Back from the Desert
Retreat and Research and Return and Not TOO Much Woo-Woo Shit
Writing Retreat
Dear Readers,
I spent the last several days in the desert on the annual-ish writing retreat I take with a couple of friends of mine. I look forward to this all year, though I try not to pin TOO MUCH HOPE on whatever I get accomplished out here. It’s a lot of pressure! Two years ago I got some wonderful work done on the manuscript of mine that still sits in a figurative drawer while I try to figure out what to do with it. The retreat before that saw me spending all my time on the complicated story I tried to write post-We Used to Be Friends when it turned out that really all I wanted to do was write something silly and fun (which was, months later, what I did when I started No Boy Summer).
(I actually really want to talk more about my writing retreat (and writing retreats in general) but I have this whole thing about keeping my actual writing advice on the free side of this Substack so what I’m saying is, more on this topic next week!)
Last year I got some great work accomplished on (mumbles something secret about Book 3 in the Out in Hollywood series) but right as the retreat was about to start, an incredibly annoying and petty and a-friend-likened-it-to-Real-Housewives-level-drama situation happened (TO BE CLEAR NOT WITH MY LOVELY RETREAT-MATES), and while the work got done, I was fighting through a storm of hurt and annoyance and whatever else. I am only a human! And a sensitive baby of a human at that, prone to tears and angst.
Anyway, this year saw none of that. And thanks to an initiative that I myself have taken on, I am trying to rewrite (see what I did there) my creative practice in order to prioritize self-care and mental health and deadlines that don’t ruin holidays or any other part of my life. I’m also kind of trying to listen to the universe (yes absolutely that shit is so woo-woo I want to barf a little but see I’m trying) and trust the process.
The universe, as always and like many others, has been sending mixed signals. I told an acquaintance about some of the complications going on, and she remarked, what are you even supposed to TAKE from that? I was like, YES MA’AM EXACTLY WHAT I’M WONDERING. Yet I’m still trying to stay positive, and focused on the process, focused on keeping myself from unraveling!
With all of that said I was excited to get out here and unpack my figurative notebooks (look, I have a MacBook with Word and Excel, those are my notebooks*) and my craft books and all the notes from the research I’ve spent this year doing, and start the process of (mumble something also secret). I’ve done a little work, a little outlining, took another research call that ended up feeling so productive and inspiring that I knew the best thing was to let it sit, fresh, in my head for a bit. Sometimes the work is knowing that sitting with it is the work (FAMOUS LAST WORDS THO).
I’ve also been really overwhelmed and grateful with the generosity of the folks I’ve talked to for research. Look: I am not a research kind of writer. Some of the people I like most in this whole world are creatives whose art is based in the past. The effort they put forth to ensure the work is thoughtful and realistic and accurate, well, the best I can liken it to from my own life is how thoughtfully I ate burgers around Los Angeles while preparing to draft The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles). Writing At Her Service meant that I needed to talk to talent agencies and managers, but ultimately it was so good that I did. It isn’t only the specific details I was able to add to the book; one particular conversation altered the overall career arc of the entire story!
So what I’m saying is…I can know this, the power and excitement of research, and still feel like the worst-equipped writer for it. But this next book requires it, so I am doing the research! And mainly what I’m learning is (I might barf again sorry) that I am SO LUCKY that my life is full of really thoughtful, smart, generous people — even the ones I hadn’t talked to in a decade! — who are willing to give me hours of their time so that I, one rando, can more skillfully tell the story I want to tell.
Now I probably will have to do something snarly and Gen X-ish to feel less woo-woo and earnest, like wear dark lipstick and deny the cavalcade of emotions smacking all over me while listening to Automatic for the People OK great talk to y’all soon.
xoxoAmy
*burned all my notebooks/what good are notebooks?/they won’t help me survive