Writing Away the Summer Doldrums

Writing and swimming the sadness away.

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Late summer is always hard for me.

As summer wanes to fall, I crave the feeling of a fresh start: a new class schedule, a new pencil case, a new set of deadlines in my new student planner.

But alas: I am not in school.

My schedule remains unchanged.

I have no assigned reading list.

There are no midterms or final exams on the horizon.

(I did round up a list of my favorite school supplies, though: you’ll find that later on in this newsletter.)

These seasonal doldrums of mine never fail to arrive, but somehow, I never brace myself quite enough for them. Last year, I tried making a syllabus for myself, filled with “subjects” I wanted to focus on that fall. By mid-September, I’d completely neglected it.

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Back-to-School Energy for Writers

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But here’s something that’s eased my summertime sadness this year: releasing a new project into the world!

In case you missed it, I announced a few weeks ago that I wrote a new zine. It’s called 100 Swims: Last Summer’s Diaries. It comes out on August 31, and I am extremely proud of it. Pre-orders are open.

buy the zine

Below, I’m sharing the foreword to 100 Swims. If you enjoy it, I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering a zine (and maybe even a cute sticker for good measure). Thank you for your support.

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FOREWORD FROM 100 SWIMS: LAST SUMMER’S DIARIES

In the summer of 2023, I had three goals:

1. finish my novel

2. journal every day

3. swim 100 times

When I say “swim,” I do not mean actual swimming. A “swim,” to me, is more of a matter of getting in the water—ocean, pool, river, spring, wherever—and bobbing around. The rule: if I got my hair wet, it counted as a swim. 

I set this goal because I noticed that, the more I was in the water, the closer I felt to myself. This may have something to do with my Scorpio water-sign status, or the fact that I’ve spent my whole life in Jacksonville, FL, a city surrounded by water, where the St. Johns River meets the Atlantic Ocean. I live within walking distance of that very ocean, so really, I had no excuse but to get in the water as often as I could.

The grid you see on the cover of this zine is the chart I filled in to track my swimming progress. I’d sift through a bag of markers in my dripping bathing suit and fill in a square with whatever shade of blue felt right that day. As you may have already deduced from the chart, I did not meet my goal of swimming 100 times. But by intending to swim 100 times, I swam 78 times. Greeting the ocean became my default use of free time. And that, to me, is a victory.

But journaling? I hardly missed a day of that. I’ve always been an avid diarist. After all, I grew up as an only child with a restless mind. I learned early on that writing could help me face and accept my biggest feelings, deepest fears, and most complicated anxieties. Fitting a swirly thought into a tight paragraph has always granted me a sense of control. It’s no wonder I became a writer.

Last summer, I journaled daily over the course of nearly twelve weeks. This habit tapered off as a  September deadline neared for my novel. I’d been working on this novel since January 2020 and had high hopes of signing with a literary agent and selling the book. A handful of agents had expressed interest in taking a look at my manuscript when it was ready—a process referred to as “querying” in the publishing world, which you’ll see me mention a lot in my diary—and I promised those agents I would have the revised manuscript in their inboxes by the end of the summer. As you’ll see in the following pages, my feelings toward the revision process flip-flopped between pep-talking confidence and extreme doubt.

buy the zine

This zine includes at least one sentence from every day I journaled last summer, the summer I set out to swim 100 times and finish my novel. It’s an account of the tides of life, the ebbs and flows, the shifts in the currents. Every surfer will tell you that waves come in sets, and as I revisit these diaries, I see those sets so clearly. I hope this zine will encourage you to notice the rhythms of the waves in your own life. 

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ZINE RELEASE PARTY

If you’re here in Jacksonville, I would love to have you and your friends at my zine release party.

August 31, 2024
6-8PM (reading at 7ish)
Makenu Chocolate
30 Seminole Road
Atlantic Beach

My friends Jess and Tucker, owners of Makenu Chocolate, have graciously opened their shop doors for the release. There will be chocolate and coffee and beer and wine and mocktails and hot dogs (!) and hugs and laughter. Matt Shaw is DJing an all-wax set of wacky tunes. I’ll read from the zine at 7ish. Come party with us. 🌭

Want to order the zine and pick it up at the party? Select pick-up at checkout.

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BACK-TO-SCHOOL SHOPPING

Shopping for pens and highlighters and notebooks doesn’t eliminate my summer doldrums, but it does help. If you’re jonesing for some new supplies, here are my endorsements.

• the only notebook that makes sense to me

• a gigantic cup that looks way cuter with a 100 Swims sticker

• fine-tip pens for taking notes in the margins

• the best pens for writing

• highlighters in the most calming shades

• wired earbuds because I’m tired of my AirPods dying all the time

• date stamp with a satisfying KER-CHUNK! sound that makes journaling and planning way more fun

• timer that helps me focus and reminds me when to shift tasks (and take breaks)

I want your recommendations! What’s in your basket for back-to-school shopping, whether or not you’re heading to class?

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I hope you find time to write and swim very, very soon.

💙 Hurley

PS: I’m tracking my swims again this year. As of this morning, I’m on swim #70!