How to be happy though shy
And other poetic advertising
This is an apology of sorts, or an explanation, or a promise. The apology is for neglecting my baby newsletter, and my subscribers. It has been a time, you see (that’s the start of the explanation).
The good thing about it being A Time, is that has not been A Bad Time. So that’s nice. It has just been busy. I went to Auckland and Melbourne at the end of September - beginning of October. It’s been 3 years since I last saw family, for well-known pandemic reasons. One of my baby* brothers got married, which was the best excuse to take a holiday and use up the flight credit from my cancelled 2020 trip to Australia.
I’ve been working a lot, and the good thing about that is that I write for work. I write for my day job, and I’ve been doing some freelance writing as well. All of this is good and cool that I make my living from writing, but it also means sometimes I’m written out. You know how you can be peopled out? Sometimes I’m writed out. Written out. Wrote out. (See what I mean? What are words?)
I’m also working on my novel. Currently I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. (Even though it’s international.) It’s a challenge that’s been going for years, where writers try and write 50,000 words in the month of November. I already know I’m not going to hit the word count, because we’re almost a week in and I have only written half of what I need to, but I am totally ok with that, because I’ve gotten something way more valuable out of this time.
The thing I am learning is the benefits of habit. It’s not that I had no idea that writing habits were important. It’s that I have ADHD and so discipline and routines are crucial for me, and also impossible, unless external pressure is applied. Such as the need to go to my job, or get my child to school on time.
Or signing up for an international writing challenge.
Listen, I have been turning into a morning person these last few weeks. It’s unfamiliar and I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I am loving it. In order to try and meet the daily word count, I have been getting up earlier and doing a 25 minute Focusmate session first thing in the morning. (I say a few weeks because I started preparing for writing in October by doing more research and planning. It’s called Preptober because of course it is.) When I say first thing, I mean first thing: I leave for the train at 7.15am so I have to do writing and all the getting-ready-for-the-day stuff before then. On work from home days it’s not quite so early.
When I get home from work I usually do another Focusmate session - a 50 minute one this time, to get more words done. I can usually write about 500 words in half an hour, so hitting the daily word count of 1667 should in theory take me about an hour and a half.
It doesn’t, of course, because I’m not a machine who can simply switch on and start writing. I’m also a procrastinator, like right now it is still November and I am writing this newsletter, which is looking suspiciously like a diary entry. The thing is though, I might not be hitting the daily word count but I do seem to be developing a regular writing habit and routine, and that is significant.
Anyway, I really just came here to say, I am still here, I still have many blog posts planned, and I’m going to be back to doing them either in December, or earlier if I am procrastinating or discover something I must talk about. (This is the promise bit.)
In the meantime, here are some hilarious advertisements for a tea brand back in the early 1900s. I am obsessed with the audacity of this advertising. I don’t remember how I first came across Suratura tea. I was certainly looking for something else. Century old classifieds are a gold mine if you’re interested in history! The link between tea and the temperance movement is fascinating (maybe I’ll write more about it one day.) I think more advertising should be written as bad poetry.
