I am evolving this Substack. Most of the people who were imported from my old newsletter were illustration- or pattern-related and mostly looking to get occasional doses of new illustrations or patterns in their inbox, not daily (or weekly or monthly) random ramblings about life and ‘stuff’.
However, I am really feeling the urge to continue the random(ish) ramblings about life and ‘stuff’, because it feels like some amalgam of the early parent blogging days and hanging out with some of my friends over a glass or three of Prosecco. While I do enjoy rambling a bit about illustration and pattern design (and I can write about why I find limited palettes so difficult or why I love drawing vector in Fresco, but have FOMO when I look at all the lovely texture other people are putting in their work, I like doing the drawing and making the patterns a lot more than writing about them), I genuinely love writing about lots of things - from feminist rage, to political despair, to religious or philosophical ponderings, through talking about my travels and my travel dreams and foraging around in my cool and quirky childhood (Why is it whenever anyone asks me to find my quirks I look back at my childhood? I don’t think I’m especially conventional these days, but I guess I was a hell of a lot less conventional a few decades ago.) to silly thoughts about laundry and wondering if I genuinely am completely done with the menopause already when all my friends are suddenly entering it.
I’d kind of love it to feel like sitting in a room with a couple of friends and chatting about all sorts, from the mundane and comforting everyday, to the deep, to the controversial, to… well, yes, all sorts.
I have enabled paid subscriptions (I think!). It’s going to take me a little while to feel my way around what goes out to free subscribers and what to paid, but for the moment, I think I’ll keep posts with new work (i.e. illustrations and patterns) free and look to put the writing behind the paywall. Depending on how much I find myself writing (I’m feeling the itch to do a lot of it currently, but it might settle to a regular schedule in a month or two), I may have a percentage of them free.
There should be a seven-day free trial available, so feel free to try that out. If you’re desperate to read more but really strapped for cash, let me know and I’ll donate a month or two.
Coming up next week… I’m off to Nice for a week, so I’ll probably be writing about that and maybe share some photos. Or I might just share about the feeling of a whole week to myself and how that differs to my normal routines.
I hope you’ll give the paid subscription a chance and feel you want to read my thoughts about ‘stuff’ and other things. (And I’m now realising I probably need to adjust headers and images and descriptions and other settings to show what you might get.)