The people who are most excited about/invested in the position of THE SECOND CHANCE BOOK CLUB in Kindle charts - namely me, BMB, my Dad, my agent, my editor, and my publishing team - are delighted with the Best Number (44! Overall!). And for everyone else - it’s a number. I am absolutely fine with this. In fact, as an author whose books sell quietly, over time, through word of mouth, being fine with Whatever The Numbers Are is genuinely the only way to manage the weirdness* that is being a published author.
So although 52 is below 44, this is the moment of obsessive chart-checking that made me squeak with delight the most:
Look at me! Nestled under the wonder that is Taylor Jenkins Reid!
(THE SECOND CHANCE BOOK CLUB is 99c/99p for Kindle until the end of September - links here.)
I am working on eradicating Harris’s Underground Car Park. I filled it with 200 litres of wood chip and 90 litres of top soil. (It was quite the car park.) I covered it in grass seed. Harris watched this process with much the same expression that a professional wrestler would regard their opponent barely being able to negotiate the ropes to get in to the ring. I knew I needed to do more.
I found a dead branch and a couple of slates and put them on top. Also, the flagstones from the path that I had had to remove because Harris had (somehow) dug underneath them. I sprayed everything with Jeyes Fluid.
That was four days ago.
So far so good, but Harris is Thinking.
I’m unclear as to whether he is thinking of a new place to dig, or thinking of how disappointed he is in my refusal to understand the glory and wonder of his project. Stay tuned to find out.
I am having an inbetweeny sort of week. The new book is on the back brain. The garden is put to bed. The family birthday season is over. I have been baking, and reading, and admiring the sky.
Oh, and I bought a bumble-bee doorknob, which has made me inordinately happy**, though it won’t go up until we’ve had some decorating done next month.***
It’s occurred to me that, as recently as a month ago, I would have scrambled to fill the space that I have this week. I would have started some sort of decorating or sorting, or embarked on a side gig that I absolutely will not have time for when I start on the new book.****
I would have done all of these things because, as I’ve said here before, space can feel like too much when you are grieving. Space can mean that missing someone right to your bones can be the only thing you can think about. And not just think about: it’s the only thing you can breathe.
It wasn’t until I got back from taking part in the Defend Our Juries action in Edinburgh (which I wrote about here) that I realised I had spent the day in a space that my beloved best friend and I would have occupied together. It was a space full of our values and our memories (we studied in London at the time of protests about the Poll Tax and student loans). If she had been alive and well I would have been texting her all day, and she would very possibly have been texting me from the London protest happening at the same time.
In the days afterwards I felt tired. And I realised that this was because a new knowledge had found its way into my body and my heart - though I have always known it in my head - during that time I spent in Edinburgh.
It’s the knowledge that grief won’t end; that I will never get a badge or cross a finish line. I cannot protest her cancer enough that her death will be undone. I will just go on, and sometimes the fact that Lou is no longer here will feel impossible to weather, and sometimes the memories and knowledge of exactly what she would say in this moment will make me laugh out loud. Most of the time, I will just be going about the everyday business of missing her in my bones.
But knowing that in a new way has made a change in me. A change in which I can live a day without filling it. I don’t think I dread the space any more. I think I accept it. And though that in itself is hard, I think it’s good.
Lou and I were both big Peanuts fans*****, and I’m on the mailing list for a Peanuts supplier. (Does that sound odd? We know what we mean.) They have just launched a range of initial pins, and the email promoting them had two examples of names made out of the pins. Here’s one of them. It felt like a little ‘hello, you’re doing fine’.
(The other example name was ‘Sue’, but I suppose ‘Stephanie’ is too many pins to expect a person to go for. Though I’m tempted.)
And that’s it for this week, bar a bit of housekeeping:
I’ve made two out of the three recipes here (I’m not a fan of anise) and they are fabulous.
An unexpected mentoring slot has come up, but be quick.
I’m taking bookings for edits and manuscript assessments from October to February. I’m trying to be sensible about balancing my time, so slots are limited. You can book a slot and pay a deposit even if your ms isn’t quite ready yet; we can always be flexible if it’s ready sooner or later than you think it will be.
It’s your last chance to book for workshops this year (there will be more in Spring) - dates are here.
Those 99c/99p deals again here.
Until next week, my friends, be well, and be gentle with yourself.
Stephanie x
*It’s wonderful, as well as weird. But it is definitely weird.
**Sometimes I get it out of the box and look at it, it pleases me so much.
***This is the photo from the website. My door is not this smartly painted. I’m not sharing the specific link because it has sold out, but it’s from Sophie Allport.
****The first time, I typed ‘bog’ by mistake… let’s not overanalyse this.
*****I mean, who isn’t?