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I have so many things I want to say, and the more I try to pin them down and organize them, the less cooperative they become. And the longer I go without writing an update, the harder it is to do it.
So I’m going to write down 100 things as they come to me, and then send this newsletter out into the world. Like ripping off a band-aid.
It’s July 2022. July’s almost over. It’s been a bummer summer in my brain.
Here’s why: I turned in a book at the end of June, and then I hit a wall. Creatively, spiritually, emotionally. Even physically. I called it burnout, but it felt deeper than that.
It was a big deal/still is a big deal. I think I’m on the other side of it, but I’m still healing and trying to understand exactly what happened.
I haven’t written new words for about four weeks. For me, this is incredibly disruptive to my usual energy and routine.
I’ve read a lot of good books and watched a lot of good movies during this time.
(Some mediocre books and disappointing movies, too.)
My kids go back to school in August. Both of them will go all day. Morning to afternoon. Five or so hours, five days a week. It’s bittersweet.
Bitter because they’re growing up, and time flies by when I look behind me. Bitter because my oldest is starting middle school and the world she knows is different enough from the world I knew at twelve, so I’m no longer an expert. Bitter because they’re both old enough to actually have fun with now (mean, but true).
Sweet because I am absolutely ready for hours of time alone with myself.
It really will be by myself most days, because my husband started a new job this summer.
Oh! I didn’t tell you! My husband started a new job this summer. After having him home from April 2020 until June of this year, it’s weird to have him gone.
But like I said, I am ready for the phase of my life where I have hours to myself again. I have put in my dues as a work-from-home parent. Bring it to me.
Maybe I’ll make pumpkin bread on August 1st. It’ll be 95 degrees, but maybe fall will come if I summon it. If you build it, it will come.
It’s been a decent year overall so far. Definitely harder in some ways than 2021 or even 2020.
But for writer Lindsay, it’s been a good year.
I had a book come out. THE PATRON THIEF OF BREAD (formerly known as Gargoyle Book) came out in May from Candlewick Press, and… feedback has been v. good.
SIX STARRED REVIEWS. OKAY? THAT KIND OF GOOD.
As an author, you’re lucky to get one starred review. The most I’ve gotten for a book was three, for HOUR OF THE BEES. I thought I was the shit when I got three! But this spring, the emails from my editor just kept coming, and those subject lines: “Another starred review!” “Lindsay, this is five!” “LINDSAY!”
Starred reviews are just one type of feedback, of course. Other forms of feedback you hope for as an author: making a bestseller list, selling buttloads of your book for indie bookstores, nominations for awards, readers talking about your book online. It’s a rare author indeed who can make a ton of money selling books and also attract critical and literary acclaim.
Do I sound ungrateful? I don’t want to. I am grateful.
I’m also still hungry.
Right now I have post-its all over my house. Like, my entire front entryway. Every wall. Probably four hundred post-its.
Why does a gal need so many post-its, you might ask?
Good question. I am not writing a book, you see.
Nor am I outlining it. I am simply brainstorming it. Thinking about it. Writing my thoughts on little tiny papers, which obviously don’t count.
Those papers can be moved around in many different arrangements. Not necessarily in an order, or in a chronological timeline, or in a STORY or anything. But all of those are possible placements, sure.
See what I’m doing?
I’m itching to write, you guys. But at the beginning of July, after I turned in a book to my editor, I sat down to write the next project and was just… empty.
Not empty, actually. That’s not accurate. I’m not empty. It was just painful to get the words down my arm, into my fingers, and onto the page. It felt like swimming in sand.
So after struggling to get a few thousand words written, I decided (or rather, my brain decided for me) to take a intentional break from writing.
It’s already been a big year for me, like I said.
I launched PATRON THIEF. There were podcast interviews, launch events, and in-person travel to festivals and bookstores.
I revised my 2023 book. THAT BOOK. (The circus book.)
THAT BOOK that has taken me nearly ten years to write, revise, and finish. It’s finally done. For real. I still can’t believe it.
Everything in my creative life is now a before and after: before Circus Book was finished and after it was finished.
So that was a huge undertaking: a big rewrite, then line edits, copyedits, and proofs.
(Cover reveal will be coming soon.)
(Jacket copy, too, so you can finally see what the heck this book is even about.)
(It’s okay if you finally read it and go, “She spent ten years working on THAT?!”)
After I turned in Circus Book, I wrote a non-fiction project. Not the proposal, the whole thing.
I hope to sell that one soon. It’s really good, I think. A very Lindsay book.
Then after I wrote the non-fiction thing, I wrote a new first draft (so kind of a first draft, kind of a revision) of my last book under contract with Candlewick.
(Last book… so far. I think. I hope.)
It’s another YA. Probably shouldn’t tell you much about it, but…
shakespeare retelling dark academia high school theatre department cutthroat politics fat girls sapphic bisexual ambition pathetic early 2000s acting pain
So I wrote/rewrote that. Turned it in. It’s not good yet but it has a very good backbone.
And then… the crash.
So you can see how I felt justified taking some time off from actively writing.
But I love writing. I love it even when it’s terrible. So it’s been a rough July. I want to write. I long to do it. But my brain is broken for writing right now.
