Hello, you.

How is it October? [Do we ever stop asking this? When did we start asking it? Certainly not when we were kids, when October, with its Hallowe’en candy allure, took forever to arrive.]

Grab something nice to drink, pull up a soft chair, and let’s catch up!

Behind the Words

Down here in Wellington, spring is springing. Daffodils have come bouncing up out of the ground, and my wisteria vine is fuzzy and purple and full of the promise of perfume to come.

I’m still dipping in the harbor every chance I get, and it’s warming up! It’s now up to a cozy 12 degrees C (54 F), which is SO COLD but still, so much better than the 9-10 it was in winter. You can get in now without your bones hurting.

Plenty of people ask me what the hell I’m thinking, getting in water that cold, but I always make sure they know I’m not doing it out of masochistic tendencies, and certainly not because I’m “tough.” It’s the opposite, in fact. I hate being uncomfortable. I’ll do almost anything to avoid it.

What I love about dipping in cold water is the HIGH I get. A friend of mine and I go precisely because once you’re all the way in, once your breathing has evened out, you feel like you’ve just had three glasses of wine. We scream it at each other. “Three glasses! This is three glasses!” And it sticks around—the euphoria lasts for hours. The high vastly outweighs the discomfort of getting in. Plus, you’re not drunk, and you can drive.

Speaking of drinking, BIG NEWS:

New Release!

REFILL: A Perhaps Overly Ambitious Year of Creative Experiments in Reclaiming Joy

Click the image to be notified when the Kickstarter is live and be the very first to get the book!

It’s so close now! I AM SO EXCITED!

⭐️ The more people click on that Notify Me button on Kickstarter, the more people are able to see it. You’d be doing me a huge favor by clicking it! Thank you!

What It’s About:

This is the story of the year I spent trying to fix myself, failing, and finally finding out what was behind the creative burnout. (Hint: it has something to do with alcohol and what it did for me.)

Get This

Books: I’ve read a lot this year (93 books so far!) and please feel free to check ‘em out at Goodreads, but here are some recent standouts:

📚 Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting, Clare Pooley - Am I the last to read this delightful book? It’s about a woman who commutes and doesn’t want to meet the people on the train. Then she does. If you’re looking for funny and uplifting while still dealing with real shit, this is for you. Plus, elder lesbian main character, yay!

📚 All Her Beautiful Deaths, A. Rushby - Victorian death photography. If I need to give you more of a reason: sapphic love, a current-day art storyline, light magical realism, and lush writing. I loved this.

📚 Make Me Famous, Maud Ventura - This is a dark, bitter read about a woman who wants to be famous, and then becomes so. A truly satisfying hate read (you hate the MC, and that’s good). I also liked the author’s My Husband, but I think I liked this one a bit more.

TV:

📺 Ride or Die - Amazon Prime - Hannah Waddingham (SO HOT) and Octavia Spencer (also 😍), as best friends, in an assassin thriller? While the plot is sometimes a bit silly, the friendship is REAL. If you love your girlfriends so much you’d kill/die for them, watch this. So good.

📺 The Rehearsal with Nathan Fielder - HBO? We watch it on Prime here in NZ. What the hell is this show? I don’t know. I love it, though. And we’re watching it getting ready for his documentary on Elizabeth Holmes (gimme gimme)

Okay, I’m getting back to the work of doing the things that bring you more books. I’ll keep on keeping you posted about the Kickstarter (click here!) and I’m so looking forward to sharing this book with you. It’s been a longggg time coming.

Thanks for being here. It means the world.

❤️

Rachael

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PS - Always 100% human-written, please forgive the typos.

PPS - If you’re a Patreon supporter at the Superstar level or above, you’ll be getting a copy of Refill even sooner than the Kickstarter! Keep your eyes out for that SOON!

PPPS - View from the reading bed (the curtain is shredded because that cat is just barely not a kitten 😹) - Space Prince and Junebug say hello! Young Mr Spacey was in hospital for a few weeks this month with a dangerous bladder blockage - we’re so glad to have him home and healthy again.