I Dream of Beach

The other day it was raining (it’s July), and my first thought was, Ooh, this is perfect. I’ll make a cup of tea, and sit at my desk, and write. Gloomy rain is perfect writing weather for me. Or walking alone down a foggy beach on an overcast day? Gawd, get me a journal and pen.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m very influenced by place and setting when it comes to my own fiction. So much so that it often serves as my starting point. A student of mine who recently read one of my novels described it as atmospheric, and I think most of my fiction could be described that way as a result.

When I was young, maybe in high school, I remember dreaming of living by the ocean one day. This felt like a very far off dream; I imagined myself silver haired, impossibly rich, looking out the bay window from my seaside mansion where my own books lined the shelves.

And yet . . .

A few years later, right after graduating college I found myself living one bungalow away from the Pacific Ocean in Ocean Beach, California. Yes, our place was so small, my bed was literally in a closet, but hey, the ocean is the ocean and the rent was cheap (I chose to ignore the cockroaches). So that’s that? I realized then. You can actually make your dreams come true. It may not look exactly how I pictured it, but it was even better in a lot of ways because I was young and free. I had captured the atmosphere of my dream, and that was what really mattered.

A few years after that, I jogged through the fog across my street to Baker’s Beach in San Francisco’s Richmond District, once more living by the ocean and now, pursuing my other dream of getting my MFA in Fiction.

My second published novel, The Moon, Her Crown was inspired by a different beach—a particular stretch of rocky Maine coastline I visit each summer.

And here I am now, many years later (still no silver hair or vast riches) writing in my home by another beach on another coast. I can smell the salt on the breeze from the cracked window of my porch/office, and occasionally, I’ll hear the squawk of a seagull passing overhead on less rainy days.

And in this new(ish) setting I just hit the 80k-word mark on my new novel (so close to the finish, I can taste it!).

So what’s the point in all of this beach nostalgia? It’s an invitation, to go sit in, visit, commune with the places that inspire you creatively. Sometimes it’s just the kick in the pants we need to get fingers to keyboard/pen to paper.

And in the meantime, if you can’t get your butt to the beach or to the roadless jungles of Panama or whereever that place is that inspires you most, here are some quick, reliable tips to work more atmosphere into your writing:

• Lead with the senses that get skipped: sound and smell do more atmospheric work than sight, but they’re often underused. A distant dog barking or the smell of rain on hot pavement grounds a scene fast.

• Let setting mirror mood, not just location: weather, light, and decay/growth can echo emotional undercurrents without you naming the emotion. A cracked windowsill can say more than “she felt fragile.”

• Control the pacing of description: short, clipped sentences create tension and unease; longer, winding ones create dreaminess or nostalgia. Rhythm is atmosphere.

• Use specific, unexpected details over generic ones: “The smell of old pennies” beats “it smelled musty.” Specificity feels earned and real, which makes the mood land harder.

• Withhold information strategically: what a character (or the narrator) doesn’t say, doesn’t see, or refuses to look at directly can be eerier than what’s shown outright.

• Anchor abstraction in the physical: instead of describing dread, describe the body’s response to it (a held breath, a creaking floorboard that makes someone flinch). Let the reader feel it through action.

• Repeat a motif with variation: a recurring image (a crow, a particular color, a sound) that shifts slightly each time it appears builds unease or foreboding without being heavy-handed.

LITSET UPDATES

• If you’re local to MA, I have a rare, in-person novel-writing workshop I’m running this fall! Check it out here. The rest of my fall offerings will be live in my next newsletter.

• I’m currently booking out for fall developmental edits. If you recently finished a draft of your book or are nearing the end (see above!) and know you want an outside pair of expert eyes on your work, reach out to save yourself a spot with me for this fall.

CREATIVITY THROUGH THE SENSES

See: Late to the party, but I started watching Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV. I love John Ham’s confident coolness. Although, I can’t really handle watching anything stressful these days, so we shall see how far I make it in this one. Couldn’t finish Widow’s Bay however fun it was!

Hear: I just finished the audiobook for Brooke Lea Foster’s Our Last Vineyard Summer. It’s a slow-moving historical fiction/family drama that I downloaded because I saw this author speak at the Newburyport Literary Festival. Go out to hear local authors speak and then go read their books.

Smell: The house after cooking salmon. Someone get me a strong candle.

Taste: Orange creamsicle popsicles on the back steps, barefoot with my daughter. I teach her to lick the bottom as fast as she can before the heat of the July sun drips it onto our knees.

Touch: The wet grass beneath my feet as I head out into the backyard in the early morning to cut lettuce from my baby garden for our lunches. Why does it feel so satisfying to eat things you grew yourself even if buying it could arguably be cheaper and faster?