(#2) "I want to write but get so overwhelmed... How do you begin?"

Plus, what donkeys can teach us about creativity

Hello! Welcome to The Joy Rise.

A huge and heartfelt thank you for all of your support for the first issue - you’ve blown my heart to bits. I’m excited for what’s to come as we continue to build this new community together. A particularly big shout out to those who, with incredible speed, inundated me with pictures and stories about their beloved animal friends for Dog of the Month. I didn’t expect the most joyful part of launching my newsletter to be waking up to an inbox full of photos of people’s beloved dogs/horses/birds, but here we are. 

As I type these words, I’m realising why this second issue of The Joy Rise is feeling especially stirring to write: it’s the first writing I have done in the UK after five unplanned years away, in my homeland Australia, because of the pandemic.

Memory is the fourth dimension to any landscape.

- JANET FITCH

Cue nostalgic music as my montage backstory with Manchester plays...

2009

I leave what I promise myself will be the last violent relationship I will ever have with a man and sell everything I own to move my life from Australia to England. Where I know no one, and where I’ve been successful in applying for a place in the University of Manchester’s Creative Writing MA program. I’m 29 years old and am in the privileged position of being able to use my life savings to travel to the other side of the world to pursue the dream I’ve has since I was a kid: I want to be a writer.