Writing habits as the world (seemingly) collapses

How I’m getting my spark back without becoming engulfed.

Happy 2025! It’s been an incredibly long time since I sent out a blog post. As much as I did a lot (lived in three states, worked six jobs, four check engine lights) in 2024, I didn’t get as much writing done as I typically do. I’m trying to re-establish that part of me. It’s a big part that I missed last year.

There are deadlines coming up for multiple fellowships in which I have interest, so I set aside today to beef my resume back up and get my portfolio together. In the background, I have a window open on my iPad to ABC7 Los Angeles. As of this writing, they are the only news channel with federal permission to fly a helicopter over the Pacific Palisades. If you are unaware, a brush fire ignited in that area northwest of Los Angeles earlier this week. Assisted by the infamous Santa Ana winds, the fire grew over 500 acres in a matter of hours. As of this writing, it is 0% contained and three other fires have ignited.

For an hour or two, I’ve been watching reporters interview residents returning to decimated homes. The chopper’s aerial view shows houses completely engulfed, their roofs turning into glowing charcoal bits. I read this piece earlier, written by a science writer whom I’ve begun reading almost weekly (and who has an epic book about plant science). She speaks eloquently to what causes wildfires like this, and why, these days, wildfire season can last all year.

During periods of my life like this one, when I’m between gigs and getting restless, I find it beneficial to keep up with events like this. Of course, I don’t like natural disasters. Nobody does. But a newsday like this one is a good reminder of the need for strong science communicators. We’ve seen hundreds of examples this decade of how misinformation derails us. Science communication relies heavily on debunking incorrect facts. To me, it also relies on immersing yourself in science. I like to be in the field watching science as it happens. I like experiencing what the source is experiencing. I’m a visual person, and the immersion aspect allows me to take science and build an effective, powerful story.

Threat of layoffs, artificial intelligence, and anti-science politicians have deeply concerned me that the type of job I want will dissipate. But watching reporters like those at ABC7 gives me hope that journalists are motivated to keep going into the field and that their organizations are willing to send them. Obviously, local news stations typically go into the field, but it’s not often an entire station dedicates themselves to covering science. The ABC7 website had an interactive map of wildfire movement this morning. I’d never seen one like it, and it was a perfect example of good science communication for a general audience. It motivated me to keep working. It motivated me to keep educating others about science and writing.

I’m coming out the other side of 2024 feeling pretty tired. I think, annoyingly, I'm more exhausted from the level of change I experienced last year than I am of actually achieving something. One thing I’m recognizing, however, is that everything I did last year helped me learn to communicate better.

Writing is problem solving. That’s a shared trait between writing and science that draws me to the intersection where they meet.

Despite not having published much last year, I did extensive problem solving. Not just in my personal life, but across the jobs I worked. Among my biggest hurdles with writing is taking a piece one word at a time, rather than trying to start a piece based on what I want the ending to look like. Jumping ahead of yourself extinguishes your ability to build solutions as you go. The likelihood you’ll miss something increases. To write well, it’s worth it to go one sentence at a time.

So, to get myself back on track, that’s what I’ve been doing. I still have some essays to publish from my summer position, including on where femininity fits into science communication. To continue building my confidence back, I’ve been reworking my essays from a fresh perspective.

Something I’ve been doing more is reverse engineering the work done by my favorite writers. They’re my favorites for a reason, of course. Writers like Sabrina Imbler and Zoe Schlanger are unmatched in their abilities to saturate a reader in science. Yet, their styles are different from each other, and from my own. My writing background began more in the realm of fiction, drawing stories from the worlds in my head. For the bulk of science writers, that’s not the case.

So it’s been interesting in my free time to take essays written by people I admire and engineer them the way I would. This is a practice I dodged in college. I think I was always too nervous. It feels weird to take writing you love, written by someone who inspires you, and take it apart. It feels weirder to believe you can write it better. Yet, by doing so, you find problems along the way that you would’ve solved differently. There are plenty of ways to solve one problem. Every writer is going to do it differently. And my writing gives solutions, too.

I did my first professional science writing in 2019. It’s funny to say, but “back then”, the field was smaller than it is now. In the time since, we’ve had a Pandemic, several epidemics, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, microplastic breakthroughs, wars, and droughts. All things directly related to the natural sciences. All things that touch everybody, somehow, some way.

Oddly enough, the best way for me to get my work back on track in this fast-paced world has been to slow down.

Despite everything happening around me, I believe science journalism is still important. It might well be the most important kind of journalism right now.

I intend to get back out there. I intend to fight these fires.