If your social media habits are anything like mine you’ve probably already had this fabulous comic from Sarah Andersen appear on your timeline:
Even if you haven’t you might have heard someone say variation of “if you don’t schedule time for maintenance your equipment will schedule it for you” and added that it applies to the human body just as much as it does to cars and other machines. If you then, as I did, nodded in agreement but didn’t turn the advice into any change of pace on your part then please take this newletter as a sign to actually act on it because ….
Well yeah, it’s definitely true and my body has just “helpfully” provided a month long demonstration. Insomnia, joint pain, headaches, nausea, ear ache, nosebleeds, extreme fatigue and blurred vision and, as the pièce de résistance, my first full body multi-day migraine in several years.
Needless to say in order to give my body the rest it is loudly demanding - especially since I’m in a situation where there are many things I simply can’t stop doing - my personal writing and blogging was one of the first things I put on the back burner. So I have no list of other things I’ve written this month and I’m afraid I do not have the energy to attempt anything witty and entertaining for this newsletter either.
Instead I’m recommending five other substacks that I’ve been really enjoying in hopes that you’ll all find something new that will bring you joy whilst I work on getting myself back to full functionality. I’m also crossing my fingers you’ll all still be here when I do!
And if you know anyone who you think would enjoy my more usual monthly musings, please do encourage them to subscribe, everything here is free:
Right, first things first, if you’d like some quirky, slightly psychedelic writing that combines nature and folklore and music and cats and a slower, deeper look at the world to drop in your inbox every so often then Tom Cox’s substack, called The Villager, is what you need. As he says in his about section:
“The way the writing works on here is I wake up with an idea in the middle of the night, or sometimes even in the middle of the day when I’m actually already awake, and think “I absolutely HAVE to write about this and will feel less of a person if I don’t” then I write about it, which is more or less the opposite of how writing seemed to work back in the mists of time when I wrote for the national media. I now write primarily for me, for the love of the pure process of it, to learn and to challenge myself. I want to come out of the other end of every book I write, every piece I write, slightly changed.”
The majority of Tom’s posts are free but if you do subscribe to his paid plan there are a few other fictional treats available on occasion.
If you are looking for “a gathering place for hags, lovers of myth, fairy tales and narrative psychology, and all those seeking the enchanted life” then you need Dr Sharon Blackie’s substack, The Art of Enchantment. There’s a free monthly newsletter that never fails to lift my spirits and get me thinking plus, if you do become a paid member, all sorts of other fascinating essays being added on a regular basis. In fact there’s so much going on I can’t really summarise it and do urge you to check it out for yourself, especially if you’re at the point where mid-life and the menopause are looming large on your horizon.
For those of you who are interested in exploring aspects and issues of climate change through fiction then there is a very new substack, Fictional Sarah, from Sarah Lewis just waiting for you to join. Sarah is one of the two founders of the most excellent Writer’s HQ community, that I’ve been a member of for over five years now, and she absolutely knows her stuff. It’s all free for the moment but there will be paid tiers in time. Here’s what her about section says:
“This is a newsletter about connection and disconnection, about the internal world of the writer and the external world of the environment and how they struggle for the same reason.
On Thursdays I post an essay or opinion or wild rambling screed about writing and climate change, or writing about climate change, or stories and climate change, or creativity and climate change, or culture and climate change, or neurodivergence and climate change, AND how it’s about time we all started writing awesome utopias because honestly I cannot read one more goddam miserable dystopian climate change novel.
I also post about how writers with executive function challenges - or just writers who are exhausted existing in the world - can get some creative juice.”
If you are finding the world as a whole a bit much and are looking for something to help you find a way of processing those feelings then Katherine May’s The Clearing, a newsletter and community for wild minds, winterers and enchantment-seekers might be what you need. As she says in part of her about section:
“That’s why I chose the name: ‘The Clearing’. I love the image it conjures, an opening in a dark forest; a safe, secret place where we can gather. Perhaps an enchanted place, a place where magic lives, where the possibilities are different. I also like the connotations of the word ‘clearing’—the process of finding clarity, of silt settling in the water, a de-fogging of the mind. Will it all come clear eventually? I don’t know. Probably not. But I don’t believe that we should be seeking to finalise our happiness and contentment. The process is the point.”
There’s a free weekly newsletter that usually arrives on a Sunday which I find to be a wonderful wind down from the working week. If you upgrade to paid there are, amongst other things bonus posts, creative hangouts, and a book club to join in with.
And finally, if you’re looking for something to re-inspire you in terms of writing, then I highly recommend Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette. When I read her about section it was these two paragraphs that drew me in:
“In Writing in the Dark, we don’t deny that art is difficult and can break our hearts—indeed, art will break our hearts if we are doing it right. So we celebrate and embrace that truth. Because we need art now more than ever. We need our hearts broken. We need, as Franz Kafka says, art to the be axe that ‘breaks open the frozen sea inside us.’ Perhaps most of all, we need creative writing, because creative writers are guardians not only of deep truth, but of language itself, and the ability of language to retain enough meaning to tell truth in the first place. This is the role of the writer. And this is the light in which I take Kafka’s full quote: ‘But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves … A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief.’
That is also the premise of this Writing in the Dark newsletter. Except you need not desire to make a book in order to thrive here. We celebrate the Word in all its forms, including through simply following Mary Oliver’s wise, ever-timely advice to pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it.”
For free subscribers there’s a weekly short essay every Wednesday on an aspect of the craft of writing with a prompt that ties into that. If you become a paid subscriber you get an additional Monday post and access to the more intensive writing courses that run at various points in the year. Currently Jeannine’s Essay in 12 Steps course is running - it started at the beginning of August, one step per week - that I believe you could easily catch up on if you joined now.
I guess I should add that none of these people have paid me to promote them, they’re just really good substacks that I subscribed to and thoroughly enjoy.
Finally, I have done a tarot card draw for September ( I did promise a card every month) but instead of interpreting it for you, I’m just going to share the reading points section from the relevant section of the deck handbook and let you make of it what you will (and yes, I am still being personally dragged by this deck, it has absolutely no chill whatsoever):
The Wheel has turned; change is at hand. In all nature there is a time and tide. The cyclic laws of birth, death and rebirth are ever revolving and, without change, all things stagnate. How you deal with this change is the issue here. Within the tangled and tightly woven fabric of chance you have the power to make a difference. By your own actions you can change your life. You are not a prisoner of fate, but an integral part of it. Remember, this is not a dress rehearsal! Life is what happens to you while you are waiting for it to begin. Whether on the surface the change appears to be for better or for worse, welcome it, be at peace with it and take control of your actions within it. All things must pass.
- Page 57 of The Wildwood Tarot Handbook, written by Mark Ryan and John Matthews.
Until next month, my lovelies, may we all find the time to schedule the maintenance our minds and bodies so desperately need.
Hope you feel much better soon. Wishing you good rest and recovery.
Wishing you all the best and the time to allow your body to do its maintenance.
I'll still be here when you're ready to do more again.