Mark Your Calendar! (Again)

So many things about self-publishing are just so, so great (so many I couldn’t possibly list them right now—not because I can’t think of any, obviously…it’s a simple matter of conserving space), but without a doubt the absolute best thing is the freedom to set your own deadlines.

You see, my little dumplings, it turns out that most deadlines are entirely made up, plucked from the ether by some unqualified person or other, and as long as no one gets seriously hurt (we’re all grateful Balto and Togo didn’t miss their penicillin deadline, for instance), it really doesn’t do any harm at all to stand on the sidelines and wave as any given deadline parades past. In fact, I find it quite refreshing to push back a deadline. Which is fortunate for me because…I’m about to do just that.

If you’ve seen or spoken to me in the past few weeks, you’ll likely have noticed that I look rather more haggard than I used to: shuffling endlessly through stacks of papers, mumbling to myself, wringing my hands through spells of melancholia, clutching at my hair, eyes wild and stricken. I’ve spent the summer like a wan Victorian child too weak for anything save a daily turn about the garden, Nurse wheeling me in a chair as she prattles on about how late the daylilies are this year and how I mustn’t let the blanket slip from my shoulders lest I should catch a chill.

In short, publishing my first book has taken a toll on me. My timeline has been overly optimistic, especially when pesky things like COVID and SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES have lurked just out of sight, waiting until the most inopportune moment to STRIKE.

With all this in mind, I regret to inform you that I will be pushing back the release date for A Dazzle of Zebras from August 30th…to October 18th.

My apologies.

After scribbling approximately eighty-six different timelines on the backs of old receipts, I realized it was impossible to both 1) release a book in August, AND 2) make sure that book’s not rubbish. Were I to stick to the original date, I might not receive a physical proof of the paperback/hardcover in hand before the publication date—and what if copies shipped out to readers with the cover printed all wonky? What if the words were printed backward? What if the text was entirely replaced with specimen drawings of freshwater amphibians? You wouldn’t want a wonky book, would you? Of course you wouldn’t! I couldn’t allow such a thing! At least not until the sequel!

It’s unfortunate. I’m impatient to send you my book, sheepishly excited to get it into your little paws so you can open the beautiful cover and set eyes on it at last. It feels like an arranged marriage—this little project I’ve nurtured for years is finally ready to go out in the world and meet its hundreds of spouses. Waiting another month and a half will be excruciating.

But let’s look at the bright side!

• Practicing delayed gratification makes us more resilient human beings!

• October is a much more bookish month than August, don’t you think? The end of summer is so busy, but by October the nights are long, the air is chilly, and the idea of curling up with a book doesn’t just sound appealing; it’s necessary on a soul level.

• More time to plan and implement fun little launch shenanigans (and you KNOW I’ve got some shenanigans up my sleeve).

  • This includes MARKETING STUFF, like sending copies to reviewers and finishing a book trailer and contacting libraries/bookstores and posting silly book videos on my shiny new YooouuuTuuuubbbe chaaannnneeellllll (which…you can absolutely subscribe to. If you want. No pressure. But it’d be pretty cool if you did).

• Delaying this release means less time to wait until the next book in the series. (Oh, yes, did I forget to mention this is a SERIES? WELL IT IS. GET PUMPED.)

• I won’t look as much like a sickly goblin person. Always a good thing.

• All of you who’ve already requested signed copies deeefinitely wouldn’t have received those by August, but October is far more attainable.

• And you know what else? Maybe I like to tease a bit. Maybe it gives me a little thrill. Maybe I’m a tiny rascal. So sue me.

PLUS, to make up for this abrupt change of plans, starting on the previous release date of August 30th, I will release videos of ME (carrie! your Friendly Neighborhood Writer Person!) reading a chapter or section of the book, every week, straight through to the new release date of October 18th. That’s like, seven weeks. That’s a lot of reading. A good chunk of the book. I…am gonna need to brush up on my phonics.

Well…I guess that’s all. Please don’t hesitate to wail and/or harangue in the comments below. You’ve earned it.

With great humility and greater chagrin, I remain your grateful servant,
The Author

PS—I felt so bad that I decided to give you a sneak peek of a reading TODAY! OVER ON THE YOUTUBES! TO WHICH, AGAIN, YOU MAY SUBSCRIBE AT YOUR LEISURE!

The Panics

The other day I was watching a show that had a Spanish word on the side of a truck. I paused the scene and gaped at the screen for a moment, dismayed.

Is that really how you spell that word? I asked my mom, who spent her high school years living in Mexico and still knows quite a bit of Spanish.

