Hello everyone. I’m back!
I am not feeling entirely confident that I will be able to keep this going every week. I doubt I can be that consistent. However, scribbling down my thoughts about what I am doing, thinking, reading and watching is something I have been doing most days for much of my adult life, and is something I enjoy, so perhaps this newsletter won’t be so different from that.
A book I have been enjoying this week has been Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon, recommended by the medic-turned-YouTuber, Ali Abdaal. This short book encourages artists, makers, and creators of all kinds to share their work with others, including giving people a view behind the scenes. This was something that had been suggested to me by an artist friend, who posts his sketches on his blog and finds that fellow artists enjoy seeing the process of ‘thought in action’. Kleon writes:
Audiences not only want to stumble across great work, but they, too, long to be creative and part of the creative process (p.38).
Okay, so we might not all be creating ‘great work’, but any of us who are creating anything tangible can provide the model and the permission that others need, as I mentioned last week. And part of that modelling is showing how the creation happens. I haven’t figured out exactly how I want to do this, but I think part of it will be showing some of my handwritten notes, as well as documenting aspects of my life.
Two things I did this week that contributed to my creative process were joining a writing body doubling session and attending a lecture on Georgian Southampton, both online.
Tudor House and Garden is currently running an excellent series called Southampton Through Time, by historian Andy Skinner. The novel that I am writing is set mostly in Southampton, so I want to have a better understanding of this city that I have lived in my entire life. I would also really like someone to write a children’s biography of Isaac Watts one day, and, if no one else gets on and does it, maybe it will have to be me. I think I will need a couple of decades of studying history first though!
You can buy tickets to catch up with the Southampton Through Time series on the Tudor House website, and you can find lots of interesting information about the history of Southampton on Andy’s blog.
So, I probably should return to that whole ‘body doubling’ thing. I baffled some friends with this expression earlier in the week! No, body doubling does not involve the doubling in size of my body (that has already happened!), or growing another head. Body doubling is basically parallel working, whether done in person or via a video call. It is popular in the ADHD community as a strategy for helping with task initiation and focus.
For the last few months I have tried to join an ADHD online body doubling session each day, and now people from my writing group are meeting on the other Monday evenings of the month, to work on our WiPs (works in progress). I felt I was making a lot of progress on Monday, furiously writing down an exploration of the questions I wanted to ask with the ‘Charity Shop’ novel, and then realised I am writing an entirely different book to the one I had conceived… Progress? Maybe not.
Last night (Thursday), after doing some strimming of grass and nettles, I drove over to Nathan’s Famous, somewhere I regularly go to grab food after working on my allotment. This doesn’t seem quite in the spirit of the allotment movement, but, well, this is my reality. I’m often exhausted and usually in pain, and, when you combine this with ADHD, that leads to lots of less-than-ideal behaviour. Anyway, I clearly hadn’t been for a while (errrr, because my allotment has been neglected…), judging by the enthusiastic reception the staff gave me. Their genuine pleasure in seeing me back reminded me that people do actually seem to like me. This always astounds me.
I remember a time, probably about fifteen years ago now, when I was very severely depressed. I was close to being admitted to hospital, something no one wanted. I wasn’t safe to be left alone during the day while the children were at school/nursery (this was when both my children were alive, rather than only one). I came up with a plan. I would sit in a local coffee shop all day. I issued an open invitation to friends (and friends of friends) online to join me and keep me company any time they could. People came, and so many told me (sometimes guiltily) that they were going away happier than when they had arrived. It made me realise that one of the things I have to offer the world is that I can cheer people up sometimes.
So, I guess this is one of the things I want to do with my newsletter, and in life more generally. Provide some cheer. Life is hard. And having people around who can make you smile a little helps.
Cheers!
Emma xx
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Bye for now! Emma
Providing the world with cheer is an immeasurable gift!
You always cheer me up x