Wonderful Blunderful Me
July Round-Up
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Hear me out.
July is the beginning of the second half of the year, which is easily the best half, no contest (cooler weather, coziness, holidays, the best foods, etc.). July is also only one month away from August, which is when school usually starts where I live, which means shopping for school supplies, which is peak September vibes—sharpened pencils, stacks of composition notebooks, new boots for puddles—which means we’re basically in October! I’ll be baking my first pumpkin bread of the season in the next few weeks. It’s finally here! Those of us who find it difficult to withstand the sweating, drenching heat and the too-bright, migraine-inducing, sensory overload of summer have been waiting for this for MONTHS NOW.
All right, all kidding aside, this is truly the month every year where I feel like I can exhale and feel relaxed. We’re almost done with summer. Autumn and winter are coming. Just hold on a little longer.
July has been good for more than just hiding from the heat! The big highlight? My girls went to aquarium camp for the first time! We love our local aquarium, The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium, and I know you’re likely thinking some variation of, “An aquarium? In Utah?” But this is actually an incredible aquarium! (I would know—I’ve been to lots in other states!) There’s a South America section with piranhas, an anaconda, arapaima and other river fish, tree frogs, an electric eel, as well as a decent-sized shark tunnel, penguins, reef fish, otters, jellyfish, the works.
And after years of eying their summer camp, we signed our kids up and they had a blast! We were so impressed. Every day we dropped them off, knowing they were in great hands—wonderful communication from the staff, required masking while inside the aquarium, color-coordinated shirts for each age group.
Our kids came home thrilled to share stories of science experiments, presentations about animal habitats, tales of touching cockroaches, boa constrictors, and hand-feeding parrots. We are definitely looking forward to sending them next year! (And this gave us a little taste of what the upcoming school year will be like—both kids in school, huzzah!)
The other big happening of July? I finished my revision and sent it away! Double huzzah! I have so much to say about the revision process of this book (yes, Circus Book) but I’ll save it for another newsletter, because I am sick to death of thinking about that particular project. I’ll wait until it’s actually in copyedits, something I won’t believe until I see the in-text comments on the Word document, and then I’ll tell you all about this nearly-decade long labor of love. Trust me—only love kept me working on this book for so long. Other writers would have (wisely) jumped ship many drafts ago.
Other July happenings—lots of walks and runs outside in the abysmal heat, lots of podcasts, lots of good reading, including plenty of time reading to my girls. I love getting a stack of picture books, making a tent, and crawling inside to read aloud and make all the voices and sound effects and dramatic pauses. (Some of our favorite picture books for said tent readings:
It's been a month of disappointment, too. Watching COVID cases rise in my state is frustrating, as is witnessing firsthand the strange happenings caused by climate change, and I’m reminded once again that the real lasting consequence of the last eighteen months for me is a realization that so many people are amazingly, devastatingly selfish. I find it so difficult these days to see others in good faith. Not saying I don’t have my own blind spots or shortcomings or selfish moments—I sure do! But in this crisis, when tightly stitching ourselves together into communities who sacrifice collectively in order to protect everyone would have gone so far, it’s so damn disheartening to look around and realize how many others would rather not alter their behavior an inch, even if it means saving lives or giving future generations more time with a healthy planet.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever regain that trust in collective America.
Really Deep Thoughts
In honor of finally being finished with this round of Circus Book revisions, I thought I’d share how I start a new writing project… since I waited approximately forty-five minutes after sending in my revision before I launched into something new.
Every writer is a little different, but this writer? LOVES the beginnings of projects. I love the wide open possibility, the brainstorming, the actual opening chapters, the rush and momentum as I witness a thought experiment turn into a story.
It’s the part of the process that feels the most magical for me, and it’s when I feel my most confident, most powerful.
I’ll save the mystery of idea-hunting for another time—because I’m not entirely certain I could sum up how and where I get my ideas anyway—and we’ll start right when an idea has taken root.
Right at the moment when I decide (yes, decide) that this, THIS, right here, is going to be a book.
Step one: acquire a notebook.
I am a notorious handwriter. In fact, I am drafting a book by hand this week for the first time in years, and it has already opened up a part of my brain that was feeling musty. It’s a wonderful pressure valve, to write by hand in this digital era, and if you are physically able, I’d recommend it, at least for some parts of the book-writing journey.
I have some favorite notebooks I cycle through. This week, I’m using a foresty decomposition book. The only wrong notebook is the one that sits there unused because you don’t feel worthy of it.
To quote my dear brilliant friend Hayley Chewins, “Use the special teacup. Use the special notebook.” I never regret it.
Step two: find at least one song.
Yes, I build myself a playlist (I use Spotify), but at this stage, I do not let myself get too precious with making hours and hours of music—I just need at least one sonic touchstone. One movie score. One song that reminds me of the tone, the character, the genre, anything—I can’t really sink my teeth into the meat of a story until I can hear it.
Luckily for me, this doesn’t take long. Usually when I get the original idea, my brain automatically links to some other story or media form—a movie or book my idea is in conversation with, a particular trope I’m dismantling, even the season I want to evoke with this story. For a long time, the songs on my playlist for RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA were all from the soundtrack to Fantastic Mr. Fox—not because those two stories are related in any way, but because I knew I wanted to keep a Wes Anderson vibe in RACE, and visually/stylistically, Fantastic Mr. Fox was closer to what I pictured than The Life Aquatic. Make sense? Tangentially? Good.
Just one song. I can go pretty far with just one song.
Step three: Plan a time to do the most delightful thing in the world, an unrestrained, uninterrupted freewrite session where EVERY possible idea is written down and the answer is NEVER no.
Physically, what does this look like?
