The Frankfurt bookfair is the biggest industry event in publishing, where people who do deals take the work that the creative team made and have lunch about it. Because I’m thoroughly girls’schoolpilled, bookfair prep offers a golden opportunity to work way too hard while complaining about how busy I am. If I don’t aim for, and inevitably fail to deliver, 125% then why even try?
It’s not good to overwork. My finger joints hurt from too much typing and my sleep patterns are weird from excessively long days in front of the laptop writing presentations as well as my normal work. I really like being busy and helpful, but instead of dwelling on the way I worked during the bookfair prep, I’m going to write up a more normal day in my life. I thought you might like to read about this more than about Woody Allen or how scary bears are.
9am
Sorry to be that person who dreams of labour but I really like my job. I wake up in the morning excited to look at all my little projects and tend to them. I sit down at my desk to see who has emailed me and immediately get drawn into a discussion about whether the “reveal” in a picture book with flaps is exciting enough. I watch some agricultural channels on Youtube to learn about cows. I become mesmerised by a lengthy video of cows being walked around a pen by children while an auctioneer with the energy of the owner of Stan’s Previously Owned Vessels (location Monkey Island) talks people into buying them. He talks so fast I have no idea what the cows sell for. But… I want one now.
I got so laser-focused on the flaps that I forgot to eat my cereal, which is sitting on a table behind me. I start getting up but then I think “I might just quickly draft a newsletter”. I have another look at one I wrote last week that I ended up not sending because it felt too depressing. Here’s the intro:
“Content warning: bad men
The Venice Film Festival is this week but in a blow for the red carpet fashion reports, the ongoing actor’s guild strikes mean that there’s virtually no celebrities there. Some models (boring) have arrived and there are of course still producers and directors, if you like that sort of thing. In fact you might even know the names of some of these people: Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Luc Besson all have films premiering at Venice.
These three rapists–”
Allegedly! Two of them are allegedly. As well as feeling like this newsletter was bad vibes, I also didn’t send it because I wrote a negative review of a book that discusses whether you can still enjoy the work of Allen and Polanski. I thought this book, Monsters by Claire Dederer, was a dismayingly ill-reasoned addition to the interesting ongoing debate about separating art and artist. I liked reading about horrible artists to hate (you will not catch my eyes consensually landing on a Picasso again in this lifetime). But arguing that “abandoning their children” is the worst thing a woman can do, while not even considering the cultural context that women of the past were operating within… I just could not believe she even included Joni Thee Mitchell in a book where we hear about Picasso putting out cigarettes on his partner’s face. Okay I’m getting heated all over again. I don’t like giving negative reviews of books because I know they are hard to write. I re-wrote the newsletter to try and make it nicer, and failed.
10am
I go into back-to-back meetings with two women with the same name and I’m very worried I will mix them up. The first meeting covers three books I am working on, two on popstars and one an editing job for a book written by an influencer. In the second meeting, the editor says I was recommended because I apparently do the absolute most and will flag anything I don’t agree with. It’s nice that my true self is wanted on this project because I sometimes feel a bit embarrassed about my 125% nature and think people would prefer it if I was more relaxed about things. If I didn’t care about books, I would simply do a different job where I made lots of money?
The postman knocks on the door in between meetings. He says “more books for you Satu!” We have a running joke that I am a crazed book fiend who spends every last penny I have on books. It’s my (free) copies of a title I edited called Beasts of the Ancient World, a mythology book written by Marchella Ward and illustrated by an amazing illustrator called Asia Orlando who has one of the most stunning colour palettes I’ve ever seen. This is my third book with Chella and it’s so satisfying to be part of developing someone’s artistry and career. Holding the physical manifestation of months and months of work is incredible and all memories of the project’s difficulties evaporate. A big challenge was finding just the right historical object for Chella’s cool facts about the ancient world. For example, the Louvre has a good database but you often need to know the object’s name and description in French. *Lumiere voice* tres difficile, non?
Midday
I start to feel weird inside and realise I never ate that cereal. I check on the most important documents in my life: the “In order of urgency” list and the “Satu megaschedule”. I have lunch of pakoras and chocolate buttons washed down with a frosty San Pellegrino Limonata. Start writing a newsletter about my fear of bears. I read a book about the Harlem Renaissance on archive.org (incredible virtual library). I check my Taylor Swift support group to see if everyone has signed off on the logo for our forthcoming TS-themed newsletter. I am using part of my brain to listen to a book about women’s art history (Broad Strokes by Bridget Quinn) so I can glean details about the artist Adelaide Labille-Guiard for a book. My favourite thing to do is listen to an audiobook while playing games (Zelda or Slay the Spire) but my finger joints say “absolutely not”.
I don’t really struggle with writer’s block thank god. My one weird trick? Rely on your writing to get money to pay your mortgage. However, there is one task I will put off forever if I can: creating schedules. There’s five different stakeholders who want a say on whether the flap reveals are dramatic enough (“please improve”) and they all have different schedules to be spliced together based on guesswork and when you’re finally finished splicing it turns out you can’t complete the project unless you started a month ago. Oh my god I hate it. I feel nauseous looking at the spreadsheet. How can I force myself to do it?
3pm
Little lie-down.
5pm
I did the schedule. Immediately after I completed it, the project designer sent me a better schedule she had done in one minute.
5.30pm
Time for work day: part deux. At 5.30pm most people at publishing companies down tools. This means I can peacefully sit at my desk and write without receiving emails or having to respond to them with unsubstantiated claims about what I will deliver this week. Freedom from pressure. Freedom from flaps. I take the peaceful hours to write a few hundred words about Lady Gaga’s LGBTQ+ activism, and revise a brief for a spread on Van Gogh so it doesn’t mention the business with the ear. The energy of the day ebbs away and a new, less manic kind of productivity emerges where I can achieve “flow”. This means writing words on the page without checking your phone. The last thing I do is write up my day in this newsletter and step away from my desk by 7pm.
I snuggle up on the sofa to finish reading a book about gymnastics. Right at the end of the book there is, unbelievably, an anecdote about someone getting eaten by a bear. I TOLD YOU.