It is a truth that book lovers and boozehounds hold dear: nothing pairs better with wine than a great book! Welcome back to Boozy Book Club, where we celebrate this match made in heaven. (If you missed the first installment, go here).
I read Maybe in Another Life, the third novel from super talented young author Taylor Jenkins Reid (her fourth book, One True Loves, is out now) a while ago, but this romantic ‘what if?’ story was on my mind as I was preparing to get married this month.
Maybe in Another Life centers on aimless twenty-nine year old Hannah Martin. Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles to crash in her bestie Gabby’s guestroom while she figures out what to do next. They go out to a bar one night and run into Hannah’s high school boyfriend, Ethan. From that point, the book follows two concurrent storylines: one in which Hannah goes home with Ethan that night, one in which she heads home with Gabby. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her.
Like all of Taylor’s books, this one uses a love story to explore huge questions such as: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? Soulmates, yay or nah? Perfect for some boozy philosophizing!
Wine Pairing:
Cupcake Sauvignon Blanc, in honor of Hannah’s serious sweet tooth
Discussion Questions for a Civilized Evening
1. The book starts off with Hannah wondering if she should get back together her ex is the right thing to do. But is it ever a good idea to get back together with an ex? What do you think?
2. Is it possible that “the one” could end up being “the one that got away”? Do you have one who got away? What happened?
3. The book hinges on something called the Multiverse Theory, in which all possible outcomes are lived out concurrently (science, y’all!). What do you think about this? Does this seem possible? What do you think parallel universe you is up to right now?
4. One of the primary questions that Maybe in an Another Life tackles is whether or not things are meant to be. Do we all have an inalterable destiny? Is there one person out there who is your true love? Is your life determined by chance or the hand of fate? Discuss.
5. Hannah’s first night in L.A. turns out to be massive turning point for her, with one decision taking her life in two very different directions. What was your biggest turning point? Is there a moment you wonder about?
5 Questions with my wedding planner, Michelle Bernard
Photo Credit: Jenna Bechtholt
This coming Saturday (!!!) my fiancé, Derek, and I are having a few friends over to his parents’ house for a party. A big, complicated, fancy party with over a hundred of our nearest and dearest during which we will celebrate one of the biggest moments of our lives. A party which, THANK GOD, we had lots of help planning thanks to our supremely organized, always on top of it, knowledgeable, and loveable wedding planner, Michelle. I know some people relish getting into the nitty gritty of planning their own wedding, but reader, if it were not for Michelle…I shudder to think. In honor of the big day, I asked her here to answer a few questions about her job:
1. You’ve been a wedding planner for ten years now! If you could go back and talk to yourself when you were just starting out, what advice would you give?
Oh goodness! Many things, but I would say the most important is that you are constantly learning and growing as a planner and small business owner. You should never have your job perfectly figured out or it would be time for a new career. The challenges that come along with stepping outside of your comfort zone are what make what you feel invigorated and purposeful.
2. You work with clients to help manage and orchestrate one of the most important days of their lives, what’s the most rewarding thing about this kind of work? What’s the most challenging?
Hands down, the most rewarding is being allowed to take part in this moment in my couples and their families’ lives. It’s truly an honor to play a role in a life event as big as the start of a marriage. The wedding day itself holds as much excitement and anticipation for me as it does for my couples. When I can look around the room and feel the warmth and love it makes all the work worthwhile. The most challenging part is that I’m a perfectionist and want everything to be perfect, even though I know full that doesn’t really exist. There are always little behind the scenes issues that pop up and it’s being able to address them quickly and smoothly that makes all the difference. That, and I really wish I could control the weather. Oh Seattle weather! The bane of any planners existence here in the Pacific Northwest.
3. You see a lot of couples get married every year, do you feel like you can spot the ones whose marriages will last? Is there some telling quality or x factor that you see with couples who end up happily hitched?
I love the first chance that I get to sit down in person with a couple and get to know them as we start the process. I learn a lot about them very quickly. The biggest element is partnership. I can tell when a couple makes a great team. Bouncing ideas off of one another, taking the other person’s feelings into account every step of the way, coming to appointments together, maybe not always agreeing but being able to communicate and come to a join decision…partnership is the key to a happy marriage. It’s also important not to sweat the small stuff. When I ask each couple what the most important thing is to them for their wedding day, and they both answer that it’s to marry each other and have a fun day with their closest family and friends, that’s when I know the wedding itself is for the right reason. That tells me it’s not about a show or a who’s who of guests, it’s about the couple and getting to celebrate their union with their nearest and dearest. That’s what a wedding day is all about. Not a Pinterest board and the perfect shade of blush! I feel lucky that I work with grounded couples who really get what is most important in life.
4. What do you think are the most important elements to having a wonderful wedding? Conversely, are there things people stress about that don’t end up mattering very much?
I pretty much summed it up above: Don’t stress about the small stuff. Especially if you have a planner on board. I and the team of vendors we’ve chosen do our best work when couples put their trust in us to make their wedding amazing and collaborate with them. Another biggie - make sure you eat! I am a big food pusher. My couples have so much fun planning their food and drink menu that I want them to enjoy it. Lastly take time to soak it all in. Moments throughout the day that couples look around the room and are really present and aware really matter. One of my favorite moments is the first time my couples see each other privately for photos before the wedding begins. Where it’s just the two of them and nothing else matters. And the moment right after they are announced and kiss at the end of the ceremony. I always tell them to pause, and I mean really take a moment and pause, and look around the room at all of their family and friends cheering for them. It’s pretty incredible. That’s what a wedding day is all about. These wonderful, delicious little moments. A snapshot in time.
5. Time to dish! What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever had happen at a wedding? How did you deal?
I could write a book about all of the crazy thing from over the years! There have been lots of unexpected moments - wild wedding parties, power outages and wind storms, family drama, wacky guests, cakes on a hot day sliding off their tiers (then rushing to put them back together) and the list goes on. Fortunately, the couples and their guests are almost never the wiser that they were ever any issues. That’s what I’m here for!
Read more about Michelle on her website, and if you happen to live in Seattle and be planning a wedding, do yourself a favor and hire her.!
Roundup: Love and Marriage (and a giveaway!)
I’m getting married in less than two weeks. I can scarcely wrap my head around the idea that I’m going to be someone’s wife. Exciting! Totally weird! All the things!
Who wore it best? We'll see princess, we'll see....
