Happy New Year!

Today I migrated my newsletter from Substack to Mailchimp. If you were an existing subscriber before January 1st, 2022, I have already migrated your subscription and there is no need to sign up again.

This morning I sent my first newsletter via Mailchimp titled, “New Year, New Website.” This email should have arrived in your inbox from “Zack Thoutt” and looked mostly like The Storied Scrolls newsletter issues you’re used to.

If you received “New Year, New Website” in your inbox like normal, there is no action required. You can close this email now.

If you do not see “New Year, New Website” in your inbox, please check your “spam” folder or “promotions” tab.

As part of the migration, The Storied Scrolls “from” email address has changed from an anonymous ___@substack.com email to info@zackthoutt.com. Your email provider might not trust info@zackthoutt.com yet, which is why you didn’t see my email like normal.

Here are a few easy steps to remedy the issue…

First off, if the email ended up in your spam folder please remove it. Most email clients have a button that says something like “Remove from Spam.” Hit that and the email should move to your inbox.

Next, here is one easy step you can take to ensure my newsletter always shows up in your inbox.

Open “New Year, New Website,” then take the action below that’s relevant to you. Note that you will need to close this email and open “New Year, New Website” so that my new email address is marked as safe.

(A) IF YOU USE GMAIL DESKTOP

Depending on your gmail settings, you may need to drag this email from you "Promotions" tab to you "Primary" tab. If you do not see these tabs, you don't need to do anything.

(B) IF YOU USE GMAIL MOBILE APP

Click on the three dots in the top right corner and select "Mark as important."

(C) IF YOU USE OUTLOOK

Click on the three dots in the top right corner and select "Move to Focused Inbox."

(D) IF YOU USE APPLE MAIL

Click on the sender name "Zack Thoutt," then press "Add to VIP."

That’s it! Thank you for taking the time to complete the migration and I’m sorry for any confusion the double email today may have caused.

Let’s break the wax seal and unroll the scroll…

Don’t Forget 1993

CHAPTER 13 of Nomad Life

“Good luck,” the customs agent croaked, handing Shelby our passports through the car window. He had bushy, black eyebrows and a protruding chin.

“Hvala,” Shelby replied. 

Skutull sat in the back, leaning his entire body against the seat. His eyes mindlessly tracked the customs agent without moving his head. He looked bored out of his mind.

The highway was smooth and paved with fresh asphalt. Bright, white paint divided the road into two lanes, which weaved through small cities. Plastic bottles and aluminum cans littered either side of the street. Sheets of plastic wrapped themselves around bare branches, flapping in the breeze…

Continue Reading

Where in the World are Zack, Shelby, and Skutull

Current location: 📍Vienna, Austria

What we’ve been up to: Wandering the Christmas market and eclectic light displays in old town Ljubljana.

What’s challenged us: After the US embassies in both Slovenia and Austria failed to offer us any assistance gaining access to Covid boosters, we’re still searching for a way to get them without flying back home to the USA.

Top travel tip: I purchased a gym membership in Ljubljana and lifted weights for exercise while we lived there. It’s the first time in almost a year since I’ve used weights and almost two years since I’ve regularly visited a gym. Re-adding weightlifting as an exercise option has been a joy, but my travel tip is to avoid focusing on back and biceps the day before long travel journeys. Lugging our heaving packs and suitcases across cities and through train stations was more difficult with sore muscles.

Miles traveled: 24,696.00 (0.99x 🌎)

Days nomadic: 275 (0.78x ☀️)

📜 Our Story | 🗺️ Map of Our Journey | 🌄 Future Itinerary

Supplemental Travel Material

📺 Learn about the Yugoslav Wars: The Death of Yugoslavia

Enjoy the journey,

Let’s break the wax seal and unroll the scroll…

If You Stare at the Stars, You'll Step in Shit

CHAPTER 12 of Nomad Life

Grape bloom coated my fingers and clumped under my nails. It felt chalky and sticky at the same time, like I’d dunked my hands into a barrel of honey, then twirled them around in talc. I stepped carefully to the next plant in the vine row, placing my foot through a gap in the native grasses and wildflowers teeming with insects. Bees and other winged creatures buzzed through the warm autumn air, which was clear and had a fresh, almost tropical aroma rising from the baskets of fresh grapes that hung on the arms of a dozen grape pickers, including Shelby and I.

Back in 2019, we spent two full days helping vineyards in the Vipava Valley of Slovenia harvest grapes. I have stayed in contact with one of the winemakers over the years. When I messaged him in late 2021 that we had returned to Ljubljana, his response was, “Welcome home :).”

Near the end of our stay, we rented a car and drove to the Vipava Valley…

Continue Reading

Where in the World are Zack, Shelby, and Skutull

Current location: 📍Ljubljana, Slovenia

What we’ve been up to: Learning how to cook pasta from an Italian chef.

What’s challenged us:

• Scrambling to figure out our living situation after lockdowns in Austria prevented us from arriving in Vienna on schedule.

• Finding a way to get a Covid booster shot without flying back home to the USA.

Top travel tips learned:

• Use your embassy: One of our Slovenian friends suggested we contact our embassy for help getting Covid boosters. Unsurprisingly, the US government was useless and didn’t help us at all, but I still thought this was good advice to keep in mind more generally.

• Get rid of coins: It’s easy to find places to exchange currencies in Europe, but I learned the hard way that most exchanges only accept bills, not coins. I have a stack of $10 worth of Croatian Kuna coins that I have no idea what to do with.

Miles traveled: 24,429 (0.98x 🌎)

Days nomadic: 275 (0.75x ☀️)

📜 Our Story | 🗺️ Map of Our Journey | 🌄 Future Itinerary

Supplemental Travel Material

📚 Learn about Slovenian Culture: Slovenology by Noah Charney

Enjoy the journey,

If you’re following us along our journey, we’ve recently changed our itinerary after realizing our original route of Ireland → Portugal → Norway all by land & sea was going to require too much travel time to enjoy. We’ve now made next summer the Scandinavian leg of our journey and will be spending one month each in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

Let’s break the wax seal and unroll the scroll…

The City of Dragons

CHAPTER 11 of Nomad Life

Rain fell from the night sky—more than a spittle, but less than a downpour—adding volume to the streams already flowing through the streets of Ljubljana. We stood under an awning at the train station, debating whether we should brave the 15-minute walk to our apartment or take a cab.  

