The HOW of The Spring

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Hello readers! Thank you for (still) being here with me after all these weeks. It’s been a strange, difficult, lovely winter and I realize that I’ve left you all hanging about The Spring and what’s happening, so I wanted to do my best to sum it all up for you in some kind of way. This has been really hard for me to coalesce as it’s personal and painful, but I’m trying to zoom out and look at what these last two-plus years have created and really relish in that.

I suppose I should start by saying that my father died on January 24th after being in hospice care for ten months, and memory care for about eighteen months. I’d be lying if I said his decline had no effect on my work because it was obvious: my many missed or delayed deadlines that all of you endured were my own physical and emotional exhaustion knocking me out of my creativity and productivity. It has been a very long few years and while I miss him dearly, his incredibly slow decline in hospice care will always feel incredibly unjust. He lived a loving, wonderful life, but I am glad he has passed after lingering in-between for so long.

I intended for this post to be about how I came about writing The Spring and acknowledging all of the people that got me to its completion (there are many!), but I couldn’t tell that part without telling you about this immense shadow that has been a part of its creation behind the scenes.

But…there’s a lot to tell.

In September of 2023, I attended a week-long writing class in Paris. I’d been laid off from a lucrative contract with Wayfair the previous spring and was hoping to re-awaken one of my manuscripts I’d been working on, but had completely gone silent in my head. It didn’t work. Paris was incredibly hot that week (around 97 degrees every day), the woman who conducted the class (an editor/agent who shall remain nameless) was by turns spacey and combative. The class was disorganized and unfocused, and our teacher pushed everyone’s buttons. It was also uncomfortable; beyond the heat, our meeting place (the agent’s apartment) was filthy with visible dust everywhere, no AC, and barely-working fans. I clean my entire apartment when my best friends come over for wine on a Friday night and they’ve been here before; the idea of 18 strangers in someone’s home that hasn’t been vacuummed, dusted, and without fresh flowers gave me a level of agita that distracted me the whole week. Nothing about the class felt like a welcome. That said, other than the teacher, I met some AMAZING writers whose friendships I now cherish.

I also fell back in love with Paris. I’d lived there as a student in the late 90s (yes, I went to Les Bains-Douches in its heydey,) and had been there a few times for work trips during my time with Louis Vuitton, or a few days with friends over the years. But this trip I was on my own and I really enjoyed wandering. I found my French came back easily, I understood the metro, and felt completely comfortable…comfortable enough to think I may live there again sometime. I’d also been reading Patti Smith‘s Devotion and M Train that trip, which were both inspirational for my writing, and for the way I noticed every nook and cranny of the city. Patti Smith’s romanticism is so rooted in place, which I found really resonated with me, and which is a great way to begin writing: by noticing what’s around you.

My manuscript (a satire/crime story of a fraudulent luxury retailer set in the Hamptons during the summer of 2017 — the year of Fyre Festival, Theranos, Anna Delvey, etc…,) remained silent. Sometimes you poke and prod a project and the silent NO is so loud you really just have to surrender. It has its moments though, so I really do hope it starts talking again sometime.

I came home wondering what I could do to kick-start a writing project I could actually finish. I thought: “go to your idea pile and pick one.” So I did. It was an idea about finding a dead body in El Polin Spring in The Presidio — an idea I’d had so many times while taking walks through and around El Polin Spring, which is less than a mile from my house. Start by observing what’s around you. Actually, I should say the my friend and former neighbor, Mallory, introduced me to the walking loop around El Polin Spring during the pandemic when we would walk her dog Sam. I’d always heard about the area because (like Jeannie in my story) I had volunteered for the GGNPC for years, but somehow had never actually explored the trail myself.

Why would I, a seemingly normal person, think of dead bodies on friendly hiking trails near my home? Well, let me admit a few things. I have probably watched every single episode of CSI ever made. Not just the original, but also every city, including the recent “Vegas” reboot. I also saw Twin Peaks at a far too young and impressionable an age which I wrote about here, so something about a dead teen girl being discovered in a body of water felt like a starting point. Macabre, yes, but also not out of the realm. I also watch crime documentaries…A LOT. In fact, I should probably do a post about the best ones (IMHO…okay, it’s the 5-part OJ: Made in America — the reasons are many,) but I also watch Dateline, 20/20 and the rest.

