Week 3: Let's Slow Down A Tad, Shall We?

(or, a recently overstimulated writer gets back to basics)

mountain.

POST-WAR (IS A VERY GOOD M.WARD ALBUM)

When I last left you, I was being harried by The Dreaded Knocks (good horrorpunk band name) all around Seattle, and my little hurty brain had survived the intensely grueling horror of… having to talk to a few people a little bit, and generally be a person in the world. It was terrible!

I told you how difficult it can be to accurately remember how uncomfortable and bad certain brain states can be- like a bad flu- but I’m already looking back like, ‘what a goober.’ But I’ll try to let myself off easy, and give that other version of myself some grace, and not be like that asshole uncle that holds you down and farts on you until you start crying ‘because it’ll toughen you up’.

Anyways, I headed north out of Seattle after being harried out of my beloved Love’s Travel Stops and found that most OTHER most lovely of comfort zones- a highway rest stop. I spent day curled up in the back of my little van, my little comfort blanket on wheels, and watched TV and read some books, and it helped.

It’s always like coming up from deep water, when the brain stops pumping ‘bad’ into you and chills out a little bit. You’re like, oh! Sunshine is nice, and also pretty. I forgot.

At any rate, my gaze was being drawn inexorably northward, pulled as if by some immense gravity, towards my own personal Mordor- Canada. Every time I looked in that direction it was if I could see a great eye, wreathed in fire and lidless, always looking- and always hungry. But if I wanted to find my book in all 50 states (remember, Hawaii and Alaska don’t count, so Canada’s gonna have to stand in) I was going to have to venture into that poutine-soaked hellscape eventually.

But not yet.

My brain was able to start thinking about things other than getting through the next moment, but after my 10 day murder-sprint across the country, and the 5-day (emotional) murder-sprint through WorldCon, I felt like I could really use a few days of not having to be anywhere. Craved the idea of just a few days of bouncing back and forth from rest stop to rest stop, writing, reading, and generally just not moving so relentlessly through time and space.

However, I had a problem with this; the problem is that I didn’t really HAVE a few days to chill out at rest stops and I REALLY didn’t have the time to venture into the foothills of ruin- the ones that lay beyond the Black Gate, guarded by that weird dude with the super big mouth, right? What was up with that guy. I love him. Anyways! I couldn’t take that time because my plan had always been to get across the country, go to Worldcon, and then head south down through Colorado, see some friends there, and get to Texas in time for Armadillocon- which was the very first convention I ever went to, and going back this year with my book out in the world was going to be something of a victory lap.

Not to mention that Armadillocon is held in Austin, where I lived for a year (and will never shut up about) and have a bunch of very beloved friends.

But the timing was tight; any day I spent lolling around north of Seattle was a hundred extra miles I’d have to drive each day on the way to Texas. My brain was once again able to handle complex thought; was time to fire up Google Maps, fire up the gas calculator, and (shudder) fire up the budget spreadsheet. See where I was at. Figure out the next steps. Get myself down to Texas.

pictured: my gas budget

SOME SLIGHT MISCALCULATIONS IN THE PLANNING PHASE

I’m sure that all of you will be just flabbergasted to hear this, but I’m not so great with money. I’m one of those fun people who looks at my bank account and says: Sweet! That’s how much I have to spend, and the number is slightly higher than I thought it would be- Drinks are on me tonight, kids! And then a few days later I’m completely stunned to realize that rent is still a thing, and also groceries. Basically a slightly more responsible version of the William H. Macy character from Shameless.

However, one of the things I was real excited about for this trip is that I could NO LONGER BE FRANK GALLAGHER! This whole thing would fall apart so quickly if I was. I was going to have to be real careful, and plan ahead, and maybe even sometimes NOT buy shots for strangers. I was going to have to learn how to perform a mysterious and potent magic I’d heard of, but never thought to practice myself; I was going to have to learn the daemonic alchemy of budgeting.

I actually had a pretty good budget lined up for this thing- I hadn’t thought of everything, but I had just enough fat in there, if I was careful, to make the whole thing work. I spent a lot of time working it out this spring! It’s a whole dang spreadsheet, with formulas, and everything! I’m really proud of it. And, of course, as soon as I hit the road and the universe started kicking my poor van in the dick, that budget became like a letter you wrote to Santa when you were five- doesn’t matter how much care you put into it, it was ultimately pointless and silly… if not a little sweet.

FORTUNATELY I had the kindness and generosity of you folks (and others) that got me through it, got solar panels on the van, got my power problems fixed, got some wood for my sweet-ass van buildout. When I say I wouldn’t be still doing this without you, I’m being serious- I literally would have had to stop.