So instead I am writing on post-its. Describing dresses. Catching lines of dialogue from the air and jotting it down. Drawing the façade of an old New York mansion. Writing spells.
Maybe someday it will become a book, all on these scraps, and I’ll move them into position and just string them together and that will be that.
Probably not, though.
Probably this project will be difficult and all these post-its will prove to be irrelevant to the draft when the time comes.
But that’s okay. What I was hoping for, what I hope for every day right now, is that I will have at least a little while where my heart is on fire for a story.
I’m glad I’ve found my way into the post-its, because other than that, my brain is… it’s bleak in there these days, I’m not going to lie.
I love making lists. I’ve been making lots of them this last month.
And then ignoring them.
This is classic ADHD behavior for me, honestly. And anxiety behavior. I can be so thorough, so thoughtful, so detail-oriented when I am outside of a situation and looking in. I can make elaborate meal plans and vacation itineraries and career schemes, and create beautiful charts and graphs and diagrams for them.
And then I ignore them.
And I mean really ignore them. After a night’s sleep, or even if I look away from the plans and lists for longer than twenty minutes, my brain erases them. This makes me feel sad. Guilty. Frustrated.
So I channel that into making a new list, a new plan.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Writing a newsletter has been on my list since basically last November.
Hopefully I’ll feel a little smug once I send this.
Did you know that Utah, where I live, is plastic surgery central in the USA? I know. You wouldn’t think… but there are about ten plastic surgeons for every 100,000 people here.
I walk past three plastic surgery clinics around my neighborhood daily. I drive past another six or seven weekly.
Sure makes a gal think about things. Especially when she’s looking in the mirror.
They’re advertising things I didn’t even know could be fixed. Things I didn’t even know were a problem. Saggy eyelids? Chin filler?
I’m not anti-surgery, anti-makeup, anti-hair dye, anti- any kind of modification to make yourself look like the most authentic version of you.
But it does make a gal think. I hope it doesn’t make my daughters think.
Disillusionment. That’s how I’m feeling.
It’s like this perfect storm of loss of innocence, aging, and cynicism combined with the dark side of the information age. I know too much. I’ve seen too much. I’ve seen how the sausage is made.
And now when I look at the world, my state, people in my community, my industry, my readers, my career, my family—sometimes it all feels contrived, and sometimes it doesn’t feel contrived enough.
I’ll bet you a million dollars that I’ll feel better when fall rolls around. The cool, crisp air always cools my brain off.
Maybe it’s not just disillusionment. Maybe it’s that I started seeking permission from the world and got upset when no one responded.
Anyone else feel like they’ve softened and hardened in the last few years?
I’ve lost a little bit of my ambition because my compassion needed more room. I’ve wondered if I’m adding to the noise that I’m so often trying to escape from. I’ve grieved the freedom I used to feel while making things.
I’ve lost a little bit of my patience for people. I hate seeking common ground. I’ve wondered if every generation experiences these growing pains, this apathy. I’ve grieved the wide-eyed curiosity I used to feel, because the rabbit hole almost always leads to capitalism. Money-squeezing. Exploitation.
I don’t want to be a doomsday person, though. There’s still plenty of beauty, plenty of glory, plenty of stories worth telling.
Art is created in the best of times and the worst of times, but most often it’s created in the mundane, uninspiring, dog days of boring weeks, months, and years.
This job is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s what I’m best suited for. It’s what I was born to do.
Wow, pep talk/mission statement time is over.
Here’s some graphic novels I read recently and loved: Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki. Beetle and the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne. The Fire Never Goes Out. Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall.
Here’s some novels I read recently and loved: Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg. I, Claudia by Mary McCoy. Hide by Kiersten White. When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill.
Here’s some non-fiction I read recently and loved: Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind The World’s Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson. Playing to the Gods by Peter Rader. The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger.
I wonder if my current ennui is the natural result of combining my greatest passion (storytelling) and the need to make money to survive.
Surviving feels like it requires all the things my brain is the worst at: prioritizing, time management, long-term planning, day-to-day responsibilities, organization, and mundane tasks.
I think I’ll paint something today. Or bake something new. It won’t help me survive in a direct way, but it’ll remind me why I even try.
Wow, are you still reading these?
Coming up for the rest of this year: mostly just writing and editing. Waiting on a couple of emails that will determine how the fall goes.
Trying to decide if people are ready for my writing classes to open again. I took a hiatus from teaching and feel like I might be ready to do it again in six months or so.
Oh! Something happy! I wanted to learn Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Liszt this year (a lifetime goal). I started in January. It’s absolutely THE hardest piano piece I’ve ever learned.
I’m about halfway through it. It’s 22 pages, I just hit page 12, and WOW. I didn’t think I had it in me to do this. But bite by bite, measure by measure, it’s happening.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere, I think.
Not that I’ll remember it.
I do hope you are all safe, secure, and finding peace in whatever your circumstances are.
Or chasing peace down with a chainsaw. It will be ours.
I can’t promise when my next newsletter will be, but I hope it will not take me another eight months to write it.
At least it’s almost fall, y’all.
And in the fall, I always feel like I can do anything.