The constructive discomfort of solo travel

And why not writing is still writing

I just noticed I’ve been putting out this newsletter on a semi-regular schedule for an entire year. I am gobsmacked to have maintained this level of executive function! Grateful that so many of y’all continue to open my emails, month after month! They’re a bit of a mixed bag but I enjoy writing them, and I hope you get something (entertainment, inspiration, this month maybe a free book?) out of reading them.

So! To celebrate!

I’m giving away a signed paperback copy of WHEN I’M HER to a randomly selected subscriber who replies to, comments on, or hearts this newsletter. (US mailing addresses only, sorry!)

Speaking of mixed bags, I’ve been traveling a lot so this issue of All Possible Futures is a response to that. Writers draw on life experience for our work, which I guess is why there are so many novels that feature novelists as the main character. Writing is inherently a routine act,¹ and I don’t think routine is necessarily a creativity killer, but it still helps to keep collecting new experiences to put in that mental bank.

Recently I went to London for three days to see Cranes, a favorite band from my past, reunite. I am from the Midwest so this was an almost painful extravagance for me, especially since the only career-related purpose the trip served was the nebulous “book research.” However, there are enough times in one’s life when one is unable to be excessive for whatever reason! If I had passed up this opportunity, broke-ass 21-year-old me (along with arthritic 82-year-old me) would have given Present Me an eye-roll of absolute scorn. In the immortal words of the Butthole Surfers, it’s better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven’t done.

I’ve not done a ton of solo traveling without a clear agenda, so this trip reminded me of its benefits. I can eat when I’m peckish or when something looks tempting. There is no need to worry about whether someone else in the group is tired or bored or hungry or not hungry (but will be starving the nanosecond food becomes unavailable). I don’t have to negotiate when we let housekeeping in to service the room,² or share the increasingly damp hotel towels (why would you install one single-wide towel bar for a room with two double beds?? I ask you). The only person I have to please is myself. Which, for people—especially women—with families, is a vanishingly rare situation.

All this to say that I’m not an expert, but I have a few…rules? Tips? Reminders for myself? to help me make the most of these kinds of trips.³

1. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable

There’s a reason travel expands the mind, and it’s not just seeing new places and interacting with new people. I am extremely into being comfortable! My favorite place is on my patio with a book, moving inside to the AC when it gets too hot. Being packed onto an airplane with hundreds of strangers is objectively unpleasant, but can also be a fascinating window into other lives and how people behave when they aren’t at their best. Discomfort is also valuable in itself. If nothing else, it teaches you that the world doesn’t revolve around you.

Psychological discomfort, too, is how we grow. When traveling alone it’s easy to become lonely; you see groups of people who are happy in each other’s company, and you wish you could be part of such a group. When I was younger and wore more makeup and no wedding ring, I got the occasional stranger chatting me up, but I’m not usually the one who talks first.⁴ So when I go somewhere where I don’t know anyone, I can’t count on meeting people to take the edge off of being alone. I have to be okay with feeling a little self-conscious and like an outsider.

Being alone in an unfamiliar place is also a safety risk, but so is traveling in general. When I travel I weigh the risks but I try not to be so paranoid that it affects my enjoyment. I stay alert to my surroundings but that doesn’t mean I won’t have a beer or two. London is a safe city. I didn’t stay out late or walk in secluded areas. I didn’t wave around stacks of cash. But shit does happen no matter how careful you are, and it helps me to have a plan for what I’ll do if I get pickpocketed, if my passport gets stolen, if I am attacked. None of that stuff happened, but visualizing my response afterward convinces me that I can survive bad things.

2. Don’t have a fully planned itinerary

It’s fine to make lists of things I would like to see and do: museums, bookshops, restaurants, nice walks. But part of the pleasure of travel is wandering into places I would never have known about from a google map. My favorite thing is to find a sidewalk cafe where I can have a meal and a glass of wine and peoplewatch. Signing up for a group tour by myself? That’s a hard no from me. I prefer a trip that doesn’t provide too many distractions, that gives me a lot of time with my thoughts.

