Greetings Reader!
I went quiet for a few months. Not because I ran out of things to say, of course. If you know me at all, you know that’s never the problem. I went quiet because the book needed everything I had.
And now, here’s the sentence I’ve been waiting to write:
Eating Adverbs publishes this spring. The e-book arrives in May. The physical book follows in June.
I’m not going to pretend that feels casual. It doesn’t. I started writing this book because of a moment in 1984 when I was too terrified to walk into a restaurant alone. The fact that it’s about to exist in the world - with a cover, an ISBN, and actual pages - still catches me off guard at odd moments. Like when I’m washing dishes. Or staring at a proof copy on my desk and thinking, “This is real now, Tommy.”
So welcome back to The Adverbial Life. I’m glad you’re still here. Let’s catch up.
TIME
The Countdown That Doesn't Feel Like a Countdown
I thought the final stretch of writing a book would feel triumphant: trumpets, confetti, maybe one of those slow-motion movie walks where everything goes golden.
Instead, it feels like the last mile of a marathon I didn’t train well enough for. My editor Stephanie and I spent sixteen weeks on structured revisions: pass after pass through the manuscript, hunting filler words, tightening transitions, converting every bulleted list into actual prose, and chasing down continuity errors that had been hiding since draft one. We did a full pass on the word “just” alone - which, if you know the book, you’ll appreciate the irony of. The word that inspired the title was also the word that had quietly infiltrated every third paragraph.
The manuscript is now in copy editing. I’m reaching out to authors and researchers whose work shaped the book, asking if they’d be willing to offer a few words of early praise. Some of these people are writers I’ve admired for years, so every time I hit “send” on one of those emails, my stomach does a small backflip.
Some have either not read my email or have chosen not to respond. A few have sent polite, “Thanks for including my work in you book” emails with nothing more. Every once in a while, though, I get a nicer response. For instance, from Rolf Potts (one of my favorites) I got this response:
Congrats on the book, Tommy! (I like the title.) Glad to hear that Vagabonding resonated with you, and was an influence.
I'm happy to look at your work, though these days I receive too many requests for blurbs to offer them to anyone apart from former students and longtime colleagues.
Good luck in getting your book out into the world!
It’s not an endorsement (yet) but it’s cool to get some words of support from an author I respect.
DEGREE
A Taste of the Finished Book
The book has changed since the last time I shared anything from it. Entire sections have been rewritten. The voice is tighter. The research is better integrated. Rather than tell you about it, I’d rather just show you.
This is from Chapter 8, "Boldly." It's December 1989, my 25th birthday week, and I'm solo backpacking through northern France near the end of a three-month trip.
That evening, at the suggestion of the hostel staff, I found a small restaurant run out of a local family’s home. I splurged: foie gras, escargot, and a glass of champagne. My funds were low, but something about the evening called for ceremony. A small celebration of having brought myself this far. I was 25, alone, and oddly at peace. A little melancholy, yes, but also proud.
The next morning, the four of us from the hostel decided to visit Mont Saint-Michel. We split a cab. The bus would’ve been cheaper, but the moment felt worth it.
Mont Saint-Michel rises out of the Normandy coast like something imagined before architecture had rules. Today, it’s connected to the mainland by a sleek, low-profile bridge built in 2014 to let the tides flow freely again. But in 1989, the original solid causeway was still there, stretching across the tidal flats like a narrow spine. On either side, the land shimmered: silver, wind-streaked, vast. Not beach, not sea. Something in between.
Approaching it felt like crossing into another kind of time. In winter, when the wind pressed low and the crowds thinned, the island felt unclaimed. Watchful, still, waiting.
When we arrived, the abbey had closed for a ministerial visit, so we wandered the deserted town. The tide was low all day, and the view gave an impression of timelessness. Eventually, the abbey opened. The staff handed us guidebooks and told us to explore on our own. Stone and silence, and space to wander. At some point, we drifted apart. I found an open door and followed a narrow spiral staircase up and up and up until I emerged onto the roof, among the flying buttresses. I know I was not supposed to be there, but no one stopped me.
The view stunned me: vast, wind‑swept, impossible. The abbey sat like a crown on a rock surrounded by a vast, glistening marshland. Dozens of shining rivulets stretched toward the horizon, catching the winter light. I stood alone, wrapped in wind and wonder, feeling both impossibly small and somehow infinite. I had followed a hunch, climbed without knowing where it led, and found something I didn’t know I was looking for.
That’s a small piece of what’s in the book. There are fifteen chapters of moments like this one, and I can’t wait for you to read the rest.
MANNER
How You Finish a Book (Messily)
I want to be transparent about what this process has actually looked like, because I think there’s a version of author newsletters that makes everything seem polished and effortless. This has been neither.
There was a week in February when Stephanie flagged a pattern in my writing she called the “polished triad” - places where I’d unconsciously stacked three pretty words in a row, and the sentence sounded good but said nothing. I had to go through the entire manuscript and kill them. It felt like removing ornaments from a Christmas tree until only the branches were left. But the branches turned out to be the interesting part.
