Summer hours, reinstated
Floating, swimming, reading and daydreaming
View from my bedroom. Sunset over Lake Annecy, France.
Travel ~
Yesterday I woke up in London, loaded the car with six boxes of books and drove to our lake house in France. It took 13 hours - during which time I drank way too much coffee and listened to every single podcast ever recorded until all the words and ideas turned into noise and I had to switch it all off.
But I made it here safely, and the dog didn’t puke, so life is good.
The house is quiet. I like to arrive a week before everyone else - to stock up on essentials and see what needs fixing. June has been super hot, and the garden needs some love. The path down to the lake needs clearing. And where did the deck chairs go? They’ve disappeared. Later this week I’ll dig through the plastic storage bins and look for the life vests and bicycle helmets and flip flops and beach blankets. The pool needs to be serviced and the propane tanks need to be filled. And then, finally, a big trip to the supermarket for essentials: bags of ice and cases of rosé and sparkling water, plus more toilet paper than seems necessary - but it will never be enough.
But today was a day of rest. :) I banned myself from listening to podcasts and instead listened to this playlist. I also went to the market and came home with a beautiful bounty:
One cavaillon melon
Three heavy peaches
Two handfuls of sweet cherries
A single perfect tomato (the kind you can’t find in a supermarket)
A handful of fresh green beans
Some new potatoes
A handful of fresh spinach
Salted butter from Normandy
Local goat’s cheese
Some local yogurt for breakfast
A fresh baguette, still warm
All of it went into this super cute basket that I bought in Provence ten years ago which was handmade exactly for this purpose. It was such a main character morning! I even wore a sundress. But I didn’t take a photo because I never think to take photos and now the moment’s gone so you’ll just have to believe me. The scene was cinematic, the soundtrack was awesome and my hair looked f.
Books ~
A writer friend told me once that the hardest part of writing dual-timeline books is that readers are invariably drawn to one storyline over the other. I thought of that recently when I read Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was a fine book - but I found myself speeding through the love-story timeline so I could get back to the outer space one. I love TJR! Maybe I was just in the mood for something different, something more adventurous? So then I read a Dean Koontz novel, which was exactly what I thought a Dean Koontz novel would be like. And then Heartwood by Amity Gaige, which is a mystery set on the Appalachian Trail, which was fun, if forgettable.
Creative projects ~
Sophia and I are working on a collaborative poetry/photography book! I can’t say more because that will suck the joy out of it. But it’s so fun to be working with her!
Other important goals for the week: floating, swimming, reading and daydreaming.
xo, L
Not exactly Jessica Fletcher
On first drafts, the Women’s Prize Summer Party, and planning a road trip
Jessica Fletcher, Murder She Wrote
This week’s project ~
You know the opening credits of Murder She Wrote, when Jessica is sitting at her desk typing away while the cheerful theme song bops along in the background? I love those opening credits. I never skip that part! By the end of the song, she’s written the final page of the book and has closed the manuscript cover.
My writing process is… not that. It’s more like having food poisoning. You know it’s in there and it needs to come out - but you have no control over when it happens. All you can do is be in the right place at the right time and hope for the best. That’s my writing process. It ain’t pretty. I wear noise-cancelling headphones and every now and then, when I realise I’ve turned into Quasimodo with a tech neck, I lurch my shoulders back into place and groan.
I’m trying to write six chapters per week - but do NOT be impressed by that number, because my chapters are only a few pages long. Also, it’s a pretty shitty first draft. So when I’m done with this stage of the process, I will have a lot of work to do. But I’m writing again! Hooray for me!
Books!
I just finished Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential - WOW, it was so good! He narrates the audio version and I highly recommend it - his voice is commanding and so entertaining. I also finished The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. It was slow-going but cinematic - the movie is on my list to (eventually) watch.
