Thoughts for Melissa

A Love Letter to My Wife on Our First Anniversary

✨ This post was originally published under The Thought Spiral. Same voice, new name. Welcome to Follow Through!

💭 Thursday Thoughts

This week’s newsletter is a special one because three days ago, my wife and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. People often ask me how married life is treating me, and my answer every single time is, “Honestly? It’s the best!”

Melissa is not only the most supportive person I could hope for in a partner. She’s also incredibly bright, endlessly patient, generous, kind, and absolutely hilarious. She’s an amazing cook and baker, a wonderful aunt to our nieces and nephews, and the perfect opponent on game night. Not to mention, she also give the best hugs.

We have made so many memories this past year: day trips to visit potential law schools, meeting our favorite author, going to concerts and school plays and too many family parties to count. We’ve had so many fun game nights, discovered new shows to watch together, and tried a few amazing restaurants. Melissa turned 30 this year, and we were lucky enough to celebrate with our close friends as well as both our Chicago and California families.

This year hasn’t come without its challenges, though. Melissa’s grandfather passed away almost immediately after we got back from our honeymoon, and it was a terrible loss for her whole family. While a solemn time, I am so thankful for the days we were able to spend in California this past winter and all of the memories we made. I am so grateful for Melissa’s whole family (my in-laws); they are some of the kindest, most inspiring folks I’ve ever met, and I’m so honored to be welcomed into their family.

There is so much to look forward to in the coming year: we’re going to New York together in a few weeks and to Sacramento for Christmas, Melissa’s going to start law school in the fall, we’ll likely be making our biggest move yet (TBD on where), and we’ve even talked about potentially adding a puppy to our little family (much to our cats’ chagrin).

I am so grateful for this past year, and so excited for all the years yet to come. Thank you for everything, Mel. You’re simply the best.

Novel Writing Updates:

Writing has been a little slower this week, mostly because I’ve been really busy. I feel like I’m really forming a habit of writing every night before bed, and I’ve upped my minimum daily count from 100 words to 150 because 100 was starting to feel too easy. I’m considering moving up to 300 or 400 in November to do a mini version of National Novel Writing Month.

Mostly, this week has been focused on ironing out the beats of the first 4 chapters and character development. I’ve written a decent chunk of each chapter, and I want to go in and add a bit more detail before I move on to the next section.

The flow of my writing has been pretty interesting. Usually I approach stories chronologically, but this time I started by picking a scene I could very clearly visualize (Blair waking up the morning after making her bargain with Fallon), and I worked back to the beginning of chapter one from there. Each day, I’m in a different mood, so some days I’m really excited about writing a scene with my main character Blair at the piano bar, and other days I really want to work on Fallon, so I’d pick a scene where I know there will be some good banter between them.

Right now I’m trying to learn more about Celtic folklore because I think Fallon’s abilities will be highly influenced by the Irish Fairfolk and specifically the leannán sídhe (aka the Fairy lover). I’m still not 100% set on this story, though.

I’m trying to nail down her backstory before I get too deep into the story and it gets trickier to change it. I’ve been playing around with other ideas like her being a descendent of powerful witches or possibly even a vampire, but I feel like the fae are a happy medium, and they tie in nicely with the historical fiction aspects I’m hoping to weave throughout the story.

Other accomplishments in writing world this week:

• Finished Week 2 of The Advanced Class at The Novelry

• Got a notebook specially for working on The Alchemy

• Hit 5,000 words!

This Week’s Little Bits of Joy:

• Novel Cookies - A commercial bakery in Portland, OR that specializes in cookies that feature books’ cover art. How neat is that?? I’m seriously blown away by their talent! One of my dreams is to commission them to create cookies for my first book launch.

• Someone brought Pedro Pascal a Jellycat at a recent event, and his reaction was so wholesome!

• Finch Care App - This app is such a game changer for me. Seeing my little birdie rooting for me to do simple tasks like washing the dishes, folding the laundry, and brushing my teeth has really made taking care of my home and myself more fun. If you join, send me your username so we can be buddies!

• Steve Martin - I’ve been watching the new season of Only Murders in the Building, and Steve Martin is still one of my favorite comedians. I’ve been of a fan of him since I was little and saw Father of the Bride for the first time, so getting to see him and Martin Short working together again makes me so happy.

• The Rooftop Restaurant at Restoration Hardware - Melissa and I went here for our anniversary dinner, and it was so beautiful! The architecture and ambience was truly next level. It’s on the pricier end, but I’d highly recommend for a special occasion!

• I commissioned the print below for Melissa for our anniversary, and I’m so thrilled with how it turned out! The matchbooks all represent important memories we’ve made throughout our relationship (including our first date and where we adopted our cats!), and it’s such a unique way to display those memories in our home. Check out the artist on Etsy

  

  

  🎨 Mood Board

memes of the week

That’s all for now! Thank you so much for reading. Can’t wait to yap again next Thursday 💙

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