Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

6,653 words

April, 2026

Apr 1 The muse leads with mystery, the siren with sensuality, and the nymph with chaos—all of which are archetypally feminine and preeminently alluring.

I just spent about twenty minutes or more rewriting one sentence in v4 of Chapter 5 of my manuscript, and I wanted to capture the progress here. Improvements to this sentence include:

• More compressed
• More concrete
• Less overt symmetry and repetition (not so rhetorically heavy-handed)
• Simpler punctuation/construction
• Tacked onto the previous paragraph as a meditation on sensory experience rather than a purely conceptual, separate paragraph

Here is the progression from the first (actually probably the fifth version) of this paragraph to the (current) final version of the compressed sentence:

I was overwhelmed by bliss and joy and gratitude, and by a sense of insignificance. Witnessing the majesty of Nature, I was reminded of my own morality, that my body is as ephemeral as a rainbow’s; and remembering my own mortality, I was grateful for the privilege of witnessing Her majesty.

Witnessing the majesty of Nature, I was reminded of my own mortality; and remembering my own mortality, I was grateful for the privilege to witness Her majesty.

Nature’s majesty reminded me of my own mortality; and remembering my mortality, I was grateful to witness Her majesty.

This rainbow, Nature’s majesty, reminded me of my own mortality; and remembering my mortality, I was overcome with gratitude for the privilege of witnessing Her majesty.

That perfect rainbow reminded me of my own mortality, and remembering my own mortality, I was overcome with gratitude for the privilege to witness Her majesty.

Exactly one month later (May 1), I back with the final version:

The rainbow reminded me of my own mortality, and remembering my own mortality, I was overcome with gratitude for the privilege to witness Her majesty.

Apr 2 When to "Numerate"

I'm now deep into the edit of my manuscript, and I'm obsessing over minutia. It's making me a much better writer. And, buried in the nitty gritty today, I had an epiphany. Instead of using numerals (rather than written-out numbers) for all numbers 20 and above, at least in my books, I want to use numerals only for numbers that are ugly and cumbersome as prose, and of course, for numbers that are measurements rather than descriptions, such as amounts of currency, weights, heights, ages, and certain distances.

Basically, I want to write out all numbers that can be written without a hyphen. So, that's all numbers twenty and below, plus all numbers rounded to the nearest ten or hundred.

Here's an example, an abridged version of a number- numeral-filled paragraph from my manuscript:

"Hans and Evelyn are an unmarried German couple, ages 59 and 60. . . . Their trip to Iceland would be most accurately classified as retirement planning. Hans plans to buy a sailboat at 65 and traverse the globe, with Evelyn joining at least for parts of it, and the two of them were visiting Iceland to see whether it was worth adding to the Retirement Sailing Trip itinerary. Hans and Evelyn had known each other for 42 years but had only been romantic for ten. It seemed that neither of them had ever wanted to get married, but for all of those years they had wanted to be together.

And here's a one-sentence more example of a round number greater than twenty that I had written as a numeral but decided to change, leading to this updated to my personal style guide:

I woke up this morning in Monkey’s backyard hoping to reach the town of Ísafjörður by tonight, a four-and-a-half-hour drive from the Bránslækur ferry port: forty miles north as the tern flies, past the waterfall Dynjandi and the fishing villages of Þingeyri and Flateyri.

The "forty miles" there, while a distance, is not so much a measurement as a description. It's not measured with any precision and is just meant to give the reader a sense of my distance from my destination, and how treacherous and windy the road is (four and a half hours to go only forty miles in one direction).

Basically, the rule I'm setting for myself is no rule: Use numerals when they look or feel better, and use numbers otherwise.

Robert Macfarlane's Genius

Robert Macfarlane is the King of Similes; I have never read any as apt and illustrative as his.

E.g., this paragraph of what is essentially prose-poetry, from Part 1 of Is a River Alive?:

More moths come, and more. They perch on my hat like a fisherman's flies, on my shoulder like leaves, on my cheek like touch after gentle touch. I am in a dream. I have foliage, not skin, shifting and alive.

