DEEP-THINKING IS IN AGAIN

Savouring life and books

Hello My Lovelies,

Would you believe this is my first newsletter for 2025! It’s not that I have been twiddling my thumbs. I’ve had a few balls in the air for various projects and I’m very excited about all of them. I’ll be sharing more in future newsletters, but for now I’m thrilled to let you know that I am three weeks away from finishing The Italian Correspondent. Recently, I posted on my social media my planning board which looks like this:

(I turned the cards around so no sneaky-peeking!)

There are now only five scenes left go. A lot of writers like to do their planning online using various software programs. But I like the index card + pinboard approach because it's hands-on. Also, I can have index cards handy (in my bag, glove box, bedside table drawer etc) if I get an idea for a scene. Then I can just slot it where it needs to go. Besides, I have pretty rose pins. What more could I ask for?

My year got off to a funny start when due to a minor foot procedure, I had to avoid putting weight on my feet for a few weeks. I’m not very good at being still (I have a lot of energy that needs burning off) so I took up chair cardio, chair weight training and chair yoga. I discovered my core was not as strong as I thought it was and that skipping while sitting down is very difficult. Because I couldn’t attend dance classes, I worked on my upper body belly dance and flamenco moves. My belly dance teacher suggested while I was resting my feet it was a good opportunity to learn the zills (finger cymbals). I have slowly gotten the hang of them – after a few weeks of sounding like a kid ringing a bell on a bicycle.

DO YOU FEEL LIKE LIFE IS GOING BY SUPER FAST THIS YEAR?

I do. A lot of it has to do with how much information we have coming at us and an increased expectation about what we can accomplish in a day (due to technology). But most of it is – I believe – that the psychology of instant gratification has deprived us of the art of savouring life.

I’m as guilty as anyone of overloading my commitments, but at the start of the year I picked out two areas of my life where I wanted to savour my experiences more. One of them was the time I spent with friends. I wanted my time with them to feel more spontaneous, unhurried and fun. Instead of trying to squeeze seeing them between various other activities, and always having to rush off to something else, I’ve blocked out time on the weekend to just ‘be’ with people. Last week, a friend and I accidentally missed a movie session we had arranged to go see. Not able to think of any other film that interested us, we ended up wandering around the city, chatting and looking at things together. In the end, I felt as though I’d had a mini holiday and realised I don’t always have to be productive, or achieve a task or reach a goal other than to just wander and look at life.

The other part of my life that I wanted to enjoy more was my leisure reading. As a historical fiction author and the co-host of an online book club (Book Queens with Belinda and Jane), I have a lot of reading to do.

I was inspired when I heard the story of the choreographer of the original West Side Story, Jerome Robbins. Like me, he was a person with eclectic interests. He would go a jitterbug contest in New York City one night, then the following night he’d go to a meeting of communists just to watch people argue. His reading interests spanned from Shakespeare to dime-store novels. He was a prolific letter writer, and used to write at least one long letter (Sometimes 10 or 15 pages) a night to one of his friends about what he had seen and experienced that day. That process of describing and sharing his inspirations allowed him to be unique and creative. It helped him savour his experiences by recalling them and opened the door for deep-thinking.

Because everything is so instant now, we are losing the art of deep-thinking, which is so important to creativity and originality. When we share experiences with friends, it’s usually in images on our social media. We let the camera do the talking instead of describing the experiences for ourselves and evoking the senses of sound, smell, taste and touch as well as sight to richly convey those experiences to others. Our friends don’t study the images we post the way they might study a painting. They glance at the photographs for a few seconds before they tap the ‘like’ icon, maybe make a short comment, and then move on to the next image in their feed. Which means they are missing out on the pleasure of true engagement as well.

Deep-thinking cultivates a greater understanding of ourselves and the world. It encourages profound insights, more empathetic connections, and a joyful sense of curiosity, wonder and awe. It also enhances problem-solving abilities, improves decision-making, and allows us to respond rather than react to life.

As I mentioned with my pinboard for plotting my novels, I love the tactile. Many of you know that I have been keeping a creative journal for years. The prettier the journal, the greater my enjoyment of using it.

Because time limits would make it hard for me to journal my entire life (perhaps not even a full day of it), I decided that along with my entries about my goals and intentions, and my observations about myself and the world, I would journal about books that I was reading.

The sort of things I include are:

• How the book emotionally affected me.

• Which characters I connected with the most - and why?

• Whether the plot was engaging or not.

• Did I like the pace of the story? Was it suitable to the subject and genre?

• What was outstanding in the author’s craft – their ability to build suspense, draw me into the world of the story, or dazzle me with their beautiful prose?

• Did I learn anything from the book?

• Did I learn a new word or fact?

• What was my favourite line?

• Did the author’s style remind me of another author’s?

• What was going on in my life while I was reading the book? Did the book offer me comfort, hope or an entertaining escape? Or was I doing something wonderful at the time that I was reading the book - so that the book has now become part of that happy memory?

I don’t answer every question for every book. I might pick one or two ideas and write a couple of pages on those aspects of the story. I can’t tell you how much this has deepened my love of reading. And although the rest of my life continues to move by faster than I would like, this is one area where I have managed to extend and deepen the pleasure.

One way you might like to emulate this practice is to write a paragraph on a readers’ review site like Goodreads or on a book lovers Facebook page. This not only has the benefit of consolidating the book you enjoyed more in your own mind but also allows you to share the experience with others. Reviews on Goodreads or Amazon that simply read along the lines of: ‘I enjoyed this book’ don’t convey anything of meaning to other readers. My suggestion is when you write a public review, imagine the fellow book lovers you are communicating with. Write in a conversational style and let them know what specifically you enjoyed about the book. For example, the main character, the pace, the prose etc. If you are writing in a private Facebook group that has rules about respect and courtesy, you can be a bit more open about yourself. For instance, you could let the others in the group know your usual reading habits, as that helps them understand you and your perspective better. For example, I don’t normally read crime fiction but I enjoyed this book because …

Fellow author, Jane Tara, and I run an online book club ‘Book Queens (with Belinda and Jane)’. We encourage our members to share their book reviews along with a photograph of the book’s cover (you get extra kudos for styling the photograph beautifully). We’d love you to join us and share your reviews with other members.

What about books you didn’t enjoy? Should you review them? I personally don’t because I’d rather spend my time thinking about books that I enjoyed. Also, as an author, I don’t think it’s good form to criticise another author’s work publicly. But you can certainly review books you didn’t like if you think you have something useful to say. I have a couple of suggestions though: If you are feeling fired up, wait a day or two before writing your review so that you can write it with more clarity and courtesy. Trashing a book and an author tends to reflect more negatively on you as a reviewer and muddles whatever message you were trying to convey. It’s also insulting to people who enjoyed the book – and that doesn’t help build community.

I’d like to end this newsletter with a thank you to everyone who has given me a lovely review for The Masterpiece and my other books on Goodreads, Amazon, Audible etc It really helps other readers discover my books, which I appreciate very much.

Until next time, love to all,

Belinda XX