WHOOPS
I blinked and a year went by without a newsletter.
Actually, that’s a lie. The newsletter is usually in the back of my mind, along with a bunch of other things that I know I *should* do, which is not to say that I don’t enjoy doing these things. But my brain is a frustrating machine that takes any item on a to-do list and DREADS it. I could have “write your acceptance speech for the Best Writer Award and pick out a million-dollar dress to wear on the red carpet,” and my brain will suddenly make me verrrrry excited to clean out the craft cupboard.
Anything to avoid the “should.” (And yet, my brain then obsesses over the “should.” Huh. You’re kind of a bully, brain of mine.)
Anyhoo. Here’s what I’ve been up to!
THE FAMILY FORTUNA IS OUT!
In case you don’t know/remember, THE FAMILY FORTUNA is my YA debut and is also my dearest, darlingest problem child. I started writing it in 2012, sold it on a pitch to my editor at Candlewick in 2015, and it was supposed to come out in 2019. Instead I took several years to break it and let it regrow, and it broke me and let me grow, too.
I’m very proud of it, because I see it as a fever dream belonging to the writer I was when I first started publishing. I see it as ambition and vibes and feelings, and a mirror I would have loved to look into when I was seventeen. It’s not the most accessible, reader-friendly book. It’s not for everyone. Most people who have read and reviewed it think it’s plotless. That’s okay! There are a few readers who have loved it, and it feels like we’re all in the same high school bathroom, looking into the same mirror together.
MADE GLORIOUS
We announced my next book! MADE GLORIOUS is another YA, due out April of 2024, and this book is so FUN. It was a delight to draft and a wonder to revise. It was one of those writing projects that knew exactly what it was meant to be, and so it was my job to let it out.
Here’s the jacket copy:
In a vicious, delicious contemporary novel inspired by Shakespeare’s Richard III, the lauded author of The Family Fortuna lifts the curtain on a high school thespian who’ll stop at nothing to land the lead.
Rory is an antihero for the ages. Like Shakespeare’s Richard III, she confides in her audience, telling us exactly the lengths she’ll go to to secure the leading role in Bosworth Academy’s senior musical, confessing without shame that she is charming and conniving and brutally ambitious, that we will watch and root for her even as she manipulates and endangers those around her. And we do. Perhaps it’s because we don’t want to believe that she’s as relentless as she claims. Rory is an underdog, after all, a scholarship kid teased for her weight. Surely there will be redemption? Surely our dread and patience will be rewarded? Intricately plotted with an ingenious narrative that blends multiple viewpoints with script excerpts and an original musical score, Lindsay Eagar’s whip-smart, precision-crafted, and gleefully compulsive page-turner taps into the dark side of high school theater production. A diabolically good read, it forces our complicity as we wince and cheer for an arresting drama queen who just can’t help going full-tilt nasty in the pursuit of her dreams.
So. It’s a retelling of Shakespeare’s Richard III. It’s a meditation on my own days in a high school theater department. It’s an ode to musicals. It’s unhinged. I’m so excited for y’all to read it!
SUMMER TRIP
We went to the Redwoods!
In August, my little foursome went to Northern California and spent the better part of a week among the giants. It was the best family vacation we’ve taken so far—the girls are getting older and it’s so rewarding to see beautiful places alongside them. We fell in love with the boardwalk in Eureka, with Fern Canyon, with the Trees of Mystery, and with the cold, briny beaches. I dreamed of haunted fishermen and delicate lacy waterfalls for weeks afterwards.
HORROR: A LOVE STORY
I’ve always been interested in horror. I’ve always consumed anything that played with horror elements: Labyrinth, Black Swan, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. But until I started treating my ADHD/anxiety with medication, there was no way I could handle the imagery in horror movies. Books were usually negotiable, but I spent years reading Wikipedia summaries of all the horror movies that fascinated me, watching clips silently on YouTube (volume turned down and the tiny screen made it bearable).
The door has opened. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. Slashers aren’t my thing, mostly because they’re formulaic (which is fine!) and built upon tropes (which is fine!). I like pretty, slow, metaphor-heavy horror. I watched the two movies that most terrified me conceptually as a teenager, The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project, and was moved to tears—it felt like a triumph, to open myself to stories that previously held so much power over me.
(Or maybe I am desensitized by the last few years and nothing in a movie really scares me anymore??? I have definitely talked about this in therapy.)
SUMMER OF HELL
You may or may not know that there’s a shortage of ADHD medication, which has been going on for years now. I’ll let you Google the “reasons” and the implications for yourself, because it’s been a major frustrating development for me and others who need this medication, but suffice it to say I wasn’t able to get my usual meds, and was offered an alternative dosage/system (a capsule instead of a tablet, and a different time-release schedule).
Bad. Not the right move for me. And I didn’t know it was a different formula completely until I’d been on it for months. The whole summer, I assumed I was medicated as usual, and that my poor mental health, increasing hopelessness, brain exhaustion, ruminating, distractibility, massive mood swings, inability to FINISH ANYTHING was just me.
I’ve got a new med now. It’s better now. Not completely recovered, though. Maybe I will never have the brain I used to have. Maybe it never existed, and I’ve been romanticizing last year’s brain for twenty years. Either way, it was a slow, agonizing summer to be in my head.
NEW BOOK DEAL!
It hasn’t been announced in any official capacity, but this year I signed a new contract for another book! I’ll tell you it’s a middle grade, it’s with Candlewick (again!), and these are the vibes.
This is also the project I was working on when I had my meds mishap, and so I’m still plucking away at a draft. The story is so big, the emotions within it so unwieldy, and my attachment to it so irrational, it’s taking me quite awhile to contend with it. But it’s a book of my heart, much like RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA was. I’m hoping to finish and turn in a draft by the spring.
THE FAST DRAFTING METHOD
Finally, I’ve reopened my fast drafting class for new students!
I started this class at the end of 2019 and after sharing my ideas about writing process with hundreds of students, I closed it in 2022 so I could breathe a little and get some space from my inbox. After much anticipation and many inquiries, it’s open and ready for enrollment!
The course starts November 6th (though you’ll be fine if you’re later than that!). For more information or if you’re ready to join us, head to my website: LINDSAYEAGARBOOKS.COM
Thanks for letting me land in your inbox, even after all this time! I’ll try to fill my next newsletter issue with some of the books, movies, and music I’ve consumed in the last few months.
Wishing you a cozy fall,
I *also* saw Blair Witch and The Exorcist in the last few months! LET'S DISCUSS