It's okay to still be on the journey...

(maybe the secret is that it's all the journey)

Hi friend! And to my fellow queers, Happy Pride!

I’m back at this whole newsletter thing again a million years after my last installment (one of these times I won’t have to begin this way). Here’s a photo I took in our garden recently as a gift for your patience.

I always want to be farther than I am…

And by that, I mean, I’ve always been a person who wants to be at the next step already or have grown more or accomplished more than I currently have. I always thought that resting was when it was hardest for me to reckon with the wanting. But as I’ve been plodding along on the fourth draft of my romantic thriller, I’ve realized that it’s also hard when I’m doing things. Which is rude because if I’m working toward something (in this case, sending my book out to agents), I should be able to turn off the part of my brain that is like “this should’ve been done yesterday.”

For example, I’ll have really good writing days (like the weekend I wrote almost the entirety of act 3 in two days), and then immediately will be like omg why didn’t I do this like 3 weeks ago instead of today?

Why am I so mean to myself?

I’m trying this new thing where, instead of being mean to myself for being mean to myself, I am reminding myself (and also therefore you all) that everything happens in its time. I have a full time day job, a partner, a small business, other hobbies, an endless TBR, a garden, a dog son, and (occasionally) a foster puppy. My life endlessly feels like one of those triangles that’s like “you can only pick two.” But every end of the triangle has more than one thing on it, so I’m having to pick one of those before I even get to pick two.

I’m sure there are even things I forgot to put on there… but you get the picture. Being an adult with responsibilities is hard. And sometimes I get overwhelmed so I abandon the triangle completely to scroll on TikTok or watch an entire season of Good Girls. As you can imagine (or perhaps that’s your life too, because the busyness is present in so many of our lives), it can be painfully impossible to make time for writing some days, even though not making time is equally painful.

One of the ways that I cope with this feeling is by turning everything in that triangle into a to do list. I think if I can check it off (I journaled, I walked, I revised a chapter, etc), then that will make it all doable and will give me some sense of accomplishment.

But what I’m realizing in both my creative life and my life life is that so often, in pursuit of checking things off, I miss their purpose. If I just hurry outside to water the garden, I might miss the way our little seedlings have gained new leaves over the past few days. Or the way we have two tomatoes that are almost ripe enough to pick. If I try to multitask while hanging out with my friends, I might miss the little things they tell me about their lives because my brain isn’t built for two places at once (as much as I wish it were). And, if I go through a draft writing/revising simply to solve problems and finish it enough to send out to agents, I might miss the feelings and nuance of what those scenes and chapters could actually be.

That’s what happened with draft 3 of my pet sitter romantic thriller. I had my to do list and my spreadsheet and it was all working, until it wasn’t. I got almost to the end and realized that the puzzle pieces were all laid out on the table, but none of them were connected. I had been so busy making it make sense logically that I didn’t take the time to help it feel right emotionally. So, here I am, letting myself take longer so I can experience it fully. My hope is that by letting myself stare out the window while I feel into this book, instead of hurrying to finish it, the story will feel fuller and brighter (and creepier) and it’ll be something I feel immensely proud of and not just something I checked off my to do list so I could get to the next step.

How do people pick the stories they work on?

No really, I’d like to know. If you’ve been around for a while you know that I try to come up with a (mostly, somewhat) fleshed out story every month. I wasn’t super consistent last year and of the handful I did, even fewer of them were ideas I was desperate to write. But this year? I’ve come up with at least one every month (in March I had three) and every single one I’m ready to risk it all for. Now, who’s to say what will happen with them in the long term, because I have obligations to my thriller for the next little bit. But after that, I’m staring down all these ideas wondering if I want to write a cult horror, a survivalist romantasy, a time loop thriller, a ghost romcom, an apocalypse book, or a romantasy that feels like anytime these two are on screen together in Dickinson (but Sapphic and maybe the end of the world):

Hopefully one of them will sink its teeth into me after I’ve had a bit of a rest this summer. And if anyone wants to tell me how they pick what to work on, I’m all ears!

Things I’m Working On In Therapy —

Lol I’m not going to subject you to a long monologue about the big emotional work I’m doing. But my favorite thing I’m learning in therapy is about letting my little baby teenage self live her best life. I feel like so many people my age (in their late 20s/throughout our 30s and beyond) have come back to the things they loved as teenagers before the struggle of being “adults” got ahold of us. For me, this is wearing my hair in space buns, dying it fun colors, or being chaotic and colorful in the way I dress myself (I spent an entire spring in 8th grade wearing nothing but stretchy leopard pants so maybe those will make a comeback). I’m also playing Red Dead Redemption II to indulge the horse girl in me. Basically what it’s coming down to is not making myself feel so responsible all the time, and I LOVE it.