Some people let loose the crazy.com when they get hitched: http://apracticalwedding.com/2016/07/wedding-website-mistakes/
I got out of the dating game just as Tinder was becoming the thing. Thank GOD: http://www.elle.com/life-love/news/a38124/tinder-study/
These ladies are the definition of grace. And if you ever feel bad about getting stood up? Two words: Lupita Nyong'o http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/news/a38152/women-stood-up/
There’s over the top weddings, and then there’s Mariah Carey http://www.vogue.com/13463732/mariah-carey-wedding-details-reality-show-mariahs-world/
Well, my dad is British, so if y’all wanna wear a giant hat to my wedding CARRY ON! http://www.vogue.com/13463228/british-versus-american-wedding-traditions/
It’s never too late. I’m not crying! It’s just allergies! http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a62299/79-year-old-virgin-getting-married/
All my mother-in-law to be does is send me texts with lots of emojis. #soblessed http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a62372/mother-of-the-groom-bride-horror-stories/
You know when you go to a wedding and you think, this is great but it needs more zombies? DeAngelo Williams has you covered. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a62222/nfl-player-deangelo-williams-walking-dead-zombie-wedding/
Why Joe Biden is your favorite uncle: http://www.wkbw.com/news/us-news-world/joe-biden-officiates-gay-wedding-between-white-house-staffers
My husband supports marriage equality just like Bud Light! Bud Light itself? Nah. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/bud-light-proudly-supports-gay-marriage-ad-partnership-ellen-171757
EXTRA: I'm giving away an audio copy of LOSING THE LIGHT along with some fun roadtrip swag! Details on how to enter at the link: http://bit.ly/2asjifw
August Books Preview
*PSA: one of the best things you can do for an author with a new book out is tell everyone if you love it, so don’t forget to share on you social media and review on Amazon and Goodreads.
Half Wild: Stories by Robin MacArthur (August, 2nd)
Follow Robin on Twitter and Instagram
Review on Amazon and Goodreads
Spanning nearly forty years, the stories in Robin MacArthur’s formidable debut give voice to the hopes, dreams, hungers and fears of a diverse cast of Vermonters --- adolescent girls, aging hippies, hardscrabble farmers, disconnected women and solitary men. Straddling the border between civilization and the wild, they all struggle to make sense of their loneliness and longings in the stark and often isolating enclaves they call home --- golden fields and white-veiled woods, dilapidated farmhouses and makeshift trailers, icy rivers and still lakes that rouse the imagination, tether the heart and inhabit the soul. In striking prose powerful in its clarity and purity, MacArthur effortlessly renders characters cleaved to the land that has defined them --- men and women, young and old, whose lives are inextricably intertwined with each other and tied to the fierce and beautiful natural world.
The Regulars by Georgia Clark (August 2nd)
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Review on Amazon and Goodreads
Best friends Evie, Krista and Willow are just trying to make it through their mid-twenties in New York. They’re regular girls, with average looks and typical quarter-life crises. Until they come across Pretty, a magic tincture that makes them, well...gorgeous. Like, supermodel gorgeous. And it’s certainly not their fault if the sudden gift of beauty causes unexpected doors to open for them. But there’s a dark side to Pretty, too, and as the gloss fades for these modern-day Cinderellas, there’s just one question left: What would you sacrifice to be Pretty?
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey (August 2nd)
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Review on Amazon and Goodreads
In the winter of 1885, Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester sets out with his men on an expedition into the newly acquired territory of Alaska. Their objective: to travel up the ferocious Wolverine River, mapping the interior and gathering information on the region's potentially dangerous native tribes. With a young and newly pregnant wife at home, Forrester is anxious to complete the journey with all possible speed and return to her. But once the crew passes beyond the edge of the known world, there's no telling what awaits them.
The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis (August 23rd)
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Review on Amazon and Goodreads
Fiona Davis’s stunning debut novel pulls readers into the lush world of New York City’s glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side-by-side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success in the 1950s, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon’s glitzy past.
The Girl Before by Rena Olsen (August 9th)
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Review on Amazon and Goodreads
Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing. In chapters that alternate between past and present, the novel slowly unpeels the layers of Clara’s fractured life. We see her growing up, raised by the stern Mama and Papa G, becoming a poised young woman, falling desperately in love with the forbidden son of her adoptive parents. We see her now, sequestered in an institution, questioned by men and women who call her a different name and accuse her husband of unspeakable crimes. As recollections of her past collide with new revelations, Clara must question everything she thought she knew to come to terms with the truth of her history, and to find the strength to navigate her future.
Born Bright by C. Nicole Mason (August 16th)
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Review on Amazon and Goodreads
Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason was raised by a beautiful, but volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between an unpredictable home life and school where she excelled. By high school, Mason was seamlessly straddling two worlds. The first, a cocoon of familiarity where street smarts, toughness and the ability to survive won the day. The other, foreign and unfamiliar with its own set of rules, not designed for her success. In her Advanced Placement classes and outside of her neighborhood, she felt unwelcomed and judged because of the way she talked, dressed and wore her hair. After moving to Las Vegas to live with her paternal grandmother, she worked nights at a food court in one of the Mega Casinos while finishing school. Having figured out the college application process by eavesdropping on the few white kids in her predominantly Black and Latino school along with the help of a long ago high school counselor, Mason eventually boarded a plane for Howard University, alone and with $200 in her pocket.
While showing us her own path out of poverty, Mason examines the conditions that make it nearly impossible to escape and exposes the presumption harbored by many―that the poor don't help themselves enough.
The Year of Everything
I knew things were going to change for me in 2016, I went into the year with my debut novel release set for late February and my wedding on the books for six months later, almost to the day. That would have been plenty, but one change begets another. Change comes not in drips, evenly spaced, as you’re ready for it, but in tidal waves.
I got my second book deal in March shortly after Losing the Light launched. This deal felt entirely different from the first. When I got the call about the first book deal from my agent, it was exactly what I had imagined. I burst out of my office and announced it to my coworkers: they knew I’d been on tenterhooks waiting. I cried all the tears: the happy ones, the ones of relief, the ones of pure unfiltered emotion at something I had been waiting for all my life coming true. I called my mom, my dad, my boyfriend (now soon-to-be-husband). We drank champagne in the marketing meeting, then again that night and all the next weekend.
The second deal was a happy occasion as well of course, I’m thrilled to be working on a second book with all of the same people who gave Losing the Light such a fantastic debut. But it was different this time, there was no feeling of the surreal. It settled on me as my agent and publisher and I went back and forth about the particulars: my life had changed. I was doing this author thing for real now.
