The author I am on vacation

Haruki Murakami and seeking less

I’m writing this piece during the second week of a twelve-day vacation to see my snowbird parents on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Ben and I have taken this trip almost every year since 2016; now, we get to bring our daughter along with us.

A year ago, I had just arrived in Florida when I published the first interview I did for Present Tense.

Traveling alone for "sacred and unfettered access to reading"

There, I interviewed the anonymous woman behind the By Herself Travel instagram account, where the working mom and wife posts about solo travel. In our interview, she talked about reading fiction to escape during her trips and how she packs reading material for her vacations.

In short: she keeps a running list of recommendations, reviews the list for what seems to align with the moment she is in, and packs more than she needs so she has the luxury of choice.

During last year’s FL trip, I was midway through judging a lit award, so I brought a handful of those books and didn’t take much of By Herself Travel’s advice about choosing my reading material.

This year, I was 100% in charge of what I took with me, and although I only took some of BHT’s advice, I think I nailed my vacation books. I’m all for traveling with an e-reader, but we only own one and Ben was using it, so I knew I was packing physical books. For that reason, I made an effort to make my choices before we left, rather than over-pack and weigh down our luggage. To that end, I picked one audiobook and one physical book. For audio, I chose Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek. For physical, I chose Haruki Murakami’s Novelist as a Vocation.

For those unfamiliar with these two books, Miracle Creek is a bingeable procedural suspense novel, while Novelist as a Vocation is nonfiction about making it as a long-haul author. The books are incredibly different and have played off each other perfectly. I can read Murakami until I’m saturated with his ideas and need to let them percolate, then I can move over to my escapist fiction. Then I listen to Miracle Creek until I’m brimming with author envy because it’s so good, at which point I go back to my nonfiction in the vain hope that it makes me capable of writing like Angie Kim.

Choosing Miracle Creek for my audio and fiction was easy; it’s been on my list forever and I thought it would keep my head in the game of my own work-in-progress. (Mine is also a procedural story, heavy on the family drama.)

The nonfiction choice turned out to be easy, too. Back at home before we left, I knew I wanted to bring some kind of craft book with me, so I carried a pile of unread options up from my basement office and read the first few pages of each one. Murakami had me in the first chapter: he’s been writing and getting published since 1979,¹ and he observed how difficult it is to sustain a career as a novelist. In an incredibly kind yet blunt way, he essentially spoke directly to my heart and said, “Caitlin, it’s actually not that big a deal that you wrote a first novel; it will be a bigger deal if you manage a second, and third, and seventh,” and I thought, THIS is who I want advice from right now! The reading material is in alignment with where I am.

Now on vacation, my choice has continued to speak to me. One of Murakami’s chapters is about originality and voice (although I don’t think he ever used the word voice, come to think of it). There, he pointed out how much pressure we place on ourselves when we sit down to write while asking the question: “What am I seeking?” Instead, he counsels writers to ask “who would I be if I weren’t seeking anything?” and then to write from that place.² 

Naturally, I started journaling on this question–who would I be if I weren’t seeking anything–and I realized that who I am on vacation is about as close as I get to being that version of myself: the one who isn’t seeking something.

My preferred writing spot at my parents’ place, save for the two naptimes I’ve hidden inside to escape the heat.

Even before I’d read this insight from Murakami, I’d decided not to hold myself to any word count goals during vacation. I did expect to feel some desire or pressure to write, and my vacation was (well?) timed with a plotting issue I desperately needed to figure out. So, my only goal for the two-week period was to get the plot sorted. Fixing a plotting issue tends to involve a lot of freewriting and listening to music and doing other things, so it’s not a bad thing to work on during vacation.

That said, after I read the originality chapter by Murakami, I decided to relax even that “goal” of fixing my plot problem; for my last few days of break, I’m considering it something closer to guidance than strict expectation. (Meaning: when I do write, I’ll peck at the problem, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t get on the plane with the rest of the novel outlined or something.)

I’m feeling very moved by Murakami’s idea that I should try to seek less when I write, and I think I read his words at this moment for a reason. (I tend to have a bit of magical thinking when it comes to craft books and other writing advice and inspiration. When it hits me in the chest and feels true, I trust that it is for me, at least for now.)

So, if I arrive home sunburned³ and still figuring out the plot problem, so be it. Better to enjoy the feeling of freedom I can access best when I’m on vacation and let it infiltrate whatever words I do put down in my novel. 

Writers: what do you think of Murakami’s advice not to seek when we write?

Readers: how do you decide what books to bring on vacation?

1. If I counted right on his Wikipedia page, to his name he claims: fifteen novels, sixty-five short stories, twelve essays, two nonfiction books, a children’s book, and an anthology he edited/collected. That’s the kind of bibliography I aspire to have one day!

2. Haruki Murakami writes:

This is purely my opinion, but if you want to express yourself as freely as you can, it’s probably best not to start out by asking “What am I seeking?” Rather, it’s better to ask “Who would I be if I weren’t seeking anything?” and then try to visualize that aspect of yourself. Asking “What am I seeking?” invariably leads you to ponder heavy issues. The heavier that discussion gets, the farther freedom retreats, and the slower your footwork becomes. The slower your footwork, the less lively your prose. When that happens, your writing won’t charm anyone—possibly even you.

The you who is not seeking anything, by contrast, is as light and free as a butterfly. All you have to do is uncup your hands and let it soar. Your words will flow effortlessly. People normally don’t concern themselves with self-expression—they just live their lives. Yet, despite that, you want to say something. Perhaps it is in the natural context of “despite that” where we unexpectedly catch sight of something essential about ourselves.

3. Just kidding. Those who know me well know I’ve been wearing SPF and seeking shade like it’s my job. On our first FL trip in April 2016, I painted my nails red the night before we left and Ben thought he was going to experience a whole new sexy side of me. And then this is who was heading to the beach with him: