i'm writing a book

a little life in el salvador

this book is a raw, unfiltered look at what it’s like to leave everything behind at 25 to find yourself.

it’s my travelogue and coming-of-age story, written in a new, untraditional format. photographs from each destination exist side-by-side with my observations and encounters, as well as reflections on purpose, identity, and the deeper meaning of life.

sri lanka, nov ‘23

kora! kora! kora! 

i bolt up in bed and throw the covers off. did someone outside just call my name? 

silence; a few beats of frozen stillness at dawn. i'm about to lay back down when i hear my name again – a high-pitched woman’s voice, shouting: kora! kora! kora!

what the…? i throw a shirt on and run outside. my heart is pounding: my host family recently had a newborn, and i fear the worst. uhh... guys? i shout into the black void of the yard below. everything okay? 

my words fall like droplets on the surface of a pond, reverberating slightly then stilled into silence again. no response.

suddenly, i hear a rustling in the trees next door. squinting my eyes through the first rays of morning light, i spy a bright green shape perched on top of the branches. i scratch my head. is that… a parrot?

as if to respond, the bird spreads his wings, cocks his head and squawks: hola! hola! hola!

for the past 3 weeks, i’ve been living in a tiny beach town on the coast of el salvador.

the days are simple, simpler than anything i have ever experienced. every day is beautifully, monotonously the same: i wake up at 7am, surf, work on my book for a few hours. then i go to spanish class and surf again at sunset; after dinner i write some more. i’m exhausted by 8pm, can barely keep my eyes open at 9, and am almost always asleep by 10. now rinse and repeat for the 30-some days i’m here. 

on tuesdays and thursdays i teach a local boy english. he is 16, bleach-blonde haired, and (of course) an excellent surfer. to teach, i think, is to learn, too; this week’s chapter was on non-western literature, and we read a nigerian novel together. i’ll admit: i was a bit worried i wasn’t cool enough for him when we first started; what do high schoolers even like these days? still, i think i’ve gradually gained his respect as laidback but firm teacher – who lets him raincheck class when the surf is pumping (a reasonable excuse, by my book…) but also makes sure he turns in his assignments on time.

el salvador, feb ‘24

i live above a surf shack on the main street, two minutes walk from the beach. we call it the main street, but really it’s the only street that runs through town. it’s a bit of a sound tunnel, this street; i hear everything – and i mean everything – from my little nook above the shop. i hear, without fail, the grocery truck that comes into town every morning, jolting me out of sleep with its loudspeakers blaring: frutas! leche! huevos!; i hum along to the choral hymns from the church next door, starting with the service at 4pm on the dot every day; i dream hazily through the street dogs yapping and raising a general ruckus in the dust outside at night. 

when i first arrived, i slept with earplugs to block the noise out. how can i sleep with all this noise? i thought to myself. but i stopped wearing them after a few days. it felt almost wrong to replace the natural soundtrack of the town with a stuffed, artificial silence. instead i've learned to sleep with, and perhaps love, the symphony of life here: the sound of tiny feet tapping across the roof as squirrels run overhead; the chirp of geckos up in the rafters; the rooster that starts crowing at 3am (no, not at dawn like a normal chicken). i slumber through the joyous whoops of teenagers biking past after dinner, through the intimate laughter wafting from the pupuseria¹ across the street, through even the incessant chattering of that damn parrot next door…

sometimes i’m typing away on my laptop in the afternoon with the blinds drawn when a baby’s cry floats in from my host family’s house, followed by his mother’s gentle coos. and it pierces my reverie, temporarily, to remind me that there is life outside, beyond my little studio, up and down the street in the dust and old houses and pupuserias all around me – a world of babies crying, passing conversations, couples making love, chickens screeching their heads off. and it pushes me to keep writing.

because isn’t that the responsibility of a writer, after all? to breathe stories into the mosaic of the mundane… to give life where others think there is none.

vietnam, jan ‘24

ok, ok. let’s talk about the book.

i’ve crossed 5 continents in the past 10 months in pursuit of a lifelong dream of mine: to travel the world in my 20s. 

the journey has been full of ups and downs. yes – i'm traveling the world, and it’s been so, so beautiful. the other day i saw a humpback whale breaching the waves from the patio of my spanish class. i pinch myself sometimes to remind myself how lucky i am to be here. 

