#143 Things to share over a quick coffee

A list of what I've been watching, listening, reading and thinking about in January

Hello friend,

Well, I don’t know exactly what to say because I’ve been relatively silent over the last month. I’ve just been hibernating.

I tend to hibernate at the beginning of every year because of the winter here in Sicily and because I sometimes give into a general sluggishness.

I guess it all goes back to my creative nature. Like most creatives, I tend to ebb and flow with the seasons. There are times when I’m very productive and others when I’m not. Unfortunately, this time of year is one of those less productive times.

January is when I take a moment to look over what I’ve done, plan what I want to do, and purge things that have accumulated and are just weighing me down. So I’m slowly getting organised, deleting files and folders, ripping up half-baked ideas and concepts I no longer need or like, and eventually returning to the routine. It is the time to lighten the load and make space for new ideas and energy.

There’s no excuse for my procrastination other than a powerful sense that everything is overwhelming. Everything feels too much right now, so I’m not dealing with it.

I mean, I’m still doing things that I do every day. I’m still a functioning human being. I’m still a mother, a wife, and a person who has her own house and has to take care of herself. It’s just the creative stuff that is currently on the back burner.

But I’m trying to get back into it. I don’t feel like it right now. I know, I bet you’re thinking. Don’t be so lazy. Come on, get back to work, but I am working. I’m teaching every day. I’m preparing lessons for my ESL students. I read every day. I take notes in my notebook every day. Just nothing has come together so far. I’ve not made a routine of it. I feel things are still coming together. I need more time to gather loose ends, find the connections, and assemble everything.

I’m happy I’ve got this newsletter to return to. Say a quick hello to those who support me. It’s always good to catch up with old and new friends.

So don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while. It just means things are happening in the background, either happily or torturously percolating. That’s a nice image. Just think of me as a warm, rich cup of Italian espresso coffee. I’ve put everything into the mocha coffee pot, and I’m just waiting for that soothing black liquid to come up to a boil.

Gosh, that makes me want to have a coffee. (I’m still sticking to decaf, as full-strength coffee gives me palpitations.)

So, let’s sit down and have a chat and catch up. Let me tell you what I’ve been doing, and maybe you can tell me what you’ve been doing, too. If you could comment below, I’d love to hear how you have been.

I know I’ve been a terrible friend for not staying in touch. But that’s the benefit of being a good friend: even if life has kept you apart for a while, you can always pick up where you left off.

So let’s catch up, and I promise to contact you more often.

So, how have you been? I’ve been okay. January here in Sicily is generally quite cold and dull. Sometimes, I get a little bit of seasonal depression, but this year, I’m happy to say this hasn’t been the case. I’ve generally been taking care of myself and not criticising myself as much as usual, so it hasn’t been that bad.

The only problem has been the lack of time I’ve spent writing. Writing in my notebook is generally part of my daily routine, but I’ve just been too overwhelmed to sit down and spend too much time writing. I’m a bit directionless right now. I don’t have a definite idea of what I’d like to write next.

I have many small, intriguing ideas that promise to take me somewhere but have no direction. There are no plans or general excitement associated with them, so I’m in a bit of a lull when it comes to writing, but I’m faithful that something will catch my interest.

Until then, I will get back to this newsletter and share with you what I’ve been focusing on these days, those little things that have filled the creative well.

Okay, let’s get started with what I’ve been watching. Lately, I have been in front of the TV, stumbling upon a few movies and one documentary while randomly scrolling through Amazon Prime videos.

I found some exciting movies about famous creatives that are pretty inspiring.

First, I watched a movie from a few years ago called Genius in 2016, starring Colin Firth, Jude Law, and Nicole Kidman. It was the story of American writer Tom Wolfe and his editor—Maxwell Perkins, who worked for a famous American publishing house at the beginning of the 1900s. Perkin was the person who worked with and discovered the likes of Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald. Now, in this movie, he comes across a manuscript from Thomas Wolfe and agrees to publish it, so the story is basically about the relationship between Maxwell Perkins and Thomas Wolfe and how it helped to create some of the most original novels of the early 20th century American literature.

Reading a little bit about Maxwell Perkins, who was an editor at Scribner’s and Sons and was considered very much an author’s editor, in that he had a gift to help the writer stick to the essence of his story, his cuts and suggestions were made for the sake of the story rather than any concerns about censorship or requirements for the audience, the publishing market or other constraints associated with mainstream publishing at the time.