If there is one true crime(s) that helped inform and shape The Spring, it’s the Murdaugh Murders from 2019 and 2021, respectively. The original Murdaugh Murders podcast by Mandy Matney is incredible, as are both the documentaries on HBO and Netflix, as well as the recent dramatic telling on Hulu with Jason Clarke and Patricia Arquette. This series was so good — it was exactly how I’d imagined these people in my mind…just uncanny. The death of Mallory Beach (also in a body of water), and the antics of the Murdaugh family definitely informed parts of Alexa Thomas’ death, as well as that of the Hartman family.

Back in San Francisco in late September, I dug deep into walking The Presidio, taking photos, generating ideas, and the events and characters of the story quickly began to flow into my project notebook. I read Elizabeth George’s Mastering the Process, From Idea to Novel, which (along with Patti Smith’s work) helped me to be more observant of place and landscape — something which I really wanted to embed into The Spring. The Presidio’s physical landscape is uniquely coastal California in that it shifts so much between golden clarity and eerie obscurity, and I wanted to try to capture that. Plus, it’s a very large and wild park set into a major city which is somewhat surreal too. I also read The Secret Miracle - The Novelist’s Handbook by Daniel Alarcón, which also had some great advice on plotting and outlining. In the end, I kept my outline loose and let it evolve within my larger plot points. With the many characters and scenes, I sketched out a lot of ideas in my notebook, filling it with preliminaries that got more and more developed as I went. I wrote 10,000 words, then 20,000. It was working.

During my research phase, I looked up some of the different crime stories set in San Francisco, and beyond Dashiell Hammett, there’s really only a handful. I did discover the work of Brèni James — a writer who’d written two crime novels set in the Ingleside District (basically where the Mission District meets Bernal Heights) in the early 1960s. Her book Night of the Kill from 1961 was short-listed for that year’s Edgar Awards…and yet I’d never heard of her! (More on Brèni James in another, separate post. I cannot wait to tell you all about her!) The book begins with Sgt. Gunnar Matson standing at parade rest — an idea I directly borrowed for an element of my Prologue chapter when we first meet Jeannie and Steph. I looked up when San Francisco had last had a big, boisterous parade, and it was on October 31st, 2014 after the Giants had won their last World Series. The fact that it was also Halloween was just perfect. Suddenly, I had a beginning.

When I told my parents what I was trying to do, my mother told me emphatically that she did not want to be represented in any way…so, when I got to creating some of Jeannie’s backstory I made her mother recently deceased. I know that sounds dark, but it helped to avoid any family feelings. My father’s dementia was already present at the time, so while he was never incapacitated the way Judge Hagen is in the story, his limited communication felt appropriate. To be honest, I didn’t really realize I’d created the Hagen’s this way until weeks later, but it just seemed to fit the story really nicely and began to build Jeannie’s character.

I consulted with a family friend who has been with the SFPD for nearly 30 years. He gave me insight into what rookie cops experience, how the SFPD interacts with the federal agencies, multi-agency task forces and detailing, and exactly what type of pistol and ammunition the officers carry. (Sig Sauer P226 9mm, two extra clips) He told me that my ideas were pretty spot-on (and plausible) and that I should keep going.

I spoke at length with two of my sister’s law school friends in New York City who had past experience as US attorneys. They explained how a multi-jurisdictional investigation on federal land would likely come together, which agency would file charges, how federal indictments work, and what would be most likely in the case of The Spring. They explained it to me, and then explained it again months later when I needed a refresh.

I decided to launch on Substack, and took in the advice about publishing a serial from Simon K Jones’ account, which has been invaluable! On his advice I created the different chapter heads and graphical indicators, and ultimately the very handy “start here” page that serves as a chapter index. He also recommended that something in the chapter headings indicate a change in time or place, so I alternated the days of the investigation between the monarch butterfly - referencing Alexa’s dress, and the golden eye with the “D” initial - referencing the gold signet ring.