She looked at me wide-eyed, because…that’s a weird question. “Yes…?”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Actually, I’d made a lot of terrible mistakes. I scrabbled for my laptop and pulled up the manuscript—the manuscript I’d already dubbed “Final” and turned in for formatting—and began triple-checking all the foreign-language phrases that teenage linguaphile Tracy uses in the book. What I found made me LOSE MY DAMN MIND. Accents were missing! Pronouns were misplaced! Words that should be capitalized weren’t and words that shouldn’t be capitalized were! It was my literal nightmare.

How could this have happened? I thought, in utter embarrassment and despair. I was so careful.

At least, I thought I’d been careful. I’d gone over the text probably close to forty times, in addition to sending it out for editing/proofing. But clearly, my scrupulosity was bested only by my hubris.

Why hadn’t I asked a Spanish speaker if “diálogo” needed an accent? (It does!) Why didn’t I double-check my subject-object pronouns with someone who speaks German? (Ein Deutschsprecher!) Why would I just blithely trust Google Translate with so many foreign-language phrases, yet devote hours to researching the appropriate use of a hyphen? (It’s a complicated matter that can’t be summed up in a pithy parenthetical remark—ask me later!)

Over the next few minutes I spiraled into paranoia. I HAVE TO CHECK THE ENTIRE THING AGAIN, I wailed. OTHERWISE EVERYONE’S GONNA KNOW HOW CARELESS I AM. WHY DID I EVEN ATTEMPT TO ADD FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PHRASES WITHOUT COMPLETING RIGOROUS COURSES IN ALL LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE? I AM AN ABSOLUTE AMATEUR.

Bill tried his best to calm me down. “You can’t even be expected to find every typo in English,” he said, “and you speak English, Carrie.”

This didn’t have the effect he thought it would.

I’LL CHECK IT TEN MORE TIMES, I thundered. A HUNDRED! I’LL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE PROOFREADING THIS MANUSCRIPT UNTIL I’M CERTAIN THERE ARE NO…MORE…MISTAKES.

But Carrie, a little voice said in my ear, you can never guarantee there will be no mistakes. And do you know why?

“Why?” I said, my voice a-quiver.

Because languages are made up. In English we can’t agree on the Oxford comma or the pronunciation of “-ough” or whether to spell it “flavor” or “flavour.” Languages are complex and inconsistent and you simply cannot please everyone when it comes to words. If an error does slip through, all you have to do is correct it. You are a human and your readers are humans. They will understand.

Well. Except for the French. Just make sure you get the French right, or l’Académie Française will send its agents after you in the nighttime and they will cudgel you with cabbages and baguettes, shouting, <<Utilisez l’accent circonflexe, s’il vous plaît!>> It will be humiliating, but you won’t want to cry lest the ruthless Académie agents call you a pleurnicheuse.

Somehow, this managed to reassure me when nothing else could.

Realistically, I told myself, not that many people will read my book. I mean, I hope a lot of people will read it, but compared to how many people there are in the world? Compared to how many people have existed on the planet throughout time? Only like half will end up reading it, tops. Of those, how many know enough Spanish or German or French or Italian or Mandarin to even know whether I’ve used the permanent or temporary form of “to be”? I mean, plenty of people from history were wholly illiterate, so they would have to listen to the audiobook anyway, and spelling wouldn’t matter at all in that case. So really, when you think about it, considering the entire history of the world and the significance my tiny book holds within it, is any of this really a big deal at all?

Yes.

In my small world, it is a huge deal. So I will continue to quadruple- and quintuple-check every phrase in the book like a neurotic little humbug until the formatter is forced to rip my laptop from my gnarled, cramped, carpal-tunnel-ridden hands so I can’t make any more changes.

At which point I will fold my hands in my lap and rock back and forth, muttering, “Estoy, estás, está, estamos, estáis, están…” until August 30th, when I’ll be free to fret about the next book, focusing all my neurotic energy on Shakespeare quotes and Prince trivia.

Hell(o) Summer

I’ll keep things brief this year. After all, I’ve said a lot about summer in previous years, and I think by now my feelings are painfully clear.

As another summer dawns, I find myself thinking of hell.

Like you do, I suppose.

If hell were a real place, and people did in fact end up there, it would only make sense for it to be tailored to provide the most unpleasant experience possible for each specific person.

For instance, all the summer-lovers who did things like evade their taxes and kick small animals would find no fireflies, no barbecues, no hikes or sailing trips or bonfires on the beach. There’d be no long afternoons by the pool or picnics in the grass. No roses would bloom, no bees would flit among the flowers, no birds would titter and call in the golden glow of another summer morning.