Thomas Wolfe was probably Perkins’ most significant challenge as he wrote many pages and was greatly attached to each sentence he wrote. After a tremendous struggle, Perkins encouraged Wolfe to cut 90,000 words from his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929). Wolfe’s second novel, Of Time and the River (1935), resulted from a two-year battle in which Wolfe kept writing more and more pages despite Perkin’s desire to keep to a certain length. Thank goodness for Perkin’s role as a coach, friend and promoter. We have many fine authors in this period.

Unfortunately, the movie informed me, as I didn’t know much about Thomas Wolf, that he passed away at the very young age of 38.

Genius was an excellent movie about the creative spirit and the relationship between an editor and a writer.

Jude Law and Colin Firth are excellent as the two protagonists, while Nicole Kidman plays Tom Thomas Wolf's love interest. I didn’t enjoy Kidman’s performance; it was very two-dimensional. Wolfe’s lover was an equally fascinating character, but she didn’t do an outstanding job, which is probably why I had never heard of this movie.

Another movie I watched was about the last few months of James Dean's life. The film was titled Life from 2015 and starred Robert Patterson as photographer Luke Davies and Dane Dutton as James Dean.

The title is quite ironic because Robert Patterson plays a photographer from Life magazine who photographed James Dean in the last few months of his life without really realising it (no one really could have predicted Dean’s tragic end, but their photo shoot turned out to be a documentation of Dean’s last trip home).

It was an excellent movie about friendship, creativity and finding your unique life pathway. You also really got a sense of the true personality of James Dean at the beginning of his career and this young photographer. They were both about the same age and struggling to find their way through their related but separate industries, one as a photographer and the other as an actor. It gave us a sense of the insecurity of James Dean, both on a personal and emotional level and Dean's ability to reflect the general mood of the time. I enjoyed it, and it was such a great story because the photographer pestered James Dean to take a photo shoot. At the time, Dean was not very well known as a film actor; he was known mainly as a TV or theatre actor. At the time, he had just been signed to Warner Bros Studios to do a series of other movies and had just completed East of Eden. So he was still very much at the beginning of his career, and the photographer was just a general paparazzi who would take pictures on film sets. Dutton struck up a friendship with Dean, and he saw something special in the young actor, something he wanted to capture, so he convinced the editor of Life magazine to do a feature story about James Dean. Dutton followed him around New York and travelled with him to his childhood home on a farm in Indiana.

After the photo shoot back to New York, Dean was set to Premier his second movie. Still, he gets cold feet because it seems as if he didn’t want all of the attention of the press, so instead of going to the premier, he goes and catches a plane to LA and in the postscript of the movie, we see that a few months later in LA. James Dean dies in a car crash, which adds a different level of poignancy to the interaction with the photographer and all of the things we see from James Dean‘s private life.

Yet another random movie that I’ve fallen in love with came up randomly as a suggestion after I watched Genius and Life on Amazon Prime.

This movie starring Jeremy Irons just came out of the blue and is titled Night Train to Lisbon from 2013. I had never seen it before, and so I was thoroughly surprised.

The story was about Jeremy Irons's character, Professor Raimund Gregorius, who had a random encounter he had while walking to work on a frigid and windy winter morning in Switzerland. He comes across a young lady in a red trenchcoat who is about to throw herself off a bridge. He stops and pulls her back from her suicidal intention, and he takes her to his work. As he starts class in the morning, she sneaks out, leaving behind her red trenchcoat. The professor is obviously concerned for her, goes after her, and goes on a fantastic adventure while trying to hunt down the girl. In the trenchcoat pocket, he comes across a rare book, and he goes to his trusted bookstore, where he discovers that the book was purchased by the girl in the red trench coat. While reading the book, he finds a train ticket for Lisbon and catches the night train to Lisbon, where he discovers an intriguing story of a group of young people involved in the Lisbon resistance movement. It is a beautiful and fascinating story.

A documentary I came across this month is Botticelli: Inferno from 2016. I watched the trailer and was blown away by how one of my favourite Italian Renaissance artists was fascinated with Dante’s Inferno. Sandro Botticelli was commissioned to draw illustrations for the complete Divine Comedy.

Unfortunately, he never finished the project, and a few of his sketches have been listed, but those that have remained are spectacular. Botticelli’s drawings are filled with endless details and were designed to play out like a modern-day motion picture.

A few designs are held in the Vatican, and the rest are now in Germany after being completely lost for centuries. Most of the drawings resurfaced in Scotland after a mysterious and fascinating journey, which is detailed in the documentary.

I always find it fascinating to make connections between different genres, artists, and writers. The connection between Botticelli and Dante is a rich and fascinating one to learn about.

