A new creative season
Highlights from summer + what I'm excited about for this fall
Summer 2022 was a season of both slowing down and speeding up. We threw a party to celebrate W’s birthday — lots of neighbors and good food and drinks and a truly ridiculous and delicious amount of cake. I made time for family. I drove up to Rhode Island for a friend’s wedding, a long road trip where we passed the time listening to Harry’s House and Red (Taylor’s Version) over and over. I did (as you can tell from the pictures above) make it to Durham to see the famous lemurs, and they were delightful.
Everyone’s creative process is different, so “slowing down” might mean something else for you, but for me, this summer was a slower creative season. I started the first draft of a new novel, writing around 30,000 words over the past couple of months, which was much more leisurely for me (compared with my normal NaNoWriMo-esque writing pace). I took a break from this newsletter space and let myself miss it and explore new things I could recommend to you. I’m still steadily creating a monthly episode of my mini bookish podcast, Reading Like an Adult, but I’m trying to let myself not stress when I fall a week or two behind.
I hope you had a wonderful summer. I’m starting to get that fall feeling, that boost of creative energy and that urge to listen to 19891 (physical CD copy2, obviously the Target deluxe edition) and The Blessed Unrest over and over. It feels like time to pick up the pace again, to push a little more, to stretch and grow.
What I’m working on:
Moves in the Field
For anyone who wants to do a thing but thinks it’s “too late” — it’s not. I took figure skating lessons for a short time more than 15 years ago and loved it, but even at the beginner level I was working at, the demanding sport was too much for my family to keep up with at the time. I’ve missed being on the ice for a long time but always thought I was too old to do anything with that creative passion again.
But something happened when I watched the Winter Olympics back in February. I couldn’t stay away anymore. I started with the Theatre on Ice class I mentioned in the spring and connected with a couple of adult skaters at my nearby rink. I hadn’t realized that there’s a whole world of grown-up people who enjoy figure skating and pursue it as a creative/athletic endeavor in their spare time, simply because they love it. Now, I’m working with a coach and spending a few hours every week on the ice again.
It feels like stepping back into a part of myself that I’ve missed for too long. I’ve searched for years for a Creative Thing I could do that would take me away from the world of screens and pages and books and notebooks, something that would reconnect me to the physical world and to myself and let me get completely out of my own head, and it was right there, waiting in the wings for me all along.
Showing up even when it’s hard
I pick up a lot of books about writing and creativity. Author in Progress: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published was one of my recent reads, and I’d highly recommend it to novelists (and to any writer who’s thinking, “Maybe someday”!).
I’m never not working on showing up for my writing. So, among many other gems in Author in Progress, I loved the reminder that you need a simple writing mantra that gets you back to the page. Mine is … SUPER simple.
“You just need to spend half an hour with your story.”
That’s it. That’s the whole mantra. It’s sneaky enough to let me reconnect with my story without feeling pressured, but that promised half hour — when I’m completely focused on the Word document in front of me — is enough time to make some real, daily, steady progress on my manuscript.
What’s inspiring me:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
At its best, the novel as an art form has almost no limits. You’re immersed in the pain and triumph and heart of a character — or multiple characters. Time, space, perspective, the normal limits of our real lives, no longer need to be barriers.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a book I’d recommend to any devoted reader who wants to be swept away by a big story, but it’s also the novel I’d hand to someone who doesn’t usually seek out stories in book form. If you’ve ever wished a film’s story could be told both as a sweeping and cinematic epic and a raw, weird, little indie flick, somehow at the same time, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a reminder that a brilliantly executed novel can do that.
Sam and Sadie are two gamers who decide to create their own world together. This is a story about legacy, what can happen — both good and bad — when you think big-picture and long-term about creative success and that creative success actually happens. It’s a story about that strange fine line between friendship and need that exists between creative partners. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow explores facets of creativity that rarely get this kind of focused attention.
The creative boost that comes from watching/reading/listening to the exact right thing at the right time
I need a word for the feeling that you’ve plunged into the sea of content and somehow managed to pull the right thing to shore with you. Yes, this is the story I needed to experience. That feeling is why I started this newsletter three years ago — because I wanted to explore and explain the feeling I get from the right TV show/movie/podcast/book at the right moment and to help you find your own “right things.”
Watching or reading or listening to the story I need at that moment makes me feel more connected to myself, to other people, and to the greater world around me. For me, some recent right-story-at-the-right-time moments have been:
The Mythic Quest season 2 finale (no spoilers, but I loved the reminder that sometimes creativity needs a new chapter)
Welcome to Our Show (podcast): An Episode with Jake Johnson — The first time I listened to this episode, I shrieked with laughter. The second time I listened, I thought a lot about creativity and what I want for my writing career. So as you can see, a podcast where cast members from New Girl talk about the hit show can contain multitudes.
Aziz Ansari’s Nightclub Comedian (yes, again) — If you're going to write comedy about pandemics and politics and pandemic politics, this is what I want to see. It's aware enough to be cathartic, gentle enough to help me keep perspective, and accurate enough to be genuinely funny. Which is why I keep re-watching (and re-recommending) it.
I know Red is obviously the fan-designated fall album and evermore is the official fall/winter project, but for some reason, that first whiff of autumn in the air makes me need to listen to “Blank Space” and “Out of the Woods” IMMEDIATELY.
I already love “This Love” (Taylor’s Version) more than the original so I am so excited for the full album re-recording whenever we get it.