May 2, 2021

Freewalking

I started writing a new book in March. I also started writing a new book in April. Yesterday, May(!!!) I started writing a new book.

It's the same book.

I’ve had twenty false starts on my next novel, tentatively titled The Pretender and due to my writing group mid-June and my publisher end of July. You know what that means? It means I’ve written only five thousand words of a book that I need a complete draft of in six weeks.

But yesterday I (re)found something that worked, something that got me a juicy chunk of words that went straight to the heart of what I was trying to write. It worked so well that I’m a little scared of it. Keep reading if you're a writer who wants another tool in their tool chest or if you just want to know how the sausage is made.

First, in the interest of transparency, I need to reveal how bad a case of don’t-writis I had with this book, how much mental junk I stacked on top of it. I made The Pretender important for emotional reasons. If you’ve seen my TEDx, you know I strive to write honest fiction. The Pretender is set in St. Cloud, MN, in 1977, when there were up to three serial killers operating in the area. I was a seven-year-old girl in St. Cloud in 1977. The book explores the raw terror of growing up in this timeline but ultimately must be a triumph of spirit, both for 14 yo Heather Cash at its center, and for me, writing it.

Every time I finish these emotionally honest books, I free a piece of Little Jessie, and I know from the emails and messages that a bunch of you come with (we get to play!). That’s the beautiful magic of honest fiction, whether it emerges as comedy, suspense, literary fiction, a cozy, a romance, or any other of the lush forms fiction can take.

Not only did I convince myself this book was Emotionally Important, the truth is it’s also important for financial reasons. My surprise divorce in January means writing is now my main income. I gave up the safety net of full-time teaching last summer, when I thought I had a life partner. Things happen how they’re supposed to, I really believe that, but the end of my marriage definitely turned up the heat beneath my steamer. The Pretender will be my twenty-first novel, so you’d think I’d have things figured out by now, and I do when it comes to the mechanics of it. My experience, though, has been that writing's always hard, and my fears grow to fit the space I give them.

So, it’s a Big Book, it has to be a great book so I can pay my bills, there’s a pandemic, I’m still reeling from a divorce, and I just bought and moved into a new home end of March. Those are my reasons for not writing, and I bet you have your own that are just as valid. So when I say I have something that works despite, know that I’m not just blowing smoke. I’m coming at you from the trenches.

Here it is, my miracle cure for don’t-writis: freewalking.

Yup, freewalking.

It combines freewriting (which I hate; I know it works, still hate it) and walking (love!). You simply dictate as you go. If you’re already doing this, you know how much magic it packs. Something about the forward movement cuts through choices/expectations paralysis.

As long as you’re dictating while in motion, it’ll be beneficial, but here’s some tips I’ve found that give me the most bang for my buck:

1. Pre-select an automatic 15-60 minute route (start shorter, work up to longer). This is crucial because you need your brain free for creativity. I live near Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis, and walking around the lake takes 45 minutes. Perfection.
2. Think of a scene for your work in progress (short story, memoir, novel, blog post, etc.). Write down a one-sentence summary of the scene's physical action, purpose, and emotional impact. Example: “Opening scene is girls playing in their garage band (physical action), and the goal of the scene is to introduce characters and make reader feel something for/identify with Heather" (story purpose and emotional impact). If you don’t have all three pieces, don’t worry. If you don’t know if the scene will end up in the book, don’t worry. Write down what you do have right now on a piece of paper and tuck it in your pocket.
3. Grab your phone. Find the Notes function. Test the audio. If you have an iPhone like me, you’ll find that the Notes function will time out while you’re dictating, so hold it close to your mouth while talking and check the screen periodically to make sure it’s recording. This method is a little clunky but works, and has the advantage of being free if you have a smartphone. If you want to upgrade, I just bought this and downloaded Office to my phone (free, because I already have it on my computer). Dictating into Word with this Bluetooth mic means it doesn’t cut out and has better word recognition. The only formatting you need to know is saying “new paragraph” every time you need a paragraph break. The rest you can fix later.
4. Start walking and talking, thinking of that scene tucked in your pocket, feeling what your characters are feeling and speaking whatever pops into your head. You’ll spout some nonsense. You’ll also say something brilliant that your dictation software will mangle (still trying to translate “touch the uterus to sunshine truth bass”). You’ll also be writing (with your mouth). I end up with about 2000 usable words at the end of a 45-minute walk, a fact which I find truly insane.
   You don’t have to believe me. You just have to try it. Worst case? You got some exercise.

Big love to you!

Jessie

p.s. If you’re currently between projects, or aren’t 100% sure of what you want to be writing, freewalking also works like a Magic 8 Ball. Write a question on the slip of paper (“what should I be writing?” “what’s keeping me from writing my memoir?” “should my next book be a western or women’s fiction?” etc.), tuck the paper in your pocket, and start walking and talking. Make sure your route is automatic so you don’t have to worry about where you’re going or how you’ll get home, and the rest takes care of it itself. I promise.

p.s.s. People you pass will think you’re having a phone conversation. A weird one, for sure, but that’s your business. If it’s helpful, envision me walking alongside you, having my own weird conversation with my phone and giving you the world’s biggest thumbs up.
p.s.s.s. You know what else works great for writing? Community and accountability. There are three spots left (total) in the August 2021 luxury women’s writing retreat in St. Paul and three early bird spots left in the just-listed February 2022 women’s writing retreat in Costa Rica.
p.s.s.s.s. I spotted the embroidered sign at the top of this post during my Lake of the Isles walk yesterday. That, and the 2500 words I produced, have greased my wheels, and I can finally, finally see this book. Look for it on bookshelves about 18 months from now.