I knew the city well and was confident I could route us. I fell in love with Ljubljana when we visited in 2019 and didn’t care that it was raining. I wanted to be in the city. If it was raining, I’d bathe. I spent several minutes laying out my case to Shelby.

“Ok, but Skutull and I are going to be grumpy with you for a bit,” Shelby declared, finally conceding to my insistence that we walk, “and you have to carry both suitcases.”

Continue Reading

Where in the World are Zack, Shelby, and Skutull

Current location: 📍Motovun, Croatia

What we’ve been up to: truffle hunting in the Istria region of Croatia and scrambling to decide how to handle Austria’s covid lockdowns (our next stop).

Top travel tips learned:

• Use both Google and Apple Maps: Google Maps works great most of the time, but I think it is far too optimized toward avoiding traffic. The last few times we’ve used it for longer car journeys, we researched the “normal” route the night before, then woke up the next morning and could not get the app to stay on the “normal” route. Once there was traffic, it diverted us on crazy routes that are a hundred miles longer and there is no override to stay on the “normal” route. Apple Maps has been more reliable in this regard.

• Plan lunch for days on the road: when we jump in the car for an 8 hour day of driving without a lunch plan, it never goes well. The combo of finding somewhere healthy, highly-rated, and that isn’t a 2-hour sit-down meal is challenging when you’re passing through cities on the highway. We try to either plan the exact spot we’ll eat lunch the night before, or bring a packed lunch.

Miles traveled: 24,346 (0.98x 🌎)

Days nomadic: 268 (0.73x ☀️)

📜 Our Story | 🗺️ Map of Our Journey | 🌄 Future Itinerary

Supplemental Travel Material

🏰 Learn about the history of Ljubljana Castle: Ljubljana Castle Wikipedia page

🐉 Find out why Ljubljana is called the “City of Dragons”: Ljubljana, City of Dragons

🏛 Meet the architect who crafted much of the visual charm of Ljubljana: Jože Plečnik Wikipedia page

Enjoy the journey,

Skutull, Shelby, and I recently treated ourselves to a vacation (a vacation within our vacation, if you will) in Hallstatt, Austria to relax and recuperate after the stress of moving to Europe.

Below is a story about Hallstatt’s natural beauty, niche history that’s not so niche, and battle with over-tourism.

Let’s break the wax seal and unroll the scroll…

Ruth’s Haus

CHAPTER 10 of Nomad Life

I drank our remaining oat milk from the carton while looking out over the Main River in Frankfurt one last time. The sunrise was orange and already bikers were funneling onto the river path below. 

The main train station was a fifteen-minute drive from our apartment. We still had forty-five minutes until our scheduled departure to Hallstatt by way of Linz, so we weren’t in a rush. I shoved my square European-style pillow into my suitcase, closed the sides like a book, then pressed my weight down on top of my bag and zipped it shut. 

When we arrived in Frankfurt eight days earlier, Skutull wasn’t a fan of elevators. To him, they were magical contraptions that teleport you to another dimension. Or possibly giant industrial monsters that eat puppies. Every time the elevator moved, he would lay down on the ground and swivel his head back and forth searching for an escape route that didn’t exist…

Continue Reading

Where in the World are Zack, Shelby, and Skutull

Current location: 📍Šibenik, Croatia

What we’ve been up to: Nurturing Skutull’s peepee back to health. He had a bladder infection and there was a lot of puss down there for a few days, but he has made a full recovery.

Top travel tips learned:

• Take a video of your rental car when you pick it up and drop it off. If there are any disputes, you can show the car rental agency the video.

• All EU car rentals are required by law to include insurance so that the max damages you can pay out-of-pocket is €1300. In addition, your car insurance back home and your credit card likely include some coverage. So when the employees try to push you to add extra insurance, it’s really not worth it in Europe.

• You often need an EU bank account with an IBAN to pay for services in Europe (such as a cell phone plan), but there are strict residency requirements for Americans to open accounts at physical banks in the EU. Wise is a company that offers a multi-currency account that works anywhere in the world and I’ve found it to be extremely useful.

Miles traveled: 23,478 (0.94x 🌎)

Days nomadic: 249 (0.68x ☀️)

📜 Our Story | 🗺️ Map of Our Journey | 🌄 Future Itinerary

Supplemental Travel Material

⛏️ Learn niche history that’s not so niche: Hallstatt Culture Wikipedia page

⛰️ Discover more about the city of Hallstatt: Hallstatt, Austria Wikipedia page

According to Skutull

Mom and Dad told me on Halloween that they were taking me to a haunted house. When we arrived, I was surrounded by animals I’ve never smelled before. I came face-to-face with what Dad called a lion—there was nothing but a chain-link fence between us, but I didn’t care. I met a pack of wolves. I even found a type of cat I like. Mom said it was a leopard. She sat up on a perch just a few feet from me, wagging her tail and pawing at me. I whined and wagged my tail because I wanted to play with her.

There were some scary parts to the haunted house, like when I made friends with a tiny, white dog, who then went straight up to the fence and started sniffing the wolves. The entire pack swarmed the fence and it seemed like I was the only one who believed they were going to eat my new friend. I barked and got in trouble, so then I just had to watch and hope for the best.

The elephant I liked because he played with a ball like me. The tiger I liked because he was eating a big bone and I like bones. The leopard I liked because she wanted to play with me. But I did not like the wolves. They did not seem nice or well-behaved. They were a stain on the good dog name.

Skutull's Instagram

Enjoy the journey,

This edition of The Storied Scrolls features a new Fiction Drop. I was inspired by Halloween to write my first ever horror story, Through Bone Like Butter, but upon completing it, my wife read it and said that the story is too “real” to be a horror, so I’ve reclassified it as a psychological thriller.

It’s darker than most of my writing, but I have to admit that it was interesting to write from the perspective of a psychopath.

