Summer Musings 2

From September, I’ll be back with my usual newsletter, looking with a surgical eye at the philosophical experience of living in a body. But today I want to float some ideas for how I might deepen my Substack offering this autumn.

When I came to this platform 5 months ago, I had no idea how much I would love reading and writing here. I’ve formed new friendships and come across astonishing new writing. I’ve had the joy of reaching out to authors I’ve loved for years to tell them how much their books have meant to me. And in turn, I’ve been bowled over by the number of you who have shown up here in the last month, expressing an interest in what I have to say.

From September, in addition to my free fortnightly newsletters, I’d like to offer a paid strand called Inside Writing the Body. My 3 published books and fortnightly newsletters are finished examples of how I translate my passion for the human body into words. This new strand would take a behind-the-scenes look at how I get there.

My ideas are pretty fluid at the moment, and I’d love to hear from any of you with thoughts on what you’d like to see me do next. But currently, my intention is to introduce Inside Writing the Body in 2 stages.

Stage 1 (to start in September): An extra essay a month alternating between A/ and B/

A/ HOW I WRITE THE BODY

- drafts of my writing in process

- no holds barred details on how I write, what it looks like when something goes wrong and how I try to fix it

- individual essays on how to approach writing difficult bodily experiences such as pain, touch, shame, ageing, fear and desire

-insider details on how I have built/continue to build a portfolio career straddling surgery, writing and TV

B/ HOW OTHERS WRITE THE BODY

- my thoughts/observations on how great writers use words to make the body come alive on the page. Not just the obvious medical writers everyone has heard of but…

- Taylor swift on desire

- Shakespeare on grief

- Bob Dylan on the senses

- Claire Keegan on showing not telling

(There are so many incredible wordsmiths I’d like to analyse in this way. In time, I’d also love to expand these essays out to include what we can learn about writing the body from other artists: sculptors, architects and musicians for example)

Stage 2 (to start once there is some momentum from Stage 1)

- Video conversations both with writers who are doing an amazing job of writing about the body or healthcare professionals whose intimate therapeutic experience means they have something to teach us about living inside one.

- live ‘Office Hours’ either to analyse an exemplar piece of writing, to workshop writing to a prompt, or to address some common questions about writing the body.

Who do I imagine might be interested? Any of you who share my desire to communicate the rich and complex experience of living inside a body in words. Maybe you’re a healthcare professional wanting to pen your memoir or record your clinical experiences to make better sense of them by seeing what they look like on the page. Maybe you’re a patient, trying to process a new relationship with a body which feels different now that it’s ageing or changing or not working perfectly anymore. (I fit into both these categories.) Maybe you want to write a letter to someone you love, to compass something significant that’s happened in your life or theirs.

Autumn has always been my favourite season, an exciting time for new projects. I’ve got a bunch of creative irons in the fire as I approach this September. Inside Writing the Body is one I’m especially excited to get started on. I hope some of you might be interested in joining me.