Being a writer of novels was one thing. Over the years I’d become incredibly adept at squeezing the work into the margins, the stolen hours of the mornings before work: on weekends when I was being really diligent. But being an author is a different job. I was lucky, having worked in publishing for over a decade, I was prepared for the intense hustle of marketing and promotion. Being prepared didn’t keep me from telling myself a fiction that’s familiar to many of us: I can do all of it, I’ll make it work, I’ll just work harder, better, more efficiently.
But by April the wheels were coming off. I needed to step back. So I took a sabbatical from my day job as the social media and marketing director of Girl Friday. I needed time to finish writing the second book and to actually answer some of my wedding planner’s emails. And I just needed a minute. We can only absorb so much at once. In the space that opened up in that month away from the daily grind of emails and meetings: a thousand big ideas came to me. And then—for a variety of reasons—I did not return to work following my sabbatical. The tidal wave rolled on.
Over the past three weeks since this came to be I’ve felt all of the emotions on the spectrum: sadness to leave a job I once loved, and coworkers I still love, the apprehension and uncertainty that comes from suddenly not having a full time job after having had one most of my adult life, and mostly, excitement that I can now move forward with the thousand big ideas. I feel so much gratitude for everything I learned at my time at Girl Friday, and before that with the late, great Kim Ricketts, and before that at Doubleday. The sum total of these experiences has made me who I am: sharpened my vision of who I want to be in the world.
So what’s next? Writing, of course, and the ability to put it first. Working with authors and creatives one-on-one. Remaking how we think about book events and book audiences and how authors and readers connect. I not only can’t wait to get started, I’m already knee-deep.
So bring the change. Bring on the next thing and the next. The tidal waves comes to clear the way.
Five Questions with Travel Writer Lilit Marcus
Travel writer is one of those dream jobs that anyone with a well-used passport has probably fantasized about at some point. This week I tap my talented friend Lilit Marcus to find out what it’s really like. Check out her recent adventures in Cuba and Iceland at the links and for real-time updates, follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
What is your favorite place you’ve visited and why?
It's always hard for me to choose a favorite. Paris is a cliché, but it's a much-deserved cliché. Every time I go, I find something I've never seen or done before, yet the city always feels comforting and familiar. It's an old friend and a new lover at the same time. The high school me who diagrammed sentences in French class still can't believe that I've been to Paris not just once but several times.
What are the biggest differences between travelling somewhere as a journalist and going there just as a tourist?
The biggest mistake is thinking that a reporting trip is the same thing as a vacation. Some people have this idea of a travel writer as somebody who's lying around on some fabulous beach at some fabulous resort somewhere, filing stories from a chaise longue. (First of all, there are not power outlets at the beach. I've looked.) My assignments have taken me to some really incredible places, but I often spend as much time cooped up in a room with my computer or running from meeting to meeting as I do sightseeing. The solitude factor is also big. If you're not comfortable spending a lot of time alone, the job will be tough for you. I really wish I could always bring a friend or partner with me when I'm on the road, but if the majority of travel I do on my own. My job involves a lot of meeting new people and trying to chat up the locals--it's always easier to do that solo, because it feels organic. The other day I was in a restaurant in Nashville by myself and was seated at the bar, in front of an open kitchen. By the end of the night, I'd met all the people sitting around me, one of the chefs, and one of the restaurant owners. I got a ton of great local intel from them. That is a lot harder to do when you're dining with a friend and don't want to abandon them or be rude.
Where have you travelled that was completely different from your expectations?
Before I went to Mexico City, several people--some of whom were from Mexico City--told me that I was going to hate it, that it was a terrible place for women to go alone, and that I wouldn't feel safe. As soon as I arrived, there were signs around my hotel warning about street crime and advising people not to walk alone at night or wear nice jewelry. But I loved the city almost immediately and had an incredible experience. The people are lovely, the food is great, and there's so much to see, do, and absorb that I could have stayed another week. I'm already plotting my next trip.
What destinations are still on your bucket list and why?
I have about a dozen places on my list at any given time--travel writing is basically a constant state of FOMO. But I'm trying to get to Malta next spring, and Romania is high on my list because my great-grandparents emigrated from there and I'd love to go see where our roots are. As soon as I cross one thing off the list, I add three more, and I still want to revisit most of the places I've already been to. It's a mess.
What is the craziest thing that’s happened to you while travelling?
My first language is American Sign Language, and whenever I run into Deaf people somewhere else in the world we always manage to find a way to communicate even if we don't have a common language. I've met Deaf people in the airport in Santiago, Chile, the national museum in Seoul, a bar in East London, a coffee shop in Jaffa. In Chile, I was able to talk to the group's interpreter in broken Spanish, and she translated into Chilean Sign Language. As soon as she explained to the group she was traveling with that I was a CODA--Child of Deaf Adults--people just started hugging me. We were all smiling and crying and taking photos together, even before we knew each other’s names. It must have looked so crazy to the other people in the terminal. Just a few decades ago, many Deaf people were institutionalized and didn't have the opportunity to leave their hometowns, let alone their countries. Their lives were contained, their movements restricted. The fact that so many of us have been able to meet and find each other is a gift.
Lilit Marcus is a writer, reporter, and tea nerd who lives in Brooklyn, New York and tries to travel away from it as much as possible. Her first book, Save the Assistants: A Guide for Surviving and Thriving in the Workplace, was published by Hyperion. Her work has appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and more
Travel & Adventure Round-Up
Travelling to Romantic Italy, party of one:
http://www.elle.com/culture/travel-food/a36756/solo-travel-guide-to-italy-cinque-terre/
10 US Cities that are underrated as Holiday destinations
http://www.refinery29.com/2016/06/115387/underrated-us-cities-holiday-destinations#slide
Had it with city life? Why not decamp to Costa Rica?
http://www.refinery29.com/moving-costa-rica
Only have a weekend to travel? No Problem!
http://www.refinery29.com/2016/06/112812/international-travel-summer-weekend-trips#slide
From Yellowstone to Russia, the best places to visit in July:
http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-06-29/the-best-places-to-visit-in-july
Summer boozing is all about rooftops. The best in the US:
http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-06-23/the-10-best-rooftop-bars-in-the-us
All Inclusive resorts that won’t break the bank:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/best-affordable-all-inclusive-resorts
The 52 Best Places to Visit in 2016:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/07/travel/places-to-visit.html
How Millennials are changing the American idea of travel:
July Books Preview
It’s summer reading season! My favorite time of year. Of course, in my world, every season is reading season, but there’s something extra special about being able to kick back in a hammock or by the lake for several hours of uninterrupted bookish bliss. It’s the perfect time for to pick up one of these smart new page-turners.