Let’s break the wax seal and unroll the scroll…

Through Bone Like Butter

CHAPTER 2 of Tales of Twilight

My name is Bernie Louis Harding Jr., and I’m a good person. Always have been. Always will be.

Do you believe me? 

When I was seven, my Grannie put chocolate pudding in my lunch bag every day. Some of the kids at school were jealous, so I shared with them. We passed around the pudding and ate it with my spoon. 

When I was twelve, I saw Liana Scaldy pass out by the playset. She was mean and made fun of my shoes, but I still went and got help.

And when it came time to choose a career, I became a doctor. 

I love helping people. That much I remember.

So do you believe that I’m a good person?

I need to kill my wife.

How about now?

Please don’t lose faith in me. Give me the chance to explain…

Continue Reading

My Writer’s Journey

Upcoming Stories

• Chapter 10 of Nomad Life - Ruth’s Haus: A travel story covering the time we spent in Hallstatt, Austria. This charming mountain village has existed for 7,000 years and recently became a victim of over-tourism after it was cited as inspiration for the fictional town of Arendelle in the Disney movie, Frozen.

• Chapter 3 of Tales of Twilight - “Five Fingers, Four”: I take my first dig at a Western in this short story about a man who will gamble just about anything.

• My first novel - The Great War of Inner Peace: I continue to make progress on my first novel. I hit a large milestone last week when I finished the first draft of the outline and sent it to my editor.

Inspiration & Research

🔎 Read a “true” story: A Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway => one of my favorite Hemingway quotes is, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” I think that A Farewell to Arms is a very “true” story in the sense that it is not based on fact, but it is real. Some of Hemingway’s books get negative reviews in modern times because people complain that they are too sad and have no point. Hemingway didn’t write to teach lessons, as many modern storytellers do. He wrote what he believed was true, and if that’s something that you’d like to read, A Farewell to Arms is both a tragic and a “true” story that I enjoyed.

📺 Unravel a mystery: Season 1: Only Murders in the Building => This murder mystery TV show starring Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short manages a more light-hearted feel than most crime fiction and is one even my wife (who is sensitive to intense shows) could watch before bed.

❤️ Warm your heart: Check out this new concept of a “bicycle bus” that Barcelona is experimenting with. Police escort a caravan of kids biking to school on a pre-determined route. Parents can send their kids out the door into the group of bikers and let them get to school safely on the “bicycle bus.”

⛰️ The salaried wizard of New Zealand who got canceled: “New Zealand council ends contract with wizard after two decades of service”

Quote I’m pondering

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.”

-C.S. Lewis

Enjoy the journey,

This edition of The Storied Scrolls features the return of… The Storied Scrolls!

Last newsletter I tried to ditch the name for something more serious, but I’ve missed my scroll and lived with regret all week, so I’m introducing a plot twist and bring it back.

Since last time… I published Chapter 9 of Nomad Life titled, “Mittel-Gründau,” Skutull had an epiphany about the reality of going everywhere with us, and I introduced a postcard subscription that newsletter subscribers can sign up for (see below).

Let’s break the wax seal and unroll the scroll…

Mittel-Gründau

CHAPTER 9 of Nomad Life

We called a studio apartment in Frankfurt home for our first eight days abroad. It was a corner unit on the fifth floor of a ten-story building and looked out over the winding Main River in one direction and toward downtown Frankfurt’s skyscrapers in the other. Half-a-dozen stone bridges crossed the waterway, which I'm sure is small by global standards, but is larger than any river back in Colorado.  

A path ran along both banks of the river where people walked and rode bikes at all hours of the day. During evening twilight, young couples hung their feet over the retaining wall with their arms wrapped around each other. Groups of friends lounged in the grass nearby drinking beers and conversing with one another. Some people moved efficiently down the path and with a purpose, but it never felt like anybody was in a hurry, including the river. The water flowed too slowly for me to tell which direction it was moving, so I dropped a leaf in one day and watched it mosey downstream toward its junction with the Rhine and on to the North Sea…

Continue Reading

Nomad Life

Current location: 📍Ljubljana, Slovenia

What we’ve been up to: Eating piles of pasta and pizza in the shadows of a medieval castle and stone dragons.

Miles traveled: 22,998 (0.92x 🌎)

Days nomadic: 228 (0.62x ☀️)

Words published online: 33,256

📜 Our Story | 🗺️ Map of Our Journey | 🌄 Future Itinerary

The Writer’s Journey

My Works in Progress

• Chapter 10 of Nomad Life - Hallstatt, Austria

• My first novel - The Great War of Inner Peace

• Chapter 2 of Tales of Twilight - “Five Fingers, Four”

Inspiration & Research

✍️ Improve your writing: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee => an excellent overview of how to create compelling stories. It’s a bit formulaic for my personal taste, but I plan to apply bits of it when I get stuck.

❤️ Warm your heart: Searching for Sugar Man => a heart-warming documentary about a rock star that never was and the legend of how he killed himself on stage. If you want to watch it, don’t do research or ask questions. This is a happy story despite my description and you’ll ruin your experience if you learn too much. I rented it on Amazon.

⛰️ Learn about mountaineering: “1954 Italian Karakoram expedition to K2” => the logistics required for the first successful summit of K2 was insane—12 metric tons of equipment that required 600 porters to carry from the nearest city to basecamp. Even though K2 is the second highest mountain in the world, it is considered significantly more challenging and dangerous than Everest.

Something to Ponder

How do you balance your protagonist’s flaws and mistakes with likability?

Weigh in →

According to Skutull

Skutull knows when Mom and Dad are about to leave him at home to “guard the house.” There are patterns in their behavior that he knows better than they do. Usually they feed him and make him potty at odd times of the day. They skip play time. They put on different clothes. They ignore him. For the first five years of Skutull’s life, all he wanted was to go with Mom and Dad everywhere they went.

His life changed for the better when he moved to Europe. Here, he’s allowed to go almost everywhere. His first few times eating out were amazing. So many interesting smells. People doted on him and scratched his head. It was everything he knew he was being left out of and more.