It’s also been a really great way to heal that sad little lesbian teenager inside me who was so deep in the closet she didn’t even know closets existed. Pride brings up a lot of feelings for me: delight and joy at being queer. Sadness for the fact that I didn’t get to be a queer teen (and also some gratitude to my subconscious who knew I wouldn’t be safe if I were). Bitterness and sorrow that this marks my second pride without a relationship with my parents. Anger at all the ways my fellow LBTQIA+ family are being used and targeted, from book bans to gender affirming care bans to trans youths being attacked to pink washing the genocide to the stupid Florida ban on rainbow colored bridges?! Seriously, the list is endless and it makes me furious. I’m learning to let that fury be what it needs to be and then channel it into action.

There was a time in my life (like less a year ago lol) where I’d try to turn every one of those feelings into an action item before I’d even felt them. But now, I’m trying to let the joy mingle with the pain without trying to make either of them into something they’re not. And I’m working on finding action within the feelings and not as a way to get rid of them. It’s a shitty, beautiful, horrific, tender time out there, friend, and I hope we’re being kind to all the version of us that exist.

An Incomplete List of Things I’m Loving Right Now —

Books that are coming out in the next year:

Have you ever read a book that you loved so much and you couldn’t scream about it to the entire world because it was a secret? Well that’s what is currently going on with me and one of my besties, Mackenzie Reed. (She’s talked about her secret project on TikTok and let me just say it lives up to the hype.) Her second YA Thriller, The Wilde Trials also lives up to the hype. It’s exes to allies, it’s dark academia in a spooky forest, it’s fighting your classmates to secure your future (and also maybe to keep your life?). It’s perfect and you can add it on Goodreads and also preorder it. (It comes out January ‘25.)

Another upcoming YA I love is Inheritance of Scars by Crystal Seitz. It’s Norse Mythology, undead love interests, spooky forests, and Chron’s disease rep! (It comes out October ‘24.)

One more spooky forest book to round out the trio (perhaps I just have a thing for spooky forests?) is What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould. It’s about a group of queer teens in a wilderness therapy program who find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters. (It comes out December ‘24.)

If you’re in the mood for gorgeous poetry, check out Fixing The Broken Record by Brittany Amalfi. It’s an intimate, healing, post break journey and I am in awe of what she’s created. (It comes out later this month!)

I talked about it last time too, but I couldn’t send out a newsletter during pride month and not scream about Kara Kennedy’s debut I Will Never Leave You. Read this to find out what it would be like if the ghost of your ex girlfriend threatened to frame you for her murder. This was an expensive read for me because I read it in one sitting in a bar in San Francisco and I had to leave the biggest tip because I’d been there for hours (and multiple glasses of wine) and I didn’t even realize. Worth it. (It comes out July ‘24!)

TV and Movies I’m Enjoying:

The Gentlemen is everything my crime syndicate, boss bitch, Theo James loving heart was hoping for. There is one episode that felt straight from the Fast and Furious Franchise, and we all know how I feel about those movies (if you don’t know, I’m happy to send you my power point ranking of every movie in the franchise).

I got in the mood for crime boss vibes after The Gentleman and am halfway through Furies, a French action thriller about a young woman who, while trying to avenge her father’s death, becomes entangled with the Fury, the peacekeeper of the Paris criminal underworld.

We just finished rewatching The Boys because season 4 is coming out this month and I forgot how wild that show is. I loved (almost) every gross minute of it.

In an (only somewhat) less stressful watch — we’ve been watching Homestead Rescue, which is about a family of homesteaders who go around the country and help pull other homesteaders out of dire circumstances (such as no running water, barren gardens, bear attacks, freezing winters). I say only somewhat less stressful, because while the views are gorgeous and it doesn't take a lot of brain power, they really know how to push the drama and danger to the edge.

For a truly stakes-free watch, The Ugliest House In America hosted by Retta is our before bed favorite.

Music I’m Obsessed With:

I made you a playlist! My Spring 2024 mix that’s filled with the things that are on repeat in my AirPods.

And That’s If For Me…

This was long, but if you made it to the end, thank you <3. I’ll see you in another month or three or five. Happy Pride and a very big Free Palestine!