That said, I like the structure of having maybe one scheduled thing to do for every full day I’m in a place. The main purpose of my visit to London was to see Cranes play, and I’m so glad I did that! While I was watching the show I had a lot of thoughts about bands from the past getting back together. How do they choose what to include on the setlist—do you play your old fan favorites, or bust out the newer, post-heyday songs and risk alienating your audience? How much more physically taxing is it to play a show when you’re in your fifties versus your twenties (especially if you’re the drummer)? Can you surmount whatever led to your original breakup and recapture the old magic? I have no idea why Cranes changed membership and eventually stopped playing, but we all know bands are drama factories and I can’t turn off my imagination. So for at least part of the time I should have been listening, I was running scenarios in my head about buried longings, old alliances, and reanimated grudges.⁵

But my favorite part of the show was being in a room full of people who loved this semi-obscure darkwave band from the 1990s as much as I did. People dancing, singing along, yelling out song requests/demands. It was lovely.

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I’d also planned to see a London-based friend while I was in town, but life happened and we weren’t able to get together. So the corollary to “don’t overschedule” is not to be too disappointed when plans change or fall through.

3. Keep the trip short

This mitigates some of the logistical challenges inherent in leaving your life behind,⁶ as well as the shock of reentry. It also provides a natural limit on spending. Even the most carefully budgeted two-week trip to an expensive place is going to be more spendy than a three-day trip where you aren’t watching every penny.

But mostly, I keep solo trips short because the times I’ve been away from my family for more than a few days, missing them was a steadily increasing ache. Nothing ruins the experience of travel like wishing you were home.

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Author updates

My newsletter is a little late this month because I was at ThrillerFest! It was my first time attending and it was A LOT but so much fun. I caught up with old friends and met a ton of new people, including my editor in person for the first time! As is my (involuntary, I assure you) habit I didn’t take enough pictures, but I put the few I did take on my Instagram:

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Reading/watching/listening

• I recently finished Tia Williams’ A LOVE SONG FOR RICKI WILDE and damn, what a book. Hilarious, heartfelt, sexy, and steeped in magic—both the supernatural kind and the “this is just a really fucking good book” kind.

• While I was in New York I alternated between doing! So much! Stuff! and exhaustedly scrolling social media in hotel rooms so I had very little energy for channel surfing, but the panels and interviews at ThrillerFest were murdery and fascinating! A highlight for me was Louise Penny being interviewed by Chris Pavone.

• Aura by Mirror Revelations - dark, shimmery, moody, lovely

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If you enjoy my ramblings, you might like my books!

The Other Me, which PopSugar called a “Black Mirror-esque rabbit hole,” is an inventive page-turner about the choices we make and the ones made for us.

When I’m Her asks the question: How far would you go to get even with the woman who ruined your life?

1. “Write every day” is one of the most common pieces of writing advice, and IMO only slightly less unhelpful than “show don’t tell.” Obviously you have to do the work if you want it to get done, but everyone’s version of productivity is different and I promise they won’t snatch away your Real Writer card if you take a break for a day or a week!

2. My family’s vacationing style is very relaxed, which I am fully on board with, but lazing around on the hotel bed playing Stardew Valley is not always compatible with letting housekeeping staff do their jobs.

3. Again, I am a lazy traveler so by “make the most of” I mean “get out of the hotel room at least twice a day.”

4. Maybe 40-50% of these people were trying to hit on me? I don’t know! Someday I’ll have to tell the story of the time I went on an entire date with a friend without realizing it was a date until like fifteen years later. Anyway, I’ve had some fun and interesting conversations with people who happened to be sitting on the barstool next to mine, but I have to be in a very specific mood and have consumed between 1 and 2 alcoholic drinks.

5. Hey, sounds like a book idea google doc! Would anyone read a novel about a postpunk band reuniting in middle age and…idk, fighting zombies?

6. I’m intentionally excluding mom guilt here. Mom guilt can fuck right off.