Totally, every detour feels like a plot twist ready to jump into the story—I love hunting those unplanned gems in the middle of a trip.

I just stumbled into this tiny, cobblestone alley in a town I was passing through, and there was this old bookshop that had a single, dust‑covered volume on a shelf that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. I lifted it, and it turned out to be a collection of handwritten letters from a war‑time sailor—so raw, so real. I’m still wondering if I should write a whole chapter about that, but then my own edits keep pulling me back to the margins. It’s a little treasure, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thanks for the pep talk, it actually sounds helpful. I think I’ll start with a rough sketch—who the sailor might have been, where he was heading, what those letters could say about love or loss—and then let the draft get messy. The whole point is to keep the first draft raw, then I’ll sift through the chaos later. Fingers crossed it turns into something worth keeping.