I don’t know what would be in their place—maybe an icy sidewalk that never ends—but you can be sure there would be none of the summery things they cherish so dearly.

On the other hand, for someone like me who views the summer with anger and suspicion, the entirety of hell would likely be one company barbecue after another. Heat and humidity, sunburns and heat stroke. Sweating crowds and fried carnival foods and spilled lemonade and melting ice cream. Interminable games of cornhole. And the mosquitoes…the mosquitoes would be everywhere. Taunting me. Nipping at me mercilessly. And because it’s hell, they’d probably have tiny pitchforks in place of a proboscis, and they’d poke me and laugh and then poke me again. For eternity.

It’s a sobering image. In fact, it’s spooked me a bit. I’ve been Jacob Marley-ed by my own imagination.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on summer. Maybe I should try to enjoy some of the nicer aspects of the season. Like the crop of gooseberries in the garden that are blushing deeper by the day and will soon be ready to transform into lip-puckering gooseberry pie. Or fireflies, which have always been summer’s major redeeming quality.

Here in Pennsylvania, rain clouds are rolling in for the solstice. The air is cool, the sky is dark. Summer seems to be meeting me halfway. I appreciate the gesture. With an olive branch like that, I suppose I can tolerate summer. For a few weeks, at least.

Donut Day

[Today is National Donut Day! So here’s a bit of festive flash fiction for you. Tracy and her friends are characters in a book I’ll be releasing soon, A Dazzle of Zebras. Here’s your chance to meet them in advance—I hope you like ‘em! I mean, like…I really hope you like them. If you don’t, that’ll be…a significant bummer. So…fingers crossed!]

A fan is humming when we walk into Duchess Donuts, but I’m not sure it’s doing much to cool the place down. The air is thick and sticky with sugar; the homey scent of yeast ushers us farther inside the little shop. I run my fingers along the glass display case, all the shiny donuts waiting there in rows to be eaten. By meee!

“Hey, Hank,” I say to the droopy-eyed man behind the register. “A very merry Donut Day to you.”

He nods. “Traaacy. Your usual?” He’s already reaching for a pink cardboard box.

“You know it.”

I lean against the counter and look back at my friends. Sophia smirks at me.

“You know the donut guy’s name?”

“You have a usual?” Alfie says.

Nick says nothing. He knows me too well to be surprised.

“Oh, yeah,” Hank says with his light Cambodian accent as he loads sprinkled cake donuts into the box. “Tracy’s been coming here for years. We’re like family. My wife’s like her second mom. What can I get for the rest of you?”

“I’ll take one of everything,” Alfie says.

Hank looks at me and I shrug like, What do you expect? The boy has taste. “It is National Donut Day.”

“We’re gonna need a bigger box,” he says.

Nick leans over to me and mumbles, “I’m getting a Snapple.”

As he slinks over to the fridge, I announce, “Nick’s getting a Snapple!” to the entire shop.

“Congratulations,” says Hank.

Nick glares at me over his shoulder and I say, “Sorry. I’m all hyped up.”

Scooting into one of the booths by the window, Sophia says, “Nick, you should work here this summer.”

“That means we’d get free donuts, right?” Alfie slaps his palm on the counter. “Hank! Get this man an application!”

“He’s too tall,” Hank says. “Make me look too short.”

Nick gives me a look like, Who is this jamoke? But Hank has a point. Nick was five-foot-six in third grade, and he’s only grown taller since then.

Alfie helps me heft the two boxes of donuts over to the table.

“So what’re we planning to do with these bad boys?” Sophia asks as she opens the lid and picks out a sour cream donut.

“We are going to sit here,” Alfie says, “until we finish every—single—one.”

“Then we can have dessert,” I chirp.

“Great,” she says, taking a bite. “Too bad this isn’t a real holiday.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that like, obviously I love the idea of Donut Day, I just wish it were an actual holiday.”

Nick purses his lips and scrunches his eyes shut. “Easy, Sophe.”

“But like…this isn’t a real holiday, right? Like, this is one of those Tracy holidays that you make up and then force everyone to celebrate. Like Hug a Fish Day.”

“Hug a Fish Day suuucks,” Nick groans.

“Or like last year,” Alfie says, “when you made us hang tissues from your bedroom ceiling because you wanted Flu Season to be a little more festive.”

“Actually it is a real holiday.”

Sophia tilts her head skeptically.

“It is! I promise.” I start in on a second sprinkled donut.

They peer at each other silently for a moment.

