Greetings!
Apologies for the silence from Freedman Towers recently, and for not (yet) responding to people’s comments. Here’s the lowdown, in bullet points to make it easy to read.
I’m having a massive clearout. Not just physically, but in terms of subscriptions. Yesterday I deleted thousands of unread (and largely unwanted) emails, prompted by a message from Google that said I’m going to run out of space if I don’t get my act together soon. The message wasn’t worded in quite in that way, but that’s what it amounted to.
As for Substack, I discovered that I’d subscribed to 523 newsletters, which is ridiculous. I know how it happened: every time I come across an article that looks interesting I take a quick look throughh the writer’s other articles and, if they seem interesting, I hit the Subscribe button. But despite being an avid and incredibly fast reader, I can’t keep up. So, I’ve unsubcribed from over a hundred and intend to keep going until I’m down to somewhere between fifty and a hundred, which I think I can handle.
My next task is to pen my letter to
which is well overdue. I hope to get that ready for very soon, so keep an eye out for that.In the meantime, despite falling numbers1 I’ve decided to start another newsletter, which is clearly insane. Still, as it’s on the theme of writing, in particular nonfiction writing, it means I can publish articles about the craft of writing there rather than here. At the moment, there are only two articles there, with another, about my writing rules, at the draft-in-my-head stage. Do have a look, and subscribe if you like. Payment is enabled, but for the time being at least I haven’t implemented a paywall on any articles. here’s the link: Write!
While you are waiting for my next contribution to the world’s litereary canon, you might like to read this lovely essay by
— no relation to Rebecca, as it is now compulsory to make clear. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.
Bye for now.
Terry
Like a lot of other people here, I hasten to add.
Wow Terry you got a lot of subscriptions! Did they subscribe back? I typically subscribe to those who subscribe to me. I wanna help, but sometimes it makes little sense, i.e., they have a very narrow field of interest I can't share.
In addition I try to comment on their 'stack. Again, I want to help. Also it's win win, I get subscribers this way. I'm thinking people read and say, who is this nut? : )
Thank you so much for the mention, Terry! It’s all about the Holdens! 😂