And we’re back! Ooft, what a time

The book giveaway is ‘Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?’ by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn.

Aug 08, 2023

Welcome back! Thanks for sticking around for the past month. I am uber-grateful.

In case you missed it, in early July I pressed pause on this Substack due to an amazing opportunity cropping up and needing to work my butt off to capitalise on it. My novel-in-progress Welfare Queens was shortlisted for the Penguin Random House ‘Write It’ fellowships. Confetti! Fireworks!

I had a little under a month to produce the rest of the novel manuscript. For those few weeks, I basically had to write and edit from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep every day, stopping only for a few walks and exercise classes to keep my body ticking along okay.

What unfolded next, you wouldn’t read about. In the first week or so, we had a kitchen fire and I had to call 000 (Australia’s version of 911 for those living internationally) for the first time in my life. The next week, my partner caught COVID and two days later I also tested positive. We had managed to dodge the virus for the entire pandemic before that. Then I finally got over my infectious period and finished off my month off with a massive migraine on the last weekend before the manuscript was due.

Like, what the heck? I was thinking: is this some bizarre form of self-sabotage? Me not coping with some success and subconsciously trying to undermine it? But no, it was just a spate of terribly-timed bad luck.

Anyway, I got there. Regardless of the result, I’m proud of what I achieved. And now I have a somewhat-fully-formed something to work on and improve and add words to and edit. I reached the finish line of July utterly sick of the process of writing non-stop, but not so sick of my story. I still like it. I still want to work on it (after an appropriate rest). That is a miracle in itself, I think.

Do you have a bizarre tale like this of a series of weird events? It was so, so odd.

News

1. As someone who’s not usually into essential oils or candles, I read this health news with interest: it looks like smelling scents while you sleep helps boost your memory. Loss of smell is one of the indicators of the onset of dementia, so this is fantastic news that scents could be used in the prevention of the condition, as well as treatment. Curious that there didn’t seem to be any indication that any particular smell made a difference, but rather it was the act of smelling that was important. Brb, off to the candle store…

2. Enjoyed this meander-by-proxy through the Welsh town housing more than 20 bookstores. It seems to be increasingly difficult to find many bookshops among the streets of even the most literary of cities these days, so it’s heartening to hear this place exists and is still book-crazy. And sometimes a foiled travel story is even better than a trip that goes entirely to plan.

3. With AI on the precipice of being a very big deal in our lives and many strikes and campaigns currently trying to draw a line in the sand, public interest in questions of ethics is understandably heightened right now. So the should-we-or-shouldn’t-we dilemma posed by Jurassic Park in a different area of science has renewed significance. This article untangles some of the issues. An intriguing read.

Reviews

1. Due to catching COVID, I missed out on seeing the Barbie on premiere night, but finally made up for it on the weekend. Of course, we wore pink for the occasion. What was my take? It’s not a perfect movie, but I found myself smiling non-stop for the first fifteen minutes at the glossy sets; Margot Robbie’s adorable outfits; cheesy jokes; and the stylised, idealised world created. Things then inevitably got darker as the story kicked in, which was fine. The story didn’t really seem to know what its point was and as we neared the end, the movie tried to have too many big, preachy moments. This then left it nowhere to go for the final note of the movie, which fell flat. As I said – perfect? Nope. Still bundles of fun? You betcha.

2. The second movie I saw on the weekend was Carmen, which could hardly have been further away from Barbie in tone, other than having a female main character. I won a double pass through a competition run by Kill Your Darlings literary journal. It was a much artier movie than my usual fare, but the previous times I’ve been ‘forced’ to watch these types of movies (ie, have won free tickets), I’ve enjoyed almost all of them. This one got off to a rocky start – it began with some slow, confusing scenes either side of Mexico’s border with the US. Just as I was starting to think ‘I could walk out…’, it picked up. The viewer is finally informed what the point of the previous scenes was and what type of movie this will be. From there, there was sort of a creeping feeling of dread for the main characters. There were some dream sequences which added to the film in a way, but also took away from my connection with the characters. I liked the focus on dance and the actors did a stellar job. I’m not sure I’d rush to see it again, but if you’re after a mind-bending experience, this could be for you.

What I’m Feelin’ Right Now

Relief
Sunglasses with a futuristic edge
Pearlescent manicures
Checking out other Greta Gerwig films like Lady Bird and Mistress America
Reading by a creek and nibbling on a cheese-platter picnic for one
Black leather-look pinafores
Vitamin C in my skincare as well as my fruit salads

Giveaway

This week’s book giveaway is the bright, jazzy Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn. Jump over here and fill in your name and email address to enter.

Playlist of the Week

It’s winter, so all I wanna do is listen to Brit ladies on repeat: