You know when you have news to share, and maybe it’s noth­ing huge, but still you decide just to sit on it until a bet­ter time and place? And as you’re wait­ing, your orig­i­nal­ly not-such-a-big-deal news unfolds to reveal a new lay­er, and anoth­er, until you find your­self perched atop this thing that’s now blos­somed into some­thing you real­ly should have just men­tioned as it was happening?

There are some things I haven’t told you.

Last spring, a few weeks after River­head bought Hooked, I made a trip out to North Car­oli­na to vis­it my dad and step­mom. Being in the right time zone seemed a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to final­ly meet Pamela, my agent, and Sarah, my edi­tor, so I got up ear­ly one Wednes­day, hopped a com­muter flight, and spent the day in New York City.

(I’m aware of how this sounds, sweet­ies, but you know bet­ter. Lest you imag­ine a glam­orous, jet-set­ting scene, let me break down “spend­ing the day.” An hour’s dri­ve to the Myr­tle Beach Air­port. Two hours in flight. Anoth­er 50 min­utes in the cab from LaGuardia to Pamela’s tenth floor office in Mid­town, hostage to the back­seat TV par­rot­ing a tourism infomer­cial the whole way because I was too unso­phis­ti­cat­ed to know I could mute it. Three hours in the com­pa­ny of two remark­able women. A hus­tle to Grand Cen­tral to catch a shut­tle back to the air­port, repeat­ing the morning’s jour­ney in reverse. You should know that I hit Madi­son Avenue in the same bat­tered Romeos that have trod miles of Alaskan docks, nerves fer­ment­ing a Ray Troll hoody, a flip phone stuffed into my Carhartts, bat­tery held in place with black electrician’s tape. To thine own self be true, and all that.)

Pamela, Sarah and I met for lunch, where we talked about the year I’d have to fin­ish Hooked, and the near-impos­si­bil­i­ty of doing any writ­ing dur­ing the fish­ing sea­son. Cock­ing her head, Sarah asked, “Have you thought about apply­ing for any residencies?”

I hadn’t – and won­dered why not, as she described pro­grams of rad­i­cal hos­pi­tal­i­ty, pro­vid­ing free room and board, even meals, in their sup­port of writ­ers and artists.

I start­ed research­ing res­i­den­cies that night, guid­ed by Nan­cy Lord’s post on 49 Writ­ers. Some didn’t sound like my kind of place. Too exclu­sive, too invest­ed in a Cap­i­tal A Artiste scene for me and my taped-togeth­er flip phone. But I swooned over hum­ble retreat cen­ters nes­tled in remote set­tings, imag­in­ing Hooked’s birth among waters and moun­tains that mir­rored its nar­ra­tive. In these sanc­tu­ar­ies, my book would be mid­wifed by aun­ties and uncles whose hearts beat with the urgency of expe­ri­enc­ing, peo­ple who under­stood the neces­si­ty of con­nect­ing with the wild places around us, as sure­ly as the wild places with­in us.

Wait, I real­ized. This place exists in Bellingham’s own backyard.

I’d long heard friends rave about the North Cas­cades Insti­tute. Perched between Sour­dough Moun­tain and Dia­blo Lake, NCI’s Envi­ron­men­tal Learn­ing Cen­ter is locat­ed two hours from Belling­ham, the last stop before High­way 20 clos­es for the win­ter. Com­mit­ted to con­serv­ing and restor­ing North­west envi­ron­ments through edu­ca­tion, they offer year-round cours­es on the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al his­to­ry of the North Cas­cades. Moun­tain School and Youth Lead­er­ship Adven­tures to inspire future gen­er­a­tions. Sem­i­nars and field excur­sions for adults. Even a Mas­ter of Edu­ca­tion grad­u­ate program.

The one thing I didn’t see, scour­ing NCI’s web­site? A writer’s residency.

Even if that’s not some­thing they do, maybe they’d be will­ing to con­sid­er it.

That was my cre­ative, prob­lem-solv­ing self speak­ing. She ratio­nal­ized that I might as well ask; the worst they could do was say no. Sure­ly their rejec­tion would be kinder than my inner crit­ic, a beast cur­rent­ly shriek­ing with derision.

Who do you think you are, ask­ing for some­thing spe­cial, entry into a pro­gram that doesn’t even exist?

What is it that makes ask­ing for help so hard? As an Amer­i­can and an Aad­sen, I’m dou­bly dosed with the stig­ma against admit­ting I can’t do every­thing myself. When peo­ple talk about the pow­er and beau­ty of being vul­ner­a­ble, I nod along, ful­ly on board with the con­cept of voic­ing what I need, while silent­ly hop­ing the guilty eye flick­er doesn’t reveal my hypocrisy. Ask­ing for a sanc­tu­ary to write my book felt like plead­ing for an inter­ven­tion. My self-dis­ci­pline is so weak, my fears and self-doubt so strong, that I actu­al­ly need to hide in the moun­tains to write this book I love, the sto­ry I’m here to tell. Oh, Christ on toast… This was ridicu­lous, even to me. I would ask – and in this instance, I would ask from the priv­i­leged cush­ion of connections.

I tapped a quick email to my friend Bet­sy. She’d know if this was an impos­si­ble idea; Bet­sy had spent three years work­ing as a cook at the Envi­ron­men­tal Learn­ing Cen­ter. (Con­nec­tion #1.) Before we met, she’d known me through my salmon: NCI’s Food­shed Ini­tia­tive shows their com­mit­ment to local farm­ers and fish­er­men, includ­ing Ner­ka Sea Frozen Salmon. (Con­nec­tion #2.) Then Bet­sy for­ward­ed my query on to her mom, Anne, who’s worked at NCI for the past five years. (Yahtzee.)

Anne proved the most enthu­si­as­tic ally a per­son could have. We exchanged a flur­ry of emails, explor­ing Hooked and NCI’s shared val­ues. Anne’s excite­ment fueled my own. I real­ized this wasn’t just one person’s spe­cial request, but a prospec­tive trail to blaze for future writ­ers. If NCI said yes, we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn an exper­i­ment into some­thing lasting.

Anne sub­mit­ted our pro­pos­al to NCI’s board. As the weeks slipped by, self-doubt crept in. I applied to anoth­er writer’s colony (one that actu­al­ly invit­ed appli­cants), went fish­ing, and waited.

 *****

When Joel hurt his knee last April, I stopped writ­ing. Care­giv­ing became a full-time posi­tion right up to the day I went fish­ing. Once in Alas­ka, it became appar­ent that this would be a dif­fer­ent sort of sea­son than I’d grown accus­tomed to, fish­ing with my part­ner. Despite crew­ing for friends, peo­ple I love, I was on their boats as crew. I didn’t write any­thing “good” all summer.

Instead I stud­ied our sur­round­ings more inten­tion­al­ly, exam­in­ing details so ingrained in my life that I rarely see them. What’s the sound of salt water beads flick­ing from the incom­ing trolling wire? How far off-shore do you have to go before the Ton­gass green coast­line fades to Joe Upton’s Alas­ka blues? Weeks at sea loos­ened my mind, a free-rang­ing drift of con­scious­ness that nosed into inner truths and pat­terns I’d nev­er rec­og­nized. With only the briefest moments to steal, I took notes on any sur­face I could find.

A dif­fer­ent sort of inked… Tran­scrib­ing flesh onto paper.

Hooked will be a bet­ter, more insight­ful book because of those real­iza­tions, and I couldn’t have had them any­where else. Know­ing this, my chest still tight­ened every time I glanced at the cal­en­dar hang­ing on the cab­in wall. As our family’s lone bread­win­ner, I had to be fish­ing… But every day fish­ing was anoth­er word­less day clos­er to Hooked’s May 27 dead­line. Every time I felt pan­ic ris­ing, I thought of the North Cas­cades Insti­tute, grasp­ing hope in the as-yet-undashed pos­si­bil­i­ty. Star­ing at the rugged South­east Alaskan coast that’s been my life’s most con­sis­tent image of home, I won­dered if my book might live among moun­tains like these in Washington.

 *****

The colony reject­ed my appli­ca­tion. Six days lat­er, I got an email from NCI’s Kristofer Gilje. “We are excit­ed about the prospect of you spend­ing some time at the ELC next win­ter writ­ing your book.” He described an offer stag­ger­ing in its gen­eros­i­ty – pri­vate hous­ing for three months, mid-Novem­ber to mid-Feb­ru­ary, meals in their din­ing hall – then asked, “Are you still interested?”

And with that, the North Cas­cades Insti­tute and I said yes to each other.

If you cen­ter your cur­sor in the mid­dle of this pho­to, then slide down to Dia­blo Lake’s top shore­line meet­ing that tiny thread of High­way 20, that’s where you’ll find me this win­ter. Thanks, NCI. (Pho­to by John Scur­lock.)

That’s the “before,” friends. Stand by for Part Two, the sto­ry of what hap­pened when Joel and I actu­al­ly wemt up to the ELC cam­pus last week. If the writers/artists among you have res­i­den­cy sto­ries of your own, I’d love to hear them. What worked for you? What did­n’t? I wel­come your advice.