This week the honeymoon phase ended. Skutull now sees that the true reality of eating out with Mom and Dad—he has to lay on hard ground, smell food but never eat it, and generally be ignored for 1-2 hours. It’s still better than being left at home, but a cold reality has set in.

Skutull's Instagram

Quote of The Week

“We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”

-Marcus Aurelius

Enjoy the journey,

Shelby fetched the key to our studio from a lockbox on the back of the building, then we ventured inside. She unlocked the door and pushed on it once, but it didn’t budge. 

“Did the lock actually turn?” I asked her.

“It felt like it.”

I pressed my shoulder into the door and it moved a fraction of an inch. The friction between the door and door jam made a loud squeaking noise that echoed through the tile hallway and into the main foyer. I assumed the wood must be swollen from the heat, so I rammed my shoulder into the door and it swung open. 

A sour stench that was strong enough to taste poured from the apartment into the hallway and nearly made me gag. I scurried in and checked the trash cans and fridge for rotting food, then looked under the furniture thinking I might discover a dead mouse, but I couldn’t find the source of the smell. I decided that maybe the last guest left something fragrant that the cleaning crew took care of, but that the smell was still lingering, so I cracked a window and turned up the AC to flush the air.

Continue Reading

Updated Stats

Current location: 📍Ljubljana, Slovenia

Miles traveled: 22,998 (0.92x 🌎)

Days nomadic: 221 (0.61x ☀️)

Words published online: 28,397

Works in Progress

• Chapter 9 of Nomad Life - Frankfurt, Germany

• Chapter 10 of Nomad Life - Hallstatt, Austria

• My first novel - The Great War of Inner Peace

• Chapter 2 of Tales of Twilight - “Five Fingers, Four”

Inspiration & Research

🧠 Craft your mindset: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott => on how to enjoy the process of writing and set reasonable expectations.

🥊 Boxing history: “Joe Louis.” Wikipedia. => The life of the star boxer who “is widely regarded as the first person of African-American descent to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II because of his historic rematch with German Boxer Max Schmeling in 1938.”

❤️ Sexuality in WWII: “A secret history of sexuality on the front.” The Sydney Morning Herald. Andrew Stephens. => how marines fighting in the Pacific during WWII explored their sexualities and coped with little to no contact with females for years at a time.

According to Skutull

Skutull has eaten many meals on restaurant patios over the years, but it wasn’t until we moved to Europe that he was allowed to eat inside.

Skutull recently enjoyed his first indoor dining experience. It was raining in Salzburg, Austria and he was squinting pathetically at us through the precipitation as we walked around the city, so he was happy to take shelter when Shelby and I were hungry for lunch. Our waitress brought him a bowl of water, which he enjoyed properly while laying down.

Skutull's Instagram

Writer’s thought to ponder

You cannot know your characters, and therefore cannot write well, if you do not know yourself.

Weigh in →

Quote

“The most interesting information comes from children because they tell all they know and then stop.”

-Mark Twain

Public Service Announcement

I’ve decided to change the name of my newsletter from “The Storied Scrolls” to “Nomad Life.” I think this title better reflects the content that I want to include in my newsletter. This email is also in the new format I plan to use going forward. There will be fewer paragraphs to read outside of the linked story and more lists, which I hope will make the newsletter easier to skim.

Enjoy the journey,

What I’ve published

I just published the seventh chapter of Nomad Life titled, The Concrete Jungle, which covers the five weeks we spent living in New York City this summer, discovering our place within the chaotic workings of the cityscape.

Read The Concrete Jungle

Nomad Rose & Thorn

Nomad Thorn

By far the biggest challenge occupying our minds for the last month has been getting all three of us to Europe safely this Monday, September 20th, 2021.

If it were just Shelby and I departing for Europe before the pandemic, we would have been giddy with excitement and anticipation. Unfortunately, traveling is more complex these days. Importing Skutull into the EU has been a chore, to say the least, as has getting him across an ocean safely. Our original plan was to sail on the Queen Mary from NY to England, but in a post-covid world hopping on a ship doesn’t sound like the best idea. We did look into it, but all of the dog spots on their scheduled cruises were already booked. They told us we could add ourselves to their waiting list, but that they’ve seen extremely high demand for dog transport post-pandemic, so it might take until well into 2022.

Shelby and I’s entry into Europe hasn’t been as easy as it was in the past, either. Two weeks ago we woke up to news headlines stating that the EU passed sweeping travel restrictions on Americans amid the surge of the delta variant. For several days that week, we constantly refreshed the German immigration webpage for updates to their restrictions. The EU resolution was technically only a recommendation, leaving it up to each country to decide on specific rules. Some countries (like Sweden and Norway) completely closed their borders to Americans. Others (like Belgium) closed their doors to unvaccinated Americans, but still welcomed vaccinated travelers. Most countries added some combination of vaccination, testing, and quarantine requirement for US travelers.

Lucky for us, we fly into Frankfurt, and Germany mostly targeted unvaccinated travelers with their restrictions. As of today, Sunday, September 19th, 2021, they still allow vaccinated travelers without testing or quarantine requirements. We got tested yesterday just incase the rules change tomorrow. One of the most frustrating aspects of the travel restrictions we’ve seen roll out in the past few weeks is that there was no lag between when they announced rule changes and when they took effect. We decided to play it safe and get a test because it’s within the realm of possibility that we wake up on Monday morning to new travel restrictions in Germany, and we want to stay ahead of the ball.

I can’t stop daydreaming about the first steps we’ll take outside of the Frankfurt airport on Tuesday. It’s difficult to describe how much energy Shelby and I have put into getting the three of us to Europe. It’s occupied a large portion of our minds for several months. I anticipate that when we complete the task, it will feel like we’ve retired from a job. I’m looking forward to having more time and headspace to write.

Nomad Rose

We took Skutull to the groomer a few days ago to prep him for our trip overseas. Shelby told them he only needed a washing and his nails clipped, but when she picked him up, they had also shaved his fur in places. We were both a little distraught that they cut his luxurious mane down.

The funny part was that they gave him a Brazilian hair treatment in his private area, which I’ve never seen before. On the plus side, all of his yellow furs down there are gone. One the minus side, he’s been super itchy.