I’ve got my notebook. I’ve got headphones on with my song(s) blaring on repeat. I start with some lists:
-what I DO know
-what other books/movies/properties are influencing this idea
-what aesthetics are inspiring me (because, listen, sometimes we begin with aesthetics and have to create a plot later, and that’s really okay)
-what tone/mood I imagine the prose taking on
-anything I know I DO NOT want in this book
-any details that might fit in this story (sometimes I just know the name Agatha and a recurring motif about clashing orange floral wallpaper will work somewhere in this story, so I write it down)
The lists will be random. In order. Not in order. Sideways. Doesn’t matter—the point is not to organize it as it comes out of my head; the point is to splatter it all onto the page, knowing that later, without a doubt, I will be sorting everything properly.
I also brainstorm by telling myself the story from the beginning. Sometimes it looks like a bullet point list—character does this, character does this next, character feels this, and on and on. Sometimes it comes out like I am telling a story around a campfire as a child—you know, lots of run-on sentences and backtracking and weird details in one area and not enough details in others…
I usually have to retell myself the story several times over before I get a sense of the thing—and I’ll always go back to the beginning and talk my way through it again (or talk on the page, if I’m not talking out loud). It’s not unlike smoothing a wrinkled paper over and over again, or letting a braid slip out of your hands so you can try again and make it longer this time.
I give myself a decent amount of time for this part, which, for me, is usually two or three days—I know, that probably doesn’t seem like very much brainstorming time, but hear me out.
The idea has likely been soaking in my brain for months or years by now, so I’m not going from initial spark to ready to write in two or three days. (Though it could happen!)
Second, I have learned the hard way that the sooner I get to actually writing the book, the better—I always want to figure out everything beforehand, in an outline or a freewrite, but that’s a fool’s errand. There will always be connections or details that are unreachable until you are in the manuscript, in the writing, in the thicket of it. You cannot pre-plan everything.
Third, and somewhat related to my second point—so much of a manuscript’s lifeblood happens with the actual prose. I can’t truly get a sense for how the tone will comingle with the character voice, or how the research for my historical elements will inform the plot… not until I’m actually writing.
Once I have a sense of the shape of the story—and there are always big spaces where I don’t know exactly what I’m missing, by the way—I try to organize it all.
Step four: Try to organize it all.
I almost always attempt an outline. I say it like this because inevitably I scrub out my plans, rehash my ideas, move plot points around, lose my outline completely, or dive into the story following some other pathway.
But the outline is important. The outline is the beacon of hope, the tangible belief that I know what I’m doing—and honestly, most of my novels stay more or less on track with what I originally planned. (NOT with Circus Book, okay?)
And then, after I have a working outline, I am ready for step five: write the thing.
Here’s a secret: I come back to this process if, at any time while working on a story, I feel uninspired, lost in plotholes, uncertain about the themes, detached from the original influences, or just need a new jolt of fire and passion to push me through a few chapters.
So this is what I’ve been up to this week in particular, and by the time you have this newsletter, I’ll be writing the thing!
At the moment, I’m gathering songs for a playlist, keeping a stack of my bookish influences nearby, and making some lists of names (so when I’m drafting, I don’t have to pause to dream up the perfect detail).
I can’t tell you too much about this book, but I’ll leave you with these tantalizing clues: Outside Over There, Where the Wild Things Are, The Secret Garden, and Edmund from The Chronicles of Narnia.
Cryptic, isn’t it? Yes. And so, so much fun.
Coming Up For Me
A cover reveal for my next book, a middle grade called The Patron Thief of Bread, is due soon! It’s breathtaking! It’s so perfect for the book. And I believe we have a release date (but don’t quote me on this): May 2022. Eep! So soon!
I’m also running my fast draft course one more time! This will be my last writing class indefinitely—so if you’re interested, you should head this way on August 10th and sign up!
Tidbits
Working On
I have some unofficial deadlines to hit!
First, I’m writing this new middle grade, then getting back to work on my non-fiction project. I’ve got a few more things in the bullpen, projects that have been pushed back and pushed back, and it looks like I’ll have some time to devote to them this autumn and winter.
Reading
Oh, boy, I read a lot of incredible books this month! Here’s some of the stand-outs:
Carrie by Stephen King (it was my first time reading it! My first Stephen King, in fact!). I was so impressed by the narrow scope of the novel, and less impressed by all the commentary about every woman or high school girl’s breasts.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders—it was excellent. Of course it was excellent. I’ll be rereading this one again in the next few years, I can tell.
Wilderlore Book One: The Accidental Apprentice by Amanda Foody—a marvelous middle grade that reads like a cozy tale of Pokemon set in a fantasy forest
The Sea in Winter by Christine Day—a beautiful story about a young ballerina whose injury means she might not dance again
Listening To
Regina Spektor! Fin’s been learning her catalog, so we’ve been blaring Music Box and Folding Chair and Consequence of Sound in our house and car.
Also, been listening to lots of Walk the Moon, Fleet Foxes, and Dolly Parton.
Watching
JUNGLE CRUISE! Since its release on July 30th, Jungle Cruise has played in our house probably seven times, whoops! Is it a flawed movie? Absolutely! Would I have killed for a chance to work on this script? You betcha! Was it still totally fun and completely my jam? YES!
Kenneth and I rewatched Mean Girls for the first time in years, and I thought it was still incredibly well-written and thematically important in the high school girl-world conversation.
But I also watched Eighth Grade for the first time this month, and wow. What a heartbreaking, real, joyous movie—and it absolutely filled me with compassion for my oldest girl. She’s almost twelve, starting sixth grade, and I don’t want to forget how vulnerable she’ll be over the next few years, or how daunting it’ll be for her to navigate the digital world of teenager-dom. Terrifying. Amazing.
Thanks for letting me hang out in your inbox! See you next month! Happy Halloween!
xo