Finally Alfie sighs. “Okay, fine. Tell us the history of Donut Day then, Tracy.”

I straighten up in my seat. “I thought you’d never ask!”

Nick shakes his head quietly and crosses his arms. “I donut think you want to hear it.”

I shush him and begin my story. “Once upon a time there lived a woman named Marchu.”

“Marchu?”

“Gesundheit. This was a poor woman, you see, and she had little to feed her twenty-six children.”

“Twenty-six?!”

“One for every letter of the alphabet. But after years of drought and famine and locusts and the inevitable blood rain, she decided to set out for the king’s castle to plead for help.”

“What country is this?”

“So Marchu set out toward the castle, and the journey took weeks and was fraught with terrors: the ice fields and the fearsome giant hopping toads and the wide chasms she must cross with only the aid of a rickety rope bridge. Finally, though, she made it to the castle. But when the guards saw her bedraggled state, they refused to let her enter, much less have an audience with the king. ‘Servants’ entrance is in the back,’ they told her.”

“Rude.”

“I know. But Marchu was used to this type of treatment, and she went around to the servants’ entrance, which happened to open into the kitchen. The door was open, and as she stood in the doorway, she filled her lungs with the most wonderful scent. Rich, yeasty, wholesome…her mouth watered and her stomach growled so loudly that the head chef looked up in surprise. ‘You zere!’ he said. He was French, this chef. He said, ‘Beggar woman! Get ahway from mah keetchen!’ But Marchu was clever. Not to mention desperate. She told the French head chef that she was a new cook just hired by the king.”

“That seems like it would be pretty easy to fact-check.”

“The head chef of the castle didn’t have time to fact-check, Alfie! He just told her to come inside and get started kneading. But of course, Marchu didn’t know what that meant. She’d never seen anything like this before.”

“Wait. You’re saying she didn’t know what bread is? Nobody in her entire village had ever heard of yeast?”

“Not everyone has heard of things, Sophe. Now, Marchu knew if she could only get her hands on a small morsel of this remarkable substance, it would keep growing and growing, and she’d be able to feed all her twenty-six children for eternity. So she quickly learned the ins and outs kneading and cutting out the circle buns the king liked and frying them up all golden-brown, and every night when the work was done, she secreted away the extra dough that got caught under her fingernails.”

“Gross. Call the health inspector.”

“Finally she had enough and returned to her village. She fried up the dough as her twenty-six children looked on in amazement, and that night they all ate until their bellies were stuffed. And that would have been that, except that the youngest, Zachariah, accidentally dropped his in the sugar pond. At first Marchu scolded him, but when she tasted it, she realized what an opportunity this was! She started selling her buns, dipped in the sugar pond, far and wide, and that’s how we got donuts.”

Alfie spews crumbs all over the table. “Wait, what! They had a sugar pond this whole time?”

“But no dentist in town, so it wasn’t like they could just eat that all day.”

“Well, what did they use to fry the donuts?”

“Oh, they just fried them in the hot oil springs in the caves near the village.”

“Oh, of course. Wasn’t that obvious, Alfie?”

“So anyway,” I say, “that’s the story of Marchu and the donuts. Every year on Donut Day we stuff ourselves with donuts of all sorts to commemorate her daring heist and ingenuity. You know, I kind of hope that eventually, every day will be Donut Day, all across the globe. That is my dream for this troubled world. I mean, yes, diabetes and obesity rates would soar, but it will be worth it.”

When I finish, Sophia and Alfie gape silently at me. They look mad. Grinning, Nick reaches across me for a bear claw.

“A very merry Donut Day to us all,” he says.

Danke schön

I’m sort of coming up on the end of Things I Need to Write before the release of YA friendship-rom-com (platoni-com?) A Dazzle of Zebras. I have my novel…my title…my back cover description…my dedication…all that’s left, really, are the acknowledgments.

But how—HOW?—does a person even begin to mention everyone who’s contributed to writing a book? Writers have to prioritize their direct contributors, I guess, otherwise this section would be longer than the book itself and you’d get acknowledgments like, “Thank you to the girl in the ladies’ room in Terminal C at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport whose loud phone conversation inspired several funny exchanges in the third chapter.” Or something like, “Big shout-out to all my ancestors whose biological imperatives ultimately resulted in my birth. I owe ya one, guys.”

Then again, I would enjoy seeing an author who goes completely the other way and just says, “Um, how about thank you to ME, the person who put in all the sweat, blood, and tears—mostly tears—almost entirely tears—so much crying—in fact, at one point I became severely dehydrated—spent three days in the hospital—cost me a fortune in medical bills—to write this book in the first place? And NO thanks to all the haters who laughed at me because I spelled ‘tomorrow’ wrong in the second-grade spelling bee. Look at me now, suckas!”