All of the chapter images are actual photos I took while walking around The Presidio. I also used an actual FILM camera - a Holga 120N, with Kodak Portra 400 film - which allowed me to layer exposures and create some dreamy images which lent to the atmosphere of the story. Reviews have been mixed: some say they never noticed the chapter images while others have really loved them. Personally, I love them and I loved the process even if using film in an oversized format is cost prohibitive. It’s a fun hobby and a hard habit to break. I think they also give the story that cinematic feel that I’ve been going for from the start.

At the top of 2024, just when I’d launched The Spring, my sister and I agreed that I had to adopt my parents’ dog Tillie, as my parents could no longer walk her at night. Reluctantly, my parents agreed that it was probably better for them, and Tillie, if she came to live with me. Having a buddy to interrupt my productivity was actually the best: the time-honored tradition of writers having dogs makes so much sense to me. So many things get processed during walks, and you always have a sounding board for your ideas. Having Tillie with me was an absolute joy and the medicine I needed at the time.

A few months into publishing my chapters, my friend Katie Sweeney wrote a lovely review of The Spring for The Bold Italic and I know that is where how many of my readers found me. Thank you both to Katie and the many people that followed me after the article! I hope you have enjoyed reading all these months…

After my first few initial chapters had been posted, I was actually writing The Spring in real time, often staying up past midnight on the nights before chapters went live. I worked from my loose outline, notes, and whatever I thought the next scene might merit. Since this was my first attempt at doing anything like this, I wanted to keep it loose; I found that the moment I got too focused or tight with what I was trying to do, the scenes just didn’t come. My lovely friend Kate Seward kept encouraging me to “just play”, which is why a some of the chapters feature different formats or modes of dialogue. I’d write knowing exactly what plot points I’d want to hit, but…as some writers will tell you…I’m not entirely responsible for what would happen. I’d be in my zone writing away, and suddenly an entirely different set of dialogue would come out of me onto the page. When it happened (which was kind of often,) I’d pause and consider it with a little “oooh” knowing that the scene had just shifted entirely. But, I let it happen and kept these little gifts in the story.

In late April, my Dad fell and broke his hip. My Mom said he “just dropped” while standing in the kitchen one morning. He had his hip replaced and then went to rehab for a few weeks, after which it was recommended that he then go into memory care. It was an awful transition for my mother, who was left alone for the first time in her 52-year marriage.

Life went on, except Tillie started to wane in April at the ripe age of 11 — somewhat young for a small Scottish Terrier. She’d begun to walk in circles now and again, and would have moments of just being completely out of it. Tillie could always be a little kooky, but this was new. She also had a bad time after eating something she’d found on the ground during one of our walks which resulted in me having to barricade her in my kitchen with pee pads covering every inch of the floor. She was sick for 3-4 days and was noticeably weakened. The ensuing few months were touch and go, and then in late July, after I returned home from a friends’ wedding in Tahoe, I brought a listless Tillie home from her dogsitter. I held her and talked to her all evening and finally felt her heart stop. I did mention it in one of my chapter heads at the time, but I know I kept it light when I was really destroyed. I can safely say that she put me back together just to break my heart. I won’t ever get over it.

Two days after Tillie died, I went to my new Endocrinologist who was to review my first extensive set of lab work, looking into everything from hormones to enzymes to whatever else… In our appointment she admitted that my results surprised her. “I thought you needed a different set of HRT but you actually have Hashimoto’s…” an autoimmune that attacks the thyroid, which flares up during times of acute stress. This made so many things about my own health over the last decade make complete sense…but also, how do you deal with it when your life seems to move in and out of pockets of stress? Navigating this is still an ongoing process but I’m getting better at it.

