Chasing Fog Book Club: Chapter 2

pixie led

Foggintor (a colour version of the chapter opener)

Hello again, welcome to Chasing Fog Book Club!

I’m focusing on one chapter of my book each month. Each chapter of the book is set in a different foggy place, looks at a type of fog, and is guided by a sense. If you missed chapter one, you’ll find it here. This is Chapter Two, which is set on Dartmoor, features a type of fog called being pixie led, and is guided by the sense of self. Here I am, in the foggy woods again, reading you a section of this chapter:

‘My Fog-Self’, Chasing Fog’s second chapter, introduces two of the book’s key motifs: the fog-self, and the idea that there are white things that glow in the fog which can guide us on our way. On Dartmoor — in this chapter — we find white sheep, white ponies, white china clay, white puffball mushrooms and white quartz, but if you look closely, you will find white way markers of the path scattered throughout the text of Chasing Fog.

Chasing Fog’s epigraph (and the concept of the fog-self, which became a connective thread for the whole book) comes from a poem by Alice Oswald called ‘Mist’, which I read during my Dartmoor trip.

it amazes me when mist
weeps as it lifts

and a crow
calls down to me in its treetop voice
that there are webs and drips
and actualities up there

and in my fog-self shocked and grey
it startles me to see the sky

From Mist by ALICE OSWALD (read the full poem here)

‘When I first read the phrase ‘fog-self’, it rang in my mind with bright clarity. I too have a fog-self, I realised. The person I become when surrounded by fog is a nebulous, hazy, free and drifting version of myself.’

In the writing of this chapter, I delved into the idea of a fog-self — the sense that fog can transporting and transformative, allowing us to access a part of ourselves that we cannot usually reach. My hope for you, the reader, is that as you read, you will feel immersed by the mysterious fog of the moor, and also perhaps consider the landscapes and weather that affect you particularly deeply, and why that might be.

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Writing Prompt

‘On the moor, I know myself most fully, and here in the fog, my fog-self is closer to my true self than anything I have yet experienced. There is a strange clarity that comes from embracing the unknown, and I recognise now that this too is what I have been looking for —I chase fog, but the unknown is also what I seek.’

This month’s prompt is borrowed from

Beth Kempton

who generously shared Chasing Fog with her writing circle and included the prompt:

Finish this sentence: ‘My fog-self is the one who...’

(if you prefer, you could substitute a different kind of weather — perhaps you have a rain-self, a wind-self, a snow-self, or a sunshine-self?)

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I’ll be answering a couple of Q&A questions each month This month’s are:

What is your writing process? How do you write when on the road?

I wrote Chasing Fog place by place and chapter by chapter. My writing process begins with research — before I go to a place, I delve into its history, folklore and mythology, searching for foggy themes and connective threads. This tells me where I should visit, and it also allows me to experience a far more meaningful connection to the landscapes that I explore. I always travel with a notebook, a pencil and — on my phone — an app called Cocoon Weaver. I use this app to record (and transcribe) voice notes from the wild, with additional thoughts and research scribbled in my notebook. When I returned to my office, my research, notes and recordings formed the backbone of the chapter as I wrote.

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I’ve created a community space for conversation about this chapter, please head over and join us:

Finally, I’m excited to say that Chasing Fog is one of

Luisa Skinner

’s Gentle Book Club picks for 2025/2026. There are some gorgeous books on the list, do take a look, and join in if you fancy — it’s free!

Thank you for reading along. If you have read and enjoyed Chasing Fog, I’d be so grateful if you’d take a moment to leave a review — they really help.

Laura

Chasing Fog // buy a signed copy of Chasing Fog

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