Recent forays into creative writing: When frantic bedtime phone notes turn into a medley of half-essays and anxiously recalled dreams

I’m working, on and off, at the edges of a new book. You don’t know about it yet because the new book isn’t yet under contract, and so I can’t share it publicly (…yet).

But I feel a deep and urgent need to begin pushing parts of it out into the world. If this were the business world, I might be accused of jumping ahead of myself with deliverables or getting my priorities out of order. 

But we all know creative projects don’t work like that.

And thankfully, as my own boss, I can choose to write this book in little moments before bed or between things, or wherever inspiration strikes. I can set aside hours to dive down research rabbit holes or sneak away to an archive for a day or two. 

This book is (surprise) about food, but it weaves together many other elements in a way that’s both more broad and more deep than I’ve gone before. I can’t wait to share it with you.

Part of this process, when I’m deep in the throes of my creativity, is a near-nightly ritual where part of an essay, or a key concept, or something about my creative work comes crashing into my head….riiiiiight as I’m just about to drift off to sleep.

Some of these are sentences, some are to do lists of research topics or terms. 

Some drop in as full or partial essays, snippets of text that are already shaped in a way I adore. 

I’m sharing a couple of those with you below. They are untitled, and aren’t clearly connected (or are they?) except that they’re written by the same author and both, broadly, have to do with the sky and maybe weather, too. 

I’d love to hear what you think!