A few days before Halloween in 2024, I was driving my father to a colonoscopy; this meant picking him up from his memory care ward in Napa, CA and driving him another 30-40 minutes north to St Helena, to the one hospital that did this kind of procedure. He’d been having internal bleeding here and there and neither his internist nor GP could find the source. While this test was essential, it still didn’t tell us anything. He’d been in memory care for a few months at that point, and while he still knew who I was and was always happy to see me, conversation was beginning to get sparse. It was a really dreary day, and I turned on some jazz (his favorite) for the drive. After a while, he asked me about “the writing” and how it was going. He knew I’d been writing The Spring, or rather writing something, but he didn’t know or couldn’t remember what it was specifically. I told him a bit about the plot and the San Francisco spots I was incorporating, and how it was being received so far. I ended my spiel saying “We’ll see how it goes…”

“Well, I think you could really make money at it…” He gave me a little smile and his blue eyes twinkled my way.

Having a parent with dementia is an odd thing: some of what is said is utterly nonsensical, while other things offer crystallized insight. Before his dementia developed, my Dad had always been a fan of my writing and various creative projects, enjoying and sharing my posts from my old blog, Poetic & Chic, and learning a whole how-to about podcasts when I did a show about retail during the pandemic. Even if he didn’t entirely get it — particularly some of the things about fashion and film, he was always enthusiastic. Here we were, years later, on a gray morning where he may not have known where he was going or even whose car he was in (he thought it was new every time he got into it), but he still knew this about me and my writing. His belief and faith hit me in my solar plexus.

Part of writing The Spring was about me finding my voice — something which my therapist and I had been sussing out for a long time. It is odd that in the year I began writing and publishing online again I also joined an adult choir here in San Francisco and began singing regularly. Both have been immensely healing and wonderful. One Saturday night last March I was rehearsing with my chamber choir for a concert we were having at the end of the month. My Dad had been found slumped on the ground of his ward that afternoon, and while everything had appeared fine initially (he didn’t seem to have fallen, just sort of crumpled), his caregivers called me that evening to say he was going to the hospital with very low blood pressure. The hospital called me again around 10:45 that night just as our singing had ended and we were enjoying a glass of wine…the attending told me that my father had massive internal bleeding from an unknown source, and that he wasn’t likely to make it through the night. As I took in his words I found I was trying not to crumple to the ground myself. I told him to keep him comfortable (he had a DNR in place, thankfully), and the next morning my Mom and I brought him home to his room in memory care under the aegis of hospice. He never left his bed again.

A week later, I went to my amazing acupuncturist to relax and recharge. Mid-treatment, face down with needles in, my whole lower right side began to seize up. Pretty soon I was screaming in pain. My acupuncturist couldn’t yank the needles out fast enough, but it didn’t help. It hurt to breathe and neither of us could make it stop, despite massage, CBD, everything she had in her arsenal. She said that I’d popped out my lowest right rib — that the small muscles of my back were essentially rebelling against my attempt to relax; that once the body is used to holding stress it doesn’t like letting go of it, and that all those little muscles yanked out my rib. Fabulous. I tried resting in her office for a while, and then (somehow) drove myself 30 minutes back home, screaming the entire time. This was a new kind of pain I’d never known. Luckily, I was able to get an appointment with my chiropractor the next day who put the rib back into place, but I was tender for days. I don’t even know how I sang in our concert the following weekend seeing as how singing requires breath requires chest/rib expansion, but somehow, I made it happen.

So much of these last two years has been about making it happen. Pressing on, getting it done, finishing the work, all while my psyche has somehow been waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Like, what the fuck and what will be next? As my friend Meghan said to me: “Life’s really been handing it to you, hasn’t it?” I suppose it was my time for life to test me, but I think every muscle and bone in my body — especially my heart — had come through it much stronger than before.

On the one hand it’s hard for me to reconcile all of this personal and family drama, but I cannot trade it for anything since it was all a part of me making The Spring come to life. I hate it…so much. But I also accept it and I’m grateful for the endurance it gave me. So much heartbreak to make art, and I’m not even sure it’s art. It’s a good, entertaining story, but if it’s art it remains to be seen. As much as I hate missed deadlines and delays, I look back at everything and realize that it’s okay because I finished. I loved writing in the serial format; it helped me to pace myself and keep going. I got to my goal which was to complete the manuscript. It needs an edit and a bit of a clean-up, but I’m proud of it and proud of myself.