But the budget is still core to the thing, and I was really excited to reset, take a deep breath, and try again. And I tried really hard, even on the madcap drive across the country, to stay on my budget! I ate cheaply, didn’t go out drinking (too much), and tried to fill up at the cheapest gas places I could. Even in Seattle for Worldcon, I was pretty proud of my thriftiness; I made lunches in my van, tried not to pay for parking when I could (rarely, but I managed it a couple times), and did my best to trick Steve into buying my beers.

So you can imagine my surprise (I wasn’t actually surprised) when I put all the numbers in my spreadsheet and realized that I had left my carefully crafted budget in a smoking ruin, a wasteland, like a Mad Max movie but fiscally.

I’d definitely blown some money- I had; I went out drinking in Minot when I didn’t need to, and treated myself to some fancy-ass oysters in Seattle. But that was all pretty much ok; I mean, any decent budget allows for some oysters, right? The parking for Worldcon took a dent- I hadn’t anticipated it, but even that was within tolerances.

No, what had made an utter devastation of my poor, bedraggled budget was the motherfuckin’ coffee, and the goddamn gas.

The view of from Seimiahmoo, a little peninsula about ten feet from canada

YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS, BUT GAS IS EXPENSIVE

Oh my god, I’m going on about this, right? This is why I need an editor. Anyways, yadda yadda, I added up all the gas I’d spent burning across the country and had a minor heart attack. I wasn’t a total chump- I knew I’d need a big chunk of gas money to get from Cleveland to Seattle, down to Texas, and then back to Las Vegas (to meet some friends in October). I figured out the miles, I used a gas calculator, I padded it a little- I tried to be responsible! And I’d saved that chunk up; I should have been fine. But some miscalculations must have crept in, because when I added up my gas, I’d used almost all of it just getting to Seattle. And holy hell you guys, gas is so freaking expensive on the west coast; in many spots pushing $5 a gallon. I mean, everything is expensive on the west coast, probably because it’s so outrageously gorgeous that anybody in their right mind wants to live here and is willing to pay a premium to do it, but still. I was starting to realize that spending 50 years in one of the cheapest cities to live in the US (Cleveland) might have skewed my budgetary assumptions a wee bit.

The coffee wasn’t quite as bad, but it was a chunk. I’d tried to keep it to two cups a day, but I’d hit the wall with McDonalds; I was on my life’s great adventure- I refused to drink shitty coffee, and I had such a great time stopping at all of these kickass little coffeeshops. But it adds up! It adds way up.

So there’s a reason I’m telling you all of this, even though it makes me hideously uncomfortable to talk about money, because just like trying to explain my Worldcon without talking about brain chemicals was impossible, trying to explain why I’m going to be shifting how I approach this Year In The Van without talking about gas money will also be impossible.

i genuinely don’t remember what beach this is. life is pretty awesome rn

DESIGN CONSTRAINTS (FOR THE WIN)

For those of you who endured my extended love letter to Martin and the Marble Machine, you can start groaning now- but he does a thing I love and it might be helpful here. He’s a little madcap genius that approaches many things in his life in the same way I do- with an intense rush of wild ambition at the beginning, followed by a lot of crushing realizations that you’d swung a little too hard at the ball and now your back was going to need some ice. He does this all the time with the Marble Machine, and one of the things I admire most about him is that he will recognize it, and kind of sheepishly admit that he’d been a little silly about his Design Constraints, and then adjust those so that the project actually has a hope of moving forward.

My Design Constraints for this year of The World’s Longest Book Tour are probably not that important to anybody else, but I was clinging to them like a limpet, and letting go of some of them was quite difficult. I’d had this vision of a year of constant travel, going to as many book conventions as I could, exploring every city I could, just going everywhere because why not? Going to every cool bookstore in every state, criss-crossing the country to get to cons, to meet up with friends, to just be free as a bird, man! Sweet con in Maine? No problem, just drive there! A con two weeks later in Florida? No problem, I’m on wheels! Go to all of ‘em! Go wherever I want, whenever I want. Right? Sounds awesome.

However, sitting in my beloved little van in a beautiful rest stop north of Seattle and looking at the smoking wreckage of my budget, I realized that things might not quite work out that way. Or… maybe they shouldn’t work out that way.

I’m probably just a goober (get off me, uncle Jon!) but while that drive across the country on Route 2 was amazing, and I’m so glad I got to do it, I remember really wishing I could have taken my time. It took it out of me, and exhausted me in a way that was a lot of fun- no regrets- but didn’t feel very sustainable. Trying to get down to Texas in two weeks from Seattle didn’t really sound very fun. Even though I was proud of how much writing I got done on that trip, it still wasn’t anywhere near my ideal output- and one of the non-negotiable design constraints of this adventure is that I get my goddamn book done. And, frankly, it was turning out that there was no way my gas budget can even remotely handle criss-crossing the country again and again.