In the end, however, one ought perhaps to play it safe and just thank everything. The universe, as a great and terrible whole, has created me, and I have created this book (though whether the book merits that sort of thanks remains to be seen). So thank you, everything. For everything.

You’re the best.

BOOK DESIGN (and such)

Last week I had a meeting about book formatting and cover art. IT WAS VERY EXCITING.

…By which I mean it was Totally Normal since, as a Modern Businesswoman, I am Entirely Accustomed to Taking Meetings…with Professionals…about Business Matters.

Anyway.

It’s a bit intimidating, this part. This is where it goes from being an idea in my head to a tangible thing that exists in the world for other people to look at and pick up and put back on the shelf and thumb through with sticky fingers and shove in a backpack and callously dog-ear and drop in a puddle and set in front of a fan to dry and press under other heavy books that will never quite straighten out the wavy pages. Maybe someone will hollow it out to use as a book safe to hide Secret Things. A girl can dream, anyway.

My point is you want to get it right if you’re aiming for book safe status. You want the font to be readable, you want the running head not to trip, you want the cover to look professional and enticing, like a petit bonbon in a French patisserie.

But writers, for the most part, are not designers. We don’t know how to achieve any of those things. All we know about are stupid words, which are only worth 1/1000 of a picture. So we have to bring in a professional artiste and try to paint a word-picture that they can then translate into a picture-picture.

It’s hard to let go of control and trust someone else. It’s like getting a tattoo—you don’t want to put yourself in the hands of someone who says, “Gimme twenty bucks and a ballpoint pen.” But a talented designer knows what they’re about, and writers can still influence the final product. A cover brief outlines writers’ preferences, ideas, thematic elements…all the Word Stuff that helps the designer do their Mysterious Art Things and magic up a cover that makes you go, “AWWWW YEAH” and then cough quietly because that was a very unprofessional reaction.

While I won’t tell you what we discussed in the meeting because I don’t want to spoil the cover reveal, I will suggest some phrases you can use to communicate effectively with an artist:

• I don’t know what I like, but I know what I don’t like, so maybe you could just show me some ideas and we’ll go from there.

• I want a font that feels playful, but also a little sullen? Like a teenage girl who goes to get ice cream with her dad but then the cool kids from school show up. You know what I mean?

• Yeah, I watched a couple YouTube videos about Photoshop. I could probably do your job.

• I really like the cover of this book here. What if we just take it and replace the words with my title?

• Can you get this done by tomorrow morning?

• You know the feeling when you’re on a boat and the sea air rushes through your hair, and it stings to open your eyes but you do it anyway, and the sun on the water makes you feel a little dazzled and dizzy, and your breath catches at the sheer vastness of the ocean? That’s the sense I want people to get when they look at the cover.

• Just make it look good.

Blurb

I took a break from edits to write out a book description for the back cover. As if that would be a nice, quick, simple task to bolster and re-motivate me.

It’s just 150 words about a book that’s already written, I thought. That’s like a second-grade book report. Easy-peasy.

But it was not easy-peasy. It was in fact difficult-pifficult.

[Ed: I’m a little worried that these posts make it seem like I’m not enjoying the process of publishing this book. In some ways, that’s true! Like anything else, this is work! But it’s satisfying work. I like the feeling of giving my brain a workout every day. I like piecing words together like a puzzle until everything fits just right. It does drive me crazy, but in a way that compels me to keep going. It’s a sickness! But I’m a jolly little invalid.]

If writing a book is like carving away marble until you reach the shape of a human figure that’s lurking inside it, then writing a book blurb is like taking that sculpture’s thumb and carving another miniature figure out of it, but the smaller figure is doing KARATE MOVES! and TAMING A LION! and UNICYCLING ON A TIGHTROPE! This little guy has all the responsibility of catching people’s interest so they will spend some time and money to look at the bigger sculpture.

…That metaphor left something to be desired.

Maybe it’s more like cooking a gourmet meal. You have all these elements that go into it, and you work and experiment and adjust the components to get them all complementary and balanced just right so they make a harmonious whole, a taste that’s richer and more satisfying than the sum of its parts. This is a meal that means something—this is art! But then, to get people invested enough to take a bite, you have to first take that meal and boil it down (so to speak) into a single bite that hints at the complexity of the entire meal, but doesn’t entirely give away the best bits. A blurb is an amuse-bouche, if you will. (Will you? Is this metaphor working?)

