Here. We. Go.

Hello, friends!

I sent out the proposal on 9 July, two days before I then had to go MIA for a week or so to have knee surgery. The surgery went well and I'm mostly back in action.

I've also got a new goal for the full manuscript: 16 September. As you know, I've set a few of these deadlines in the past, and various things have slowed me down. This deadline isn't easy, but some of the most difficult (pre-reader report) revisions were on the two chapters I sent in with the proposal.

This week, I've worked through revisions to the first chapter, which looks at two women between 1689 and 1720. I had thought this was in solid shape already, but it's remarkable to discover how much my understanding of context has evolved since I last took a pass. I'm appreciating how much I gained by investing in the version of this book that I spent the last year thinking about. Because I spent time paying attention to the figures around the celebrities I'm discussing, I can now offer insight into and context for their experiences and decisions that would probably have been invisible to me otherwise. The number of women's stories that will be left to be told when this book is finished is remarkable, and it's exciting to think I might inspire or aid work on them.

In addition to this chapter, I've been working on some writing about theatrical anecdotes, and on a review of a show I saw down in D.C. Busy, busy.

In the next few weeks, I'm going to use this space in a slightly more exciting way than I have until now. With so many depictions of the eighteenth century on film and television at the moment (Harlots, Outlander, movies like Belle and The Duchess), it's gotten me thinking a lot about what pregnancy looked like in the eighteenth century, and how that aligns with or diverges from the way we make pregnancy visible today. So I'm going to spend a little time meditating on the way these bodies are costumed to reveal or conceal on film, and I'm going to use the blog to get my thinking started.

For those of you returning from ISECS--safe travels and I hope you had a wonderful time.

Happy writing!