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February 21, 2021

The Joy of Digging

As a child, I became convinced that I was going to find buried treasure. I'd walk around the 13-acre hobby farm I grew up on carrying a hand spade until I felt the exact right spot to dig. I'd drop to the ground and spend hours in the hot sun moving dirt.

Sometimes I'd hear a scrape, and my heartbeat would pick up. My brain would immediately triangulate the surrounding area, calculating how wide I'd have to dig to excavate the pirate's chest I'd just hit. The next shovelful inevitably revealed a muddy stone, not gems, but I took it as a good sign and kept on digging.

Reader, I never found treasure.

At least not the Richie Rich emeralds and rubies I'd been digging for. What I did stumble on was something like a meditative state, a safe and soothing world I could enter at any time and live in the comfort of my imagination.

Writing gives me the same feeling, or at least it does once I actually start digging. That phase before I get my hands in the dirt? It's paralyzing. You know the stories we tell ourselves now, as adults: This is a waste of time. I don't know what I'm doing. I should be cleaning my house and finally learning what the S & P 500 is.

I don't only feel these nerves at the start of a project. I have them every single day before I dig in. And the breakaway success of Unspeakable Things amplified them. Now I not only have the doubts, I have doubts about the doubts. Who am I to have a crisis of confidence?

I'm sharing this with you because I'm officially starting a new project today, and it's unlike anything I've written before. I've spent the morning being upset at myself for how scared I am. That's what made me thing of little Jessie, out there on the farm with her shovel in hand. It was the adventure she loved, the possibility of discovery and connecting with something bigger, the comfort of living in her imagination.

Today, I'm going to write like that. Maybe tomorrow, too. After all, I'm the only one stopping myself.

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December 31, 2020

Welcome Back to Lilydale

BLOODLINE officially releases tomorrow. Woot! Ferguson Books in Grand Forks has signed copies available, and Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis has signed copies plus free Perfect Housewife kits available (while they last; contact Once Upon a Crime for more info). I’m proud of this book. (Well, except for the fact that it’s set in 1968, and at one point, the main character refers to unleaded gas; a reader informed me that unleaded gas wasn’t available until the ‘70s—the more you know.) But really, the book hits everything I wanted it to, and this Criminal Element review says it best:

"Jess Lourey’s latest novel feels like an exceptionally timely allegory for Americans and especially, but not exclusively, for white women like herself, a reminder to resist the desire to turn away from the real challenges of modern life in favor of a dream of an America that never was. That false idea of perfection and safety, born of insularity and a strict adherence to conformity, can only crush the individuals within it, even as it struggles to keep itself aloft on the backs of the spirits it has destroyed.

Bloodline works as both social commentary and as a cracking psychological thriller, combining bits of The Stepford Wives with Rosemary’s Baby, as well as other literary influences it gives clear, clever nods to in the text. Inspired by a true story, it’s a creepy page-turner that has me eager to read more of Ms. Lourey’s works, especially if they’re all as incisive as this thought-provoking novel."

Like Unspeakable Things, Bloodline is set in Lilydale, Minnesota, a fictional town inspired by my hometown of Paynesville. Both books have their roots in a true crime, and each book’s true crime took place in and near Paynesville. The common belief that small town USA is safer than the big city hasn’t been my experience. Small towns have their own heinous crimes, and it often feels more personal. Plus, it’s hard to hide in a small town.

They can find you.

Paynesville would have been perfect for a creepy small town ("pain"ville) if it weren’t already taken. I was puzzling over the ideal name while writing Unspeakable Things when—true story—I woke up with the phrase “Lily Dale” in my head. There’s a tiny suburb of Minneapolis named Lilydale, and I wasn’t interested in creating any confusion by recycling it in my book. The name I’d seen in my head was spelled differently, though. I figured I’d go online and see if my sleepy brain had played a trick on me or if there was an actual town named Lily Dale.

You. Guys.

There sure is.

"During the summer, tens of thousands flock to Lily Dale, established in 1879 as a gated spiritualist center and today the world's largest community of mediums, with more than 35 certified mediums and spiritual healers registered with the assembly. Some read palms while others read Tarot cards or give aura chart readings; whatever their method of transporting messages from the Great Beyond, all must pass a test and be registered with a spiritualist church.”

This quote was pulled from one of many articles on this spooky powerhouse of a village out in New York. I hope to visit the place this summer, and will report back. In the meanwhile…it was the perfect name for this creepy fictional world I was creating and was planning to inhabit with creepy people. I also loved the idea of turning on its head the expectation that “lily white” refers to something pure or preferred. It really was the best possible name for the town.

In the end, I combined Lily and Dale into one word (yep, like the Minneapolis suburb) because it reads smoother, but don’t be fooled. The Lilydale I’ve created is a fictional town that hopefully feels all too real, a claustrophobic fishbowl inspired by the unexplained, the unfair, and the evil, but also a place where justice triumphs.

I hope you enjoy returning to it in Bloodline.

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