Time To Do Nothing

Life, a new novel, doing nothing, hello from me

Hello, hello, I feel like I’m emerging from a cave after months of darkness. Cue me blinking in the sunlight – hello world.

It has been quiet on here, on all my socials as I traversed a self-imposed lockdown. Wake, walk the dog, write, sleep, rinse and repeat. Throw in some tears, self-sabotage and finally some meditations to manage both those.

I have, however, submitted a new novel, and hopefully it’s somewhat readable. It was hard going. I suffered from second book syndrome, despite it being far from my second book. But it is my second trad published book, and in many ways, Tilda is a hard act to follow. I recognise that Tilda means something to many readers and I’m hoping to build on this slightly unusual self-help genre with this next book – to do so however, required digging deep and processing a lot of loss and grief I’ve experienced over the past year, and somehow get that onto the page.

Hopefully the book is funny as well.

I’ll be sharing more in time, but for now, the novel is about the stories we tell ourselves, the stories that shape us, our relationships and our lives. And how, quite often, these stories aren’t even true.

Can you think of any stories you tell yourself that might hold you back?

Stories about love? About our professional lives? About ourselves? In order to grow and evolve, it’s essential that we’re honest about the stories we tell ourselves, or that others tell us and that we repeat, often for life. Can you think of any stories you need to let go of?

3-Day Vision Boarding course

I was planning to submit my novel and share a short vision boarding course I’ve created. However, a day after I submitted the book, a friend of mine passed away very suddenly. It’s three friends from the same school parents’ group who have died in the past ten months, as well as my cousin just recently – so I’m taking some time out to process this, the book, death, loss, and life. All of it. I just need to do nothing. Sometimes it’s important to just … be. To not push yourself into positivity, but rather ponder the impermanence of it all. One story I’ve stopped telling myself is that time is limited. That I MUST do everything NOW. My new story is … I can do nothing for a while.

I searched on Canva for an image of ‘woman doing nothing’ to post with this piece, and most of the photos were of a woman doing something: yoga, meditating, reading, swimming. See below for a range of Canva’s ‘woman doing nothing’ range. Ironically, I did a load of washing yesterday and felt like I’d done something.

Other photos showed joyous women arms out wide, embracing doing nothing. Which I’ve gotta say, feels like an effort. I couldn’t find a single photo of a braless woman lying on the sofa with her dog, staring at the ceiling.

I do look forward to sharing the course with you soon though – vision boarding is a wonderful tool, and something I’ll be diving back into, once I’m doing something again.

More soon.

Jane xx

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BOOK QUEENS

Did you know I run a book club called Book Queens (with Belinda and Jane)? Give us a like and join our wonderful, warm, book loving Queens. We also have our monthly newsletter right here on Substack. This month we're chatting live to bestselling author, Natasha Lester about her latest historical, The Mademoiselle Alliance. See you there.

WHAT I’M READING

I’m currently reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (for research) and The Mademoiselle Alliance by Natasha Lester.