And this paragraph, from first page of Part 2:

Red ghost crabs are starting their nightly clean-up work on the Chennai beach, flowing up and out of their burrows before scuttling sideways then forwards, like knights on a chessboard, one outsized claw held across their faces like dying heroines, their eyes out on the ends of stalks like Tom when he spots Jerry. The crabs are so alien I can only see them in similes.

He is not only the King of Similes but also an absolute master of meter and English phonetics. I'm listening to the audiobook of River as a backing track as I read, pausing it to make my annotations, because how his prose is even more beautiful and impactful when read aloud, like poetry (especially with his English accent). Below are two examples of phonetic genius.

From Part 1 of River (internal rhyme to the max, repetition):

'Oh, we're in it now for sure, Ramiro; deep in it—and more in it with every minute.'

From Mountains of the Mind, in "Possession" (consonance, alliteration, internal rhyme):

The final fifty feet of the mountain were very steep indeed, and deep in old, unsound snow.

The last of his strengths that is worth noting is his awareness of emphasis, which I only notice him adapting for because I myself think about this all the time when I am editing. Here are two examples of inverting the typical subject–verb–object structure for the sake of beginning and ending on the most important phrases/information in the sentence, placing those phrases in the most emphatic places. Both examples are from Mountains of the Mind.

In "The Pursuit of Fear":

Out to the mountains in growing numbers went the risk-takers.

That sentence structure is: adverbial complement (prepositional phrase), verb, subject. The S–V–O way to write that sentence would certainly be less emphatic: "The risk-takers went out to the mountains in growing numbers" or "In growing numbers, the risk-takers went out to the mountains." The way Rob writes it is the only way to emphasize both of the sentences' two most important phrases: "out to the mountains" and "the risk-takers."

In "Possession":

I read Annapurna three times that summer. . . . This was the lesson I took away from Herzog's book: that the finest end of all was to be had on the mountain-top—from death in valleys preserve me, O Lord.

Again, here is a complement–verb–object–subject construction, which lands with such a satisfying punch (as a section-ender within the chapter, no less), and it is ever so slightly more delightful and memorable than the conventional, S–V–O alternative: "O Lord, preserve me from death in valleys."

Sure, you can "earn a living" or "make a living," but you can't "make a good living." The only way to make your living better is to live well, which is possible no matter how much you make.

Apr 3 Planning for My Most Creative Hours

Last week, I met a neighbor, and after learning I am a writer and editor, he asked when I am most creative within the day. I was sort of stumped. Now that my schedule is completely up to me and my calendar is mostly free, I've been experimenting to see what works best for my mind and body, but I haven't come to many solid conclusions. After observing myself closely this week, though, I think this is true: My most creative hours begin twelve hours after the start of my last night's sleep.

It also seems like there are things I can do with my "slow mornings" that amplify my creativity; the more of these things I can do, and the earlier in my day I can do them, the better:

• Meditate
• Move
• Read
• Write (journal, dream journal, etc.)

That list of activities comprises my goals for my daily habits, which I have had for years now, but I've found that my best days are those when I have "won the day" before I even start work. And it is realistic for me to do all of those things in the morning, between the time I wake up and the "hour of creativity." The difference about the list above is the order of priority. For my days, I have always prioritized them in the inverse: write, read, move, meditate. But for my mornings, meditation and movement are paramount; they would prepare me to be most creative and focused during my reading and writing.

Now, my obvious next step is to set a bedtime. Part of why it's been so difficult to draw conclusions about my ideal/optimal schedule is because my sleep schedule has been inconsistent, with a bedtime ranging anywhere from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.—even within one week. That's not good for my energy, productivity, health, or my dream yoga practice.

