time jump travel diary
A trip to Los Angeles, a drafting update, and what I've been up to this summer
Hello friends! It's been brought to my attention that I haven't sent one of these notes out in a while.
Oops.
Looks like since April, to be exact. A bit more of a time jump than I intended. So what have I been up to in the meantime?
A trip to Los Angeles
Just over a week ago I took an impromptu trip to Los Angeles. Impromptu might not be the right word considering it's been on the books for months, and that I pretty much had my packing list and major stops planned well ahead. The spontaneous part was buying tickets to a Decemberists show at the Bellwether back in April not knowing how or whether I was actually going to follow through to get myself there. I ended up building a short vacation around that show, and I'm really glad I did.
Travel, and especially solo travel, gives me the opportunity to get out of my familiar spaces and forces me to take some (minor) risks and experience new things. I'm able to be present in a way that I would always like to be, but which I often forego in favor of comforting, familiar routines. I get to examine those routines from the outside in a way that I think is healthy every now and then. Travel also opens me up to interactions I might otherwise miss. I get to people-watch and chat with strangers, and be reminded of the complex inner experience every person is living through whether we see it or not.
(Is it a coincidence that my last Substack update also came after a trip? Perhaps not.)
The trip also reminded me of the importance of making and sharing art.
Art was everywhere on my trip, from street performers making music and selling paintings on Venice Beach to the murals in Culver City to the thousands of stories on the shelves at The Last Bookstore. I visited the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which felt like a mystifying piece of performance art in which attendees are participants. The dim and stuffy interiors, strange exhibits, and the fact that visitors aren't allowed to use their phones made emerging in the rooftop tea garden feel like a portal to another world, again one in which I was forced to be present.
It's sometimes uncomfortable for me to sit in a public place for too long without retreating into my rotation of social media apps, but the fact that I couldn't actually made me feel more alive in my senses. The smells of incense and bird cages, the heat of a glass of mint tea in my hand, and the flickering of candles in stone alcoves stand out to me as well as if I had taken a picture. The other guests and I actually looked at each other and exchanged bewildered smiles. Isn't this weird? Isn't it wonderful?
I also got to meet up with writing friends I've made through Instagram, which is always a particular treat, and much-needed given that a lot of my in-person community has become more diffused over the last few years. We got to do a writing session together, grab lunch, and catch up about writing, work, and life. I left feeling energized and encouraged, and slightly guilted into updating Substack (thanks, Chris!)
A writing update
Since I've been home, I've started a second draft of Project Alchemy. If you've read previous updates, you'll know I finished Draft 1 in December, and then took a longer-than-planned hiatus before returning to the project to prepare for revisions. I spent much of June using Susan Dennard's Beginner’s Guide to Revising Your Novel process this time around, with some alterations made to account for how my drafts differ from hers.
Susan's approach involves planning changes at the scene level, which doesn't work as well for me, since my first drafts are very much me figuring out what the story I’m telling is even about. It's not even about plot at this stage; it's about getting the characters to tell me what is real for them, and figuring out the vibe, and the major worldbuilding concepts. All of that is subject to change based on what I discover, so I think this process might serve me better in later drafts, when the scenes and chapters of the book are more fleshed out.
However, I've found the basic approach helpful for capturing what it is exactly that I've written in my first draft, comparing that to my vision for the book, making a list of changes to get the draft closer to the vision, and making a plan for moving forward.
So, forward we move. I'm learning at every turn that discovery is a big part of my writing process. This is the first draft I'm writing without an outline, and that is both liberating and vaguely terrifying. However, I've written enough drafts based on detailed outlines by now to know that at some point I will always deviate from the plan.
Usually that's because something is telling me intuitively that my characters would make a different decision than the one I've outlined, or that the plot point I thought I was heading toward no longer makes sense. This is almost always an improvement to the story, but it feels bad because when things shift I'm no longer heading toward the destination I planned for myself, and panic sets in.
This time, with a few major exceptions, I've eliminated the idea of a destination, and am going to try to let these characters be as real as they can be within the world that's simultaneously unfolding around them. It's scary, but the idea of "should" hasn't produced great stories in my experience, and (with apologies to my critique partners) I'm looking forward to seeing what transpires.
I'm also trying a new approach to my writing sessions, which so far has boosted my focus in a way I'm really happy with. Through a writing Patreon I'm subscribed to I learned about Don Roos' kitchen timer method for writing sessions. I found a Tumblr post that breaks down the method, which is similar to the pomodoro technique, and basically creates a finite amount of time within which you only focus on your writing.
