MAY 2024—A RITE OF PASSAGE

Dear Newsletter Reader,
How are you? Please reply and tell me if you feel so inclined. This monthly newsletter is not meant to be always just a monologue, but more a dialogue!
After two weeks of Paradise weather in April—warm sunshine and longer dry days, showers and chills have ushered in the new month. I bring logs in and Heather lights the fires, The house is cosy like winter again rather than open-windowed and breezy.
At the moment I am not closely following the ghastly wars, but a friend tells me ceasefires are not honoured, so on they rage. What humans do to humans is beyond comprehension.
Reading a mind-body-spirit book called Deadly Emotions written by Don Colbert, a Western-trained physician. Did you know that laughter and being silly, being in touch with your “child within”, is really healthy for you in all ways? I am so in touch with my child within and often make faces and gad about being silly, pulling my top over my head to get Heather´s attention etc! It is good for me! Did you know a 20 second belly laugh has the health benefit of 10 minutes cardio exercise?
Work is going well right now. Today I declined a remote role as senior editor in a digital marketing agency in Canada as the content was AI-generated, the topics on SaaS marketing did not float my boat, and my job would have been to basically put the text through a number of different software apps to avoid AI detection. And to “humanise” the obvious and hollow AI English. Instead, today, I have been hired on two book projects! Much more my cuppa tea!
The first is a 90K-word novel about two Mexican lesbians and their survival following sexual abuse. The author is a 65-year-old “transfem” medical writer, library professional and poetess turned novelist. She has her own rather classy website. I am SO chuffed she chose me over 50+ other proposals on Upwork. We have medical content and library work and queerness in common! She is lovely to liaise with and the book will be really interesting. Forgiveness and acceptance versus vengeance a strong theme, she wrote. She says it is more about the women´s relationship, a character study, rather than a plot-driven book. Mmm.
The second is a Reedsy client, a Syrian Kurd, with a novel about his culture and politics. I think I won that contract by saying honestly that I am quite ignorant of his context, so will read with an open mind. That book will be satisfying as English is his second language, so plenty of scope for my copy editing!
Heather and I will marry in a civil ceremony in the local court on May 8 at 1pm! I am thrilled that after 22 years together she said yes, and I gathered all the documents and liaised with our lovely English-speaking lawyer Katy to make it happen. Our two witness friends with their passports will come to the court at 12.30pm and following the legalities we have booked lunch for 16 guests at the hotel we like, walking distance from the court. I am wearing a black linen top and trousers with a special gold brocade long waistcoat! A bit theatrical, but it is really! Heather is wearing a dove-grey suit and red shirt. A close mate is “doing” our eyebrows and we visit the hair salon the day before!
To quote my sister, “Long live love!” The hard work involved in close relationships is so well worth the joy to be found, “the ups are more frequent than the downs”, to quote a married friend!
Until next time!
Sarah xx