Grab your poolside beverage of choice and add one of these to your beach bag stat!
Read and Recommended:
The Last One by Alexandra Olivia
Olivia’s debut novel tells the story of a reality show that turns into an all too real fight for survival. The heroine, a young woman nicknamed “Zoo” by the show’s producers, takes part in the Survivor-style competition as a means of forestalling some more serious life decisions, namely whether she and her husband will have children. But while Zoo is out in the woods cut off from all communication, something terrible happens. Alone and disoriented, she finds it increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is staged by the show’s producers.
In addition to being impossible to put down, I found this to be a smart take on the role of reality television in our perception of the world around us. Think The Hunger Games meets The Road.
All is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker
When I was out on tour this spring, a bookseller brought me a galley of this one and said “You just have to read this.” Booksellers are kind of my Reece Witherspoon, but if you need more convincing, know that the lady herself has snapped up the film rights.
Walker’s third novel, which is poised to be her breakout, tells the harrowing tale of a teenager Jenny Kramer who is the victim of a violent attack during a party in the small affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut. In the hospital during the hours immediately following the attack, her parents choose to give her a controversial drug that erases her memory of the events. We see the story from the perspective of the psychiatrist treating Jenny and watch as the incident begins to tear at the seams of Jenny’s family and the community around her.
The treatment at the center of this novel does not yet exist, but Walker based it on real experimental treatments for PTSD patients, making the questions that the novel raises about memory and the ethics of treating trauma all the more compelling. This was a terrifying and thoughtful psychological thriller with an ending that is both shocking and satisfying.
Books on my TBR
I’ve been following Aya’s work for a while, and cannot wait to get my hands on this talented multi-hypehenate (poet, essayist, professor) debut novel. Uptown Thief centers on a Latina Robin Hood who robs corrupt CEOs to fund her Lower East Side women’s health clinic. Her cover? An exclusive escort service. Marisol Rivera…the superhero the world needs now. In the meantime, catch up with Aya on The Debutante Ball.
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise in the North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant. But as the week wears on, she witnesses a terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. All the passengers remain accounted for, so the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I have chills just reading the cover copy! I do love a tale of a vacation gone wrong.
You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
I read The Fever last year and it is one of those books I could. Not. Shut. Up. About for weeks. So naturally I’m excited for her new one.
In You Will Know Me Katie and Eric Knox have dedicated their lives to their 15-year-old daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful. But when a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community just weeks before an all-important competition, everything the Knoxes have worked so hard for feels suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among the other parents, revealing hidden plots and allegiances, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself drawn, irresistibly, to the crime itself, and the dark corners it threatens to illuminate.
Just in time to creep you out while watching the summer Olympics! (As if they weren’t creepy enough already).
A Boozy Book Club Guide to Losing the Light
I hadn’t realized that my debut novel, Losing the Light, was quite so booze-soaked until I started to get my blurbs—and all but one of them mentioned wine. I mean, my young characters are running around France making questionable decisions so the wine-connection is natural. And really, what goes together better than wine and books?
In honor of my passion for both of these hobbies, I offer up a very special reading and drinking guide to Losing the Light. As one of my dearest friends (a book editor natch) like to say “We should go drink about this.”
Wine Pairings
If you’re feeling as fancy as Sophie on a shopping spree: Domaine Saint-Martin Cotes du Rhones Rose
If you’re saving up for a trip to Cap Ferrat: Menage A Trois Rose
*I chose roses as that is how this lady prefers to get lit in summertime.
Discussion Questions for a Civilized Evening
Rather than just discussing the book as though you were back in English class, use this opportunity to get to know your fellow book-clubbers on a deeper level.
1) In the beginning of Losing the Light, Brooke runs into someone from her past and recalls her younger self. When you think back on yourself ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ago what do you wish you’d known about life? What would you tell you past self if you could talk to him or her?
2) Everyone in the novel is crushing on everyone else. Who was the most intense crush of your young life?
3) Brooke and Sophie’s obsessive friendship with one another is in many ways the central relationship of the book. Did you ever have a friendship like that? What happened with him or her?
4) Brooke and Sophie both use their time in France to both discover and reinvent themselves. If you could move to any foreign country to start a new life, where would you go and why?
5) There’s a big twist near the end of the book and the ending is ambiguous. What do you think happened? Make your case to the group.
The Drinking Game
Feeling rowdy? Everyone taking an Uber home? Time for a Losing the Light inspired round of Never Have I Ever. The rules of this classic game of drinking and divulging vary somewhat depending on who you ask, but I like the version that states: drink if you’ve done it, if you’re the only one who drinks: tell the story!
Never have I ever:
· Hooked up with one of my professors
· Studied abroad
· Stolen my friend’s boyfriend or girlfriend
· Had my girlfriend or boyfriend stolen by a friend
· Learned a foreign language
· Been to France
· Spent my rent on a handbag
· Had an affair with a sexy foreigner
Please read responsibly!
*Want me to visit your book club? I'd be delighted! If it's in the Seattle area I can come in person, but I'm also available on Skype. Cheers!
Tour Diaries Part Three: Denver & Chicago
After a month to catch my breath, I was back on the road last week. My first stop was Denver, a place I’d never been and wish I could have stayed a bit longer. But at least I didn’t over pack: I took the Garanimals approach this time, which is why every outfit below is some version of black and white.
I started off at the venerable Tattered Cover for an event with local author Mona Awad. We had drinks beforehand with another writer from Mona’s PhD program, Emily Culliton, who just sold a book to Knopf—in hearing her talk about it, I realized I’d read the deal announcement in Publisher’s Lunch and thought “Oh! I can’t wait to read that one!” The writerly world keeps getting smaller in the most wonderful way.
Mona’s debut came out on the same day as mine. Her Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is a searing portrait of one woman’s struggle with body issues as she comes of age. It is utterly relatable to any woman who has wrestled with body image (so, any woman) and is by turns hilarious and heart-breaking. It was a delight to get to know Mona and we had a lively discussion onstage. There was a memorable moment during the Q & A where the smartly dressed middle-aged man who’d wandered over from the science section to join us a few minutes into the conversation asked us why men might want to read our books, as they seemed very much geared towards women. It was a cathartic moment: being asked (politely and earnestly) this question that seems so implicit for the female writer. I told him that—through no personal fault of his own—it’s often assumed that men won’t relate with women’s stories, but that women are taught from the beginning to empathize and relate with men’s stories. I told him that reading stories by and about women was a good way to understand the women he cared about (he had a wife, he told us, and daughters) and that this was the whole point of fiction really, beyond its value as entertainment, to build empathy. Mona also pointed out that there’s plenty in both books that is universal: friendship, coming of age, feeling uncomfortable in your skin (and of course body image is not simply a female issue, I point you to Isaac Fitzgerald’s excellent essay on Buzzfeed). We must have convinced him, he bought copies of both books.