If my bedtime were 10:30, which is what I think it should be (which means meditation starting before 10 p.m. and me being asleep by 10:30), then my most creative hours would begin before 11 a.m. That's ideal, because I could work for four or five hours straight, in flow, on either writing or editing or both, and then break for a small late-lunch meal. One problem I've had on my later-start days is that I will work straight through to 6 p.m. or so, having not eaten since breakfast, which hurts my protein intake for the day and cuts into the time I have to cook dinner.

Let's work backwards, according to the principles I've learned over the years for optimal sleep and health:

• Bedtime: 10:30 p.m.
• Meditation: Starts before 10 p.m.
• No screens (blue light) after 9 p.m.
• No food after 7:30 p.m.

So, if I need to cook a meal, that process needs to start by 6:30 p.m. at the latest, which means I need to finish work by 6 p.m.

One thing I've learned is that I work well by alternating between long periods of incubation and short bursts of creative energy. So, the way to "optimize" my schedule for creativity is to leave space for the incubation (i.e., "slow mornings" and plenty of sleep) and carve out sacred hours for deep flow work. Both are important, but the four or five hours of deep work is the trickiest part to get right. I need to structure my work days around this: being ass-in-chair for four-plus hours, focused on one writing or editing project at a time.

Right now, it's 11:47 a.m. I have already read a chapter of Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain, and now I've written this (no movement or meditation this morning). So, I feel sufficiently primed for my ass-in-chair hours. I went to bed just after midnight last night, and it just so happens that I have a couple messages I need to send to clients before I dive back into my manuscript edit. So, I'm going to use the next ten minutes or so to do that before topping off my green tea and getting into flow, just in time for my most creative hours. Today, once I reach a good stopping point, either after editing one chapter or two (hopefully two), I will break and consciously pivot to editing for a client. It's going to be a good day (already is).

When I inhale alpine air, I am reminded that my nostrils have their own kind of tastebuds.

The Verb 'to Dillard'

I'd like to create a new verb to add to my writing/editing vocabulary: Dillard, meaning "to tie in a seemingly isolated story or image from earlier in a chapter/essay right at the end, simultaneously repositioning it as part of the central symbolic fabric of the piece's message and theme."

She does this all the time, especially in Teaching a Stone to Talk, so much that I have come to just trust that everything she says, no matter how tangential it seems in real time, is essential and that I ought to pay attention to every word and image.

The way Dillard does this is so satisfying, and it's why I find her essays aren't quotable. They are not aphoristic but the opposite: no constituent part can neatly be separated without stripping half or more of that part's meaning. She communicates so much meaning in the white space, for every paragraph and sentence of a chapter/essay can only be truly understood in the context of the whole. You can't draw a bucket of water from the river and call it the Catawba, for once it's separated from the flowing body, the part becomes its own isolated whole, separate from its source.

On the Misuse of "I'm Humbled"

Please, please, everyone, stop misusing this phrase. I've heard people say, "I am proud and humbled to accept this award," which is a complete contradiction. When you are being honored or awarded something, you are not being humbled; you are being honored or awarded—exalted. This word is often used in the exact wrong contexts. When you lose the Super Bowl, you may be humbled.

Just to play it safe, don't ever describe yourself as humble. Let other people do that, or demonstrate it with your speech and behavior. The person who claims to be humble is not, or at least their claim to it becomes immediately less credible, for the same reason that someone becomes less trustworthy when they say "Trust me."

Instead of "I'm humbled," just say, "I'm grateful," because that's what you mean.

Apr 5 On Frictionless Sports and My Introduction to Mountain Biking

• Mountain biking x Tree skiing
• Moving fast through a forest
• Both presence and planning required
• The feeling of frictionless flow
• Feels like hovering, either on the bike seat or on top of feet of snow

Why do we mistake unattainable ideals for achievable goals? Instead of "end hunger," why not at least start with "end starvation." The latter we can actually accomplish, whereas the former in its most literal sense isn't even a desirable thing: create a world such that no human ever has the sensation of hunger. No, let's say what we mean, which is: create a world in which no one suffers from starvation.