Earlier this week, I went to the Women’s Prize Summer Party which was a fabulous and friendly event - but mostly I stood around looking awkward and tried not to stare at the literary LEGENDS who were in attendance. Seriously, every year this event gets more and more star-studded. I felt like a Huge Nobody - just a 53-year old girl from Indiana who conned her way into a ticket. I took a glass of champagne, put my head down and tried to blend in. Rachel Clark, author of The Story of a Heart, won the prize for Non-Fiction. Yael van der Wouden, author of The SafeKeep, won the prize for Fiction.
Travel / Where I’m at, where I’m going ~
I’m still in London and I’m still looking for a new place to live - it’s not going well. We might end up putting everything in storage and living the nomad lifestyle for a while. Honestly, I’d prefer that option! But it would be hard on other members of the family, so the search continues.
I’m also prepping for my summer relocation to France. My office is the staging area: boxes of books, a few yoga mats, extra dog food, etc. This time, I’ve decided to make the drive to Lake Annecy in one day. It’s a long slog, but totally do-able. The key: entertainment and nourishment. The only thing worse than airplane food is rest stop food, so I’ll pack a food bag for the road: whole grain/seeded crackers, good cheese, hummus and veggies, fruit and nuts, a stack of PB &Js, air-popped popcorn, some dark chocolate, a thermos of iced water and a thermos of hot water for tea. I’m even bringing a package of Rummo spaghetti and a jar of Belazu Aubergine and Parmesan Pesto for when I arrive late that night and need a hot meal.
Today’s fun project: queue up a bunch of podcasts and buy three extra credits on Audible. The next time you hear from me, I’ll be in France!
xo, L
Print by Liana Finck 2022, Gifted to me by my daughter. :)
A summer begins
A new book project, a long Devon walk and my summer reading list
Fidan Nazimqızı
This week’s project ~
I started to work on my next book! The working title is Notes From a Summer on Lake Annecy and it’s something I’ve been noodling on for a while now. It will be another memoir-in-essays and the themes are my usual obsession - identity and transformation with a strong sense of place.
In terms of process - I’m doing something radically different this time around: I’m planning to write from an outline! This is new territory for me as I usually write 70K words and then spend a year/lifetime trying to make sense of what I wrote. This time, I’m going into the writing process with a general sense of a beginning middle and end. I’ve got a list of 45 essays to write, in a very loose order, which will undoubtedly change. But it’s a road map! Also, I love a good list. Here are my notes to self:
1) Protect your writing time.
2) Look at the outline. Pick up where you left off. Keep going.
3) Do NOT edit as you go. Edit in September.
I’ve given myself a short time frame for this draft because I tend to get bored quickly and I want to keep my energy and vibes high. This is either a brilliant idea or completely unrealistic.
A quick trip to Devon ~
Stonehenge after the rain. ©Laurel Kallenbach
Haldon Belvedere: a triangular castle overlooking the Devon countryside.
This weekend, we took a made a quick overnight trip to Devon to visit some friends. We unexpectedly drove past Stonehenge to get there! The view from the highway was underwhelming. I’d love to go back for a proper look around - maybe on summer solstice? How much pegan fun would that be? Later, when the rain cleared, we went for a proper English walk and stumbled upon the Haldon Belvedere is a triangular castle overlooking the Devon countryside.
My Summer Reading List ~
My Summer Reading List!
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
Isola by Allegra Goodman
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Heartwood by Amity Gaige
The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova
I Seek a Kind Person Julian Borger
If You Love It, Let it Kill You by Hannah Pittard
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Until next week!
xo, L
Letting go and moving on
Graduation celebrations, food writing obsessions, and the joy of purging
Photograph by Bettman-Corbis
This week’s project -
My youngest daughter graduated from high school! Our days were filled with ceremonies, celebrations, dinner parties, cocktails. We were celebrating her, for sure. But you know what? I’m also proud of me. I birthed two babies, kept them alive and got them through high school. Congratulations to me!