It’s these types of things you have to learn to enjoy as a nomad. We are only in each place for 1-2 months, so Skutull will likely never go to the same groomer twice. I’m sure we’ll have a few other unexpected experiences.

Nomad insight

One of the most difficult, yet rewarding aspects of living nomadically is that I can’t maintain the routines I used to depend on. As soon as we live somewhere long enough for the semblance of a routine to emerge, we pack our bags and move on to the next city. This often makes life feel inefficient. It gets old never knowing where a mixing bowl is in our kitchen or having to spend hours researching where to exercise based on class times, short-term pricing options, and proximity. But at the same time, lack of routine forces me to try new things. Some days I feel like I’m barely stumbling through on my feet, yet at the end of the day I feel accomplished, and I remember more of what happens in my life because everything stands out. It forces me to be present because nothing can be done on autopilot.

Stories I’ve been enjoying

A lot of what I’ve been reading and watching has been research for the novel I’m working on, which is set just after WWII. My favorites so far have been The Pacific and A Farewell to Arms.

On the lighter side, Shelby and I both loved Ted Lasso. We will be living in Twickenham, London in February 2022, which is where a lot of the show takes place and is filmed.

Enjoy the journey,

What I’ve published

One of my favorite parts of travel is sampling the local cuisine, which has inspired me to start a new story collection. I’m calling it Dishroom Blunders. The high-level overview of this new collection is that as I travel on my nomadic adventure, I’ll attempt to recreate my favorite dishes I discover along the way. Follow the link above to learn more about the theme for the collection and the origin of the name.

My latest article is “Tomato Tea - Eleven Madison Park,” which covers the story of Shelby and I’s adventure eating at Eleven Madison Park, one of the top-rated restaurants in the world. I then attempt to recreate my favorite dish—tomato tea—and post both my results and my recipe.

Read Story

What I’ve been writing

I realized this morning that I’ve been working nearly every day on my first novel, but I haven’t written in over a week. I’m deep in the research process, which has been both fun and overwhelming. My upcoming novel will be set in 1953, which is a time period I didn’t live through, so I have to question and research every aspect of life.

Did high schoolers get class rings back then? Were helicopters invented yet? Who was prominent in pop culture? Had the Cold War started? What crops were grown in Iowa?

I think I’ll break through the research process by the end of next week and get back to writing. My hope is that by front-loading all the research, I’ll be able to more quickly write the story.

Where I’ve found inspiration

I listened to a podcast recently where Tim Ferris interviewed Jerry Seinfeld on his systems, routines, and methods for success.

I’ve found writing to be rewarding, but it’s a tough and lonely process. Jerry Seinfeld is an incredibly successful writer and person, so it was encouraging how normal he made himself seem. He described writing as “The single most difficult thing a human being can do.” Even after all his success, he said he would never criticize another person who’s trying to put words on a blank piece of paper. In his words, “Success is survival.”

People tell you to write like you can do it, like you’re supposed to be able to do it. Nobody can do it. It’s impossible. The greatest people in the world can’t do it.

So if you’re going to do it, you should first be told: ‘What you are attempting to do is incredibly difficult. One of the most difficult things there is, way harder than weight training, way harder, what you’re summoning, trying to summon within your brain and your spirit, to create something onto a blank page.’

No one’s really that great. You know who’s great? The people that just put tremendous amount of hours into it. It’s a game of tonnage. You know?

-Jerry Seinfeld

He attributes the quality and quantity of his work to the fact that he sits down every day to write. He removes all distractions—phone, TV, other people, etc.—and sits with a notepad. He says that young writers come to him and say they are struggling to write all day, as they think they should. His response is that, “Nobody writes all day. Shakespeare can’t write all day. It’s torture.”

I found this both comforting and validating for how I’ve decided to fit writing into my life. I want to keep my day job in software, both because I enjoy it and because I don’t want to be a starving artist. And honestly, I haven’t felt like it’s held me back. I can find an hour per day to write. Most days I can find two or three. I think this has been a good balance so far and removes the temptation to try and pound out the work quicker. I’m finding that I can’t do that with creative work. Ideas need time to simmer.

In the (slightly misogynistic) words of Warren Buffet, “You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

What I’ve been up to

We are still living in NYC. Skutull and I walk in Central Park several times per day. We haven’t explored every nook and cranny, but we’ve blazed a good number of trails in all four corners of the park.

Skutull has now done most of the major NYC touristy things he’s allowed to do. He’s let the screens in Times Square burn his retinas; he’s ridden the subway to Grand Central Station; he’s scurried across town in taxi cabs; he’s walked across the Brooklyn Bridge; and most importantly, he’s sampled New York pizza.

We leave New York this upcoming Friday and will be sad to go. I feel like we’ve made the most of our time in the city, but there is still so much to do. I think you could live here and never do everything even if you put in a good effort.

Tomorrow we’re pulling our car out of the stacked parking garage and driving to The Hamptons and enjoy some beach time. Next time I write, we’ll be in D.C!

Enjoy the journey,

What I’ve published

“Roots and Green Shoots” is the latest Nomad Life chapter. It covers the month I spent living in the American South and explores a modern interpretation of what it means to put down roots.

Read Story

Where I’ve found inspiration

I’m living in New York City right now and have enjoyed easy access to incredible art collections. I purchased a membership at The Met since I’m only ~10 minute walk away and try to go 1-2x per week during my lunch break.

Most of the visual art I’ve seen has been single-scene snapshots—paintings, tapestries, photographs, sculptures, etc. It amazes me that these artists were able to tell a story with just one scene. For them to do this well, they painted every grain of the canvas with intention. There was no wasted space, yet they did not include anything that wasn’t essential.

I think this same concept applies to good writing. The stories that I find engaging waste no words—they tell you everything you need to know and not a word more.

I’m doing my best to translate this discipline to my own writing, both at the bird’s eye plot level and the individual sentence level.

What’s challenged me

Shelby and I have spent a lot of time the past few weeks booking our European grand tour. We were originally supposed to sell our condo and embark in March 2020, but we all know what happened to that plan…

We have officially purchased airline tickets for September 20th to fly from D.C. to Frankfurt and have all of our accommodation through the end of the year booked! Go here to see our itinerary.