It takes skill to write an effective blurb. You can’t lie, or the reader will be confused and annoyed, but you can strategically focus on the most intriguing elements of your story, like so:

1. First you have to find a HOOK. (If you’re writing a book about pirates, you’re already halfway there.) Maybe that’s a punchy, intriguing concept. Or, if you have them, you could lead with accolades like, FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR G.D. FERNHAVEN COMES A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER THAT WILL “LITERALLY MAKE YOU SCREAM UNTIL YOUR THROAT FALLS OUT. THIS BOOK COST ME THOUSANDS IN MEDICAL BILLS.”

2. Then you backtrack. The reader’s like, SAY WHAT? THAT FIRST SENTENCE HAS MY INTEREST PIQUED! This is where you reel ‘em in. You set up a SCENE. This is the NORMAL WORLD. We find out who the main character is (briefly) and what they WANT. We learn in a pithy sentence or two why we should CONNECT WITH and ROOT FOR this total stranger.

3. But of course, it isn’t a story unless something HAPPENS. There are OBSTACLES to whatever it is the character wants. UH-OH, we say. WHAT’S THE CHARACTER GONNA DO?

4. WELL, THE BLURB’S NOT GONNA TELL. It leaves us on a cliffhanger, echoing our question and setting the stakes: WILL CORNELIUS FIND OUT THE TRUTH…BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE? CAN EUGENIA UNLOCK THE SECRET…BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE? DOES SHERYL HAVE A CHANCE IN HELL OF DOING WHATEVER SHE NEEDS TO DO…BEFORE WHATEVER CLOCK THAT’S TICKING DOWN RUNS OUT AND A HORRIBLE CONSEQUENCE BEFALLS HER AND/OR OTHERS?

It can get extra tough, however, when you have a story where the changes happen (mostly) internally. How do you make a plot sound exciting when the obstacle is, This character wants to have an okay time, but instead she’s having a bummer of a time! Like, what are the stakes? If she doesn’t figure something out, then…I mean, things will keep on being a bummer! Which sucks, right? Is that…are you interested? In hearing more? About that? Please?

It took a few weeks and lots of reluctantly critical feedback from friends and family, but I think I’ve finally got a passable description. “I’d read that book,” someone said (I assume with a shrug), and that’s all I can ask for.

Now I just have to finish all my other publishing tasks and get this bad boy out there…BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

UUUUGGGGHHHHHH—

—HHHHHHHHHHHH. ugh.

I put it off for as long as I could. I hemmed and I hawed and really put in some of my very best procrastination, but there’s nothing for it. The time is here.

BOOK EDITS.

The part that requires the most work is the first chapter, which needs to be cut in half and shaved down by a third.

A third.

Do you realize how many jokes that is?! Just like…so many. So many. All my darlings, lined up for execution. And I’m just ambling down the row, handing out cigarettes.

I’ve tried bargaining with myself. NO, NO—NOT THAT PART! I cry as I hastily stuff sentences into pockets and squirrel adverbs away in my cheeks. DON’T CUT THAT PART! IT’S IMPORTANT FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! YOU DON’T WANT TO CUT THAT PARAGRAPH—REMEMBER HOW LONG IT TOOK US TO FIGURE OUT THAT JOKE? THIS CHAPTER ISN’T REALLY THAT BLOATED, ANYWAY—THE FONT ADDS THREE PAGES!

But as it turns out, I am quite ruthless. “What must be done…” I pronounce gravely, “shall be done.” Then I begin to slash. AND EVERY TIME I CUT THE CHAPTER DOWN ANOTHER PAGE, I REWARD MYSELF BY DRINKING RED INK FROM THE SKULLS OF MY FAVORITE WRITERS.

(Luckily, no one edits these posts, so I get to lump as much self-indulgent nonsense in HERE as I like—and there’s nothing I can do to stop me!)

Anyway. That’s not the point. I didn’t start writing this just to complain dramatically at you. The reason I started writing this was to ask for your help. So here I go.

HELP!

While an editor is incredibly helpful when it comes to pointing out what works and what doesn’t, there are always some bits that are left up to the writer. “This didn’t work for me,” the editor says, “but it’s your choice if you want to change it or keep it.”

WHICH IS A HIDEOUS THING TO LEAVE WITH SOMEONE AS NEUROTIC AS A WRITER-TYPE.

