Inspiration & Perspiration:
Danielle Trussoni’s Newsletter

June 13th, 2020

“Genius is 1 Percent Inspiration and 99 Percent Perspiration.”
– Thomas Edison

 Good morning from the writing cave, where I am surrounded by handwritten pages. I’ve mentioned it here before, but I have begun to write the first drafts of my novels longhand. It began with my memoir, The Fortress, which was giving me trouble. I would sit at the computer and agonize over how to write a certain descriptive phrase, or set up a scene, or bring in the setting. Finally, out of frustration, I took out a yellow legal pad and my fountain pen and just began writing. It went so well that I ended up writing the entire book that way. I then typed my handwritten draft into a Word file, which became a way of revising and rewriting.

I’ve been writing a lot this week, but I’ve also been doing lots of appearances on Zoom. Have you been to a literary event on Zoom yet? It is actually quite fun, and more intimate than a bookstore event. I do love reading in stores, but I’ve found that Zoom events allow for more questions and a sense of really getting close to my audience.

Here are some great events coming up that you can join:
Oblong Books
McNally Jackson (I have an event here June 26)
Books Are Magic

All of these events are free and open to anyone who has Zoom.

I had an event last night at the Brattleboro Vermont Literary Festival, which has gone entirely virtual. Their local paper featured The Ancestor, which brought a lot of people to join us.

While there has been a lot of work (the 99% perspiration part of the Inspiration * Perspiration equation ), I have had some moments of tranquility and inspiration this week. I have been doing some gardening.

Our roses are still blooming:

And our peonies have opened up and are blooming:

I’m proud that these flowers are alive and well, as I am not great in the garden. Most of my flowers have not made it this far!

It was Hadrien’s birthday this week. We celebrated with a strawberry tart from The Flour Shop, our (amazing!) local bakery. Hadrien prefers strawberry tart to birthday cake, so that’s what we get him every year.

Here is Hadrien standing by the Hudson River:

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Hadrien is the other creative half of Crypto-Z. We’ve had some incredible news about our audio drama podcast: We had over 50K downloads the first month, which placed us in the top 10 Fiction Podcasts on Apple Podcasts. That is a little like hitting the bestseller list. If you haven’t heard Crypto-Z yet, get ye to apple podcasts and subscribe here.

Thank you for sharing my week! I hope yours is inspired.

Yours,