My Pen in the Air is a newsletter from the desk of an unexpected novelist filled with essays, poems, short stories, and monthly updates on life, writing, and more. Every post goes out entirely free to all readers (though you may opt to further support my writing through a paid subscription). // Sign up here:
“This is how you fall,” he said casually and then flung himself down the bowl onto his knees, pads scraping underneath him across the raw concrete.
No more than ten years-old, the boy’s bright blue eyes and flushed cheeks still clung to their youthful curve. He was all lanky limbs and chin-length, sweaty blonde hair fringing his enormous helmet. His smile took up the entirety of his freckled face.
Our kids had flocked to Landon like seagulls on crumbs at the beach, except this holiday weekend we found ourselves landlocked at a community skate park in suburban Maryland. While they begrudgingly rode penny boards wearing too-small pads we should’ve upgraded years ago, he arrived outfitted with gear worn from copious and quite skilled use. But he shared generously of his spirit and his time, teaching and encouraging our eager children.
I stared at him, mouth agape, both his words and the demonstration of them rendering me speechless. Eventually, I managed an awed “I love that you’re starting with that.”
He shrugged it off before offering another winning smile.
“Before I ever learned to skate, I had to learn to fall. A lot,” he said and then chuckled.
No matter how often I tell the kids that mistakes or failures are a part pursuing the things that make our hearts beat out of our chest, I don’t always get it, myself. The nonchalance with which he shared the truth his decade of living (and come to find out, only ten months of skating) had taught him, was staggering.
I needed his example, that day. Quite frankly, I need it every day.
Whether I’m sitting at the piano for the first time in a week wondering when or if it will ever feel like riding a bike, or whether I’m facing down the blinking cursor on a blank page, I really hate the part where I know I’m going to fall. I’ve been falling for the better part of the last year, every agent’s “no” stacking up against the promising requests I’d encountered at the start of my querying journey.
And now starting this here, with you, feels like a different kind of falling.
Writing publicly again, especially longer form, after years of really only giving words to my stories’ pages and the occasional, dwindling Instagram caption, feels scary. But necessary, too: like I’ve been trying to fit what I do into spaces that simply can’t contain what it is I’m trying to share with others in ways that feel like me.
A little over two weeks ago I read five whole minutes of my work out loud to a group of strangers I’d only met forty-eight hours previous. My resting heart rate for the day was an astonishing ten beats per minute higher than usual. But under those strung-up lights on a sweltering Stanford, Kentucky night with my new friends circled around me, the last cog in the gear of this renaissance of mine clicked into place.
I’d spent the summer sequestering myself away, creatively, from the world. No social media. No manuscripts. No queries. Just me and journals full of morning pages and hours spent on artist dates. I even took whole week to not read so that my brain could do the work of having enough space to unblock, to dream, to wander, and to tell its own stories. But I can’t live forever in that space, though I can visit it from time to time.
Just as I pondered re-entry, I was called into community with fellow writers and industry leaders who gave me a soft place to practice falling again. My time with them reminded me of all the good that comes from the writer’s ability to let the reader peer over their shoulder, to help them see what they’re seeing, and to encourage them to take from it what they will — even if it’s nothing at all.
So that’s where I am: a girl on ancient laptop who wants to do what she loves in more ways than just one, but on her own terms.
As for where I’ve been (as promised!):
Life the Last Few Months
My initial departure from being online started with a self-imposed head start in April on the 30-day digital detox our church was doing in May. I’d gone many months in previous years being away from socials while still remaining tethered to my phone, but I’ve loved the headspace and awareness this time away created for me. I’ll never use my phone the same way, again.
In late April, I finished planting our summer garden. It’s been green and lush but hardly fruitful, especially given how much I tried to improve upon my first season, last year. Such is life. For a short window, though, my poppies and sunflowers were both in bloom at the same time as the wheat fields turning golden across the street from our neighborhood and it was incredible.
In May, among many things, we finished our third year of homeschool and graduated our oldest into middle school. Yes, friends, MIDDLE SCHOOL. It’s a little different, given that we’re homeschooling (again! I know! who would’ve thought?!), but it’s still quite the milestone.
A few days before my 39th birthday, we saw Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks in concert, together, which was about as perfect and iconic as I could’ve hoped.
After years of starting and stopping Julia Cameron’s 12-week course The Artist’s Way, I finally committed to completing it during our summer break. It was exactly what I needed after the ups and downs of querying the previous eight months, combined with the grief of losing my dear father-in-law earlier in the year. I feel entirely re-inflated.
This summer, probably my favorite with the kids, yet, we enjoyed seeing them: swim, play flag football and basketball, sew, learn ranger skills, build robots, read a ton, and do all the things that make our family life far from boring.
In June, Cliff turned 40, and it was such a gift to get to celebrate him in ways that I knew he’d uniquely enjoy. If you’re looking for a fantastic playlist for a Nashville Pedal Tavern ride, I’m pretty proud of this one.
In July, we picked two gallons each of blackberries and blueberries, despite the cold snap which had really reduced a lot of the local crop. I made: blackberry chip ice cream, freezer jams, cobblers, and the most delicious blackberry banana and blueberry muffins. I was in my domestic prime.
I joined Cliff on a work trip to NYC in late July, where we saw shows and ate great food and I even spent some solo time exploring and working. I wrote in Bryant Park, at the library, and tucked into a table at The Drama Book Shop. We even made it to the special Van Gogh’s Cypresses exhibit a few weeks before its close. Seeing two of Vincent’s three Wheatfield with Cypresses and Starry Night together for the first time since 1901, along with numerous other works I’d have had to travel the world to see, was pure magic.
As mentioned before, I recently spent a week with thirteen other fiction writers at the GoodLit Writers Retreat put on by Wedgewood Circle in partnership with Jess and Angela Correll of Wilderness Road Hospitality. It was a beautiful, life-giving week spent learning from author and publishing mentors, working on our craft, touring local sites, eating incredible food, and forging friendships I know I’ll have for the rest of my life. Words could never do this experience justice.
So there you have them: the highlights. There were certainly lows, but in total there was a richness to this season that I am grateful to have been witness to and present for in a way I can’t say I’ve been in awhile. (I don’t plan to be so heavy-handed with these kinds of life updates and photos in the future, but I’d be remiss not to share at least some of it with you.)
My theme for this month is SIMPLICITY, and now that I’m home and in the rhythm of school, soccer, and everything in between, I feel a purposefulness to the blocks of time I have to work and to create. (Laura Vanderkam’s Tranquility by Tuesday came in clutch this summer for helping me find new perspective on staying sane amidst the chaos we usually encounter when things pick up about the time school starts.)
I’ve decided to put querying on pause a little longer to undertake a new revision of The Other Side of Hope. A year ago today, I finished the draft I felt ready to query. And while it held promise and provoked interest, I’ve learned some things over the last year that have helped me refine not just my voice, but my vision for a long-term career in writing and publishing, including the work already “done.” Earlier this year, it embarrassed me to think that I might need to make this book better, yet again, before sending it to more agents; now, I’m only curious and excited.
Next newsletter, I plan to share more of what I’ve been reading, listening to, and loving, along with some forward progress on this revision. But until then, friends, know how grateful I am for every single one of you who take the time to connect with me in this way.
And if you have a minute, I’d love to hear what some of the memorable moments of your summer have been, big or small!
Grace and peace,
Kristine
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I am learning to fall all over again in so many ways. It’s hard but good at the same time. :)
LOVE IT!!! Super fan :) And so glad you have found this space to share more with us & the world than just a few sentences on a post. Excited for you!