Hi, subscriber! It’s been a while.

The last creative work I published is still “A Sharp Knife Is Safer,” or if you don’t count that, my short story “The Mountain and the Vulture.”

I have two other stories on submission to a rolling roster of literary magazines. That world moves slow; so far each has been rejected about 20 times.

One of those stories is about raising Peony, and wanting her to be a writer. I started writing it when she was potty-training. I wasn’t getting any “real” writing done. So I narrated my morning routine into my Notes app. And I ended up with a Nicholson Baker-style vignette about my resentments and anxieties and vicarious hopes to raise a creative child.

This week, Peony turns 7. She can invent jokes that basically make sense. She can tell a story. I’m getting her to play characters. She’s working on a pirate with a southern drawl.

Tim Mucci and I drafted a pilot for an audio sitcom. Our last show, Roommate From Hell, was “Broad City with a demon.” This one is “X-Files meets Only Murders in the Building.” We’re doing a read-through with my writing group next week. I’m nervous!

I tell Peony a version of the stories I’m writing. It’s a good way to workshop. But she was disappointed to find out this isn’t my paid job. Me too, kid.