The Writer Shawn White's Place of Things

August is almost over, and for most folks, that means summer is over. In Maine, it also means we can start wearing pants again. For my UK friends, pants are trousers, and not that we don’t wear underwear in Maine in the summer, but I’d be willing to bet some people don't. September is basically warm Fall. We get cool nights and occasionally cool days. I remember school shopping thinking I could wear a sweatshirt to school because it was cool outside. And I remember putting on a sweatshirt without a T-shirt, 100% sure it would stay cool all day. And I would spend 10am and the rest of the day miserable, sweating, and smelling because the sun came out.  Weird news for August, because I did not get any writing in. There are mushrooms (similar mushrooms in a mix of different countries) that do not have psychedelic chemicals in them but have made folks who eat these mushrooms see actual tiny people. So they are clearly magic and not like the magic mushrooms that have a reputation for hel...

 In the E.B. White classic One Man’s Meat, written from a shed on the coast of Maine, he ruminates on writing, his process, the world, and the mundane day-to-day bits about the weather, and how many eggs his chickens laid. They were published monthly by Harper’s because he did not have a blog at the time. He just had the coast, a shed with a typewriter, and his thoughts.  While not full essays, these posts let me capture a bit of what I’m doing, watching, reading, and most importantly for me, what I am writing or when I’m not writing. The books and movies are just an excuse to get me started, and the monthly post format guarantees that I get something written every month. It’s a few minutes to pause and think, “Yup, that month just happened.”  So again, it’s July, and yup, that month has happened. It’s been at times stupid hot and kind of amazing. That is the way with summer in Maine. I’ve jumped in the ocean, gone on hikes, and occasionally stayed cooped up inside next t...

  June was one of those months where it was easy to get things done. It's rare, but I love it when it happens. I edited, drew, and designed a cover, and published my short story 'The Photographer' in Zine format. If you are interested, you can pick up a copy at Ellard Studios or the Haunted Key Press online store.  I also started and finished a new story. The working title is 'A Hole' because I thought it would look funny as a cover. It's the first story I have written in the new studio space downtown that I am sharing with Jen. There is going to be a ton of writing and art that comes out of there.  I sold a copy of A Good Meal in Australia to some random stranger, and I love that it was an interesting enough premise that someone so far away would want to read it. Along with that, I received another rating on Goodreads for 'A Good Meal'. It wasn't a 5-star review for sure, and everyone wants more editing, but they ended it with "wouldn’t be op...

It’s the end of May, and like previous months for the past year and a half, there is way too much going on in the world to not feel overwhelmed and unable to stay on top of the chaos and worried about the state of things. But it’s another month and another post.  This month involved an overseas vacation. After limited trips since Covid, we opted to take a family trip to Paris and hit up the amazing Hilma Af Klimt exhibit at the Grand Palais. That was the catalyst of the trip, and it was followed by hitting up a bunch of other museums, Versailles, the Catacombs, Pierre Lachaise Cemetery, and all the vegan bakeries and vegan restaurants we could find.  As a result of the lead-up, the trip, and the recouping from the trip has limited the amount of writing I was able to get done, but I have a nice backlog of ideas to work through when I have a minute to focus for more than an hour or two. I did edit a short story I’ll be releasing as a small zine/chapbook about a photographer...

This month, I wrote April’s zine about ghosts and what to do if you find yourself in a haunted house scenario. How to live with or get rid of them. It was fun, but what’s funnier is that I will get to keep a copy and leave it somewhere the people who eventually buy my house will find. Maybe I’ll bring copies to real estate open houses and hide them around so folks can bump into them and be a little freaked out. I think I’ll need to figure out how to age it a bit. Add to the realism.  I wanted to write more, but nothing in my brain is really ready for the long-term commitment of a novel. It’s funny, I watched a BBC archive video where they interviewed two writers who churned out pulp novels made to directly line the shelves at the local libraries. Books written and published with the intent that no one would ever buy them, but because they are at the library, folks would read them. They wrote basically the same romance novels and westerns, all published under different author names....

  March moved quick! Today is already the 31st, and while it's cold, damp, and rainy with a chance of snow, it's still spring, so I'll take it. This month's post is short as it consisted mainly of books I'm reading, thoughts on writing, and no actual writing. We didn't even create a zine in the month of March. We'll have a good zine ready for April, maybe. Reading: I almost made it through the entire Practical Magic Series by Alice Hoffman, and while it had some cheesy bits, it's been entertaining. Who doesn't want to read about the lives of witches, their families, and their loves? I didn't quite realize the order and read them this way. Magic Lessons > Practical Magic > The Rules of Magic > The Book of Magic I should have switched the order of Practical Magic and the Rules of Magic to be in a chronological order, but oh well. I also read When No Thing Works by Norma Wong for the Difficult Book Club. It's a short book, a lot of word...