Working Alone - Together
This week’s newsletter is going to be short and sweet on account of the fact that my head has been down BOOK WRITING! Yes, finally, I am really getting into it and there are times it’s making me laugh, which I like.
My intention is to get the first draft finished by 16th April. Final deadline is July.
My neighbours are asking for progress reports and I’ve told them to be strict with me. Nelly is, amongst a load of other things, a university lecturer so she knows how to do this. Thomas has put my chapters in his calendar and is checking in on Friday to see if I’m on track.
Writing can be a solitary business and I’m learning that it doesn’t have to be. I sometimes join Carrie for some co-writing sessions first thing in the morning. She is taking a break at the moment but, if you check out her Instagram, you’ll see when she is back to it. Warning - it’s early. 5am-early.
Then, I move on to the London Writer’s Salon’s 8am writing hour, where I write on a Zoom with up to 350 other writers. It’s wonderful and free. The idea started last year and is so popular they now have writing hours three times a day so that people in the US and Australia can join in. I really recommend you check them out. You don’t have to be writing anything grand, you can scribble in a journal, or write emails… but you are doing it in the company of other people, which is lovely.
There’s something about looking at the screen at dozens of heads bowed in conversation that helps me focus and feel less alone. It’s been a real gift over the last few weeks.
So anyway, that’s it.
The tiredness is still there but magically vanished on Tuesday when we had the most gloriously sunny day and I had a long long walk and ate ice cream and had gin in a tin.
The blood tests haven’t shown anything to worry about, which is great, and apart from this week’s ice cream, I’m eating very healthily and have cut down on coffee, sugar and booze. I’m also meditating like a little buddha and have been eating soya-based foods - edamame beans, soya yoghurt - to help any hormonal changes that are probably happening now that I’m 43.
I’ll do another post about that another time. For now, it feels like there is light at the end of my sleepy, brain-fogged, slightly depressed tunnel.
My response to stress has always been to sleep - and I guess that’s what’s been happening over the last few months. I don’t think I’m stressed but I guess I am.
So that’s it for now. Here are a few bits I’ve been reading/watching etc.
WHAT I’M READING
Future Sex by Emily Witt - it’s great. Witt is single and in her thirties and having had the usual disappointing online dates, she decides to explore other ways for humans to connect. She goes to an orgasmic medtitation centre and on the set of a feminist porn film and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. She is a very good writer.
Big Vagina Energy - this is about Irish artists who are bringing back the sheela na gig - explicit medieval carvings which feature women with enlarged vulvas. These carvings used to be on the side of churches - some say they were fertility symbols; for others, the figures were meant to ward off evil. Now a group of Irish feminists are bringing them back and putting them on buildings where women suffered, including former Magdalene laundries in Ireland where young girls who were pregnant out of marriage were taken and put to work until the baby was born and taken away from them. It was horrific, the last laundry only closed in the 1990s. Anyway, these women are reclaiming the female body and it’s wonderful.
You can view my full list of recommended books below.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
So I seem to have fallen into a British police drama followed by American sitcom groove. At the moment it’s Line of Duty - a BBC show about corrupt police officers or ‘bent coppers’ as they say - followed by Parks and Recreation which is a joy. I’m sure most of you have watched it, it’s been around for a while, but if you haven’t, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s one of those shows that feels like a hug.
Speaking of which, I’m still missing hugs - and I was laughing with a friend yesterday that when I first started getting into hippy workshops, I was really put off by people who give loooong hugs, often with long sighs and deep breathing. I was, at that point, a regular person who wanted to dip in and out of a hug. NOW I am one of the creepy long-huggers!! But with nobody to hug!
WHAT I’M BUYING
I finally bought a weighted blanket! I really like it. It’s not a hug but when combined with Parks and Recreation, it’s enough to make me feel like maybe things are going to be ok.
On that note, happy Easter. I hope the Easter bunny brings you a mountain of chocolate. And one final thing - I’ve pushed back the start of the Writing for Fun and Sanity workshops until the middle of April because some work needs to be done on the flat and it’s going to be hard to hold a Zoom while it’s happening.
I’ll keep you posted.
Ok, bye for now.
Love
Mx