Next up was Chicago for a trip to BEA with my colleagues and an event with the fabulous writing duo Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. We had dinner before our reading and though it was the first time I’d met them, I felt like we’d all known each other for years. The two have been best friends for over thirty years and, in addition to being co-authors of three delightful novels (The Year We Turned Forty is their latest), run a fantastic blog and are big supporters of their fellow authors.
We read at The Book Cellar, a gorgeous local indie that gives you free wine when you read there. Needless to say, I’ll be back any time they’ll have me.
Earlier in the day marketing guru and pal Penny Sansevieri had taught me how to use Facebook Live and Liz and Lisa made much use of this both that evening and the next day when we got to see our esteemed publisher, Judith Curr and blockbuster author Jennifer Weiner, who was on hand to promote her new children’s book, The Littlest Bigfoot.
I also got to spend some time with my PR squad from Booksparks, who have been the wind beneath my wings throughout these last few months.
Next Up: The Great Northwest Author Tour with Girl Friday Productions and McMenamins. I’m thrilled to be helping launch this new reading series which will take Jamie Ford (internationally bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Songs of Willow Frost) and me to three different McMenamins properties. At each location, we’ll be doing a free evening event at 6pm, followed by a ticketed breakfast event the following morning at 9am—the latter includes breakfast and a signed copy of a book by each author. Hope to see you there!
Buy Tickets
Tour Diaries Part Two: L.A., Phoenix, Austin, and Portland
The last five weeks since my debut novel went on-sale have easily been the most fun—and the most exhausting—of my life.
Things that can be purchased from Target in an emergency...
“Damnit!” I said to my fiancé in a flurry of packing late the night before I was set to leave for California, “All of my summer clothes are in storage!” It was eight o’clock at night, I was on a flight the next morning to Redlands to visit my mentor and spend a few days with my folks in Palm Desert, then onto L.A., Phoenix, and Austin. It was fifty-five and raining in Seattle. “Do you want me to go pick something up for you?” (A good decision, marrying this one.)
“Nah, I’ll wing it.” In the first two days I’d stocked up on shorts and tank tops and gotten an efficient mani-pedi from a strip mall salon.
Part of what I’ve loved about being on tour is that it makes it feel real, this massive change that has happened in my life. Walking the Redlands campus, it settled on me in a new way. Like so many authors, I’d always wanted to be a writer, but Redlands—under the loving guidance of the incredibly gifted Pat Geary--was where it went from being a dream to being a plan. I spoke to a group of fifteen advanced writing students about my journey from where they sat to where I was. They were so fresh-faced and hopeful; I looked at them thinking “Was I really that young when I was here?”
Next up was L.A;. a place I love for a few days, loathe if you try to keep me there longer. I stayed at the uber-hip Standard, and the staff was sweet to me—which is the difference between hip places in L.A. and hip places in New York.
By the pool with my friend Sabrina
Taylor Jenkins Reid and I met in person for the first time about an hour before we went on stage at Book Soup, but it felt like we’d known each other for years. If you haven’t been so lucky as to have met Ms. Reid, she is as charming and lovable as her heroines, and chatting with her was a delight. I pointed out during our talk that her novels often revolve around a pivotal moment in a character’s life that delineates everything into before and after: I asked if there’d been such a moment in her life and, tearing up, she said that in fact, there had. Meeting her husband Alex, also in attendance that night, had been her moment.
On stage at Book Soup with Taylor
Caroline Kepnes also came to our event and she and I drank champagne back at the Standard late into the night, talking about writing and the strangeness of dealing with fans (mostly on her end). An hour or so in, she got up to go to the bathroom and as she was walking out announced to the bar “Everyone! This lady just published her debut novel!” As we ordered another round I thought about my early flight to Phoenix the next day. Screw it, I thought, I’ll sleep next week, next month, next year.
Caroline, me, and Taylor #teamAtria
Next up was Phoenix where I got to meet a bunch of the lovely ladies from Spark Point Studios. Changing Hands, where I read with Beth Kendrick, is a marvel of a bookstore, with a bar right in the middle of it. This is a genius idea. If I ran the world, all the bookstores would have bars in them and vise-versa.
Beth Kendrick, writer of over a dozen smart, funny romantic novels, was a delight. There was much to love about the charming Kendrick, but one thing that struck me was how she owned her voice as a writer. “I discovered early,” she said (her first book was published when she was the ripe old age of twenty-two) “That I have a commercial voice. And I love it, I do what I want!”
With Beth Kendrick
A bar...IN a bookstore!
Last in line was the only solo event on my tour. I stayed in Austin with an old friend from my New York days who lives there now. The day of my event, I went out for a run by the river. “It’s a loop,” she told me, "you can’t get lost.” She clearly did not who she was dealing with. I called her an hour later from a park about five miles off course after taking a nasty spill when my foot caught a tree root.
If an author falls in the forest...
As I was preparing to go to the podium at Austin’s marvelous Book People, an old friend I hadn’t seen in years appeared at the top of the stairs. She’d surprised me by driving out from Houston—two and half hours or so—and seeing her was like a mirage. I managed to dry my eyes just in time to begin my talk. After being in such good company with Laurie, Jordan, Taylor, and Beth, I felt lonely up there. Besides which, meeting fellow authors has been the best part of this whole deal.
My friend who made the surprise visit is Mexican and she notably never drank the margaritas in Seattle, but in Austin, how could you not? We went out after Book People to do just that and talked about how life is short, how it goes by fast. A blink and years have passed. I countered that life was both long and short, too long to spend doing work that meant nothing to you, too long to be with a person who wasn’t the right person.
After a few days to recover (too few probably) I was off to Portland, which I always manage to convince myself is only two hours away from Seattle, despite the fact that it is always, always three. Here my Portland Girls Friday came out in full force, and it felt like a third hometown appearance after Seattle and New York.
With Amy and local Portland author Nicole Meier
Amy Hatvany, my fellow author for the event at Powell’s was warm, charming, and like a force of nature. Amy writes complex, issue-driven fiction and it was fascinating to learn about her process and her sociology background that drives it.
