Practising what I preach

A little note from the author

Hello everyone,

It was so great to meet you all on last week’s ‘introduce yourself’ thread! It’s so cool knowing how many of you are out there reading this thing and doing really interesting work yourselves.

I have a little confession… I am completely burned out. Some of you know that care has been pretty chaotic for me recently, and I haven’t really had time to process what’s been happening because a) I haven’t really wanted to and b) I am deep in book-writing mode. I am having a ball writing my book and working with my incredibly supportive editor, Marleigh (hi Marleigh!), but it turns out memoir-ing is quite hard work.

I need to catch my breath. So, even though I hate doing this, there will not be a full issue of The View From Down Here this week. There won’t be one at all next week, which I am taking off. Those of you who are paying subscribers will have your subscriptions paused until I am back in early September.

The first issue back is going to be super exciting and involve a special guest, so I hope you’ll forgive me the break and stick around to receive this bumper issue!

Can you guess who it’ll be?

Anyway, taking a break is counter to all my workaholic tendencies. But all these years as a disability activist have taught me that rest isn’t a luxury, it’s part of the very process of producing work - especially when that work is creative. I know that because I’m exhausted, my writing isn’t as good as I would like, so I am comforting myself with the knowledge that after a week off I’ll be better able to get you the good stuff. And that’s what we all want.

Why can't I rest?

In these moments, I find it useful to imagine the advice I would give a friend. And the truth is, if anyone else had been on-the-go like I have recently, I would be yelling at them to lie down, whether or not they were a person who experiences fatigue. It’s always best, I find, to practise what you preach, so I shall be spending much of next week horizontal.

I hope you understand, and have a lovely end of the summer.

See you in September,
Lucy x