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My dear friend

I hope this email finds you as close to equilibrium as it is possible to be.

Since recovering from whatever virus it was that struck me down in late October and early November, I have been writing flat-out. I have been writing flat-out but in two different modes. The first mode has been to write with focus and direction. My particular focus has been on writing my Annual, One-Night-Only, World-Famous Christmas Letter which is on stage this week so definitely needed the focus (tickets here if you’d like to come along). We had the tech run today. I find tech runs to be a strange mix of early fear and panic as we get started and nothing is coming together and everything is snagging; followed by the most glorious sense of calm after we have a break, eat the snacks that Adrian has provided, do the second run and realise it’s all come together and why not let the knots in the back of my neck unwind. I do find the first bit easier now that I know it’s a normal part of the process … but I’ll never forget the feelings of the first few years I started doing solo performances and the absolute dread that would descend in the first hour or so. The fear and panic will always remain, but the dread has gone thank goodness. So now, I’m really looking forward to bringing the show to life on Tuesday and Wednesday, and being reminded all over again how wonderful it is to share a laugh and a song with friends.

The second mode of writing has been much more exploratory. I have been writing simply to see what might come from giving my thoughts an opportunity to crystallise. It’s all part of my Unfinished Business project, wanting to bring ideas to fruition. So I’ve been letting my mind wander and make connections or jump between disparate thoughts or wind its way between thoughts I know are connected but I’m not sure how.

While I’ve been doing this exploratory writing I’ve also been experimenting with getting my thoughts out of my head in many different ways—sometimes hand writing, sometimes typing, sometimes voice memos, sometimes notes on index cards, other times post-it notes or flipcharts; moving between scrivener and word documents, from my desk to the dining room table and back again.

While I’ve been working in these two modes, I’ve had an opportunity to think about what and how I write. And I’ve been thinking about these things knowing that I’m emerging into a new stage of my writing life: I’m shifting from memoir back to fiction; I’ve got more space to write than I ever have before (both physically and emotionally); I’d like to do more writing for publication too; and I also know that I think and see and feel and write differently in these late years of my middle age to the ways I did when I was in my late twenties and first started thinking about ‘being a writer.’

Thinking about all this, I had an idea about how I would approach my writing over the coming years and I have decided to give myself A Year of Writing a Lot. In 2026, I am aiming to write 100,000 words. This is not some chase for gains or done in the name of productivity or of getting things done. Rather I want to see what happens to my writing—both the process and the output—if I give my thoughts and my words the time and the space and the opportunity to get onto the page instead of constantly ruminating in my head.

Over the last few years as I’ve written the scripts for my solo performances, I’ve learned that it is only when I force myself to finish the script that I truly resolve ideas. Without this deadline I let sentences remain half-finished, thoughts to peter out, connections to stay unconnected. So my real aim is to write 100,000 shareable words.

My dear friend, please don’t panic! If I get to July and realise that the task is impossible and I don’t have that many shareable words, I won’t inflict a deluge of stream-of-consciousness on you. But what I am currently in the process of doing is setting up a small and contained series of work-in-progress readings in a small and cosy venue. They’ll be spread across the year, each one a new chapter of my latest story. I’ve almost got it all locked in, and I have that lovely sense of calm I recognise when a project is starting to come together.

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I have just finished re-reading Olivia De Zilva’s Plastic Budgie which I highly and strongly recommend. It is a coming of age story of a Chinese-Australian childhood and is Olivia De Zilva’s first book (her second has been released almost contemporaneously, but I haven’t read that yet). Her writing is fresh, funny and surprising. It is a fantastic blend of memoir and fiction, told through vignettes but which combine into a fabulously cohesive whole. She is getting masses of accolades for this debut. I’m seriously cynical about literary hype, but I absolutely love this book and will re-read it many more times than I already have.

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I have a separate email address for newsletter subscriptions which has made reading them much more manageable and also made my regular inbox much less cluttered. I loved this post, ‘A Christmas Carol for the Modern Age’ from the Pigeon Post newsletter; Andie’s latest newsletter was as beautifully stitched together as it always is, a gentle wander through links and quotes about ways to enjoy Christmas.

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I was buying a coffee at my local cafe the other day. I got there just as a large group had been making their way to the counter one by one to pay for their meal. The man in front of me was the last to pay which meant that he got left with the two plates of garlic bread that no one else had claimed. The woman behind the counter was hot and flustered and giving definite vibes of ‘don’t have time to care about this’ and I would have done the same as the man and simply paid even though it was clear not even one of the garlic breads was his let alone both.

I ordered a small iced latte, but either she didn’t hear me say ‘small’ or she didn’t care; and when it came it was the large which is THREE shots, so I took it home, poured the top third into a glass (I chilled the glass first), then put the rest of the fridge and drank another third the next day and the final third the day after that.

I thought about that woman all three days and I hope she is feeling better the next time I go in because on a good day I can handle two shots, but who among us can drink three?

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I will write again next week (or the week after or even the week after that). Until then I will think of you often and with love,

Your friend,

Tracy x

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