So what’s next? Well, I do have a sequel planned…but it’s very early days. I know there were some unsatisfyingly loose ends at the end of the story, but please trust me that they will come full circle in the next story. While in January of 2025 I said I was trying to manifest getting The Spring in front of Karen Kilgariff, that has yet to happen. (If you know how to do that, please let me know! I think she’d love it.) Of course, I’d love to have The Spring published traditionally, and ultimately have it produced as a series…some of the best reader comments (compliments) have told me how cinematic it is, and that is exactly what I wanted!

I also have a long list of other projects I’d love to pursue writing-wise, both short and long, fiction and essay. I’d like to write a bit more about fashion and film, as I did on my blog long ago, but I need to sort out how to balance that with fiction work. Substack seems to like “one thing” only, but who cares? It’s my account and I can do what I want, right?

I know that I need to promote The Spring far and wide, especially now that it’s complete. I took the amazing Leigh Stein’s Hype House (a class I highly recommend) in January and now I’m full of ideas on how to make that happen. This class was also full of other amazing writers and creators and I’m so thrilled to be a part of our community! Stay tuned and follow my Instagram.

Is it wrong to say that I got the biggest kick out of writing The Spring, because I did. I was tickled to write every chapter and overjoyed with every like and comment I received. I found myself being so entertained with how the story shaped itself and the ways the characters developed — I really did trust the process and while the process had its own fits and starts, I loved it. I’m proud that while I knew where it would start and where it would end, I let the rest of it just sort of happen along the way. It was a great experiment for me, and I’m so happy I let myself play.

Where to even begin?

To Valerie Tocci and two other very important people who asked not to be named publicly, your specific and significant insight really ensured elements of The Spring were technically correct from a legal and procedural standpoint. Your contribution has been invaluable to me. Special thank you to my friend and former news reporter Andria Borba, who told me about the timing of FBI raids and who (in the press) usually knew what when.

To everyone who sent me emails or comments with little corrections, notes about typos, or “why don’t you…” suggestions. Thank you. You’re a little annoying, but I definitely appreciate that it comes from kindness and a desire to see me succeed.

To EVERY SINGLE ONE of my paid subscribers…I cannot tell you what it’s like to know that you’re earning money for creative work, even if it’s just enough to buy a coffee. It is incredible to have your support. I’m still not making a living from it, nor am I at the level of earnings my Dad envisioned for me, but it still feels huge.

To EVERY SINGLE ONE of my unpaid subscribers…I still cannot believe you’re here, and I appreciate every one of you. I hope you’ve found The Spring and anything else I’ve written to be entertaining and worth your time.

To Katie Sweeney for spreading the word about The Spring so early on - you are an absolute gem. To everyone who shared The Spring, sent it to a friend, mentioned it to someone, posted about it on Instagram…thank you.

To my friend Nicole Beaudin for her incredible insights and heartfelt nudges that kept me on my path. You are amazing. To Kate Seward - thank you for keeping me playful. You’re brilliant.

To Jill Lynch, my forever writing champion…I love you so much and your ideas and encouragement have kept me going for so many years now, I just don’t know where I’d be without you.

To my sister and brother-in-law, I’m not even sure if you’ve had time to finish reading it, but I know you’ve been silent supporters the whole time. I love you both.

To my personal Substack hype squad, leaving likes and comments with almost every chapter: Lauren, Meg A., Meg, Kim, and Lee…you guys are the best. You’ve believed in The Spring from start to finish and I love how obsessed all of you were from the jump. And a special call out for Meg, Kim, and Lee — your investment in The Spring was so very gratifying, and I’m not just saying that because you’re my best friends. I appreciate your encouragement and your patient presence as a creative sounding board, especially over Friday night wine. I love you so much…

To everyone who has been reading along on the other side of the screen, in your email, who did not leave likes or comments, but still hung in there until the end. Thank you.

Some more about me…