The time and emotional toll from making so many decisions has been exhausting for Shelby and I. And now on top of the stress of getting Skutull across the ocean safely, we have the delta covid variant to grapple with. We’re crossing our fingers Europe doesn’t close their borders again.

Story I’ve been enjoying

Exhalation by Ted Chiang. It’s a collection of mind-bending, sci-fi short stories. The movie Arrival was based on one of the short stories Chiang published in his previous book, Stories of Your Life and Others.

What I’ve been up to

I’ve visited The Met half a dozen times and MoMA once, but my favorite art museum so far was The Cloisters.

The Cloisters is located nearly an hour uptown of The Met. I was told by somebody in Central Park that Rockefeller constructed the building to look like a French monastery so that it would be in harmony with the medieval art he would one day fill it with. The museum is located on top of a large hill and he even purchased all the land across the river to the west so that the view would never be adulterated by buildings.

Here’s some of my favorite art from The Cloisters:

Enjoy the journey,

What I’ve published

“The Young Man and the Sea” is the latest Nomad Life chapter. It covers the month we spent living on the Oregon coast and explores the bond I made with the sea as a landlocked man from Colorado.

Read Story

What I’ve been writing

This week I’ve been digging in to write the Nomad Life chapter about our time in Florida and The South. We spent over a month in this part of the US and after this story is finished, I’ll officially be caught up to our current travels!

Where I’ve found inspiration

Shelby, Skutull, and I have been watching a food travel show on Netflix called Somebody Feed Phil. It’s created by and stars Phil Rosenthal, who’s most famous for creating the TV show Everybody Loves Raymond.

Phil is a quirky, energetic person and I enjoy watching him travel because he focuses on how food helps people connect rather than always spotlighting the food itself (which usually looks delicious). He’s also honest. He’ll go to an expensive, highly-rated restaurant and tell the chef a dish isn’t for him.

What I’ve been up to

We’ve been spending every moment of our free time exploring NYC, and still it feels like we’ve only covered one corner of one closet in a sprawling castle. We’re living in Manhattan, which feels like an endless cityscape when you’re walking around it. To my surprise, Manhattan is the smallest of the NYC boroughs. That blows my mind and I’m still having a difficult time comprehending the size of the city.

Enjoy the journey,

What I’ve published

My California story is finally finished!

The Golden Coast is a new travel story in my Nomad Life collection, which follows us on our month-long, 1,000-mile journey from California’s southern border with Mexico to its northern border with Oregon. Note that this story is longer than normal, so make sure to pour yourself a fresh cup of coffee before diving in.

Read "The Golden Coast"

What I’ve been writing

I’ve spent most of my writing time hacking away at The Golden Coast. It took more self-reflection and editing to get the story to a place where I liked it than usual. I’m planning to knock out Oregon next, so keep an eye on your inbox. I’d love to get caught up to our current travels by the end of July (we left California mid-April).

I’ve also been working on my upcoming fiction novella, which is the story of a young WWII veteran’s war for inner peace in the Himalayas. I’ve historically written mostly in the fantasy genre, which is fun because I get to create every aspect of the world my stories take place in. This new project is forcing me to do research to accurately define the world rather than make it all up.

How would somebody have traveled from California to K2 in the Himalayas in 1951? What was the political, cultural, and economic situation in that area at the time? What was life like for young WWII veterans who struggled to jump back into “normal” life?

Where I’ve found inspiration

Most of my inspiration has been rather dull. Short documentaries on the first teams who climbed K2 and Everest; dozens of Wikipedia pages; and Googling anything from “most popular songs 1951,” to “slang terms from the 50s,” to “what was LA airport like in 1951?”

It might sound like a slog to collect all of these details, but it’s actually been inspirational. I’ve already found small tidbits of information that have inspired scenes in my novella outline.

What’s challenged me

Time.

We’ve been moving around a lot lately. Most of our weekends have been spent driving. I simply haven’t had enough time to write, and that’s been frustrating. We’re settled down now in NYC for the next 5 weeks, so I’m hoping to fit in some quality writing time.

What I’ve been up to

Our apartment in NYC is right on Central Park. We’ve made multiple trips to the park each day, which Skutull has been a big fan of. The coolest aspect of the park that we’ve discovered so far is that dogs can be off leash 6am-9am daily. Skutull has made literally hundreds of friends so far and seems to be inspired by the challenge of marking every tree or light post within the 1.3 square-mile park.

Enjoy the journey,

What I’ve published

I’ve spent a lot of my free time the last couple weeks planning our travels through the end of the year. As a result, I haven’t written as much as I’d like to, but our plans to get to Europe in September are nearly final and we have several legs of our journey booked.

I’ve published a Travel Summary page to my website that will serve as the online home for our journey going forward. If you scroll down past our traveler’s profiles, there is a map that displays the route we’ve taken so far. And if you scroll past that, I’ve added our itinerary going through the Fall of 2022. We plan to keep this itinerary up-to-date as we book accommodation and solidify our plans.

Travel Summary

What I’ve been writing

My writing time has been split between two priorities.

My first priority has been finishing a Nomad Life post about our time in California. I’ve written a total of ~10,000 words, but I’m still having a difficult time figuring out what the personal journey I’m trying to share is. The content is there, but it doesn’t work as a cohesive unit yet.

Most travel writing is romanticized and focused on external experiences—what you did, where you were, what you ate. One thing I’ve discovered through the slog of writing this California post is that I want to focus my travel writing on my personal, inner journey. And I want to do it honestly, without rose-colored glasses.

My second priority has been working on a new novella, which I hope to publish by the end of the summer. Here’s the one line description:

It’s the story of a young WWII veteran’s war for inner peace in the Himalayas.

I’ll have more info to share soon!

Where I’ve found inspiration

Most of the time when we hear the word “inspiration,” we think of something happy. I find inspiration in happy moments, but I also find it in all the other emotions and experiences that make us human.