I guess it's a marketing tactic, though. Most people who would donate cannot relate to the feeling of starvation, so hunger actually helps one empathize. But, again, the literal phrase "end hunger" makes about as much sense as "end sexual arousal." Is that what we want?

I, for one, want to teach my kids that a subtle pang of hunger can be a pleasurable feeling in anticipation of eating, rather than hunger being an exclusively negative, painful sensation that ought to be avoided at all costs.

Apr 6 I'll have to write more about this later, but Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat is one of the best executed and most enjoyable pieces of media I have ever consumed. The premise is utterly brilliant, and they chose precisely the right person in Anthony for the job. They rehearsed for months and scripted an entire hero's journey to make one person feel special, to feel connected to something greater and to have the chance to make a difference. The only tragedy is that it wasn't real, because of how beautiful the whole triumph is. It's supremely uplifting and, again, just flawlessly executed. It's a scripted drama/comedy, improv show, reality TV, and it is all of those things at a 10/10 standard of quality.

Apr 7 Personal Pronouns Can Be Preachy

In my opinion, most cases of "preachiness" happen when one person (the author) speaks on behalf of another or a group (his reader(s)). And many of those preachy passages could be corrected by simply changing the pronoun from "you"/"we" to "I".

Only use "you" when addressing the reader. Only use "we" when making observations about humanity. And otherwise, use "I." Paradoxically, by using "I," your experiences become more relatable.

Your Imagery Palette

While it is important to ground your concepts in concrete images and description, beware using too many images, especially in quick succession. Figurative images could help increase the resolution of your ideas, or they could fracture ideas and leave the reader disoriented, with kaleidoscopic vision.

The alternative to a slideshow of brief images is to choose one or two main ones to revisit, as motifs that tie the whole thing together. The reason your images seem in competition may be because they stand alone and don’t recur. Instead, look to develop the most important images beyond their initial mention.

I like to think of this as if you have an “Imagery Palette,” like a designer would have a color palette. There needs to be a sense of hierarchy and cohesion. There is a primary color and accent colors, and they all work together to form the composition.

Apr 8 After boasting to myself about beating The Hand of the King on my first try on 0BC in Dead Cells, I have now reached HOTK in 3 of my 5 or 6 1BC runs, and I have lost to HOTK all three times, before he even summons any enemies. And these losses are with builds that had super high DPS and decent synergy, builds that tore through High Peak Castle. I guess it's time to watch a 1BC HOTK YouTube tutorial.

I'm sitting on a swinging bench by the water in a riverside park in Belmont, just across the Catawba from our neighborhood, and I'm reading the latest draft of the book (the pre-proofread draft)! I'm reading it as a PDF like an ebook—reading it leisurely in the park like any other book. And I'm catching any remaining errors and noting any small changes I want to make before sending it to my proofreader. Nothing else needs to happen today. Today is a good day.

Minutes after writing the above, I received an email from a friend in Iceland who is featured in the book. She gave me a ride when I was hitchhiking and is featured as a character in one chapter. She just read it and has no notes:

I enjoyed reading Garrett! I was with you there - I really was. . . . This whole story makes me think of life and how small this world is and how many good and interesting people there are around - good job Garrett. You approach this in a beautiful way. . . . I am very happy that I met you and it is interesting reading about one self, how people perceive you. I am glad that I asked this young man where he was going!!

I said that nothing else had to happen for this to be a good day, but now it's a great day. I'm off to dinner, then back home to make the edits I marked on parts I and II, before sending that first section to my proofreader. Whooo!

Apr 9 Just watched a clip on Jacob Colier's YouTube channel of a seminar he was giving, and this line is lovely:

The right amount of irreverence can be so liberating.

If I were to edit this into a timeless aphorism, I would cut the qualifier: "The right amount of irreverence is liberating."

What made Phoneboy's set stand out tonight:

• Three vocalists who all sing verses, not just back-up
• Tyler's drum solo during the band's water-break to keep the energy high
• Expert crowd control and variety and engagement throughout
• Thanking the photographer, sound, lights, and security guys—classy, especially as the last act of the night
• Super tight cuts and transitions, especially the final beats of songs—all cutting out together in perfect timing

I am theist-ish.

