No F*cks Given® Newsletter | 4.29.24

Movie news, kitten parties, and Big Life Changes

Apr 29, 2024

Here we are again, my fabulous fucklings: the monthly(-ish) NFG Newsletter roundup is upon us! Per usual, it contains great deals, fun links, book recs, and random AF musings from me to you.

HOUSEKEEPING:

This monthly dispatch will always be free; it’s a way to connect with my fans and let you know what I’m up to and when there are new books, deals, etc. to report. If you’d like more in-depth advice, tips, and strategies for living your best life—based on the topics covered in my bestselling No F*cks Given® Guides—you can upgrade to a paid subscription at any time. You’ll receive weekly emails from moi, plus full access to the NFG archives and community. We have fun.

What’s up?

In the Good News Department: we have movement on the film script for The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck.

I repeat: WE HAVE MOVEMENT.

The latest writers—a comedy duo, and our third round of scribes on this project—have delivered their first crack at a screenplay after Scribe #1 never delivered anything at all and Scribe #2 delivered something the studio did not like.

(To be fair, I didn’t like it either, so I’m kind of glad they didn’t want to run with it, potential sooner-to-market box office glory be damned.)

For context, I published TLCMONGAF in December of 2015; we began discussions with New Line in early 2019 (having had a few other interested parties, spec treatments, and an offer spark and fizzle before that); it took a full year (!) to hammer out the deal and sign the option contract; and since then, there’s been a global pandemic, two Hollywood strikes, and a renewal of the option, and now—eight-and-a-half years post-publication—here we are, with the second actual full draft of a script.

Wild.

Frankly, in light of all that it is truly amazing to me that any movie or TV show ever gets made, but in the meantime, I’m glad to still be in the running (and daydreaming about my ideal cast)…

NFG DEALS

Speaking of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck: the AUDIOBOOK is on sale for $9.99 the entire month of May, as part of Libro.fm’s “Mental Health Awareness Month” promotion. (That’s 50% off the usual price, which is great news for your Fuck Budget.)
Click HERE from May 1-31 to take advantage of the sale.

What else?

More Good News: I finally went to a cat cafe! I know, I know, but it’s the little things, people.

We were in New York for three weeks and I was missing my ungrateful trash cats, so I thought What the hell? and I booked a “kitten party” at the Brooklyn Cat Cafe. I sat on the floor and played with five rambunctious kittens for half an hour and it was exactly as glorious as I thought it would be.

Then I took a spin through the regular “adult cat” floor and made friends with approximately twenty more felines who were more than happy to accept my pets and scritches. My favorite was a sleek, gorgeous, and super chill two-year-old mama Tuxedo Cat named Mary Shelley.

If you’re in the NY area and looking to adopt, give my girl a whirl!

In the Less Good News Department—and per last week’s post on Productive Helpful Effective Worrying (PHEW)—we returned home from our NYC adventure on the 18th to the aftermath of a torrential rainstorm that had burst the banks of the river that flows through the middle of our town and flooded everything in its path.

The main road transformed into waist-deep rushing rapids and in the span of an hour people were scrambling from “having dinner out on a rainy evening” to “GET THEE TO HIGH GROUND IMMEDIATELY.” We watched it unfold via video updates from friends and had no idea what we’d be facing when we landed 48 hours post-storm.

As it turns out, what we faced was a mucky, stinky mess of a yard and a few relatively small repairs, all things considered. Apparently washing machines do not appreciate being marinated in river water overnight. (Ours is located outside in a shed that is not, alas, “watertight.”)

The high-water mark stood at eighteen inches on the wall surrounding our garden, which is twice as high as the previous record after a freakish storm last Thanksgiving, in case you’re wondering “exactly how freakish.”

The climate crisis: SHE REAL.

Fortunately, between the last storm and this one, my husband and I had a sump pump system installed to move the water out, and it functioned well enough (before one of the two pumps burnt out from overuse, LOL) that we did not get any mucky, stinky mess inside the house itself. There was a fair amount to clean up outside, but we were spared the worst by far.

Many, many friends and residents of our little town were not so lucky—and few can afford the kind of prophylactic measures we’re able to take; let alone the time, energy, and money required to clean up after the fact, replace and repair possessions, and still manage to get up and go to work and take care of their families. The sad truth is that despite all of the beauty and tranquility and quality of life that the Dominican Republic has to offer, the corrupt/ineffectual government, dubious infrastructure, and systemic poverty combine to magnify disasters like this, which is partly why we’re beginning to rethink our nearly ten-year adventure in Paradise…

It’s going to take a while to figure out what’s next, but you can definitely expect a post (or three) on planning and executing Big Life Changes as this new era unfolds. In the meantime, you can brush up on GYST (Get Your Shit Together) Theory right here.

Finally, in The Worst News Imaginable Department, although I don’t often engage in public displays of emotion (for reasons that I am continually unpacking with my therapist), I can’t send this update without mentioning that we lost a dear friend last week to cancer, and it has made me sadder than I have been in a very long time. He was a wonderful man, husband, and father, and he should have had another thirty years to be all of those things and more.

For me, his untimely passing underscores the importance of living well while one is fortunate enough to be able to do so—so if you’ve been needing a nudge to go out there and Do the Thing, consider this your friendly elbow to the ribs.

Tell ‘em Craig Miller sent you.

Book recommendations

As longtime subscribers know, I was a book editor myself for fifteen years and I like to use this newsletter to shout-out my recent favorite reads. I don’t take requests or PR trades or anything like that; whatever I recommend is because I truly enjoyed it and think other people will too.

Fiction:

The “Detective Maeve Kerrigan” crime novels by Jane Casey. (All ELEVEN of them.) Yup, in the month since my last NFGN, and since I discovered this series thanks to a rec from
sam baker
, I gulped them down one after another in a fashion I typically reserve for consuming Nacho Cheese Doritos. They were uniformly excellent. Clever, propulsive plots (and subplots), extraordinarily well-drawn characters with complicated inner lives, so many twists, such great writing, and so sexy too—I could go on and on. I haven’t felt this way about a series since I devoured all three of Judith Krantz Scruples novels during lockdown. To top it all off, Jane Casey is a master of the cliffhanger, a quality I revered when I still had more books left to binge. Now that I’m caught up, I’m extremely cross with her, but I still respect her game. I’m on the edge of my seat for the next book, whenever it lands…

Nonfiction:

Ha! See above. I read eleven novels and zero anything else last month. (But I have just started Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne and am thus far intrigued.)

LINKS & LIKES

“Fear and Clothing,” a wonderful personal essay by
Daisy Buchanan
on shopping, addiction, self-esteem, and healing.
This sardine trinket tray, which I bought to house my bottle of fish oil/Omega-3 pills on the kitchen counter. Every time I look at it, I feel better about being a person who has to take fish oil pills.
A French woman and her tiger…who loves Camembert cheese. Mesmerizing.
“5 Things You Should Know,” a regular feature by
Charlotte Clymer
that focuses on fun tidbits from around the world that will entertain you, make you laugh, or otherwise drop a wee bit of joy in your day.
My husband doing “Freedom 90” as a folk song. <swoon>

Alrighty folks, that’ll do it for today’s NFG roundup, a mixed bag if ever there was.

Thanks for reading, and until next time: I see you, I appreciate you, and I sincerely hope you’re out there giving fewer, better fucks and living your best life!

Sarah