This blog needs a shake up.
I thought I would be writing here about the strangeness of settling down, of buying everything from scratch, all that post-nomad stuff, but I’m thinking that’s really only interesting to me. If you’re on the road, you don’t care about the ins and outs of getting off the road (in fact, Melanie told me today that the idea makes her nauseous), and if you’re a regular person, you don’t get it when it comes to how weird those ins and outs are. Feel like I’m preaching to an empty room on that topic.
And I’m too depressed about all this to explain it more carefully. I’m also getting sad compiling all those photos from the past few years. Jeez Louise. I don’t want to look back right now, and looking at now right now isn’t my strong suit, either.
Don’t get me wrong: I plan to continue my mandate to stay amazed, and I’ll keep up with some day-to-day writing, just not so often. (I hear that collective sigh of relief out there.) The rub is that I still want to keep writing in the blog somehow; I feel compelled to do so. Driven. So, here’s my idea.
Some Who Wander
You probably know that’s the name of the manuscript I’m working on. I posted a bit about it here, when I talked about that helpful writing coach my friend Whit recommended.
For anyone wondering, “manuscript” (ms) is what you call a piece of writing, any writing, but often people mean writing that might become a book or, mostly likely, will not. I believe no one calls it a book unless it’s gone through the many stages of manipulation by a publisher and is ready for distribution. I’m used to calling anything without a hardcover an ms, but that might seem weird here where I’m so informal, so probably I’ll say “book” sometimes.
Back to my point: Some Who Wander is also the name of this new section of the blog I’m starting. Here’s my plan.
My current ms (gah, can’t help it) is a memoir of the last five years on the road, part personal, interior stories of grief and growth, part travel. As I continue to work on it, I’d like to post about it here. I’m going to keep the personal stuff under wraps because that shit ain’t easy to write. It’s going to take a lot of work. For the travel stuff, though, I’ll be relying on my past blog posts for research.
I’m thinking that process might make interesting new blog posts, not like I’ll recycle past writing here (just like I’m not recycling it for the ms), but more like finding that I’m amazed that some stuff even happened in the first place, and I’ll have other reflections that might seem worth sharing. A kind of meta-blogging, meta ms-writing.
Posts that I plan to categorize as Some Who Wander will:
- Introduce the ms: explain what I’m thinking about for its scope, its structure, the pitfalls that I know I’m facing, etc.
- Give you an update on my writing progress when that’s interesting, like when I posted about having my mind blown with that coach’s advice.
- Flash back to travel—places and stuff that happened on the road—as I’m digging that up out of the archives here to work with or to skip in the ms. There won’t be as much travel stuff included in the ms as you might think, but I’m sifting through a lot of it as I do research, so I’d like to reflect on it here some. This, I’m thinking, will be the bulk of these posts.
- Snippets of text, especially what I think is interesting writing that I throw in my discard pile but hate to lose. At its core, these posts will be about writing, so I figure they should include a little bit of writing.
You guessed it, time for:
Caveats
Now, I know everyone and their brother is writing a book, or has written a book, or has written several books and is writing more. Ho hum about mine, right? Maybe by sharing stuff I’m learning about writing with you, you’ll pick up something that’s helpful, and maybe we’ll get in a conversation.
I also know there are workshops out there just for this exact thing, but I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone: keeping this blog interesting, making myself feel accountable for progress on the ms, and (okay that’s three birds) scratching the itch I have to write light stuff daily. I just need to be sure blogging about the ms encourages writing in the ms, instead of taking its place.
I am already relying on the kindness of a few friends who ask about the book and read parts for me (thank you, Melissa! Heather! Mary Margaret! Bob for supporting!), but, good grief, how long can they keep that up? You, however, are an audience held in the captivity of my screen, at least in my imagination. So I can blab at you all I want, and, finally, not in a “dear diary” fashion as my posts are looking to become without this change.