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but it’s also been hard – so much harder than i could have ever imagined. i have never lived amongst so much uncertainty and doubt, been so entrenched in it it’s almost become a second skin. i walked away from a life i loved, left behind a lucrative career because i wanted to explore what truly fulfills me, discover what else is possible for this life of mine. who am i if not an engineer? what is my calling? does such a thing even exist? how can i be happy?

my book chronicles this crazy, transformative journey of mine, starting with leaving hawaii 10 months ago. it’s both a travelogue and a coming-of-age story. most importantly, it’s written in real-time as my journey progresses – not by some successfully guy who eventually “made it” and looks back on his life decades later. the book is a raw, unfiltered look at what it’s like to leave everything behind to find yourself as a 25-year-old who – like everyone else – is trying to figure it out as i go along.

i’m writing in a new, untraditional format: the book comprises of 50% text and 50% photography. photographs from each destination exist side-by-side with my personal observations, travel stories, and reflections on purpose, identity, and more. it is vulnerable, introspective, and (i hope) insightful. and it will be unlike anything written before.

some of you already know this has been on my radar for quite some time; it’s the reason i started this substack in the first place. in the past month, i’ve finally started putting the book together, outlining the chapters, looking at what i’ve written already and filling in the rest of the story to weave my story through each destination. the writing process has been going well – great, even. i feel recharged and recalibrated; i wake up every day excited to keep chipping away. i haven’t felt this excited about anything in a long time.

that’s not to say it isn’t hard. because it is. how completely, obviously self-evident that i’m typing this: yes, kora, writing a book is fucking hard. nothing feels worse than days when inspiration runs as dry as an old well in the saharan desert, when i’m so so tired of reading and re-reading the same words over and over again to no avail. i feel extremely lucky to have a few writing friends (

Jeremy Scharf

,

Michaela Kerem

) lending their time to my first drafts.²

i’ll take this opportunity, too, to finally talk about my paid subscription: for the cost of a cup of coffee every month ($5!), you can support me on my journey to get this book to bookstores, bathrooms, and backpacks all over the world.

in return, paid subscribers will receive:

• regular, behind-the-scenes updates on my book

• early chapter previews

• exclusive access to ama’s (ask-me-anything)

• acknowledgements in the book

• and, of course, my undying love for all of time.

if you’re unable to support with a paid subscription, don’t worry. i appreciate your being here all the same.

el salvador, el salvador. we lost power the other night: my room got so hot i went to sleep on the beach. as i lay there on a towel and a makeshift sand-pillow, i felt something move against my foot. it was a hermit crab, trekking his way uphill under the half-moon. i thought back to that one sunrise on the beach in sri lanka, only a few months ago.

i came to this town because i wanted be somewhere distraction-free, somewhere far from the crowds and small enough to feel like a village. i wanted to surf every day, live a simple life by the sea, pick up a little spanish along the way. and above all, i wanted space to write, space to be alone, far from the reaches of social calls and city life, in place where i knew nobody, wasn’t beholden to anyone.

it’s a bit hermitic of me to come here, i know. walden-esque. but i think of georgia o’keeffe, who produced some of her best work in isolation at her ranch in new mexico, and george orwell, who wrote 1984 from a remote island off the coast of scotland. art needs space to thrive; just let me breathe in this salt-weathered air a little longer.

love always,
kora ♥

thank you

Jack Dixon

&

Sandra Yvonne

for proofreading earlier versions of this post.

1. a restaurant that sells pupusas, the el salvadoran national dish – a corn or rice tortilla stuffed with ingredients (beans, cheese, meat etc.)

2. if you’re interested in being a close reader of my second and third drafts, feel free to drop me a note.