Apr 10 A contractor just invoiced me using Harvest, which I have never seen before. I love the UI and need to check it out as an alternative to Strip (and their 3% per transaction fees).

Pronoun Modulation: "I," "One," "We," "You"

Here's a quote from Phillip Lopate's introduction to The Art of the Personal Essay about which, in the margins, I wrote, "A paragraph of solid gold! This is and expert description and as close to the heart of the form as you can get":

Another formal technique employed by the personal essayist is the movement from individual to universal. The concrete details of personal experience earn the generalization (often an aphorism), and the generalization sends the author back for more particulars. Sometimes this spiral is aided by a modulation in pronouns: "I," "one," "we," and "you." The jump from "I" to "we" or "you" can seem presumptuous if taken too quickly (as the joke goes, "What do you mean 'we,' masked man?"). It requires preparation and timing; personal essayists must always watch their pronouns carefully.

Lawyers charging hourly rates for their work is one of the most atrocious examples of a perverse incentive. Imagine an accountant charging commission based on the total amount paid in taxes. That accountant would have no incentive to reduce their client's taxes by taking advantage of all available deductions (which is a huge part of an accountant's job). And somehow, we have allowed lawyers to operate with this not only perverse but inverse incentive. The longer the case drags out and the more pain it causes their client, the more money the lawyer makes.

Apr 11 The first birds were fish that glided. The first land was water that froze. The feminine is at the root of it all, the one engendering the two.

Apr 12 The climactic line for "Live in the Valley": "We live in the valley and venture to the mountain-tops. All your life, you have done neither."

Editing is the difference. Developmental editing (cohesion) is the difference between a "meh" manuscript and a good book, and line-editing (clarity & concision) is the difference between a good book and a great book.

Most people I will see in life, I will only see once. Most people I will talk to in life, I will only talk to once. But the people I see and talk to most will be the people who make up my life.

Seated at the pinnacle of Crowder's Mountain State Park, on King's Peak, the forest of the Piedmont Plateau is continuous all around; its absolute omnipresence is only interrupted by a river, a highway, a solar-energy farm, a high-rise hotel, and similar artifacts of the Anthropocene. Deciduous leaves refract a noisy range of early-spring greens, and the tops of tall pines gather as dense, dark, homogenous blotches, as if there were isolated clouds casting shadows today. The overlapping and intersecting—competing—canopies, from this distance, look like moss covering a slope that faces me; it rises from here the horizon, which, blurred by haze, seems to be the knuckle of a hill that's blocking my view of the Blue Ridge.

Hike recommendations from a family in Crowder's:

• Boon Fork (Loop)—I think in Crowder's Mountain State Park
• Rowan Mountain—a three-day through-hike, segment of the AT

Take sure-footed steps, my son. For timid steps lead to slips, and slips to falls, and falls to the illusion of disorientation. Some part of you always knows which way to go, I assure you.

Apr 13 I thought greed was a cardinal sin. Is it not greedy to be granted a beautiful life in a beautiful world and still ask for eternal life in Heaven? And pride too—is it not prideful for one to believe that one is deserving of eternal life and God's Grace, whereas a person of a different faith is not? From this (what I would call) sober, detached perspective, the Christian doctrine of deliverance is, itself, sinful—and deadly so.

A writer's pick-up line (most apt with a fluent ESL woman): "I'm not bilingual. I only speak English, but my in my native tongue, I am quite the cunning linguist."

Apr 14 I'm writing a travel memoir that isn't quite that, because the main character is the place, Iceland, not the author, me. Usually travel memoirs are a story of a life, via a trip; my book is simply a story of a summer in Iceland. It's more memoir than pure "Nature writing" like Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or Shepherd's The Living Mountain, but less memoir than Strayed's Wild, for instance.

What is parenting at its core? Maybe: Giving the next generation all the tools they need to find their own way. It's certainly not telling the next generation where to go or how to get there.