We recently lost a loved one to cancer. This is the first person close to me that I’ve lost since I was a kid, and the experience has been different as an adult. The tragedy of death. The joys of a life well-lived. The bond of carrying on their legacy, even if it’s through small, sporadic acts that feel inconsequential.

What I’ve struggled with the most is how to make sense of death.

Joseph Campbell—author of The Hero’s Journey and a leading expert on mythology throughout the 20th century—said that humans have used mythology/religion to explain what science does not yet understand for thousands of years. As science progresses, temples become museums, and mythology/religion shifts to focus on what is still unknown.

I can’t help but wonder if death will ever make sense. The circle of life is both beautiful and brutal.

What’s challenged me

When you live nomadically, there are periods of fast travel (moving daily/weekly) and periods of slow travel (moving monthly/quarterly).

We’ve recently been on a stint of fast travel, which has been both a struggle and a time of personal growth.

For the last six years, I optimized my productivity with gear—ergonomic chair, standing desk, two giant 5k monitors, perfect lighting, etc.

When we started our nomadic journey in March 2020, I was worried that I’d struggle to work efficiently without my gear, which quickly became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve experienced periods living as a nomad plagued by procrastination and lack of focus, which is unusual for me. I’m known for my ability to focus on a task for long periods of time. I lamented over the loss of my gear and blamed it for the loss of my productivity.

Then one day a few weeks ago I was having a conversation with myself in my head when I had a breakthrough. I realized that my “gear” is just as much a crutch as it is a tool. It’s not essential.

Shakespeare didn’t have a standing desk. Newton didn’t have a German ergonomic chair. Gates didn’t have two giant 5k monitors.

I was getting in my own way.

I used to think that creating space is an external battle with physical setup, but now I understand that it’s an inner battle against procrastination and excuses. Gear eliminates excuses. When I stripped my gear away, the excuses flooded out.

Productivity is an inner battle against excuses, and gear isn’t the only way to triumph.

During periods of fast travel, I spend more time setting up my workspace the first time in a new location, and nowhere is ever perfect. Excuses become easier to make, amplifying procrastination.

The strategy I’ve been using to overcome excuses is to start working as quickly as possible. Procrastination feeds on itself and leads to an inner dialogue of excuses. If I can get my fingers typing, productivity follows.

How I’ve been improving my writing

All artists worry that their work will come off as cliché—I’m no exception.

I read books and watch TV shows all the time that I perceive as cliché, which has made me realize how difficult it is to write a story that feels real, honest, and unique.

I’m currently reading Story by Robert McKee, which has helped me better understand why stories come off as cliché, so that I can hopefully avoid it. As McKee puts it,

The irony of setting versus story is this: The larger the world, the more diluted the knowledge of the writer, therefore the fewer his creative choices and the more clichéd the story. The smaller the world, the more complete the knowledge of the writer, therefore the greater his creative choices.

McKee argues that cliché is a symptom of a poorly defined setting. Setting creates characters, and characters create story. Without sufficient setting, writers assign vague descriptions to their characters, which read as a jumble of half truths copied from other stories.

I’ve applied this to my writing by outlining the setting and character backstories in greater detail, which has worked well so far.

What I’ve been up to

I’ve been in the American South visiting family since mid-May. It’s been a time mostly occupied by mourning the loss of a loved one and booking travel. In the remaining moments between work, I’ve been catching lightning bugs in the Georgia twilight (funny story to come in the future Nomad Life post for this leg of our adventure), perfecting my salad-making skills, and learning how to kill cockroaches.

I’ll be back with a new story in a couple of weeks!

Enjoy the journey,

1. The newsletter is moving to Sunday mornings

Going forward, I’ll send this newsletter out on Sunday mornings rather than ad-hoc when I finish a story.

This works well for me because it gives me Saturday to write the email incase I’ve had a busy week at work. I tend to work better with a schedule.

Sunday morning also makes sense as a time to sit down and read a chapter of fiction or a travel story, so I hope it will also work well for all of you!

2. The newsletter has a name!

After much procrastination and deliberation, I’ve finally landed on a name for my newsletter—The Storied Scrolls. My vision is that each issue will be like a scroll being delivered to you from me.

3. New content

I’ll be including a few recurring sections in the email each week. Keep reading to see examples and let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to read/see!

Here’s my first stab at the revamped newsletter and what it will look like going forward…

The Storied Scrolls 📜 #1

A burly man with red hair knocks on your door. You answer. His eyes are droopy and the stench of soured beer emanating from his knotted beard offends your nostrils.

“One silver,” he says, holding up a scroll with a green seal.

You fumble for your purse. There’s copper and gold, but no silver coins. You glance up and notice several scars slashed across his cheeks, the missing top half of his right ear, and the bend in his nose. He doesn’t look like the sort of man that negotiates.

You won some money last night at the joust betting on Sir William, so your err on the side of caution and toss him a gold coin.

The man snatches the coin from the air, drops the scroll on the ground, then turns around and belches as he walks away.

Keep scrolling to break the seal on the scroll and read about what I’ve been up to…

What I’ve published

I’ve just published Chapter 3 of Nomad Life titled, “Spicy Santa Fe.” This story covers the time we spent in Santa Fe hiking slot canyons, eating blue corn enchiladas, and working on a satellite internet connection.

Read Spicy Santa Fe

Who I’m missing

We’re 110 days into living nomadically. I’ve been experiencing my first bouts of homesickness this past week, so I’ve been missing all of my family, friends, and familiar places.

But today is the first Father’s Day I’ve ever not spent with my Dad, so I’m missing him a lot. Since we normally golf on Father’s Day, here’s a picture from our recent trip to Pebble Beach.

Love you, Dad!

What I’m watching

Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime. I know Jeremy Clarkson rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but I think he’s grown a lot as a person through the adventure of running his farm. There are still the funny, blundering idiot moments, but dare I say, he’s evolved into more of an empathetic, multi-leveled human.

I also think it’s funny that his girlfriend, Lisa, reminds me of a female version of James May.

What I’m eating

Watermelon & Grilled Halloumi Salad

Our kitchen in Jacksonville has no windows that open and a smoke detector that goes off whenever you open the oven. Given my proclivity to char (and sometimes burn) things, I’ve been sticking to foods that require minimal cooking.

