Flying By The Seat Of My Primark Pants
I was visiting some of my girlfriends in Philly and bought a pair of pants from Primark. Cute gray, pleated dress pants. Affordable, comfortable, and stylish—the holy trinity of shopping in your twenties. And it has become scarily apparent to me that my undeniable excitement for these pants says a lot about where I’m at in my life.
I’m wearing them to work tomorrow. And frankly, I’m psyched about it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration lately. And not just the kind that comes in a size 6 with pockets and a stretchy waist. I’ve been going through a heavy round of developmental edits for Summer Rayne in the real-life Lavallette, in disbelief that these stories I’ve written over years of falling in love with this place will actually be available to real people. I still can’t say, “I’m going to be a published author” without a knee-jerk instinct to pinch myself.
And the inspiration for the entire series was actually contingent on one life-changing decision I made four years ago.
After my freshman year of college, I knew about this restaurant on the Shore that was hiring servers. I’d never lived in Lavallette full-time, honestly, my life was almost entirely in New York. I loved the weeks of my life that I’d spend on the Shore, for Fourth of July cookouts and family cornhole tournaments and cold plunges, but that’s all they’d ever been—fleeting weeks I’d crave like a drug all year long.
I’d never lived alone before. I’d never been a waitress. I didn’t have any friends in Lavallette. Yet somehow, even then, at nineteen years old, I knew that Lavallette was bound to be one of the great loves of my life. So, I wanted to immerse myself in it, to give myself the chance to know it like a local. To have a favorite coffee place and make Shore friends. I wanted a life there, in whatever form I could have it.
So, I asked my parents (because I was nineteen and probably out of my mind) and though nervous, they trusted that I knew why I wanted this. So, I applied for a job at The Crab’s Claw Inn, an old seafood joint and well-known Lavallette staple, and just a few months later, I was moving in for my first full summer on the Shore. And to this day, it is one of the best and most formative decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
It was an indescribable freedom. The type where late night shifts, fast friendships, and the trauma bonds of the service industry crafted this undeniably unique time of life. I wanted to put it in a bottle and cork it, so that I’d never forget the magic of being that person—the server, the friend, the beach bum, the local. For three summers, I got to know the greatest kind of love, the kind that truly and irrevocably never turns off. The kind that always shows up. The kind that inspires three novels—an anthology of the stories and anecdotes of a Jersey girl.
My greatest sources of inspiration have been founded in decisions I make when I fly by the seat of my pants. Decisions that scare me, that come with risk. Decisions that mean sacrificing aspects of the life I know for the sake of the one I want to know. It’s not easy to make a choice at the expense of safety and comfort, but the ones I’ve committed to have made me into a million versions of myself, none of whom I’d trade for anything. Because every one has taught me something I hadn’t known before… love, heartbreak, kindness, patience, grief.
I’m not too sure why I wrote these books. Sometimes I think it’s because even during those summers, I knew how much I’d grieve the experience once it was over. The veracity of knowing I was in the good old days before they were old. I vividly recall nights when I’d be driving back from a shift, acutely aware of how much I’d miss that place, that life, and those unbelievable friends who made it so worthwhile. To me, that’s inspiration—wanting to chronicle a story so entwined in your heart in mind, that you can’t help but tell it.
These books are like love letters—a way of reminding myself how lucky I am to love something like that. To love something so deeply that goodbye feels like the end of one life, and the beginning of whatever comes after it.
Summer Rayne is the first book in the Shore Summer Series, coming to Olive Press Publishing in 2027. They are the books of my heart, and I feel unbelievably grateful to have the opportunity to publish them with such a wonderful team. I’m psyched to bring readers to Lavallette one book at a time.
-Julia ♥
