October 2025

Quieter...

Oct 07, 2025

Article voiceover

0:00

-9:00

I love October. Thanksgiving, with turkey, candied yams, homemade buns, and pumpkin pie. This month, I’m focusing on the last of the three words I chose for 2025 to guide me: Quieter. (In case you are interested, the other two words were Deeper and Simpler and I wrote about them on my blog at julianneharvey.com.)

When I changed the calendar over to October 1st, I felt a visible lifting of my spirit. My new counsellor told me I’m grieving over the end of one chapter (hands-on parenting my kids) and not yet fully into the next stage. She said, “You are transforming. And transformation is difficult.”

I’ve been allowing those words to settle into my bones and marrow. I require a period of quiet to be able to process this life change. My kids are thriving. My marriage went through its own challenging transformation two years ago and is now strong and stable. I know that I will be okay, but it’s the getting from here to there that is the struggle. It’s dark in the cocoon. Uncertain. But the struggle leads directly to the transformation. You don’t get one without the other.

One-Word Feeling Check-In

How are you feeling right now, in one word? I’m feeling hopeful. I’m coming out of a tough season, where my creativity was dormant and my emotions were raw and ragged. I could cry over everything and nothing for most of September. But I’m seeing a new counsellor now, and went to get a few things checked at the doctor when I had new and frustrating menopause symptoms cropping up, and together these strategies are helping me to feel more like myself again.

I’m trying to take each day as it comes, not expecting too much from myself or from others. When the world seems cold and scary, the gentle things are sustaining: hot tea, a fuzzy blanket, comfy pajamas, my two cats, a game of backgammon before dinner with my husband while we listen to the news on CBC Radio One like it’s 1945.

How are you feeling?

Book Corner

I’ve been doing some fall re-reading (September by Rosamunde Pilcher, Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano) and making my way through the Jussi Adler-Olsen Department Q novels, but I also read an interesting mix of memoir, fiction, and non-fiction last month.

My daughter recommended Beck Dorey-Stein’s new novel to me (Spectacular Things) but while I wait for that at the library I tried her debut, an entertaining memoir called From the Corner of the Oval about her time in the Obama White House as a stenographer. What a pleasure to remember a time when caring and calm grown-ups were in charge of things.

Shari Lapena’s newest novel, She Didn’t See it Coming, is a lot of fun. It’s set in a building where a young mother goes missing, and everyone is lying and trying to cover up secrets while the police attempt to solve the case. And my appreciation for Cal Newport continues to grow with his book Deep Work. I took notes and felt something deep in my soul resonate with his common sense approach to asking ourselves what matters most and prioritising that important work in our lives.

Write Your Novel or Memoir Online Class

My next iteration of my 20-week online writing class is just around the corner now, beginning October 19, 2025. I have an eager writer signed up and ready to rock and roll, and I’m crossing every finger and toe that a few more writers reach out quickly to join in on the fun. This class was such an inspiring and productive experience in 2024-2025 that I hope it grows and continues to develop this year into 2026.

If you’ve always longed to write a novel or a memoir and you want to do this work in a supportive and flexible literary community online, please join us. I’m currently working with several writers from previous versions of Write Your Novel or Memoir on story nurture for their ongoing projects. What a privilege to be part of these authors’ ongoing writing journeys before their books are out in the world.

More info is on my Classes page and please email me if you have questions or would like to sign up!

Intuitive Courage Podcast

Episode 17 is called Mothering. This topic has been on my mind and heart because my kids are now living together in a basement suite on Vancouver Island while they are in university. Learning how to let my grown kids go into their own lives has brought up a lot of longing for the kind of relationship I wanted with my own mother that I’ve never had. So I’m practicing the art of mothering myself: offering daily care, nurture, and attention to my own needs the way I once poured that into my children.

Please have a listen on October 21st. How does mothering show up in your life? Are you able to nurture yourself the way you might offer nurture to those you love?

Process Notes

In early October, when I reached the midpoint of my murder mystery novel A Body at the Fair, I opened a bottle of champagne that we bought this summer after an all-day wine tour in the Naramata Bench near Penticton, BC. I teach writers to celebrate the milestones of writing, because it’s a long journey from an idea to a finished book, and each step matters.

I decided to pause briefly at the midpoint, in order to re-read what I’d written so far. I wanted to add in some police interviews, from the townspeople, so I thought I’d do that now before writing the fall-out of the next day at the rodeo after the body is discovered. It’s been so fun to go back and revisit the starting place for this story.

Writing it from my intuition, like I did for Post Civ, has been really rewarding. I’ve had some serious moments of self-doubt, for sure, wondering if it’s possible to write a murder mystery without plotting out the beats and motivations of each character, but being surprised by the events as I write them is deliciously satisfying. Now on to the last half of the story!

Fall Library Events

I’m still booking more library classes and events for the fall and upcoming winter months, but for now I have two in the calendar: Nurture Starts with You at Sardis Library on Saturday, October 18th from 2-3 pm and my first Joy at the End of the World climate session at New Westminster Public Library on Sunday, November 2nd from 3:30-4:30 pm for Climate Action Week.

More details can be found at my site under Libraries. Hope to see you there!

TV Recs

I wanted to try Criminal UK on Netflix because it was Sharon Horgan’s face on the poster I saw, and I love her. So we gave it a whirl and fell in love with this intense locked room series, with a different criminal in each episode. The writing and acting are razor sharp. The UK version was my favourite, but we watched them all (France, Germany, Spain).

I’m a huge fan of Mare of Easttown, so I was eager for Task on HBO, as they share the same creator. Right now it’s still on, week by week, but I’m enamoured with the storytelling and the intense performances from Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey. Task is a slow, character-driven show, given space to breathe and develop. I look forward to it every Sunday night and long for more of this subtle, theme-driven work.

Speaking of subtle and theme-driven, while Jason went away on a long business trip I was looking for something to watch and I found Long Bright River on Crave. Amanda Seyfried is understated and mesmerising onscreen. Based on a book by Liz Moore (who also executive produced and co-wrote the show), it’s set in Philadelphia and focuses on a serious cop looking to find her troubled missing sister.

The Best Cats in the World: Teddy & Pippin!

Our cat sitter this summer took the picture of Pip on the right, where he showcases proudly what we call his monkey tail. In all of my years of having cats, I’ve never seen one with a tail like Pippin’s. When he was tiny, his tail was so thin and small that we called it a rat tail.

But as he grew, it became stronger and stronger, particularly where it meets his body, and it is now thicker, wider, and longer than any cat tail we’ve ever seen. I gave it a goog, and came up with all sorts of explanations, from double-jointed to hypermobile to a breed called the American Ringtail who have rigid tails.

It’s unique, that’s for sure, and Pip uses his tail in a variety of expressive ways, usually when he’s happy and purring. We’ll ask the vet about it at his upcoming annual health check, but for now, we find his monkey tail funny and charming. I’m excited for Ted and Pip to sleep together once again, now that the weather is cooling down. It does my heart good to see them wrapped up with each other.