A Year in Review
Book No.3, The Office & How to Do an End of Year Audit | The Muse Letter No. 141
Everything has to be done –
nothing should be done.
I’m having end of year brain as I sit on the tram watching the masses of cues morphing into very hungry caterpillars, slowly meandering on the pavements. A friend is texting me if we could meet for coffee before Christmas, before the year ends, before, before. Before is the chorus I have been hearing in the past week almost every day.
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I started to work on my third book the other day. It had been on my mind for the last two months – ever since I got my literary agent – and now it is finally starting to take shape on the page. I remember vividly how in the beginning of this year I sat down every day in the central library, how it felt to be with my second book, how it transformed again and again, till it was done at the end of January. How it was published on Valentine’s Day in February, how I flew to Berlin to launch it at Odradek Books in March. I already knew then what my third book was going to be about. One early morning I created the cover on canva, looking at it, I had to pace myself not to share it immediately. Rarely writers speak about the joy they feel when they’re writing, when they’re conceiving of an idea, that moment when it just flows and comes together, when you’re researching and all the pieces line up cohesively. So I want to. It feels like gliding head first into a pool, on a hot summer’s day. I’m in my element. Ready to float.
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“You’re always launching something, always doing new things.” A friend tells me on a voice note. She admires it. Only six days till I close my shop for winter break I think and hibernation begins. For a month I won’t be launching anything. “In a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to in turn feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success—do not be afraid to disappear. From it. From us. For a while. And see what comes to you in the silence.”, said Michaela Coel in her Emmy Speech in 2021. I am not afraid.
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If you’re scrolling through dating apps, you’ll find a lot of men asking women to “not take themselves so seriously”. Yet to the contrary I have found out this year as the only true lesson I am taking with me in 2024 that: I need to take myself seriously af!
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I hit the “start next episode” button for the 6th time this evening. I seem to re-watch shows about work when writing on my books. Last year it was Mad Men this year it’s The Office. Having never worked in an actual office, I dream of tights and high-waisted skirts, like children dream of playing house. Looking for order and repetition.
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“Over 1 Billion sold. More than the bible. I’m not surprised. Chapter 1.” I take a video of Michael Scott recording his book Somehow I Manage. I love the delusion. It will be funny later.
Thank you so much for reading The Muse Letter this year. It truly means a lot to share this space with you.
For the Muse Salon members and supporters of The Muse Letter below you’ll find the End of Year Audit – Process, so in case you missed the live Muse Salon last Sunday, you can work through it on your own time. The next Muse Salon will be on the 7th of January.