A list of things that helped write my book
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A list of things that helped write my book
The Muse Letter No. 123
It’s been 3 months since my book Things I Have Loved – A collection (sort of) came out and it still hits me from time to time, suddenly out of nowhere this thought: oh yeah right. I wrote another book.
It’s hard to describe what it actually feels like when your book is read by other people, when it’s out there, when you can read on goodreads or other review platforms, what people thought. When people have just discovered your writing and write a little love message. Reminding you that once, you were very brave and put it all out there.
Anyway, a book is not coming from nothing. A book especially a book of essays like mine is stemming from many other things: my own life, the books I’ve read, the films I’ve watched, the things I consumed up until the point of sending it to the printers.
So here is a little behind the scenes, some of the things I have loved, whilst writing Things I Have Loved, that are perhaps not always directly referenced in the book, but who nevertheless where important in making it happen.
Corsage, (2022) / After Sun, (2022) after working in the library every day, I would occasionally go to the cinema afterwards, to catch an afternoon screening. There’s something about immersing yourself with moving imagery when you’re in the process of writing that feels comforting, different yet very inspiring. Corsage, was a feast. I wanted to sit there in the darkroom and prolong watching Vicky Krieps dance through the large ball rooms of Schönbrunn for hours on end. To me it is an absolute masterpiece of screenwriting and directing and Marie Kreutzer a genius. After Sun, was equally invigorating but in a milder pursuit. It’s the story between a father and his pre-teenage daughter. A summer vacation. As I wrote about my own relationship with my father in the book quite a bit, it was an interesting mirror to see such a different yet in few ways also similar dynamic. Toxic masculinity and struggling with depression showing up in different ways but nevertheless there.
Parachutes, My Love, Could Carry Us Higher, poem, by Barbara Guest and Perhaps The World Ends Here, poem by Joy Harjo
Both poems I love and both poems have inspired the first two titles of my essays in the book. It’s hard to explain the correlation, as it is a hermeneutic process that made me choose similar lines that allude to these. I guess for the first one, it’s about the idea of not being loved, of not having parachutes to carry us higher. The second one is in alignment with the poem but the nuance on childhood is made.
Virginia Woolf, A Room Of One’s Own
Somewhere in the last week of going through edits with my line-editor (shout out to
) I walked by a charity shop in Stockbridge and in the window were all these great vintage editions of Virginia Woolf’s work. Having adored her writing for so long, it felt like a sign, like a talisman that I should get. So I went in and bought a copy of her diary and a first edition of A Room Of One’s Own. I put them on my desk for the last week of finishing up the book, glancing at them while I wrote. To me they are artefacts of courage. Reminding me to always fight for my own room, to create it, to keep it.Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Non–Existence
A friend of mine gifted me this book in December for my birthday and it could not have come at a better time. There’s a reason I quote from it twice in my book, I underlined something on almost every page, so I really had to tame myself. Somehow it just really struck a cord with me.
Florence + the Machine, Lungs (album)
Dog Days will forever be the song I return to in heartbreak, Lungs is the sound of my first flat, my best friend and I playing it simultaneously in our bedrooms, having it echo through the air. It is not referenced in the first print of the book, for some reason I took that part out, but regretted it later and so it’s back in again.
An assortment of shows I binged: Friends, Gilmore Girls, YOU, How To Get Away With Murder (did not finish this one bc I kept dreaming about how I would be trialed for a murder I didn’t commit, also the show is a bit stupid), Final Season of This Is Us (sobbing) but mostly really: MAD MEN
Mad Men stood out because that show is giving meme content. It’s about terrible people who are creative and often find obscure ways to succeed but also it’s about women working hard against prejudice, sexual violence, misogyny, but also just working hard in general. I love watching people have high work ethics, it inspires me. If I’m in a writing slump, I just pour myself a martini (a hot chocolate), do some extra late night hours in the office (my bed) and am happy that I don’t live in a place where my husband decides whether I can have a job or not. Cheers!
SHOP
"Things I Have Loved" the second book of the poetic memoir trilogy
If "Things I Have Noticed" was about growing up and finding yourself "Things I Have Loved" is about the things that were gained/missed/lost along the way.
Told through objects Hembeck has loved, she is weaving a narrative that examines the themes of love, longing and self-worth.
By diving deep into memories of her own life, pop-culture and (lost) objects she is getting to the core of how we love and why.
Fancy decorating your room for spring?
I just released six riso art prints in my shop. Have a look!
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