Reading time: 5.01

1,192 words

Hey Reader,

I’m in Oxford right now, the city of dreaming spires, where so many books have been created… mostly by men.

Today, though, I’m talking to a woman whose book is coming out in May.

Samantha Harman is hosting The Gathering and she’s making the topic of her book, Just Get Dressed, the star of the show.

She and I are taking to the stage to talk about it and it got me thinking about the tears I’ve shed this week.

Some of them difficult tears because *gestures wildly.* But some of them are happy, pinch-me tears, because of the books I’m working on at the moment.

Books that are a great idea and a wonderful piece of work by their authors, but that’s not why I feel so emotional about them.

I’m feeling so many things because these books are about so much more than the author and the author’s idea. They are a door into a wider context, a new way of seeing something familiar, a jigsaw piece that allows us to understand the world differently.

And these books don’t just show us, they give us options.

Just Get Dressed is about women’s power and how patriarchal systems harm all of us — men included — through the lens of our clothes.

It’s fascinating and important.

Another writer is creating a soundscape of a UK city, inspired by a busking ban, and we talked about how that fits into the global rise of fascism and suppression of voices and stamping on peaceful protest and creative ideas.

Yet another is writing a book about exclusion in schools and how we say one thing and do another, and how all behaviour is communication, and that one hits me in the feels.

Then I talked to two of my amazing clients about whether we see pictures in our heads. One has total aphantasia — no mind’s eye at all. The other sees vividly and can interact with the pictures in her head. I’m in the middle; I hold ideas of things but I can’t see the things. I can hear music and voices, and experience movement, but there’s no image.

Laura said isn’t it weird that we talk about the weather more than we talk about how our brains work.

She’s right.

This is why I write. This is why I do stand-up comedy. This is why I help others write.

Because when we can understand more about how others experience the world, we can connect. We can change our minds. We can do things differently.

What could be more important than that?

If you’ve got an idea you know would help someone understand an aspect of the world, isn’t it time you put it out there?

I’d like to help.

My Kickstart Your Book Session gives you a detailed pre-work questionnaire plus a 90-minute intensive Zoom call where we nail down your big idea, map your reader journey, and build your book structure. You leave with everything you need to start writing.

It’s £1,450 and I have a 3 slots available in February. Hit reply if you want one.

And now for the Friday Goodie Bag! Here’s what I’ve gathered for you…

This documentary on bird watching you never knew you needed

I’m entering my Obsessed With Documentaries era and kicked it off with Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching. It’s an indie movie by two brothers who spent a year driving around the USA for a “Big Year” of birdwatching. It starts out as a “what on earth are these nerds doing” and finishes as a love letter to birds, birding, nature, and nerds and I loved it.

I also love that the movie is ad-free, so if you watch it and enjoy it, check out the comments and send the filmmakers some cash via their Venmo. This is how we can fund the arts in the absence of adequate funding from governments.

Adam Siao Him Fa’s Olympic figureskating performance

Sorry about the FB link but you need to see the absolute pure joy of this piece. There is something about watching someone do something they are amazing at that fills me with tears of joy. So there’s that. But this piece is also quirky. Figureskating can be quite… conservative, much like gymnastics, so it’s a joy to me to see someone do something different and bring so much feeling to it.

I’ve been completely obsessed with the figureskating and the ice dance final brought me to tears a bunch of times this week.

This piece on the psychological warfare being waged on us

If you’re looking at the news, at the horrors being uncovered and defended and perpetuated, you should also read this. A snippet:

The perpetrators and media are deliberately waging pyschological warfare on us and it’s helpful to realise that, so we can step back and stop scrolling and decide what we can DO. Because they don’t want us to DO anything.

Louis Theroux’s interview with David Lynch

​This episode of Louis Theroux’s podcast was absolutely fascinating because he got David Lynch of Talking Heads chatting about creativity, culture wars, and neurodiversity. I loved it because Lynch is also autistic and he spoke about his experiences with creativity and how there is no single way of doing things.

These medieval memes

If you’d like some naughty monks and the earliest memes, check out this article on marginalia and illuminated manuscripts. Memes have been around for a lot longer than the internet, and the earliest ones featured, for some reason, knights riding snails into battle. Which I love for a variety of reasons.

What I’m reading

I’ve just finished The Liars’ Club (top notch) and am now back to brain-candy fantasy in the form of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Days of Shattered Faith. Jury’s out so far. I haven’t abandoned it yet, and I am enjoying the universe it’s set in, so we’ll see how it goes…

What I’m writing

I’m furiously penning articles and essays for my other newsletter, Late to the Party, and jotting down ideas for my next book. I’m thinking a lot about representation, and connection, and how brains work. It’s fascinating.

Word of the week

mulligrubs, n.

A sense of doom, or despondency. Which I have been feeling.

So I’d like to counter that with one of my favourite words:

balter, v.

To dance gracelessly and without much skill, but with immense joy.

LET US BALTER!

Quote of the week

I wish you a merry Friday and a happy new week.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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