Potato wreaths; group coaching; badassvaginaowner; festive consumerism; problematic Christmas movies; Santa is a woman
nosebag #69
Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s nosebag and a flavour of everything I’ve been reading, writing and thinking about in the past seven days, which has been mostly…
In fact, it’s been more like this: people telling me to make a wreath this year using a potato, and me not quite managing to get round to it.
Maybe I’ll find time this week! It’s still AGES til Christmas, right?!
Anyway, onwards.
Apart from potato wreaths, I also want to tell you about an exciting opportunity for group writing mentoring with me via zoom in 2026.
I’m setting up two groups - daytime and evening. The first will be on Monday mornings at 11am-12, and the second on Wednesday evenings at 7.30 - 8.30pm.
They will be open to female writers at all stages, published or hoping to be published, fiction or non-fiction. This will be a space to share work, get advice, work on your proposal or manuscript, get accountability, help others with your feedback, and make writing connections.
The groups will run with a minimum of 4 women (should they be very popular we will keep the cost the same but extend the time to 90 mins or 2 hours.) The first batch of six sessions will run on the following dates.
Monday morning group 11am-12pm
2nd Feb, 9th Feb, 23rd Feb, 2nd March, 9th March, 16th March
Wednesday evening group 7.30-8.30pm
4th Feb, 11th Feb, 25th Feb, 4th March, 11th March, 18th March
Cost: £120 for six sessions or £108 if you are a paid subscriber.
Concessions or free places available to those in need.
If you’d like to know more or book a place, email me millihillwriter@gmail.com, or message me via substack.
Make 2026 the year you achieve your writing dreams!
If you missed The Word is Woman this week you can catch up here. I really think the social media post from ‘Badassmotherbirther’, in which she claimed that the best way to get women’s issues taken seriously is to stop saying they are women’s issues, will stay with me forever and haunt my dreams, probably alongside the ‘bodies with vaginas’ Lancet cover. Lucky me!
Like many of you I’ve been buying Christmas gifts this week, and perhaps also like you, I’ve been caught between the two options of buying local, sustainable and hand made items and just bunging stuff in my trolley on Amazon. The problem is, that the first option is so much more expensive, and when you’re on a tight budget, it just doesn’t make sense at a personal level, even if it does at a societal one. For example, this week I bought two gifts for someone that were completely biodegradable, artisan and local etc. Together they cost nearly £100. If I’d bought identical items - albeit with a bit of plastic instead of leather here and there - made in China and from Jeff Bezos, I could have done so for less than half the price. I’d also not have had to leave my house - although I did enjoy this part of it, as it involved some lovely human interaction, and seeing things and places I’d not otherwise have discovered.
My daughter and I had our minds boggled in Boots yesterday, both of us feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of landfill items on offer. This mascara set from Benefit is a particularly good example.
This thing is as big as a lampstand and yet only contains two mascaras, and the ‘keepsake tin’ isn’t ‘tin’ at all of course, but a solid lump of plastic. And please don’t think I’m preaching here because - I bought stuff - albeit not the pink chess piece atrocity, but trust me, plenty of plastic went in the trolley.
This time last year I wrote about Buy Now, still available on Netflix.
And I also wrote the following about Less, by Patrick Grant.
Brilliant premise, brilliant title, brilliant cover, but my god it’s boring. I wanted to like it, really I did, but I gave up after just a few chapters. Maybe having the audiobook didn’t help, because Patrick sounds like an aged priest doing his very last Thought for the Day. This is made worse by his seeming absolute lack of awareness of how posh he is, he has ‘a garden with a handful of old stone buildings and a ha-ha’, and talks about how his parents only ever had ‘old’ furniture - which you know full well means antiques and not stuff from DFS they got off Facebook marketplace. Listening to it got me thinking about the editing process of books and wondering whether female writers are urged to ‘be kind’ (for which read ‘inclusive’, ‘aware of their privilege’ etc) more than male ones. This would be a hard phenomenon to research but the results sure would be interesting!
For example, I remember when I wrote My Period and said something in the draft along the lines of treating yourself to some chocolate, and an editor questioned whether all children reading would be able to afford chocolate. I’m not saying that’s not a valid point, I’m just wondering if this level of ‘kindness’ and thoughtfulness is also demanded of male writers? It certainly wasn’t of Patrick Grant, anyway!
Having said that, any thought provoking reads about how we can change how we live to be kinder to the planet and feel more fulfilled ourselves, are welcome, even if they are a bit flawed in places.
On that note, can I recommend a book or two to you?!
Ultra Processed Women is ALL about making a positive change to your shopping choices, and the ripple effect this can have into all areas of your life.
I think I can still get a signed copy out to you in time for Christmas.
Going back to the Amazon dilemma, though, I can only afford to do this because I have just a few of my free author copies left (most authors get about a dozen copies of their book on publication day). After that, I have to pay 50% RRP (£7.50) per copy. UK second class postage is £4. So that’s already £11.50, and I guess we could add at least 50p on top of that for packaging, so £12.
Currently you can get it on Amazon for £14, with free delivery if like me you have Prime. So if I wanted to price match Amazon, I’d make just £2 per book. Adding in the time it takes to parcel them up and make sure they’re addressed correctly etc, and I’m really not sure it’s viable.
So grab them while you can because there are only three or four left!
£15 per copy INCLUDING POSTAGE AND PACKAGING, or £12.50 for paid subscribers.
Yes, there’s no paywall today so you can see both buttons, but be nice not naughty and use the correct one please, remember, he’s making a list and checking it twice!
I once faced the most terrible backlash on twitter when I criticised the film Elf - I’ve only seen it once but found it to be a hotbed of sexism. When I said this, I was swiftly told I was a hard-hearted feminist killjoy by about two thousand people and had to turn off replies. Similarly, Love Actually fans won’t let you say a bad word about it, in spite of various highly problematic elements, for example the constant fat-shaming of Natalie, the ‘romantic’ idea of falling in love with a woman who can’t talk to you, and the creepy stalkery behaviour of cue-card holding Andrew Lincoln.
Maybe we can forgive it, because Hugh?
Or maybe not. I guess, if there is a theme this week it’s about where do you draw the line when it comes to your principles? Where on the spectrum are you between hand making everyone a gift yourself before settling down to a foraged supper with a vintage copy of Christmas Carol, and stuffing your face full of UPF mince pies in front of Love Actually after a hard days shopping on Amazon? And how much does it matter?
Well, I’m going to leave you to ponder that one, and get going on the potato wreath. No matter what you decide, if you do want to buy me something, this t-shirt from alimacdoodle will probably do.
In fact, I’d rather you just took out a paid sub
Or gifted one to a friend for Christmas
Alternatively feel free to
Stay sane, see you next week, Milli x
Haha, I also don't like Elf or Love Actually.... The insistence that either one is an amazing Christmas movie strikes me as a tad desperate.
Yes yes yes - hubby and I do live lightly on the Earth so I do not feel guilt at using Amazon Prime or enjoying sexist films - the point is ‘knowing’ that they are sexist… and Hugh… absolutely - in fact my chosen Christmas film binge this year is the Bridget Jones series - I’m educating hubby who has never seen them! And Milli… I can’t see Bridget without thinking of you now after what you said previously!