So I need some feedback. From you. Hopefully. If it’s not too much trouble. Just a few questions, totally anonymous, opinion-based, easy-peasy. And if you happen to be a teenager, you get BONUS POINTS. Because these are questions about a YOUNG ADULT BOOK, and I am in an awkward stage in life where my youngest siblings are in their twenties and my oldest niblings haven’t reached double-digits yets. So where do I go for teenage opinions? THE INTERNET!

READY?

Thanks, friends! This helps a whole bunch. You’re the best. (Look for your name in the acknowledgments when the book comes out—you’ll be listed as “Anonymous Survey-Taker.”)

---

UPDATE: I drafted this a few weeks ago, and since then, instead of cutting down that first chapter, I have written two new chapters.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO PLAN.

Flirting Tips for Human People, Vol. IV

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all—as we remember with gratitude that long-ago day when St. Valentine chopped down a cherry tree to drive all the snakes out of our hearts. What could say “ROMANCE” louder than that? A bullhorn? Don’t be cute. That was a rhetorical question and you know it.

Anyway.

Over the past few years, we’ve covered lots of flirting tips for all the normal human people out there. What we haven’t talked about (because it’s frankly kind of a bummer) is what to do when you find yourself in the awkward position of having to rebuff unwanted romantic gestures.

Fortunately, I have a wealth of experience in this area. Not in being rebuffed, because in my mind only a psychopath would risk the sort of vulnerability that leads to the possibility of rejection, but I do know a bit about rebuffing. In fact, you might call me the Rebuff Kid. It’s not a great name, but we’re just spitballing here.

I’m not proud of my role as the Rebuff Kid.

Just that other people’s crushes have always seemed a sort of imposition. They’re so much pressure. Someone would offer me their fragile little paper heart and I’d just stand there stammering like, YOU DARE TO—WHO GAVE YOU THE RI—THE AUDACITY—! and I’d nervously tear their heart to shreds and place each piece inside my mouth and gum it around until it formed a soggy mass and then I’d swallow it in one disgusting gulp.

Really what I meant as I stared at them in horror was, YOU WHAT?! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? HOW CAN I TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT IF YOU’RE THE TYPE OF MANIAC TO PICK ME AS YOUR VALENTINE? ARE YOU…I MEAN, ARE YOU LIKE A LITTLE BIT STUPID OR SOMETHING?

I know. It’s dumb. Think of all the candy I could have eaten if I’d only been a little more mature. But the whole thing just felt so grotesque. The other kids in school were always watching, waiting to POUNCE and MAKE A HUGE DEAL out of any tiny show of sentimentality. I felt constantly hunted. And as a result, I turned into a beast.

In order to protect myself and those around me (but mostly, let’s be honest, myself), I decided to BOYCOTT VALENTINE’S DAY. Every February 14th I wore all black and scoffed derisively at couples being mushy and was generally a bit of a teenage ass.

Except that wasn’t the whole story. Since we were little, my mom has always made a big to-do of the holiday, decorating the table with hearts and flowers before school, leaving us notes on pink construction-paper hearts along with a bundle of Hershey’s kisses. I’m not sure how I managed the cognitive dissonance of scowling at anyone who dared mention love while surreptitiously sneaking chocolate kisses between classes. It took a confrontation from an exasperated boyfriend to finally convince me that I…was being…a fool.

There’s nothing wrong with telling someone about your feelings. In fact, it’s unspeakably brave. And it deserves a more measured response than backing slowly away as if they are a dinosaur that can sense movement so the only way to escape the situation is to inch your way silently, sweatily past until you can break into a sprint.

So let’s get into it. (Finally.)

REJECTION TIPS FOR HUMAN PEOPLE
WHO DON’T CARE FOR OTHER HUMAN PEOPLE
DOING THEM A FLIRT

1. We’ve already touched on the first step: Remember how much courage it took to put themselves out there. To approach you and reveal their most secret, most tender feelings for you. The apple of their eye. The knees of their bees. Their sweet little cabbage of love.

2. Now you feel terrible, don’t you? Like your insides have melted and slithered down to puddle in your socks, leaving you a cold, empty, heartless husk. Well, GOOD. YOU DESERVE IT.

3. I’m mostly kidding. Nobody deserves that. It’s just an unfortunate situation all around. You can’t manufacture feelings just to avoid hurting someone else.

4. OR CAN YOU? Why not take a little trip down to the Feelings Factory and watch through a large window as their state-of-the-art facility assembles customized feelings for you WHILE YOU WAIT? You’ll be experiencing romantic reciprocity in no time—FINALLY! A SOLUTION FOR PERMANENT REQUITED LOVE! THANKS, FEELINGS FACTORY!