So if my brain and brain chemicals didn’t seem to be able to handle that much travel without some bruising, and my writing schedule wasn’t what I wanted it to be, and my budget definitely couldn’t handle all that driving…

Well, as Jack Nicholson once said, ‘Something’s Got To Give’. Actually, he probably didn’t say that, that would be weird. You can’t say the title of the movie in the movie, can you? I guess they did in the Matrix. So maybe ol Jack did say it. I like that movie, is what I’m trying to say. What were we talking about? Oh, right, design constraints.

ok fine I spent a lot of time at beaches, but be honest: wouldn’t you?

THE LOWER GEAR WILL STILL GET YOU THERE

At any rate, and long story short, I took a walk on a spectacularly beautiful beach and had to move some priorities around; I always said that if any part of this adventure got in the way of my writing, it would have to go- and for now, at least, dashing hither and yon across the country wasn’t going to work for my writing or my poor abused budget spreadsheet.

So I told my friends in Texas that they’d have to wait a few months to see me- I was going to slow the pace way down. I’m going to stick on the west coast here for a while, working my way south as it gets colder, and then probably across the bottom of the country because I’ve had a few cold nights and days in the van and while I’m not scared of it, it’s certainly unpleasant. And then I’ll get back into the heart of this big ol’ country in the spring- my book will be done by then (well, the first pass; editing will definitely happen) and I’ll just have to see how many book conventions it’s practical to get to. Cons (as you might have been able to tell) take it out of me quite a bit, and while I still want to go to as many as I practically can, I am going to reluctantly allow that both my brain and my gas tank have limits, and not push either one too hard. But we’ll see! We got a long winter to get through; who knows where we’ll be in the spring.

Probably in the Carolinas. As always, barring catastrophe. That’s another consideration- I put a fair chunk of miles on this old beast getting across the country- at some point she’s gonna kick my shins and want some new brakes, new transmission, new engine. I want to both be ready for that and to put it off as long as possible.

cheers y’all

THE NEW CHILL AIN’T SO BAD

I’m not gonna lie; there was considerable relief amongst all of my diverse personalities when we decided to abandon our plan of booming down to Texas. For one, have you ever been in Texas in August? De Nada. Even my kickass new roof vent can’t handle that shit. And for another, it meant that, for the first time since I’d climbed into the van at the beginning of summer, I had… nowhere to be.

Nowhere at all. I didn’t have to go drive for three hours just to get power into my van; my solar was working a treat, y’all. I went to the store and had a fun time figuring out meals I could make in my van and putting a little pourover coffee thing my buddy Alex had given me to use; I didn’t feel like I had to go find coffeeshops to write in, didn’t constantly feel like I had to go find somewhere to eat, didn’t feel like I had to put miles under my tires or I wouldn’t get to wherever I needed to be in time.

So I would wake up and find a park, maybe on the coast north of Seattle, maybe just a little city park, and set my van up in some sunlight, and just… abide. Made my own coffee on my little butane stove- hand ground and poured over- better than almost any coffee in any coffeeshop. And I have my little chest refrigerator now and enough power to run it; I could keep snacks and simple ingredients in there and when I was hungry, I didn’t have to leave my chill writing spot; I could literally just turn in my chair and make myself some food.

I felt life slow down, over the course of a few days, as I worked my way incredibly slowly up the stretch of WA north of Seattle, towards where that dread, burning eye lay, being pulled inexorably but slowly into the maw of that fulsome land, those reeking, fetid swamps, the mountains of Mordor (Also known as Canada). I felt my focus narrow in a very pleasant way; of course I still had to resist the distractions of YouTube and Netflix and actually start writing (the hardest part), but I had time to stay immersed in it, stay in the flow, and after the craziness of the last three months (actually like five, because the couple of months before I left were maybe the craziest of all) it was sublime to just wake up, find a new incredibly beautiful spot, and have nothing to do but write.

I’m so proud! This is the first time I haven’t run straight into the ‘post too long for email’ warning. I feel like this is growth as a person, a writer, and a citizen of the world. This post is quite overdue- as is my way- but next time I get to tell you about the worst week of my whole life, trapped in the hellhole that is Vancouver, Canada. Oh, wait, dang autocorrect- best week of my whole life. Best. Yeah, that’s more accurate.

THANK YOU. See ya soon.