Halfway to Becoming a SuperFan
💌 A round~up of the last 864 hours
Dear Powells,
I’m writing to you from my sofa where I am sat sipping an Aperol Spritz and watching a repeat of Location Location Location. Not by choice; the remote is in the kitchen and I can’t be bothered to retrieve it. Stefan is in London and so I can’t make him fetch it, which means I must put up with Kirsty and Phil circa 2013.
It’s been a month since I put pen to paper, but I shan’t grovel for forgiveness because no one likes a whinger and if I hadn’t drawn attention to it, you probably wouldn’t have realised. Anyway, I can round-up the last four weeks quicker than you can recite the 11 times-table backwards:
Somewhere between a high school reunion on the Wirral and a funeral in Shropshire I caught Covid. It’s arrival—or should I say departure— came perilously close to my Canadian pal’s wedding and, at one point, I thought I would have to attend by Zoom. Luckily, I was able to be there IRL, and luckily it took place in London (not Canada) which is marginally easier for me to get to. I had a joy filled day and even got to ride on a red bus alongside a bunch of Canadians who all had spectacular teeth.
The following week I trotted back to London to give a talk at the Walker Books Sales Conference, an invitation not proffered to many and so I had prepped accordingly. In 45 minutes, I whizzed the team through my entire life history, hosted a quiz using farmyard buzzers, and (accidentally) called the Publisher, Denise a cow. 3 hours later (after a quick, curried sweet potato salad in Dishoom with my agent) I was back on a train to Derbyshire. But a mere 36 hours later I was back on a train to London, wondering why I ever bothered moving out of the capital in the first place, seeing as it’s where I spend most of my time these days. This time it was for Christmas: A trip to see ABBA Voyage with my parents and Stefan, gifted to us by Santa the last time he shoved his arse down the chimney.
The show was the best thing I have ever seen.
EVER.
PERIOD.
So good I got a t-shirt and wore it the very next day to meander down the Southbank where I bought: 6 PG Wodehouse books, a copy of Dr Seuss’s Sneetchers and a gold-plated edition of Mr Tickle. I am halfway to becoming a superfan. Of ABBA, not of Mr Tickle.
ABBA Voyage gone, but not forgotten, I returned to the studio to tackle the last deadline in a long list of deadlines that I have had to tackle this year. This time, it was 42 illustrations for my next collaboration with Dermot O’ Leary and—being exceptionally deadline weary from the 6 that had proceeded it—I had to dig deep to get through this one. But dig deep I dug! It is now delivered, hence the celebratory Aperol.
Amongst all that —somewhere between Covid and Christmas—my debut book Marty Moose was copy-edited (an unpleasant experience which I’m keeping in reserve for a future letter) and subsequently re-edited by me. The final (ish) draft has now been typeset and I will be starting interior sketches tomorrow. The book needs to be done and dusted by August 3rd as that’s the day I fly to Skiathos for 2 whole weeks, to fry like cheap bacon under the summer sun.
And that Powells, pretty much wraps up the last 31 days, or 744 hours, whichever metric you prefer.
June is looking like it’s going to be just as much fun. It’s started with a mass migration of illustrators from Instagram onto Cara, an unheard-of platform still in Beta but one that is run by artists for artists, as opposed to Instagram which is run by The Metaverse for Artists’ Obliteration. Some artists have deleted their profile entirely – a bold and admirable move but not one that I am brave enough to take just yet.
Caught between not wanting to get left behind but not wanting to act like a lemming, I decided to jump on the bandwagon of TikTok. I was an hour into finding following fellow TikTokkers before I was suddenly shown myself as a suggested user to follow. I realised then that I already had an account from 2021, albeit in a slightly different name. So I am now on all platforms, and potentially on them multiple times, which is the epitome of spreading yourself too thin.
That pretty much wraps up June so far, too. 864 hours in total have been covered today.
Before I sign off I want to mention that, when I recently had my head stuck up a deadline monster’s arse, I gave The Pen Powell Letters a lot of thought. I will be sending out a postcard in a couple of days with more details so I’d recommend cancelling all your weekend plans in anticipation of its arrival.
Oh, and if you’re still reciting your 11 times-table backwards you can stop now.
Your #1 Super Trooper,
Powell x
I’m loving in Canada atm and there are a lot of people with very nice teeth! Dentists are very expensive though
Always an enjoyable read 💛 I have been soooo tempted to burn all my metaverse instances to the ground and chuck TikTok on the fire too, perhaps the time will come. I logged in to Cara and then did nothing more with it - perhaps a challenge for another day 💛 from this Powell