Everything I'm after, I've had before, as early as the womb, and I will be at peace again if I can only just remember.

Apr 15 The torso is yin, relative to the limbs which are yang.

Apr 21 The editor's job is not to tell the author what words to use; the job is to intuit the words the author intends but has yet to apprehend.

Keyboard Hunt (to Pair with the BYOK)

I'm back on my semi-annual bullshit (but is it bullshit?) of shopping for distraction-free writing devices. It's no surprise that this current descent into the rabbit-hole was spurred on by the esteemed typist from ABQ Joe Van Cleave. My Corona Standard's type bars are gunky, so I was revisiting his video about deep-cleaning mechanical typewriters and made a rare Amazon purchase to stock up on all the tools I would need (disposable mascara brushes, etc.). But then, browsing his latest videos, I came across his "Typewriter-Adjacent Writing Devices" video, which introduced me to the BYOK, and his "BYOK Review", which all but sealed the deal.

The BYOK (Bring Your Own Keyboard) is like a smart-phone-sized Alphasmart. It's a small bit-map screen with a warm LED backlight that connects to almost any wired or bluetooth keyboard. They really hit a niche in the market, very intelligently noticing that people who buy these kinds of devices are very particular about their typing experience. So, they decided to focus on getting one thing done right, and to leave the mechanics of the typing (the entire keyboard) off of their writing device—quite innovative and right up my alley.

But before I spend $179 on the BYOK, I want to find a good keyboard for it and stress-test my set-up in a way, to avoid making an impulse-buy. And, boy, I am torn.

I doubt I will write a book on the BYOK, but I could see myself using it for all sorts of ancillary writing projects, including journaling, dream-journaling, and—the project I imagine it being best suited for—my book notes. I imagine myself setting the BYOK up on a magnetic mount above a pedestal to that holds open a paperback book to a page with a notable quote, and I could use my keyboard to copy the quote to the BYOK. (It could also be a wonderful capture-site for my first ever proper commonplace book.) For the book note files, I would capture quotes, add commentary, note takeaways, and write a review. Then, I would drag that plain-text .txt file over to my computer, change the extension to .md, and the it would immediately render as a Markdown file that would then be ready (after some editing) to be pushed live to my site. It sounds so amazing.

My current typewriter-adjacent device of choice is the Remarkable 2 with the Type Folio keyboard. I have used it for several short essays now, but I like using it exactly as a typewriter, and not as a digital writing repository, since it formats as rich-text and doesn't transfer over well at all. Instead, I transcribe the first draft to my computer, referencing the Remarkable next to me as I go, the way have with typewritten drafts. That's fine and dandy. I expect myself to use that a lot for essays. It will work well. But, again, for these other writing projects that don't need to be as polished and won't require so much revision, the BYOK may be the ideal device.

I think I'm going to get it—mostly because it will be fun, and I like the idea of having another screen, in addition to my e-ink Remarkable, that's non-retina. The main issue now is deciding which keyboard setup I want. Do I want to optimize for portability or for typing experience? It seems like the easy answer would be portability, since the BYOK is built to be portable, but I already carry around my Remarkable with me everywhere, and it has its own built-in keyboard. The BYOK needs to serve a unique purpose, so maybe I should optimize for the typing feel, since I don't quite like the Remarkable's super-light keys.

Part of the problem is that my ideal specs seem to describe a gap in the market:

• Small (60% or 65% size), portable
• If mechanical, brown switches (tactile feedback but not loud and not fatiguing)
• Wired (don't want to have to charge another device)
• No RGB effects—nice key-cap colors but otherwise bare bones design, no electronics besides the switches
• If bluetooth, at least two active channels so that I can switch between the BYOK and my computer when I am at my desk

Here are some leading options in both categories:

Typeing-Optimized:

