Buffalo Valley Elegy

Living in the moment in Appalachia

Greetings from Tennessee!

Before I explain what I’m still doing here in Tennessee I want to thank everyone who read last week’s dispatch from the Green Day show in Nashville. I don’t pay much attention to the data that’s available to me here at Substack, but an awful lot of you liked it and, as a result, there’s a few more of you today. If you like music, and books and books about music, you’re in the right place. Thanks for being here!

I’m at a writing retreat in rural Tennessee a little less than an hour north of the Alabama border.

I’m on a five-acre farm with donkeys, peafowl, two dogs, ten cats, and more chickens than I can count. Sadly, there’s one less rooster than there was yesterday after a bobcat dragged one off into the woods. I don’t have a car and the nearest town is twenty minutes away. It’s pretty isolated and, to be honest, I worried about how I would handle it, but so far, so good.

My routine here is pretty simple. I get up and make coffee in a tiny coffee pot. When those two cups are done I make another pot and have something to eat. I bought some grits at Walmart on my way out of Nashville and I make a skillet every other day. I tell you I’m living my best life here in Tennessee.

I write all morning and into the afternoon. When it’s time for a break, I walk down to the Buffalo River. It’s not far but there’s a lot to explore. Little fish swim in the shallows, wolf spiders dart around the rocks, and the trees are alive with birds. It’s right in the thick of Appalachia and reminds me of the days I spent on the New River when I attended Radford University in southwest Virginia.

At some point during my jaunt along the river, an idea for the book I’m working on will arrive. Because I’m at the end of the book, these ideas are usually solutions to one problem or another as I work to resolve the story’s many mysteries, tie up loose ends, and sentence characters to their fates.

In the evening I talk to Nuvia, chat with my host, and listen to the Dodgers on the radio. The Dodgers had a miserable July but have righted the ship since then with the third best record since the All-Star Break.

I thought I’d do a lot of reading since a person can’t write all the time. I got a bunch of books at Bouchercon that I’m eager to get to, but the writing has been going so well I just keep going.

I don’t want to say how much I’ve written or how much further I have to go because I don’t want to jinx myself. The writing has been going so well that some days it feels like I’m on skis. I’m not sure if that analogy makes sense, but if you’re a writer you probably know what I mean.

I’m confident I’ll accomplish what I’ve set out to do here and next week I’ll tell you a little more about what I’ve been working on, but right now I want to live in the moment and not get too far ahead of myself—something I could use a bit more of when I get back to San Diego.

It’s not been all work and no play. Last Friday I went to Florence, Alabama for its First Friday celebration with my host and another guest at the farm. There was live music and craft booths and a food truck with fresh beignets. It was something to look forward to and I had a lovely time on a beautiful summer evening.

Now if only I can just find someone in Nashville to take me to the all-day hardcore show outside of Huntsville this weekend…

What about hardcore?

Oh, just the Linda Lindas casually dropping an absolute ripper that will melt your face off.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all of those, consider preordering my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get my deepest gratitude and Orca Alert! on most Sundays. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, crime, and killer whales. Orca Alert is currently on hiatus while I’m in Tennessee but will be back soon.