Apart from journaling, there was very little time this week to work on my creative projects. But I did start brainstorming my next book… The working title is The Lake House Project. The idea is still forming in my mind and I can’t yet put it into words. But I think it will have a strong visual component as well as written words. Sophia’s agreed to be my photographer and art director! Should be fun.
Artist: Luc Lavenseau
Travel: Where I’m at, where I’m going -
We’re moving! The owner of our London home wants to sell and we don’t want to buy - so we have until September 30 to move out. I’ve looked out dozens of houses and apartments here in London, but I just can’t get excited about any of them. Both kids will be in the US for university, so we could literally live almost anywhere.
What I really want to do is travel around the world and be a nomad for a while… But what about work? Is that realistic? We are brainstorming options…
In the meantime, I’m going through the house room-by-room and deciding what to keep, what to donate and what to throw away. And Oh My God I Love This Process So Much! B asked me if I needed help going through the things in the attic and I was like YES MAN, TALK DIRTY TO ME! LET’S GO! We spent all day up there and then donated two carloads of stuff to our local charity shop. And then I took a carload of junk to the Refuse and Recycling Center. Is there anything more therapeutic? I FREAKING LOVE IT. Nothing is safe from my purging! I’m a woman on a mission.
HENRY’S book cover is fuzzy like a peach and I can’t stop petting it.
Books: What I’m reading -
I’m still making my way through Tiananmen Square by Lai Wen. I haven’t made up my mind about this book. I’m told the ending is phenomenal, so I’m sticking with it.
I’ve got two other reading obsessions at the moment. The first is I’m searching for great stories by exquisite food writers. A few months ago, I read The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl (which I loved) and I just finished Butter by Asako Yuzuki (which I liked). Next up is How to Eat a Peach by Diana Henry and then Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.
I’ve also fallen down a rabbit hole researching visual memoirs. I might have made up that genre, but here’s what it means to me: Books where the images carry as much narrative weight as the words. Books like the perennial favourite Film for Her by Orion Carloto or It by Alexa Chung. Or even Sara Berman’s Closet by Maira Kalman or Elena: A Hand Made Life by Miriam Gold.
I know these two categories of books seem wildly different, but they are both feeding my next project!
Where I walk my dog. :) The River Thames, Chiswick to Hammersmith. Artist: Arabella Harcourt-Cooze
Look what I made!
My recipe collection, two book recs and some link love
Look what I made! It’s a cookbook inspired by my travels and organised by cuisine.
This week’s project -
I finally - finally! - finished the edits on my recipe collection and sent it to the printers! Turns out, collecting all the recipes and photos was the easy part. Formatting them into a professional looking book was supremely tedious. In case you're curious (and a process nerd like me): I used Google Drive to organize the content, Canva to create and format the book, and Bookvault to print.
The cover photo was taken by my daughter when she was in first grade and I was still young and beautiful. Apart from that one photo, I don’t own many of the photos in this book, so I can’t sell it or even distribute it as a promotional gift. But that’s okay! That was never my goal. My goal was to learn how to professionally print a photo-heavy book. Now that I know how to do that, I think the next project will be something I can share publicly.
Books: What I’m reading -
I started and finished James by Percival Everett in three days flat, because it’s that good. It’s a re-telling of Huck Finn, but told from the perspective of James - but it’s so much more than that. It’s a literary page-turner: a book you can’t put down, but that is also so compelling that it should also be taught in schools. I loved it.
On the lighter side - I’m almost finished with The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson which is super fun and should be made into a TV series asap. Think: between Veronica Mars meets Agatha Christie.
My local bookstore, as illustrated by Matthew Wright
Some link love -
You’re most repeated thought becomes your reality. I don’t normally listen to Jay Shetty’s podcast, but this episode has some gems.
Paris recommendations to consider by Shelby Chambers. (My own Paris List is much shorter!)
Women’s Prize Events are coming up! This is always a great way to kick off summer.
xo, L