Next up: Tattered Cover in Denver with Mona Awad. Chicago for BEA and The Book Cellar with Liz and Lisa, and then later in May, The Great Northwest Author Tour. Details to come!
Tour Diaries Part One: Seattle, New York, and San Francisco
The book tour is an old school promotional tool, and yet, for many an aspiring author (including myself) it’s an integral part of what we imagine as we spend our lives dreaming of the day we get a book published. For some authors, the idea of reading in front of an audience sounds like torture, and they can rejoice in the fact that we live in the digital age of book promotion where much of the hustle can be done behind a screen while wearing pajamas.
The tour is not for everyone but if you can pull it off with some airline miles, friends’ guest rooms, and maybe a little help from your publisher, it can be a blast. After all, digital media is essential, but nothing replaces face-to-face, and going to a bunch of different cities allows you to make connections with bookstores, bloggers, readers, and local media outlets you would never meet otherwise. And if you do like being in front of an audience, nothing feels more author-ly than the book tour.
I chose my cities carefully: all places I could get at least a handful of friends to show up, with a solid independent bookstore (preferably those who’d let me bring wine). I came out with Seattle (where I live), New York, San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix, Austin, Portland, and Chicago. The first three cities are under my belt. Here’s how it went:
Seattle
I celebrated my on-sale date at one of Seattle most storied independent bookstores, Elliott Bay Book Company. My friend, local Seattle author Laurie Frankel, agreed to present with me and we welcomed an eclectic mix of my friends, family, future in-laws, colleagues, and writer pals with champagne and French music.
I speak in front of crowds all the time for GFP, but there’s something infinitely more terrifying about reading one’s own work aloud. It’s there on the page and you can’t change course based on the audience’s reaction. You’re making public something that you worked on privately for years, and you feel suddenly and viscerally that it now belongs to readers as much as it belongs to you.
The only time I’d previously read from the book was last year when I read a sexy scene from Losing the Light at Babeland as part of Lit Crawl. An erotic poet named Larry, who had a silver ponytail halfway down his back and wore a sleeveless t-shirt that said “Fuck Yeah” in huge block letters, was our moderator. I learned that it’s impossible to feel nervous when you’re reading next to an entire wall of sex toys. I opened with this story and thankfully everyone laughed. I was off to a good start, considering I had just survived saying the word dildo in front of an audience that included both my parents and the lion’s share of my future in-laws.
New York
With Haley Weaver and Sarah Cantin from Atria
There was no place that loomed larger when imagining a book tour than New York. It was where I’d lived most of my twenties and started my career in publishing, but where success had eluded me as a writer.
I started my New York trip with a visit to my publisher, Judith Curr’s, class with my editor, Sarah Cantin, and my agent, Carly Watters. We discussed our various processes and how we work together as a team, I got to talk about my own career trajectory and how it landed me at the fabulous Girl Friday Productions, and meet with the students to sign some copies we’d brought for them. My favorite moment of the night was when one of the girls from the class told me she hoped it became a bestseller. I thanked her and said I was lucky to have an awesome team around me. “Yeah,” she said, “it seems like they’re not about any bullshit.” First, she’s right. Second, I want that on my tombstone.
With Duncan Quinn
Mom and Dad!
For my New York event, we skipped the store and brought a bookseller into my friend Duncan’s store where drank many bottles of his signature rose (bottled in the South of France!). All of the darling ladies on my publishing team came out to celebrate with me, one of my best friends (and former New York roommate) made a surprise visit from Chicago, and my wonderful agent, Carly, was still in town from Toronto. Even my parents came out from Seattle! There were also some guests I’d never met before, author Miranda Beverly-Whittemore (who blurbed my book and has been extremely supportive) and tiny dynamo book blogger Natasha, also known as The Book Barista (you should all be following her, she will be running everything someday).
I traipsed all four corners of Manhattan (plus a stop in Brooklyn) to sign stock. My mom came with me on the second day which made it lots more fun. Later when I was chatting with a sales guy at Aldo about why I was in New York, she let him know where he could find a signed copy and reminded him to post a review on Amazon. It was a veritable Dunlop Roadshow.
With Xavier from the Tribeca B & N
San Francisco
After the high of my New York and Seattle events, I think the universe was like “Eh, this one’s getting a bit full of herself,” and decided to send the worst rainstorm ever to San Francisco. My day-of flight was rerouted through San Jose and by the time I made it to the Ferry Building I was drenched from the two block walk from the Bart Station. My co-presenter Jordan Reid got stuck in an apocalyptic traffic jam and finally made it to Book Passage about a half an hour into the talk (fortunately my friend Kate was moderating so I wasn’t solo). The crowd consisted of six people, two who were friends of mine and four who I had never seen in my life. This was a revelation. Four total strangers with no personal obligation had braved the rain to come see Jordan and me. I was glad we had wine for them. The event was a little more intimate than planned but still oh so much fun, and the folks at Book Passage were wonderful.
With Kate Chynoweth and Jordan Reid
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Believe in yourself. Bleh. Is there a motivational phrase more hackneyed? Do you suppose, for instance, that if I really, really believed it I could make it as a principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre I could do it starting now at 33? I could not, reader, because believing in yourself without the goods to back it up (goods: talent, discipline, years of hard work) isn’t inspiring, it’s delusional and annoying to the people who do have the goods. Take, for example, the roughly one billion people I’ve met who—despite not having read a book since high school—really, truly, deeply believe that can write one. And yet…believing in yourself doesn’t mean you negate the hard work, it means you double down on it. The belief is what makes the work seem worthwhile. For the long road to convincing anyone else to give a fig about your art begins with your giving baskets upon baskets of figs about it. All the figs. You might be encouraged and helped along by moms, coaches, professors, and Facebook friends, but if you don’t believe in you, you’ll find a thousand tiny ways to sabotage yourself before you ever get where you want to go. You must take you to bed each night and rise with you each morning, if you are determined to thwart you, you will succeed. I found this in myself by knowing that long after others gave up, I wouldn’t. And I won’t. What have you found the audacity to believe about yourself?
