Emotional Whiplash #1: What's all this newsletter stuff about then

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears...whilst I ramble on about all sorts of nonsense that no-one is likely to care very much about!

So why am I writing a newsletter? Well, way back in January I set myself a goal that I've set myself in one form another for at least the last decade or two: to write more. I enjoy writing and I'm lucky in that my job allows me to do a lot of writing and editing but it's generally of other people's words. I very rarely write anything that is either in my own voice or that doesn't get extensively edited before other people read it. That's not to say that this newsletter will be an unedited stream of consciousness - I do have some standards - but that I've been searching for some way of writing down all the things that are constantly in my head in a way that doesn't feel too exposed. I'm both bad at remembering to write blogs and slightly terrified of posting anything on the internet in the trashfire that is 2018. So this seems like a low-risk way of actually doing more writing that's for me.

But why an email newsletter, didn't email die? Aren't we all communicating via memes now? Well, er, apparently not. I seem to have been increasingly getting a lot of my interesting reading from newsletters given that Twitter is full of nazis and shouting. I've been gradually picking up a lot of newsletters almost accidentally over the last few years. I started reading Caroline Crampton's excellent No Complaints, was delighted when Domestic Sluttery was revived as a weekday newsletter, and have increasingly picked up a variety of other great newsletters ones written by people I like off Twitter and Instagram. It's a way of accessing good writing, learning about subjects that I'd never normally have read about, and getting good recommendations on things to read/buy/do. As someone who grew up online in the halycon days before social media newsletters feel a lot to me like how the internet used to be.

The idea of a small audience that I can to some extent control is quite attractive as well. Social media has it's benefits but being a woman online in this time of viral tweets and hot takes can be exhausting. I increasingly lurk on social media rather than being an active participant and find myself editing and re-editing even five word twitter replies to friends. I'm not a blogger or an influencer, I'm just a fairly normal person who likes to write about my life which doesn't really seem to be a thing that you can do in a low key way through most mediums.

I'm not renowned for my consistency with these kinds of things but I'm planning to write at least once a week. Hopefully future editions will be more interesting and involve slightly less navel-gazing!

Stuff I've Enjoyed

Reading:
I started re-reading The Eye of the World which is the first book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series when I was jetlagged and wanted a comfort read after I got back from the US a few weeks ago. I've now got completely sucked in and am about halfway through a re-read of the entire series. It's one of the first fantasy series I got into after getting completely obsessed with Lord of the Rings when I was about 12 and it holds up relatively well to the passage of time (the first book was published in 1994). The story initially follows the boy on a heroic quest to save the world trope but branches out to encompass a core group of men and women, all of whom have a role to play in the quest to save the world from an ultimate evil (the imaginatively named Dark One). Jordan writes interesting, complex characters including a variety of fantastic women who all kick ass and take names in different ways. The world-building is a little Euro-centric, white and straight by today's standards but it's still a great read.

Watching:
A mere six months after it came out at the cinema I've finally got around to watching Black Panther. As anticipated I was blown away by a Marvel film that felt very unlike all the other Marvel films in the best possible way. The look and feel of Wakanda is vibrant afrofuturism, technologically advanced and grounded in African cultural traditions. The story also asked interesting philosophical questions about how the utopia represented by Wakanda interfaces with the real injustices that people of colour and specifically black african americans have experienced and continue to endure. I actually would have liked to have seen a more nuanced exploration of this question as Killmonger felt to me like than just your standard comic book villain but this is still a great and vitally important piece of pop culture.

Listening to:
When I moved jobs 18 months ago I did it in the knowledge I'd be spending around an extra two hours a day in the car commuting from Leicester to Nottingham. This is not ideal for many reasons but has meant that I've developed a real podcast habit. This week I've mostly been catching up on the second series of Thirst Aid Kit, a podcast hosted by BuzzfeedUS writers Nichole Perkins and Bim Adewumi which digs deep into crushes and desire in pop culture. It's a wonderfully frank exploration of female desire and what makes us really fancy who we fancy but Bim and Nichole also speak powerfully on the intersection of race and representation in framing who and what we find desirable. The "Fan Fiction Wars" segment at the end where Bim and Nichole read snippets of their own fanfiction about the week's crush object is particularly great!

Honorable mention to the UnPopped episode on Bridget Jones' Diary which was absolutely fantastic!

Doing:
I went to my first actual yoga class in ages as one of my colleagues ran an outdoor practice in celebration of International World Yoga Day last Thursday. I do a reasonable amount of yoga at home but I'd forgotten how much I like doing a regular yoga class as well!

On Sunday I ran the Prestwold 10K which was the first 10K race I've ran in quite a while in the punishing heat. Whilst it was great to be out running with my running club buddies the race was definitely one to forget for me as I struggled with a bizarrely numb foot from about halfway around which meant I only just limped in under the hour mark. I've been and got myself beaten up by my physio so I'm hoping that my next race will be better...

If you've made it all the way to the end, thanks for reading!
See you in a week or so... Cx