• Keyboard Paradise's discontinued V60 model, only available pre-owned on eBay, etc. (Joe Van Cleave's keyboard model)
• Keychron's Lemokey Wired
• Keycrhon's K3 Max Wireless Keyboard, can use a wired connection, wooden frame, 75% layout, beautiful orange accent keys, see also the all-wood edition
• Keychron's K7 Max Wireless

Portability-Optimized:

• Keychron's B11 Pro Foldable Keyboard, can be used with either bluetooth or wired, insane quoted battery life of 138h
• Targus's Ergonomic Foldable Keyboard, bluetooth only
• Lenovo's Mobile Pixels Folding Keyboard, bluetooth only

Apr 24 Such an elegant definition of the absurd, from Camus in "The Myth of Sisyphus":

The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.

Apr 26 Not even ten minutes in on my first-ever SUP session at The Whitewater Center, I spotted a baby turtle coming up for air. With its four fins and neck outstretched, it was no bigger than my palm. I had never seen a baby turtle in the wild, and it was wonderful. It reminded me of the time I saw a baby bearded dragon on the trail in North Dakota during my first time mountain biking—it's tan scaly skin blending in with the powdery dry dirt, it's whole body no longer than my middle finger. I dropped down to my knees on the paddle-board to close the distance, like dialing in the focus on the microscope, and paddled with half-strokes, following the turtle for a while. I had to guess its speeding direction when it went too deep to see; it stayed near enough to me that I never lost track of it until I decided it was time for us to part ways. On each of the seven or eight breath-breaches I witnessed, the baby turtle flapped its front flippers forcefully and stretched its neck eagerly, straining to get its eyes and mouth beyond the surface, like a kid who would be allowed to ride a roller coaster if he could just stretch his spine enough to clear the measuring tape.

Apr 27 The Two Types of Adventurers and Reflections on Adventure-Writing

Among the dimensions of breadth, depth, and distance, Nature-loving adventurers all have distance in common but are scattered along the two-by-two matrix created by the intersection of breadth and depth. Breadth is more masculine, biologically and psychologically similar to the motive underlying conquest, whereas depth is more feminine, requiring deep stillness and uninterrupted periods of gestation before ideas about a place begin to be born.

I'm thinking mostly of travel writers here, and the breadth-focused ones go to certain places with ideas already in mind, like Robert Macfarlane traveling to three discrete river countries as research for his river book, to answer a particular question: Is a river alive? Nan Shepherd, though, one of his primary influences and models, is enraptured her entire life by the Cairngorms of Scotland, her homeland, mountains in which she has wondered in every season of the year and every season of her life, across decades, sitting deeply with everything with no objective to be accomplished. Any words that come from those mountains are emergent. Of course, Rob has that too, but he is looking for words to emerge, whereas Shepherd is looking at light and rocks and water without expectation.

Neither approach is better than the other, and of course the best writers need both: depth and breadth. But then, more broadly than Nature-writers, all travelers seek either a life characterized by prolonged experiences of few places or for a life punctuated by the experience of diverse places. I learned not too long ago, that my adventure-style is more feminine; forced to choose, I prefer depth over breadth. Ship me off to Iceland or Colorado every year for the rest of my life, preventing me from flying to a single other place, and I would be happy (though to be fully at peace, I would still have to drive home to KC regularly).

And as an aspiring adventure-journalist/Nature-writer/etc., it is important for me to know and embrace my natural style. Mine is more pensive and meditative rather than active. Even when I write about activities like hiking or skiing or mountain biking or diving, I expect that prose to be highly interior, where flurries of action are the exception to the backbeat and tone of the overall work. I can learn from all great writers in this genre, but I must not try to be all those great writers.

Here are some writers that come to mind that I am able to plot into the two most desirable quadrants of this matrix: | Q1 | Narrow & Deep: Annie Dillard, Nan Shepherd, David Foster Wallace, Joan Didion | Q2 | Narrow & Shallow: | Q3 | Wide & Shallow: | Q4 | Wide & Deep: Robert Macfarlane, Barry Lopez

Seeing that list, it's clear that I am both drawn to the depth-focused writers and also want to emulate them more. Those writers, as in the case with Dillard's Pulitzer Prize–winning Tinker Creek, can write about almost anywhere or anything and make the subject utterly beautiful and captivating and rich. That is a skill I totally admire and hope to develop within myself. I imagine myself doing weekend trips around NC and being able to write an essay about each of those experiences that is worth reading.

