Hey there. Thank you to everyone who read my last email, and thanks especially to those of you who gave it a little heart (“liked it”) and commented and replied. You might have noticed that I am experimenting with headers. Do you have any feedback? I thought the font was too small last time so I’ve increased it a bit today. Do let me know your thoughts.
In my birthday newsletter last fall, I mentioned that I’d been taking some art classes. I got a drafting table (and used it as a gift wrapping station over the holidays, LOL) and am now ISO the right lamp for it (I think I want this but it’s $$$). This year, I am going to participate in #The100DayProject, which begins February 13.
For #The100DayProject, all you do is choose a creative project and do it every day for 100 days. You can sign up for a newsletter about it here. You can receive daily prompts; you can share your work online; you can see what other people are creating at the Instagram account @dothe100dayproject and join the Facebook group here. Search the hashtag #The100DayProject.
I think I am going to work on digital illustration with Procreate on my iPad. That feels like a reasonable yet meaningful goal that I can accomplish in just five to ten minutes each day. But check back with me in 100 days!
What is my book club reading?
This year, the Wine Club with a Reading Problem has categorized the months according to theme. January was satire: Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods.
February is graphic novel/memoir: Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half.
March will be science/speculative fiction/fantasy: Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars.
Many, many years ago, we read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I probably recommended it back then—I was absolutely taken with it. I mainlined the audiobook; I did everything I could to avoid removing the buds from my ears. I cooked, I cleaned, I did laundry. I walked the dogs—and they were not dogs who needed or wanted to be walked. I bring this up now because WCRP gathered at the end of December, when the Station Eleven adaptation premiered, for a little viewing party. (We also watched the film adaptation of Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, though I don’t recall reading that for book club. We did read Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, but we didn’t watch that as a group.) In general, I am a fan of reading books and then watching their screen adaptations. I understand them to be different, often unconnected artistic processes. I haven’t finished the Station Eleven series yet, though, which is unlike me. Have you read the book and/or seen the show? What are your thoughts?
What else have I listened to recently?
My friend Rachel recommended Casey Wilson’s memoir in essays, The Wreckage of My Presence. She listened to it and reported multiple instances of laughing out loud. I second both. You might recognize Wilson from a brief stint on Saturday Night Live or, more likely, the sitcom Happy Endings. She is also a screenwriter. You don’t need to know who she is to enjoy these essays.
What else am I recommending?
That same friend, Rachel, and her friend, Maggie, both former magazine editors, have started a—wait for it—newsletter, called The Spread, in which they collect the best of women’s media each week. It is jam-packed with links to the latest podcasts, profiles, TV shows, basically everything everybody is or will be talking about in your group chat. Subscribe—it’s free!
Will you join me (and thousands of others) for #The100DayProject? You define “artist” and “creative” any way you want—you can choose a writing project, a gardening project, a painting project, a photography project, a project that involves cleaning out your closet, anything! You have one week to decide…
I love the novel Station 11 but now I also love the television series, which I finished a couple of weeks ago. They are completely different aesthetic and emotional experiences, and the plots are radically different in some ways, similar in others. Each is a creative triumph. I was elated by the book, exhausted by the series, but both gripped me equally. that never happens! I highly recommend reading the book first.
Station Eleven: Great acting, beautiful cinematography, some really thoughtful and compelling episodes ... and a few that felt more scattershot. Some of the plotting felt like it got lost to the editing room floor, though the final episode wrapped things up in a heartfelt and fulfilling way.