find and join groups that meet online or in person for anything from hiking, to movie clubs, to French conversation practice, to wine enthusiasts, to book clubs, to cooking clubs, and anything and everything in-between. If you started your own group, you paid an annual fee, but members joined for free (although some clubs did charge fees for attendance and events, it was optional). In 2017, WeWork bought the site. The made some changes, raised the annual fee, but it was still pretty good. Then an Italian venture capitalist group bough it, and started removing more features, and jacked the price up 100%, then another 100%, and also started charging membership fees for everyone. There was little technical support for the few features left, and the prices were too damn high. I let the subscription expire in January of this year.

I researched alternatives, but nothing as of yet comes close to what Meetup was. The important features to have are:

•  the ability to be found by prospective new members
• working calendar of events with notifications (optional for members)

The features we used to have but no longer do, and would be nice to have again:

• saved documents for resources and information
• message boards or forums for member-to-member communication
• searchable photobooks and posts

I decided to just make my own website for the group, and use Eventbrite for the outreach portion. 

This project is still very much in progress, but I hope to have it up and running for June 2025.

I plan on shifting from an ongoing drop-in Monday critique round table to blocks of time. For instance, August open Monday nights in person, September Workshops and/or manuscript reviews, December online open feedback, March feedback meetups for screenplay writers or novelists, April meetings to critique poetry specifically, etc.

Change is hard. I am hoping to make this new model work as well as the old one!