And there was the afternoon I read the final chapter aloud, alone in my living room, and cried. Not because it was sad. Because it was done. Or close enough to done that I could finally feel the weight of it.
PLACE
Where to Find Me Between Now and Launch
While I was heads-down on the manuscript, a few things were still happening in the background that you might have missed:
The Adverb of the Day. For the past six months, I’ve been posting a daily adverb on Instagram and Facebook/LinkedIn - one for each weekday, rotating through the book’s five categories: Monday is Time, Tuesday is Degree, Wednesday is Manner, Thursday is Place, Friday is Frequency. If you’re not following along yet, find me @eatingadverbs on Instagram or my personal profile on LinkedIn.
The website. eatingadverbs.com has been refreshed with new content, including revised versions of previous Adverbial Life newsletters posted as blog essays. If you missed an earlier issue or want to revisit one, they’re all there.
The book itself. I’ll be sharing pre-order details soon. If you want to be the first to know, just stay on this list. You’re already in the right place.
FREQUENCY
Rhythms, Returns, and Repetitions
Song on Repeat – “Sisyphus” by Andrew Bird
I've been playing this one on repeat for weeks, and not for the reason you'd expect. The song takes the old myth - the man condemned to push a boulder uphill for eternity - and does something with it that Camus would have appreciated: what if Sisyphus just . . . stops? What if he lets go of the boulder and walks away?
It's not defeat. It's clarity.
Albert Camus argued that we should imagine Sisyphus happy - finding meaning in the push itself. Bird takes it a step further: what if the push was never yours to begin with? What if the game you've been playing was someone else's design, and the boldest move is to stop playing altogether?
I've done that recently, on several levels in my life. Quietly, without announcement. Let go of a few boulders that I'd been pushing uphill out of habit, obligation, or the assumption that stopping would mean failure. Turns out, setting them down felt less like giving up and more like finally trusting my own judgment about what deserves my energy.
That's the thing about independence. Sometimes it's not about climbing. It's about choosing which hills are actually yours.
Book I Keep Returning To: “The Belgariad” series by David & Leigh Eddings
I've read these books roughly thirty times in thirty years, and I'm in the middle of them again right now. That's not a recommendation, it's a confession (although I highly recommend the books, too).
I fell into sword and sorcery in the mid-1970s when I first read Tolkien, and I never climbed out. Eddings' work has always been my favorite. He built a world that feels absolutely real: the politics, the landscapes, the characters who bicker like actual people instead of imaginary characters. Going back to these books is like visiting old friends who never change and never expect you to explain yourself.
Right now, I need that. My brain has been so consumed with finishing Eating Adverbs while juggling a full-time job, volunteering for the Midwest Arts XPO (which amounts to a second full-time job), and maintaining at least a tiny fraction of a social life - that by the time I get home at night, I have nothing left for anything intellectual. I can't write another word. I can barely form a sentence that isn't about adverbs.
So, I disappear into fantasy. And I don't think that's avoidance. I think it's a form of self-care that doesn't get enough credit. Sometimes the most independent thing you can do is stop producing and let someone else tell you a story for a while.
Ritual: Five Things – Every Morning
On January 1, 2011, I started listing five things I was grateful for each day and posting them on social media. A close friend who was battling cancer had been doing the same, and her consistency inspired me. Some days the list is profound. Some days it's "my car started" and "the coffee was hot." I haven't missed a day in over fifteen years, except during silent meditation retreats when I listed them quietly in my head.
People sometimes ask if it ever feels mechanical. Of course it does. There are mornings when the list is a negotiation between my brain and my willingness to sit still long enough to notice anything. But here's what I've learned: the mornings when it's hardest to write are the mornings when it matters most. The practice isn't about feeling grateful. It's about looking until you find something worth noticing, especially when nothing is popping into my brain easily.
During the months I went quiet on this newsletter, the gratitude posts never stopped. They were the one thing I didn't set down. In a season of deadlines, revision passes, and the general chaos of trying to finish a book while living a life, five lines in the morning kept me tethered to what was actually working. Not what was late. Not what needed fixing. What was steady.
If you've never tried a daily gratitude practice, I won't oversell it. I'll just say this: it rewired something in me that fifteen years of good intentions never touched. Start with three things if five feels like too many. Write them by hand if you can. And don't wait until you feel grateful to begin.
Your Turn!
I’d love to hear from you. It’s been a while, and I’ve missed this conversation.
Here’s what I’m curious about: What’s one solo experience you’ve had since November that surprised you? A meal, a trip, a walk, a moment of quiet that turned into something more than you expected.
It doesn’t have to be dramatic. The small ones are usually the best ones.
Reply to this email and tell me about it. I’ll be featuring a few responses in an upcoming issue (with your blessing, of course).
Living Your Adverbial Lice
One-on-One Coaching
If something in this newsletter stirred a question you’d like to explore, I offer one-on-one coaching.
Curious? Email me and let’s start with a free 20-minute discovery call. No pressure, just a conversation.
This newsletter is back. I plan to send it regularly between now and launch and beyond.
Thank you for sticking around through the silence. The best part of this project has been the replies. Keep them coming!
Adverbially Yours,
Tommy