What if you found the courage to put aside your fashionable cynicism? What if you decided that actually, things can change for the better instead of staying the same, or becoming more of whatever they are? What if in that vulnerable moment of proclaiming some audacious goal, you said yes, actually I am going to do this thing, I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll be here until it’s done. What could ever stop you then? It’s so much easier to say no, I can’t. You can’t. We can’t. Why bother? Let’s stay here on the couch. It’s cold out, and it’s raining besides. But we could you know. We can, actually. And you know what? Let’s. #themondaymuse
Who is the Monday Muse? She’s that best friend you count on to kick your ass hard, but believe in you twice as hard. She’s here to wake you up early, but she brings the good coffee. She’s wearing her steel toed boots because she knows that inspiration is worthless if it doesn’t come with hard work. She doesn’t care if you’ve got an advanced degree or any degree at all, she doesn’t care if you’re published or prize-winning, beloved or bestselling. She cares about where you’re going, about putting one foot in front of the other, and she’s gonna keep that wild flame burning to light your way. She’ not here for the excuses and she’s definitely not here for the haters. She’s no airy-fairy, she’s the avenging goddess of butt in chair, show up on time, sleeves rolled up, fall down get back up. She’s the high priestess of the unstoppable, unshakeable, un-shout-downable. She’s here for all of that. And friend, if you’re here for that, she’s here for you. #themondaymuse
For the last several years, I’ve taken some time over the holidays to write down my goals. As I went to add my 2016 goals (survive with my wits intact?) to my trusty black Moleskin, I took a moment to peruse my goals for 2015 and 2014. I had big plans to follow-up with this exercise—even going so far as to schedule check-ins in my Google calendar—so you know I meant business. The check-ins happened sporadically, because life. The goals themselves were audacious: get a novel published, find a true and lasting love, make bank (or at least more than piggy bank) at my day job. And lookie here! Ring on the finger, galley on the shelf, healthy-looking saving account. I’m not bragging I’m telling you, if you do nothing else this resolution season: write it down. It’s no secret (and it’s definitely not The Secret) it’s just the simple fact that writing something down makes it real: a sort of binding contract with yourself. So write it down, bonus points if you tell a friend and make them hold you accountable. While you’re at it, tell ME! How are you taking on the world in 2016?
Overdrive
Somewhere between the blitz of pie, family, and football of the long Thanksgiving weekend, I hit a wall. Writing my weekly blog post—something I usually look forward to—felt like an insurmountable task. And though the months bringing us to year’s end have flown by, suddenly the weeks until Christmas stretch long before me.
2016, you see, is meant to be my year. Easily the two biggest events of my adult life thus far—the publication of my first novel and my wedding—are respectively slated for February 23rd and August 20th of 2016. With all of that coming at me, I’m gearing up, trying to prepare myself for changes that might not be entirely possible to prepare oneself for. I go back and forth between a heady mix of joy and adrenaline and a giddy nervousness that I will somehow muck it all up.
Fortunately my fiancé and I have hired a miraculous woman named Michelle to help us plan the wedding. But the bigness of such a step still looms. I temper the anxiety by remembering that at the end, I’ll be a married to my beloved, so even if my dress gets drenched in red wine, an uncle makes an inappropriate toast, and someone’s underage cousin gets drunk and pukes on the dancefloor, it will all turn out alright.
The book release—happening in February—is in the foreground and God knows what state I’d be in if I didn’t have so many other distractions (including a busy full-time job). It’s a great advantage to me that I’ve worked in books all these years, but knowing everything that I could be doing to support the book creates a constant thrum in the back of my mind that I’m not doing enough. There’s an ambient fear that I am letting my moment pass me by, that just when the crucial bend in the road appears, I’ll find myself asleep at the wheel.
Does it sound like I’m complaining? I don’t mean to. There are many days I wake up overcome by the good fortune that’s befallen me. But good stress is still stress. The closer you get to what you want, the higher the stakes become.
Underneath the noise there is this: all my life the one thing I’ve been sure of is that I wanted to be a novelist. And now there is something else I’m sure of—or someone rather—and he’ll be beside me every step of the way.
NaNoWriMo Chapter Four: Keeping the Faith
Here it is, the last week of NaNoWriMo. That went by fast didn’t it? If you’ve been keeping pace—or at least continuing to write, even if you’ve fallen behind—you probably have a lovely pile of pages of by now, and are perhaps barreling towards a completed first draft of your novel. The daily task of writing seems more daunting in the abstract than it does once you’ve made a habit of it, doesn’t it? Once it’s in your daily routine, it seems as though the words accumulate like so much snow falling outside your window.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Nano-ers, if your goal is to get your book published someday, the road ahead of you is long. You likely have years—perhaps many—ahead of you before you’re going to see your book in print (by traditional means anyway). I know this journey, and so I hope to end my little NaNoWrite series with some words of wisdom to keep you company on the difficult, but ever so worthwhile, road ahead.
Understand What You’re Up Against
I’ve written numerous times about a conversation I had with the writer Polly Devlin when I was twenty-five. She and I had become friendly through my work at Random House, and after at last confessing my writerly ambitions to her and noting that I was have trouble making progress on my novel, she enumerated the many challenges my life posed to accomplishing this goal. “You live in one of the busiest, most distracting cities in the world, you’re working full time in a stressful job, and you are absolutely terrified, I can see it. Well, let me tell you my dear,” she continued, “that fear isn’t going anywhere, so make peace with it. And of course you need the job. What time do you go to bed at night?” Around midnight, I told her. And what time did I wake up? Eight or so, just enough time to dress and get to work on time. Well, could I go to bed an hour earlier, get up in the morning to write? Somehow, this had never occurred to me, I’d always been an avowed night owl. “Let me tell you what will happen if you don’t. You will sitting here in ten years, wondering where the time went, novel still unfinished.” She said this with kindness but also with the certainty of an accomplished older woman who had no time for any excuse I might offer her. Reader, I got up at 6:30 the very next morning. We may all dream of some isolated garret in which we can write in peace, but this is not the world we live in. You probably have a day job, friends, perhaps children, a life full of obligations. Find a way to carve out some time in your real life rather than fantasizing about more time magically appearing. It may not be as much time as you’d wish to spend on your writing, perhaps it’s only a half an hour a day, but if it’s regular, it’s enough.
Enjoy Your Apprenticeship
Gifted writer and wise advice-giver Cheryl Strayed said something I loved during the most recent Dear Sugar podcast. She was asked what advice she’d give to her twenty-eight year old self. She recalled being obsessed with the idea of getting published while she was still in her twenties. She now knows, of course, that she had a ways to go; her first novel Torch would not be published until 2007, making Strayed nearly forty when it came out. She told the audience that she would tell her twenty-eight year old self to chill out, that had many years of being an apprentice to the craft left. In many ways, we writers stay apprentices of the craft all our lives: and this is a beautiful thing. Something my mentor, Pat Geary, told my senior seminar class (a group of bright eyed twenty-one year olds) has always stuck with me. She told us we should feel lucky to be writers, because it was something—barring loss of mental faculties—that we could do forever. Reading and writing are truly lifelong passions: unlike athletes or dancers, you don’t age out of your chance to make it as a writer. And perhaps the view from the road is a bit better after you have some success, but make no mistake, it is the same road.
