Hello loves! Happy Monday! First, TO BIZNIZZ! We’ve got a gorgeous episode of the You’re Booked podcast, especially for you. Novelist, poet and Women’s Prize judge Irenosen Okojie talks about her new novel Curandera - this is warm and joyous - and Irenosen is one of those magical people who is scarily smart, but so generous with it. She will make you feel cleverer! The Steal Of The Week - my favourite book of the moment - is Probably Nothing by Substack’s own
. I LOVED it, and I think you will too.As I might have mentioned, my new novel PITY PARTY is out on 11 July - and I’m so, so excited about seeing y’all at the Pity Party Party and fiction writing workshop on Sunday 21 July. If you’ve not registered yet, there’s still plenty of time. Just preorder Pity Party and send the confirmation to creativeconfidenceclinic@gmail.com - there’s more information here. And if you’d like to see what it would look like if Prince did an unboxing video - it’s on my Instagram!
Here are my UK tour dates (with a bonus online one on 30th July). I’d LOVE to see you - especially at Waterstones Canterbury on 10th July. I’m scared no-one will come to that one because of the football. If you want to come to any of these but you don’t have a date, email creativeconfidenceclinic@gmail.com and I’ll try to do some literary matchmaking… (Literary makes it sound a bit grand. You know what I mean.)
On Thursday I had my picture taken while paddling in Botany Bay. ‘Nice dress,’ said the photographer. ‘Is it Zara?’ It was – a lovely ankle length red halterneck that I acquired second hand, hoping it might look like Emilia Wickstead if you squinted a bit. But I was glad of its humble origins when I was up to my waist in spume, sitting on the shoreline and telling myself that it’s probably OK to stare directly at the sun, once a year. ‘Can you look quite serious?’ asked the photographer. I tried, then beamed. ‘Ooooh! There’s a crab!’
On Friday, I had to have my picture taken in a swimming costume. Well, to be completely frank I had my picture taken in about twenty swimming costumes. (This is for a feature I’ve been trying and failing to write all day. It’s very weird to look at yourself wearing borrowed togs, with full ‘hair and make up’. It’s like discovering that you had a go at the first round of a regional beauty contest, when you had amnesia.) Then, I returned a dress that I’d bought on Wednesday and decided not to wear on Thursday. This felt like a tremendous achievement. I’d acted with prudence, and common sense. When my refund arrived in my bank account, it was as though I’d got four numbers on the lottery.
On Saturday I went to Brighton, tried and failed to record a podcast, ate ice cream and ramen, and saw Sam Campbell at the Dome. On Sunday I successfully recorded a podcast with the author Ericka Waller (I fell in love with her at the Book Taster festival and am now even more in love with her), met her dogs, cat and tortoise, ate homemade cake, watched my husband listening to the football, got home in time to see Bellingham’s miraculous Hail Mary goal, rescheduled Saturday’s podcast and fell asleep. Then I sat bolt upright, ran up the stairs and tried to tweak the manuscript that is due to go to my editor today. It has not reached her yet. But she’s at Glastonbury and I suspect that at the time of writing (twelve minutes to five) she may still be in the car park.
And all the while I’ve been sending emails, thinking about emails, feeling guilty about emails and panicking about emails. I have an auto responder. What I want is a sandwich board to wear. It would read:
HELLO!
YES! I KNOW!
SORRY!
THAT SOUNDS GREAT!
CAN YOU GIVE ME A MINUTE?
NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED SHORTLY.
July is a funny old month. A pal cheerily messaged the group chat with the news that we were now half-way through the year! Wait, what?! Six full months of me saying ‘Oh, sorry, hang on. It’s a bit mad at the minute.’ Six months of me sending Edvard Munch blue and yellow scream emojis. Six months of me trying to ‘look into’ some sort of clever storage system for folding jumpers.
I love The Cost Of Living by Deborah Levy, but I keep waiting and wondering when I’m going to turn into Deborah Levy. She writes about living in a liminal space, and she does so with grace and gravity. She’s surrounded by grief, death and endings. She seems assured. This is a lazy reference that two of you will get, if I’m lucky. She seems like the opposite of, say, Martin in Ever Decreasing Circles. When you try to control everything, you control nothing. Or vice versa. I get a sense that Levy is living with great, tender curiosity. She’s not putting anything on hold. She is happy for things to happen to her and yet because of her courage, she seems to be a successful catalyst.
I suspect I’m more of a Dorothy Whipple. Whipple’s Random Commentary is a vaguely chronological collection of journal entries – condensed and undated, giving the impression that she is always at the mercy of life. She’s plagued by droppers in, and can’t get a thing done. She has three quiet days to write and barely manages three words. She sells her screen rights, she worries that her coat is smart enough for a meeting with her agent, she frets, she laughs, she makes cakes, she’s annoyed by her neighbours, she’s glad of an egg for tea.
Every year I fantasise about getting my ducks in a row, in time for summer. My book tour begins on Thursday, and my ducks are scattered everywhere. My head and my calendar looks like a riot in the Taskmaster house. My executive function has been decimated. I have a ‘to do’ box. The box contains a donkey costume.
And in a month or so I’ll look up and think ‘RIGHT!’ I might take some time for a relaxing break in a villa on the Côte D’Azur* (*the hammock in my back garden, with the cream of my TBR pile and a box of Magnums) and when I’ve had a pint of water and an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep, and I’ll think ‘SEPTEMBER! September will be back to normal!’ And I’ll resolve to reply to some emails, and have a go at the turmeric stain on the kitchen island. Maybe I’ll even look into buying some jumper organisers.
And then…a National Newspaper will say ‘We need a 40ish woman to put on some scuba gear and talk about body confidence.’ Or the boiler will pack up. My household might be visited by plague, or heartbreak. My publisher will want me to go to Ghent. I’ll be felled by a running injury. The dirty dishes will pile up in the sink. I’ll think ‘What would Deborah Levy do?’ Then I’ll ignore it in favour of sending breathless, craven email apologies. I’ll dive head-first into a bag of jelly snakes. And then, it will be December, and I’ll be writing a newsletter about how stressed we all are, how tired, how busy, and where has the year gone, and 2025 will be different. It must be different. Normal service will be resumed, shortly.
I love Dorothy Whipple but I’ve never heard of her Random Commentary! It sounds wonderful! As do all your plans — the ducks will find their way into a row!
The donkey costume in the to do box… 🤣🤣🤣