5. Except you can’t do that. The Feelings Factory is a made-up place. Like Neverland. And Nebraska. However, you can still follow fiction’s lead and employ a TROPE. Like the old Pretend-You-Have-Feelings-For-Them-Too-Until-It-Goes-Too-Far-and-You-Have-to-Break-Up-Thus-Hurting-Them-More-Than-If-You’d-Just-Been-Truthful-In-the-First-Place trope—a classic! Or the old Fake-Your-Own-Death trope. What could go wrong?

6. Hire a bodyguard to keep all would-be suitors at bay. You never have to be responsible for hurting anyone’s feelings if you never give them the chance to tell you how they feel, right? That’s a mature way to handle your issues, right?

7. Right??

8. In a similar vein, you could try wearing a disguise and talking loudly about how terrible and gross you are until all their feelings for you have dried up like a grimy old sponge. This approach has a relatively low success rate, but it’s worth a try. Plus it’s always fun to wear a disguise.

9. Pretend you’re a ghost. Get your friends to play along. Practice your spooky ghost noises. Convince them it would never work out between you because you are a spirit and they are still bound to this mortal coil. Is this gaslighting? YES. TECHNICALLY. But does it also add a sense of wistful mystery to their lives? MAYBE. I HAVEN’T ACTUALLY TRIED THIS APPROACH SO IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY. PLEASE REPORT BACK WITH YOUR FINDINGS IF YOU CHOOSE THIS TECHNIQUE.

10. As a last resort, try being honest and straightforward with them. If you truly don’t like them, say, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS HONOR BUT I MUST DECLINE. If you like them but don’t know how to say it, don’t say anything, just GIVE ‘EM A SMOOCH. And if you find yourself panicking, try something like, EXCUSE ME BUT YOU HAVE DONE ME A FRIGHT. PLEASE WAIT WHILE I RUN AROUND FOR TEN MINUTES, AT WHICH POINT I WILL RETURN WITH LESS ADRENALINE AND MORE COMPOSURE TO ADDRESS THE MATTER AT HAND—FOR NOW, I MUST BID YOU ADIEU! Make sure you wear sneakers on V-Day for just this situation.

11. Whatever you do, make sure to be kind. Let them down gently. You might want to give them some flowers and chocolate in return, to soften the blow. Hire a string quartet to nurse them through their heartbreak. Buy them a teddy bear. Give them your car. Give them anything—anything to take away the crestfallen look on their face—good God, make it stop! What kind of world is this?!

And if you find yourself rejected this Valentine’s Day, please know I wish I could gather you up in a big hug and give you a squeeze. You are brave. You are thoughtful. But most importantly, remember that plenty of people love you just because you’re you.

Now have another Hershey’s kiss, my sweet little cabbage.

A Pleasant Evening at Home

SCENE: We’re sitting at the dining room table. Bill’s putting together a LEGO model of the Space Station, and I am pretending to get some writing done. The dogs are snoozing in the next room. One of them is doing tiny sleep-woofs.

“Little in the middle,” Bill said slowly, apropos of nothing. “But she’s got much back.”

“Skittles in the middle,” I replied. We often start out our gentle little rhyming games this way, entirely out of the blue.

“Brittle in the middle. Because she has osteoporosis.”

“Brittle in the middle…but she’s got a humpback.”

“Just like you!”

“I have a humpback?”

“You’re at risk for osteoporosis.”

“Oh. I am! Women over thirty really have to watch their backs.”

“The back bones are the first to go.”

“It’s really a nightmare disease when you think about it.”

“Your bones just…go bad.”

“They dissolve inside of you…”

“But you get new ones.”

“No, Bill. No, you don’t.”

“They don’t grow back? Are you sure?”

“You’re thinking of teeth.” I tapped my front tooth with my fingernail. “It’s two sets of teeth, one set of bones.”

“Are you sure? How many do you have?”

“Two hundred and six.”

(I’m only realizing now that he may have meant how many teeth, not how many bones.)

“Really?” he said skeptically.

“Really. Two hundred six bones.”

He tilted his head smarmily. “I don’t know about that. You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

“I didn’t read about it on the internet. I learned it in a song in second grade.”

“That is the standard of trustworthy information,” he said, nodding solemnly. “Learning about it in a song in second grade.”

After some time when the only sound was my furiously typing out this conversation, he made a comment about the texture that LEGO gave to the model. “It’s neat,” he said.

“That is neat,” I agreed, giving a very good impression of someone who had been listening all along.

“You know what’s not neat?” He looked up at me, as serious as I’ve ever seen him. “Osteoporosis. The silent killer.”