Find Your People
You may have noticed that in my both of my above points I reference conversations with mentors—a crucial element of you writing team, especially when you’re young and all this writing business feels so life and death. Writing can be lonely, and though you must indeed learn to enjoy your own company as a writer, the group of people you surround yourself with is crucial. Finding a mentor, fellow writers to share work with, the right agent, the right editor—these are the people who will bring your best work to fruition. Just as importantly, you have to know how to separate yourself from the people who are not helpful to you. Not every friend who is also a writer, for instance, will make the ideal reader for you. Not every professor is made to be a mentor, and not every agent is the right one to represent you. Be choosy with this group, because much depends on them. Finding people you can share your unfinished work with, and trust that they’ll help you improve upon it, is as rare as finding true love.
NaNoWriMo Chapter Three: Finding Momentum
Here we are Nano-ers (Nanophites? Nanophiles?), the third week of November. It went by fast, didn’t it? How is it going out there? Are you keeping up with your word count? Getting sleep? Staying healthy? Are your friends and family still speaking to you? I hope so. I’ve been thinking about you. We’ve loved hearing from you over on the Girl Friday Twitter (just a reminder that it’s not too late to join our awesome contest for a chance to win a free edit with GFP, details here).
If you’re still in it now, you’re serious. The lightweights dropped out after one week of trying to write over a thousand words a day, but not you, you came to win, you mean business. Even so, dear reader, you might be feeling like you could use a little wind in your sails, right? I mean, the days are getting really short, and work is really busy, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. And it turns out that fifty thousand words is a lot of words (never mind the thirty thousand or so more you’ll probably write to finish out your first draft, you can worry about those in December). But this is what it’s all about, my friend, getting a whole bunch of words on the page and then weeding out a lot of those and replacing them with others until you have 80,000 good ones. Give or take. Maybe you made it through the past two weeks on sheer adrenaline, but that can’t last. What you need is momentum, something you can ride all the way to the shore. So how do you keep it up?
Let it Go. Let yourself write bad sentences, bad paragraphs, bad pages. Revel in the filth of your own worst writing! No one needs to see this (or should see it, really) until you’ve spent many months polishing what you joyfully, blithely spit out onto the pages today. Writing with abandon, rather than with precision, is the whole fun of working on a first draft, so let it fly!
Don’t Edit. I repeat do not edit. Editing is a wonderful and necessary skill to have as a writer, but it is separate from writing: and the former can stifle the later in a heartbeat. Tell your inner editor to take a seat for now, you’ll see her sometime early next year, and boy will you need her. When I’m editing a draft of my work, I always print it out. I find it easier to get some space from it this way, and it’s a little trick to tell my brain, “Okay, Editrix, you’re up!” But she’s off the clock during first draft time, she’s at the bar drinking martinis with the copyeditor and the cover designer, and I don’t want to disturb her. She’s really sassy when she drinks.
Be Kind. Now is the time for encouraging self-talk. The voices of doubt can get loud at this point, trying to keep you from every finishing a draft. Maybe you read the first paragraph of this post, and thought, “Oh no! I’m behind on Nano! I’m not the real thing. I’ve let myself down, I’ve let everyone down!” But take heart! There is still time. And if you end up with 40K instead of 50K (or 30K for that matter), you still win as long as you keeping going. The world is going to tell you no plenty of times with your writing, you’ll learn that soon enough if you haven’t already. Use this time to practice telling yourself yes.
NaNoWriMo Chapter Two: Building Good Habits
What do you need to make it as a writer? Talent? Ambition? Discipline? An enormous trust fund that allows you to quit your day job?
Sure, you need those things (okay, not the last one, but it couldn’t hurt). But whether your version of “making it” is getting through your 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo this year, getting a six-figure book deal, or anything in between, you definitely need good habits, because without them, none of the rest of these things will matter.
What I love about NaNoWriMo is that its very concept dispenses with any precious notions of what it means to write a book. NaNo does not concern itself with airy-fairy visions of the muse alighting on your shoulder and inspiring greatness; the only goal is to reach the word count. Technically this means that you could write the sentence “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” five thousand times in a row and complete the NaNoWriMo challenge, though we all know that doesn’t end well for the author. (On a related note, if you ever find yourself saying, “You know, if only I could get somewhere really isolated and quiet where I didn’t have any other responsibilities, I could definitely get my novel done,” you should probably watch The Shining.)
We can safely assume that most NaNoWriMo participants are not taking a sabbatical from their jobs to write their drafts. They are also, presumably, still eating, sleeping, and attending to their children, pets, and anyone else whose survival depends on them. But for a month, they are making time in their everyday lives to write. And a month is long enough to build some really good habits. No one is suggesting that you keep up the pace of 50K per month, but think of November as boot camp for the rest of your writing life. You’re doing something to break yourself in that will bolster you for years to come.
I write for an hour a day, a not terribly unmanageable or impressive amount really. The hard thing is the “every day” part of the equation. That’s the part that gets the words on the page and that carries me through the crappy days and into the one where the muses do decide to show up. It’s the part that keeps the story fresh in my mind so that dialogue comes to me while I’m walking my dog, characters reveal themselves as I’m in the shower (not literally, thank god), and plot twists occur to me just as I’m falling asleep.
For years I’ve been writing in the mornings before I go to work. I do this so I don’t have to decide to write. I’m just on autopilot: coffee, breakfast, some fiancée and dog snuggling, and then butt in chair for one hour. I’m not some kind of madwoman who just likes getting up early, but over the years I’ve come to enjoy this little habit around which my life revolves. The first thing I do every day is something that is mine. The earlier hours are the easiest to control. Once you are on e-mail and out in the world in those post-8:00 a.m. hours, anyone can make a demand for your time and attention.
Maybe mornings won’t work for you—perhaps it’s your lunch hour or the hours before bed that will serve you best. Whatever you do, find something that will stick. You may be able to get through November on sheer adrenaline (and coffee and bourbon), but when the calendar turns to December, your habits are what will keep you going.
Don’t forget to enter GFP’s NaNo Contest! Details here.