I designed this recipe after I smelled a super ripe watermelon at the grocery store and thought it’d be fun to build a salad around it. I’ve never had watermelon in a salad before, but it tasted good!

What Skutull’s been up to

Skutull went to the groomer! They must have had fun with him because he came back with a cute little bow on his head.

Quote I’m pondering

“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

Enjoy the journey,

The story is titled, Weathered Pearls, and is about two young brothers who are home alone at their farm when a sick man collapses off of his horse outside their cottage.

I wrote the first draft several years ago, then came back to it last winter and rewrote it with the help of my editor. It’s been in the queue as “done and ready to publish” for several months, so I’m excited that I finally have the infrastructure setup to publish it into the wild.

Weathered Pearls is ~1500 words (3-5 pages of a normal book). I’m going to start small and gradually build up to pieces that more closely resemble a novel. Once I begin publishing longer stories, I’ll continue to break them up into chapters small enough to consume in one sitting. I’m starting with a 1500 word target, but I’d love feedback on if this feels too short or too long. I want each chapter to feel long enough that you can get into the story, but short enough that you don’t hesitate to click into the email when you see it arrive in your inbox.

Weathered Pearls is also the first chapter in a new collection of short stories I’m calling Tales of Twilight. Here’s the description of this story collection taken from my website:

Mortality is easy to neglect. Nature programs us to cope with the inevitability of our own death by burying it deep within the layers of our consciousness. Occasionally, a hand of the shadow breaks through, squeezing and twisting our minds, forcing us to take notice. We act. Then we forget, as the hand is pushed back down and buried under fresh soil.

Many people have searched for the meaning of life, but clarity only comes in those final moments, when we walk the dark path that we all must walk.

You can click on the button below to read Weathered Pearls. Once you finish, I’d love if you wrote a comment about what feeling you were left with at the end of the story.

**Note, you’ll have to come back to this email and click on the comment icon to comment—my website doesn’t have comments built into the story pages.

Read Weathered Pearls

Signing off from Jacksonville, Florida.

Enjoy the journey,

My vision for each chapter is to write the main section as an overview of that leg of the trip through the lens of a writer looking for inspiration. I’m also experimenting with a few new sections:

• Travel Stats: where I’ll put the dates we were in each location (differs from when I finish writing the article and post it), how many miles we traveled, etc.

• According to Skutull: where I’ll document my interpretation of Skutull’s experience in each location. He’s a very expressive and opinionated dog :).

• Our Trip: where I’ll publish a group of photos with captions that illustrate how we spent our time in each location.

The second chapter of Nomad Life is titled, Dolores, Dolores and covers the first leg of our journey, which we spent in Dolores, Colorado.

Read Dolores, Dolores

Stay tuned…

I’ll be publishing my first fictional short story next week. The title of the story is Weathered Pearls. I wrote the first draft of it several years ago, but came back to it earlier this year and revamped it with the help of my editor.

I started my writing adventure in December 2020 with a vision of publishing fiction. I’m excited my vision will finally come to life next week!

-Zack

On March 2nd, my wife, dog, and I closed on our house in Boulder, CO and started an adventure of indefinite travel. In addition to my newsletter/website acting as a destination for me to publish fiction, I also want to keep a travel diary so everyone can keep up with our adventure. I’m calling my series of travel stories, Nomad Life, and my vision is to both narrate our experiences and share inspiration I found as a writer.

Our plan is to live at each destination for 1-2 months, and at the end of each stay I’ll publish a story about that leg of our journey. We’re traveling around the US right now, but will hopefully be hopping across the pond to Europe in September. I clearly have some catching up to do as we’ve now been on the road for ~3 months, so here’s the first chapter of Nomad Life.

Read Story

My tea isn’t hot anymore, but it’s still lukewarm. I take a sip.

I’ve almost pressed the “publish” button for this post half a dozen times in the past week. 

I decided back in December 2020 to pursue a “focused hobby” in writing. The wheels have been in motion ever since. I hired a professional designer to create a logo and branding. I coded and deployed a website. I found an editor who encourages me and helps me grow.

The obvious, well-defined items have been checked off, and yet, it’s still unclear to me how to proceed. I’ve spent countless hours thinking about how I want to fit writing into my life. 

I could attempt the traditional publishing route, but getting your first book published is a difficult barrier to break through. And even among writers who successfully get their books on shelves, 99% don’t sell enough to make a dependable living.

My worst fear is that my writing becomes entombed inside my computer because my work never gets published. 

Right now, I know two things.

I want to write. And I want people to read what I write. Even if it’s only 100 people and I never make any money.

That’s what sparked the idea to publish stories one chapter at a time on my website. My ultimate goal is to someday publish print books, but there is something freeing about the ease of publishing my writing online, piece by piece, as soon as it’s finished. 

I like this strategy to start with because it maximizes the time I spend writing.

I’ve always been an unintentional jack-of-all-trades. I have a thousand interests that I zigzag back and forth between, searching for something that sticks.

Writing is the only thing that’s ever stuck. 

When I was a kid, my cousin and I stapled sheets of notebook paper together and wrote spin off stories to Pokemon, The Magic School Bus, and Charlie’s Angels.

In high school, I spent my weekends writing books I never finished or let anyone read. Ironically, I hated reading during this period of my life, but even then I was inspired to create stories.

In college, I used the precious free time I weaseled out of my demanding engineering curriculum to write while everyone else went to parties. Then I scheduled appointments at my college’s Writing Center where graduate students reviewed my work. This program was intended for undergraduates working on school assignments, but I brought chapters of random novels I was working on and loved getting live feedback as they read through.

Writing has always inspired me. It fills a void I can’t define. When I’m typing on my keyboard, it feels like I’m following a cosmic mission from the universe. It’s taken me 28 years, but I know now that writing is my calling.

So here it goes.

I’m going to hit “publish.”

And I look forward to the morning someday in the future when I’m looking out into nature, thinking nostalgically about this moment.

The moment I answered my calling.

Aaaaooooo!!!