Since I finished listening to my last audiobook with dear Miriam Marygoles, I’ve continued listening to memoirs, and this one has been on my to-be-listened-to list for a while. I’m a huge fan of the New Zealand actor Sam Neill, and I was very sad to hear that he has been battling cancer. However, it seems like he’s doing quite well and has taken the time to write his memoir.

I’ve been listening to Did I Ever Tell You This? a memoir, of course, by Sam Neil, and it’s recorded by Sam Neil himself, which has been delightful. It’s been incredible just hearing about Sam‘s life in New Zealand, growing up in Christchurch, and his military families with connections to Ireland and the UK.

I’m still very much at the beginning of the audiobook, but I like listening to Sam tell his life story with his voice in a very down-to-earth way. I appreciate his matter-of-factness and also his no-frills approach. It just sounds like you’re sitting down and having a chat over coffee about his life and his experiences and his memories, and to be honest, I am very partial to sitting down and having a chat with a cuppa with that, whether that be a cup of coffee or tea, I’m not fussed I’ll have both. And I think Sam is a perfect company.

My Audiobooks are turning into these incredible conversations, and I’m happy they are becoming part of my daily routine.

In regards to what I’ve been reading, I’ve been looking for obvious inspiration with my writing, so I’ve been generally browsing books about writing and creativity. One that I’ve been enjoying most, above all of the others, is titled Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. It’s a great book simply because of its one. Its brevity and clarity make its insight into the nature of writing a perfectly digestible length for easy reference and advice.

Goldberg has been reminding me about not giving in to the self-critic that has been blocking me a lot more than it usually does and also how to make writing a habit so that sometimes you may not feel like sitting down and writing. Still, it’s about finding your routine and doing it every day, and the timed writing exercises have been helpful.

It’s a great book to dip into and be reminded about the true nature of creativity, how to tap into your ideas, how to experiment and not overthink things, and above all, how to keep writing, which is exactly what I’ve needed to hear lately. I just need to keep at it, and Natalie Goldberg is an absolute treasure. She has been helping me a lot.

Of course, as soon as I finished watching the movie Genius, I purchased Tom Thomas Wolfe’s complete works, which are excellent. They are autobiographical epic stories of his family and himself. His writing is truly astounding. It is not 100% prose and not poetry. It's a unique mixture of the two. The images he creates are beautiful, eternal and universal, and I really am in love with his writing. It’s stunning. It’s sad that he died so young, but he was so prolific.

I’m still at the beginning of Wolfe’s first novel, Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life (1929). Still, I can already see what attracted his editor to want to publish this gorgeous and unique prose.

One of the great sources of online learning that I have subscribed to over the past few years is the Domestika platform. This platform is a place where creatives set up and share their own personal courses in and around their particular artistic areas. So, there are artists who offer courses in painting, collage, calligraphy, writing, crocheting, etc.

I found one course about finding your creative writing routine. It’s titled Writing Exercises: From Blank Page to Everyday Practice by the writer Anna Villalba

It’s just been great to see how another creative writer has her own process and how she inspires other people to write every day by teaching how to generate ideas and the writing process. I can’t say that I’ve been that productive, but the course has been so interesting so far.

It’s just another source of motivation and inspiration, so if you’re interested in something artistically creative, I highly recommend going to Domestika and checking out the different courses you can take. They’re all quite short, not expensive, self-paced, and give you lots of material to explore.

You don’t have to go out and buy anything. You can interact on forums with other people doing the same course, and you can reach out to the course author at any time. So, it’s really a great way to tap into your creativity.

©2025 Rochelle Del Borrello

This month, I’ve been trying to get back into sketching and making art on my iPad. Making digital art is great, especially for now when I don’t have the space to have materials, paints, and other art supplies all over my house.

I am seriously considering having a separate art studio from my home. A room or space where I can go to write or make art is an absolute dream.

Right now, things are chaotic, and I find myself having to steal time and space from other things in my home to make time to write or make something.

Here’s to finding space and time to insert more creativity and inspiration into my life.

That’s about all I have for now. I’ll do my best to keep in touch.

Rochelle

Sometimes, I talk about Sicily.

Other times, I talk about whatever is on my mind.

My writing is always about lightning, the mental load, and sharing my thoughts.

The length and breadth of my thoughts inevitably follow my interests in the arts.

I hope you enjoy the randomness of A Load Off My Mind.

Please share this post with someone you think might enjoy it.

This newsletter takes a lot of work, and I’m committed to making it available to everyone. That’s only possible because people believe in subscribing to this project, making this piece accessible to all. So please consider becoming a subscriber to A Load off My Mind.

Thanks for reading. This is a hand-crafted, ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm newsletter made possible by the support of readers like you. If you want to help keep it going, please become a paid subscriber.