Journaling The Process is an audio format through which I share the behind-the-scene of my life as a writer and Le Journal Curioso.
Before starting I want to say hello to the new Curious Minds who subscribed to Le Journal Curioso after reading
Substack Reads edition and post where both mentioned the publication. It is an honour to have you as readers!I posted the note above almost a month ago, yet I couldn’t keep my promise because August was a challenging month health-wise. I didn’t plan on disappearing, on the contrary, I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, especially as you are many more to have subscribed to Le Journal Curioso after it became a Substack Featured Publication. I sent my last newsletter - a new instalment of The Underrated Fashion Professional Talks in which I interviewed model, producer, and ex-Peter Do PR director Jessica Wu about the relationship between fashion and K-dramas - on August 7, and then alpha thalassemia1 and fibroids2 got the best of me.
In today’s audio, I touch briefly on those two conditions, but I really want to tell you more about them because though they are not life-threatening, they still impact my daily life greatly. I will probably do it in another Journaling The Process episode because I firmly believe that talking about both conditions is necessary, especially as they are both predominant within Black communities (alpha thalassemia is also pretty common in Southern Italy and the Middle East).
I love writing, so being depleted for all of August felt depressing and frustrating. Even journaling felt like challenging to do. In August, I actually took 15 days off for the first time in two years because of a wedding I had to attend, but also because I knew I needed rest. Knowing myself, if I had been in better shape, this would also have been the occasion to focus on my podcast ideas AND structure Le Journal Curioso paid strategy, but instead, my brain felt foggy all the time. It has been a while since I slept twelve hours straight only to wake up even more exhausted. So writing Le Journal Curioso and for myself has been on my mind all August, but I couldn’t do it.
I am slowly starting to feel like myself again, but September and the following months will be slower as I’ll focus on doing all the necessary medical tests to see where I am with haemoglobin levels, vitamins, and fibroids.
In the audio, I also talk about the next three pieces I will publish with two of them that are part of my Underrated Fashion Professional Talks series that I plan to turn into podcast episodes. I love reading long profiles and interviews on specific topics, but I also believe that editing in writing can be challenging because sometimes you cut off an interesting part of an interview to stay on topic with the theme you want to write about or simply because the interview will be too long. It is not to say that editing a podcast is easier, it is far from that, but I think letting you hear the people I talk to will give you a better sense of the conversation, especially as my guests will be talking about fashion in their respective country/geographical area.
The other story that will inaugurate Le Journal Curioso’s return will be published on September 8. It is part of the publication's first paywalled series called Black Europeans You Should Know. It is a series that will focus on Black people who contributed to making Europe and/or their homeland. I have delayed posting the first story because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was coming about. For the intrigued and curious, I will post excerpts of the story in chat later to give you an idea of what to expect, so if you like what you read upgrade your subscription!
Alpha thalassemia is a blood condition which results in smaller red cells and a smaller production of haemoglobin. In my specific case, it provokes constant anaemia.
Fibroids are benign tumours located in the uterus. Black women are more likely to be affected by them at a younger age (before their thirties) and have them bigger creating all sorts of issues such as heavy bleeding, anaemia, lower back pain, difficulty in having children, etc.
#3 Journaling The Process: Le Journal Curioso is back!