ADELE STARTERS, PROOF PERFECT, AND AMERICAN ESCAPING

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Proofing: I didn't read much of anything this week because the printed proof of DAISY arrived Tuesday night for my final review. Now, imagine you've read a book 10+ times from start to finish. Imagine half of those times were done out loud for all 90,000 words. And then imagine trying to do it a final time knowing that this is the thing that people I love and respect (all of you!!!) will be reading. I'm not panicking, you're panicking!!! Let's just say, it was slow-going to stay present with what was on the page, for 320 pages. I would have these weird out-of-body moments being like, “LOL I wrote that!?” In ways that were mostly positive. With these final proofs, you're only looking for the tiniest of typesetting errors – an extra space on that indent, a paragraph break that shouldn't be there, an open quotation mark that should have been closed, a misspelling of a proper noun (found all of these!). However, I remember from reading the advanced copy of You're Not Lost the final time that the biggest challenge is staying located within yourself as the reader, and not imagining the judgments of your future readers and what they're going to think of the story, the writing, the character. As if last week wasn't eventful enough, I also got to add this future-tripping panic to my plate. Net net tho: I'm SO excited that the next copy in my hands will be the copy going into yours!!!! Daisy is selling and selling and selling, don't miss out if you're hoping to read it too.

What I'm writing: I get to start drafting That Second Novel this weekend!!!! I'm in the process of taking my finished outline and doing a super-detailed version of Act 1. And then it's writing time!!!! I haven't written the first lines of a new novel in almost 3 years. Holy sh*t nothing intimidates me more than writing the first line of a book –nonfiction or fiction. I still LOL at what I went with for You're Not Lost: “It matters how things start. So, I'll start with this:” which was inspired by a line from Adele's song All I Ask:

If this is my last night with you
Hold me like I'm more than just a friend
Give me a memory I can use
Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do
It matters how this ends
'Cause what if I never love again?

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history. A few for the canon:

I have absolutely zero to add to our country's choice to careen toward authoritarianism. Or so I thought until I started journaling about my rage and how I don't want a strong man “protecting me”. And then thinking about all the amazing men in my life that I'm inspired by, truly strong men who protect the vulnerable, who prioritize women's health care as human health care, who soften into love instead of hardening into hate. And wrote this little number.

While we're on the topic of the future of women in this country: Pudding (my favorite, favorite visual essay outlet) had this great piece on the Maze of Abortion Access and the complicated patchwork of laws across the country [you're not alone if you have a hard time keeping it all straight]. There are powerful abortion stories and interesting levels of complexity across the state's mazes. Highly recommend this read.

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

I didn't do much escaping this last week, except into Daisy's world. But things that did momentarily distract me were many. The best distractions were IRL hugs and Facetime chats with people I love. The mid-effective distractions were: American Nightmare (a 3-part series on the complete failures of Vallejo police in investigating a woman's kidnapping, and the strength of two women in turning it around). Let Go (omg, this Swedish movie about a man who wants to end his marriage and his wife's last crusade at saving it via a family trip – it caused me a full, snotty WEEP. So beautiful, so touching, so intense. It defaults to dubbed so be sure to watch with subtitles instead). I listened to The Grey Area's “Is America collapsing like Ancient Rome” (not helpful) & Search Engine's “Is everyone pretending to understand inflation (or just me)” (SO helpful). Someone give me a new good pod series to listen to??

Find joy, Woman on xx