life goal: infamous recluse
Happy hollies, jolly joyeux noel, and many merry returns (though hopefully not of gifts). It is New Year's Eve, and I am watching German science fiction -- Dark, on Netflix, for those interested.
I could pretend that I have saved this 13th issue specifically for Halloween. But this would be a terrible lie.
It's a challenge to come up with a newsletter that manages to talk about neither my business (I have a blog and a twitter for that) nor the mess of the year surrounding us all. I always feel better when I've done so, though, like pushing my way through a sequence of stretches, or the evening after a very long walk. Moving my brain to discuss the very minor moments that make a year is, I'm coming to find, very much worth the trouble.
It's difficult for me to find focus when I'm in my own home -- I'm used to going out and locking myself into various locations until I've completed the work that needs doing. I wouldn't say that my writing is suffering, precisely, but it's more difficult than I'd like to get to a moment of mental equilibrium that allows the inner voice to whisper words.
We have made it to issue 2! What further wonders are in store?
A few weeks ago I spent longer than I should browsing through *The lady's magazine : or entertaining companion for the fair sex, appropriated solely to their use and amusement.* A publication that started in the late 1700s, it was an amalgam of -- or early precursor to -- society pages, literary magazines, joke books, local newspapers, educational supplements, and sewing pattern distributors.
Katherine Crighton 