Let’s talk about risks. As far as I can tell, they’re all applicable only if I plan to publish. As of now, I don’t want to do the work to even try to get an agent, and I don’t want to go to the expense of self publishing. Now, AI tools could come take my writing (heck, anyone could), and that’s why I’ll put only bits and bobs here. And if the Earth started rotating around the Moon and I did get interest from an agent, they might say, “Why would anyone buy a book you’ve already laid bare in your blog?” Seeing as how there are about four of you out there who will know about it, I think that’s a low risk as well.
Now that I’ve made complicated a possibly simple idea, here is the plan.
Every-day posts will be headed with:
and book-related posts will be headed with (you guessed it):
The bottom line(s) is that I love thinking about and writing about books. This will let me think and write about my book as I’m writing it. And, having you as my audience will give me lots of advantages. Seeing as how the ms might never see the light of day, this blog might be its only outlet.
What do you think? Interesting? Too bookish? If the latter, I figure that’s what the image up top will do: show you what entries to skip. Too risky in some way I haven’t thought of?
Feel free to contact me any way you’d like.
See? I knew you’d figure it out. Sounds like a good plan to me. I will say this, though: don’t underestimate people’s interest in reading about the mundane. Things you consider “really only interesting to me” might very well pique the interest of others, as well. I, for one, find it fascinating to read about your tradition to “civilian life” after five years on the road. If you’re a decent storyteller (you are), you can write about pretty much anything and keep people hooked!
Transition, not tradition, bite me auto correct.
I appreciate your confidence in me! And agree that it’s a great exercise (and show-off skill!) to write in an interesting way about practically anything. I just am not in the mood. 🙂 It’s all inevitable though, civilian life as you call it. I’m dragging my heels.
First comment, on Post nomadic life – I’ve been thinking about your change-of-life. In the things to look forward to category, I would guess you might discover (re-discover?) and love having a garden – vegetables, herbs, hops, whatever. I just feel that might be a zen kind of thing you and Tracey might enjoy, perhaps to help embrace (or at least repel less) a more stationary kind of life.
And I thing that, in order to accept that you won’t be on the road ALWAYS, you keep the idea alive that occasional road trips – a week, a month – could be doable with something as simple as a van. You certainly have friends that have minimized their travel, and I expect if you can live 5+ years in the Airstream, a month in a van would be do-able!
-Renee SD
Hey Renee! A back yard I can garden in is one of our must-have items on our house hunt. I’m with you there.
And, give us a little time to get in the apartment, then get in a house, sell the truck, buy a car, on and on with the transitioning, big-ticket items, before we start thinking about a van. We have too much going on to add even an incentive-type thing to the list. Plus, it’s kind of like when your best dog ever dies and people keep telling you to get another dog. I need some time. Tracy needs some time. Maybe later.
2nd comment – this post is writing On Writing, which I think was Stephen King’s version of writing about writing. I thought of him when you wrote about “Snippets of text, especially what I think is interesting writing that I throw in my discard pile but hate to lose.” In his case it was wife/editor Tabitha who would actually make him discard parts of his books that contributed nothing to the story, but that he hated tossing because he loved how he said something. He called it “killing his babies” which is so wonderfully StephenKing-esque!
And regarding publishing later something you had blogged, there can be changes to even a memoir. In a class I took a few years ago, the topic came up of how to write about people who didn’t want their tale told exactly a certain way, or associated with them, or you, the writer, wanted to tell a story but not offend The Living. It’s considered a liberty to write something one way to cover one of those bases, then in a later edition (or blog to book), when circumstances have changed, you can correct the original text the the true name, place, whatever. There was an example of one friend volunteering to be the catalyst in a story, which could later be corrected when the person who’d actually done the deed had passed away.
Whatever you write, I’m still enjoying riding along with you.
-Renee SD
I’m with you entirely here. Email coming.
Personally I’m finding your transition from nomad to homeowner an interesting read, but you do what’s right for you. Heck, I blog about yard sales and woodchucks, nothing is too mundane for me.
😉