The twist here is that you also have a writing journal open at the same time as whatever project you're working on, and while you're not allowed to open the internet, look at your phone, or deviate from the scene (or task) you're currently working on in your project, you can always turn to the writing journal to write down any notes for later, or acknowledge the things taking up space in your mind that draw you away from writing.
This method emphasizes care for the capacity you have to work on any given day and ensures that you have a stopping point in place. This way you won't over-extend yourself, making it less likely that you'll want to return to your project. This has been helping me stay immersed in my writing and also measure my progress, as I'm left with a record of all the sessions I've completed for the past couple of months.
The -INGs of late summer
I'm stealing this idea from Amanda at the Homesong Blog, which I admittedly haven't visited much since the pre-Substack days. I always appreciated Amanda's focus on the way that seasons change our moods and rhythms and how we spend our time. I'm sure you can see this tendency come through in my own notes. Here are my -INGs of late summer:
Playing: Last month we completed the Dungeons & Dragons campaign my brother has been running for the past year and half. Our party prevailed in our final showdown against the mindflayers we'd been trying to evade, and I said goodbye (for now!) to my Level 11 Ranger/Bard Ygrene. We did a wrap-up session where we got to send our characters off to their post-adventure lives, and chat with my brother about any loose threads and his experience running the game. One of our other party members is already stepping up to take a turn as Game Master, and I've been having fun designing an Oath of the Ancients Paladin to play in a new homebrew world.
Reading: I haven't finished a book in what feels like ages, but I finished two this past week. The Door on Half-Bald Hill by Helena Sorensen was a gorgeous tale infused with Irish mythology and lyrical prose - exactly up my alley. I also took up
’s suggestion to read more novellas and snagged a copy of Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse from Small World Books in Venice Beach. It was a quick tragic Western infused with angels and demons; the perfect size to start on the beach and finish on my flight home.Listening: The Decemberists released their most recent album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again this past June, and I pretty much listened non-stop in preparation for the show I saw in LA. My most-played tracks are definitely Long White Veil and William Fitzwilliam. Joan in the Garden is my favorite, though; it's a 20-minute voyage into the strange and sublime. Hearing it live this past week blew me away. The Decemberists' frontman goes into a deep dive on the construction of several of these songs in the paid version of
, his Substack. If you're a Decemberists nerd, it's well worth a read (and a listen, as there are snippets and early recordings of many of the songs.) His Tour Diaries are humorous peeks into the highs and lows of life on tour, full of relatable content for anyone who knows both the privilege and pain (and just plain boredom) that comes with making art.
Watching: While I haven't been watching much TV, I did tune in for the first episode of Downfall, Critical Role's most recent three-part series that steps back from the current campaign to focus on a significant past event in the world’s history. Brennan Lee Mulligan has returned as GM to break hearts and crash another of Exandria's flying cities, so of course I am here for it. I've also been thinking a lot about how to conceptualize and show characters interacting with divine beings in my own work, and seeing a take on this in a world where deities are tangible and many is always interesting to me.
Learning: I signed up for Maria Dahvana Headley's course on fantasy worldbuilding through The Shipman Agency, and attended the first of two sessions this past weekend. I've been impressed with the generative possibility of the writing exercises we've completed in class. I also appreciate Maria's candid approach to the importance of writing fantasy in chaotic times, and her emphasis on imagination as an essential ingredient for facing and crafting alternate realities in both life and story. I'm looking forward to next week's session!
Practicing: Like it or not, I've come to realize that exercise is pretty important to maintaining my mental health. I've never been one for super intense workouts, and I'm not a big gym person, so the EMKFit channel on YouTube is right up my alley. Cardio is doable when there's dancing involved, and there are approachable strength workouts that involve little or no equipment. These workouts have allowed be to be more consistent with some kind of movement than I've been at any other point in my life, and they're encouraging and fun to boot.
Grilling: Summer is for grilling, and we've busted ours out several times already. When I don't feel like meal planning, my go-to combination has become some kind of grilled vegetable (we like doing zucchini, tomatoes, carrot ribbons, and corn) and some kind of grilled meat (chicken or andouille sausage are great) tossed on top of arugula or spring greens with a vinaigrette. I also made these Bang Bang chicken skewers, and they were fantastic.
That’s it for now - I hope late summer is treating you well. If you’ve made it this far, share one of the -INGs of your summer in the comments! Take care, until next time.
Greta
This was so lovely to read, Greta!! I really enjoyed hearing about your trip, your approach to revision and all the -ing's you've been enjoying!! 🖤
That's such an interesting approach to writing!