Biscuits and comfort
Butter and jam
Roads Go Ever On 08: Biscuits and comfort
💻 what I'm up to 💻
I’m in a new city. Asheville, North Carolina to be exact. And yes, moving during a pandemic is super weird. So is moving into a home you’ve only seen through videos and photos taken by your wonderful realtor. Luckily the home is gorgeous. We’ve been trying to paint before our things arrive and get necessities from Trader Joe’s and devour takeout from local restaurants. Biscuits are becoming more of a staple in my diet.
The biscuit, a far superior breakfast sandwich choice to the muffin or the bagel, is all about comfort. It’s buttery and crumbly or maybe flaky. They can be light as air or dense as a brick, ready to soak up all the honey and jam you can add and sit in your stomach in the most pleasant fashion all day. The best ones have a tang of salt in each bite, acid to balance out any grease. I just adore them. And they’re more of a Thing in the south. A local joint called Biscuit Head has absolutely killer selections and an array of homemade jams (peach rosemary!) and hot sauces to go with them. I’ve finally been to Bojangles and experienced their cajun chicken biscuit and next level Bo-Berry biscuits. They’re icing, blueberries, and biscuits all in one and I’m so happy they exist.
And when you’re in a new place, especially during a pandemic when you can’t really experience things the same way, comfort is key. I want foods I love that make me feel at home. I will use my fervor for a nice, pillowy biscuit to explore the whole city, buttery takeout bag by buttery takeout bag. My own biscuit map of Asheville. In this way I’ll learn how to navigate the town without maps on my phone. I’ll discover other local businesses and causes to support. It’s a little way of exploring when I can’t go all out.
When I’m not eating biscuits… ha! If I haven’t said it yet, I am officially working on two books right now. And… that’s all I can really say. I am also trying to carve out time to think about ideas of my own that are not tied to IP, but shockingly, moving cross country and setting up a new home and getting used to a new work schedule (same job, different hours) is exhausting—all in a good way though.
📘 my book things 📘
I cannot stress this enough: it’s January?! I have two books coming out in the spring so it’s just about time to start promoting the heck out of them: The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (April 27) and A Kid’s Guide to Fandom (May 4). Pre-orders help tremendously and if you’re interested in doing that, you can get links at my website.
I’m planning to figure out some options for signed copies as it doesn’t look extremely likely that events and signings will be a possibility in the spring. We shall see.
📺 what I'm watching 📺
All of our stuff is still on a moving truck somewhere so I haven’t had a TV in two weeks and only recently got internet capable of streaming movies and things. So I’ve been occasionally popping into my husband’s MCU rewatch but after work, I’m mostly just reading and writing and falling asleep early.
📚 what I'm reading 📚
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Bless my book club pals for making me aware of this book. I am enthralled. Reading this book is like reading poetry. It's about a young woman who makes a deal to have a life of her own... and she does. She lives forever but carries the burden of never leaving a mark. People forget about her existence as soon as they look away from her. But after a few hundred years, someone remembers her name. I’m maybe a third of the way through this book and pals, it is so, so special. The kind of book where I won’t want to pick up another book immediately after because I want this story to linger in my bones. The last book that affected me in that way was Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus.
Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane
Four friends. One tragedy. Something that could have been. New love. McFarlane’s dialogue is so sharp in this contemporary setting that starts with absolute trauma {cw: death of a friend} but leads to something new and hopeful. This one’s out on May 4th.
I have a Bookstagram! For more book things, come hang out with me!
🐳 something whalesome 🐳
I like wholesome things and the whale emoji is cute so: whalesome!
Just a little pup carrying a very big stick-thing the whole way home (thanks for this, Rachel).
🍃 creativity corner 🍃
Here I’ll share tips and tricks that are helping me write, imagine, and/or stay productive.
I often feel like I need to reply to someone’s text, DM, email, or whatever immediately. And some work situations and urgent situations absolutely require expedient responses. But like, at least 80% of the time? It’s not a rush. The person on the other end is (hopefully) not going to get mad at you for not responding in a second. When you’re trying to stay in a creative and productive groove, incoming pings can be distracting. It’s why I often flip my phone into airplane mode and hide it while I’m writing. So anyway, give yourself permission to get back to people later at least some of the time.
📃 quote of the week 📃
"If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else's hearth." - V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
It’s all about making your own story, right? Living as you want to live, unfettered and unbound (while not being an asshat to others, of course). As I’m making a bit of a different life in a new town, I identified with this.