The secret to the depth-focused writing, as I see it, is interiority and perspective. Robert Macfarlane, though I cherish his writing, is trying to transcend his perspective in a lot of ways, trying to render landscapes with the most universally lucid descriptions possible within the English language, and his personality only pokes through in his references (like multiple references to Star Wars in Is a River Alive?, which surprised me) and in spurts of dialogue and inner monologue. When you read Rob, you're not inside his mind but enraptured by his voice. With Dillard, Didion, and DFW, for example, the reader is unable to see the world but through their eyes. Description of people, place, and idea are lensed and filtered through their view, which is the reason I read them. I want people to want to read my work for that latter reason, wanting to expand their minds by getting into mine.

A Writer in Scoring Position

There are three main milestones in the book-writing process, just as there are three bases to clear on a diamond before heading home. First base: first full draft; second base: revised manuscript; third base: final manuscript (and design); home: publication. While it is difficult to draft a complete manuscript, you are not a "writer in scoring position" until you have finished revision.

Apr 28 It is not only exo-planets and the deep ocean that we have yet to apprehend; some mysteries are on the Earth's surface, so plainly accessible and visible yet shrouded in complete darkness, beyond the current horizons of science and reason.

[[Mind the Uncompahgre Gap: One Billion Years of Mysterious Geological Action]]

A whimsical, rhyming paragraph from Bryan A. Garner in GMAU (2nd Edition), at the end of his half-page entry on the pronunciation of err:

The ranks of traditionalists are shrinking, and the counterintuitive nature of the old pronunciation (given the sound of error and errant) seems to have doomed it. But those who care about our linguistic heritage and use the language with flair avoid the star of /air/ and body say /ər/.

I just saw a tree fall in the forest! I heard it too. It happened. I have never seen a tree fall; maybe I have heard a branch clatter down through its siblings from a distance. In this forest dominated by tall Pines by our house, it's safe to assume that this was no branch but an entire trunk, also because of how big the blur of green was, and how loud the cracks and final thud. I had stopped on the trail to inspect this broad-leafed thing that I did not recognize. Its seat-cushion leaves were held by wiry branches the way veteran server contours his arm to carry a family-style serving platter above his head. Then, it happened fast: snap, crack-crack-crack, thud. I gasped "Huh?" in reverse—an inhale rather than an exhale, an exclamation rather than a question: "Uh!" The event must've startled all the birds that had been singing their evening song, inviting dusk; my reaction was the only one I heard. I glanced about looking to someone or something to validate what I'd seen, to confirm that I had not just woken from a daydream.

Water is not blue; it is clear, and any color that it "contains" is, in fact, color it is reflecting.

Apr 29 When (Not Whether) to Use Unfamiliar Words

I just heard Anne Lamott say on HIW never to use a word your reader would have to look up:

If I've read two or three pages of your book in the bookstore and you're using words, I don't know, I'm gonna probably not buy your book. 

To me, that's blasphemous and inverted. Imagine reading an entire book and not learning a single new word. Of course, familiar words can be used in unfamiliar ways, but unfamiliar words can also be placed in familiar contexts where there meaning is naturally inferred and apprehended in the flow of reading, without needing to reference the dictionary.

If I would be so bold as to revise the advice of the author of one of the most popular books on writing of all time (Bird by Bird, which I love), I would say,

If it is the most apt word, use a word that is unfamiliar, but be sure to provide sufficient context clues so that your reader to infer its meaning.

One thing Lamott said in the same segment and then repeats later in the episode is:

A bored reader or a confused reader is an antagonistic reader

which is absolutely true.

2026: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

2025: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

2024: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

2023: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec