AUGUST ROUND-UP
Happy last month of summer!
We had about five days straight of hardcore rain and thunder, and it was glorious! So gray! So dramatic! So wet!
So much rain, in fact, that our little neighborhood park turned into a body of water.
Other exciting happenings in August: the girls went back to school! No, I’m not okay!
And not for the reason you might be thinking—Finley’s in sixth, Clementine’s in kindergarten, and I am more than glad to see them leave my house for a few hours every day. It isn’t sentimentality or nostalgia that’s drumming up a cacophony of anxiety so thick, I can barely think through it.
My state doesn’t have mask mandates for our schools. No, actually, let me rephrase—my state is one of the few that has legally restricted our politicians to mandate masks. Our school districts say no. My kids are in school with their masks on, along with a small handful of other kids. But it’s not enough. They’re unvaccinated. They’re sitting ducks. We’re crossing our fingers that our currently skyrocketing numbers (no room in Utah’s ICUs right now) will convince the powers-that-be to mask our freaking kids until the pandemic is over.
Anyway. Sorry to constantly bring up the pandemic. I, too, wish it was over, and wish I could NOT have it niggling in the back of my mind, but, you know, it’s still a huge part of my life. And it’s a huge part of all of our lives, whether we’re acknowledging it or not.
I’ve been working on the rough outline/brainstorming/aesthetics for my next YA, which Candlewick bought back in 2017. It’ll be out… I dunno. Does time have meaning anymore? Not after Patron Thief, but after Circus Book. Someday. For now, though, it’s all mine. It’s my secret. (Someday I’ll tell you about it!)
Two other happy things happened in August!
I spent a lovely two eight-hour stretches at a writing retreat thrown by my mother! She and a few of her friends had creative projects they needed to get some serious mileage on, so we made a retreat of it. She cooked marvelous food (truly, you guys don’t understand—my mom is Utah County Julia Child), we swapped creative well-filling tips, we did work sprints. I managed to get a good four chapters done on my middle grade draft, but more importantly, I had long stretches of time away from my family for the first time since before the great quarantine of 2020.
I don’t know if retreats are going to be that productive for me, unless I’m truly by myself (in which case, I’d rather just get rid of everyone else and be home alone!). But it was definitely productive in a different way to be surrounded by other creative, hard-working, focused women. There was karaoke. There was sourdough bread. There was cheese.
The other amazing thing that happened in August? My cover reveal for my next book! The Patron Thief of Bread will be out on May 3rd, 2022. Here’s the link to the cover reveal, hosted by the fabulous Jen of Pop! Goes the Reader, here’s the link in case you want to pre-order this book, and here’s the cover!
You guys, I cannot tell you how perfect this cover is for this book!
First, Candlewick commissioned a special illustration for this cover from the talented Beidi Guo. The gargoyle! The town! There’s a building that’s got smoke curling out of its chimney, near the river—that’s the bakery!
Second, if you didn’t see it already, there’s a hidden silhouette of a girl’s face and hand, holding a few coins. Did you see it? If not, try looking at it from faraway and focus on the dark parts. It’s such a cool, clever way to showcase the dual narratives of this book.
Also, all the little items in the border are things from the book! The duck, the boots, the bread, the rosemary… Every single thing is an Easter Egg for when you actually read the book.
Gah! I have been so lucky in the cover department, thanks to the brilliant Matt Roeser, and Matt has struck again.
All in all, a pretty good August.
REALLY DEEP THOUGHTS
On Fulfillment as a Writerly Expectation
I always knew I wanted to be a writer.
That’s either lucky or unlucky, depending on where you go with it.
One thing that I do consider very lucky: I never assumed being a writer meant poverty. I heard all the starving artist jokes, but they always felt exaggerated to me. But I never really daydreamed or expected wealth, either. Money never truly factored into my future plans, for better or for worse—and that’s a sign both of my privilege growing up and also my naivete, being raised in a mostly comfortable middle-class-ish household where income ebbed and flowed and didn’t seem to be particularly visible.
Writing and money didn’t occur to me until I read Little Women, and the passage where Jo comes into the house with a check in her hand, declaring, “Five whole dollars! I’m an author!” was the first time I’d considered that this storytelling thing I felt called to do? It might be something I could pay the bills with, too.
Might.
Not every writer has always known they wanted to write. Furthermore, not every person has a dream job. My husband never had one. He had fancies, things that interested him, industries he could see himself belonging to, but always for a paycheck, and never for fulfillment.
If writing is your dream job, you’re lucky to have gotten that far.
Pre-pandemic, these are many realities of being a traditionally published author:
The money isn’t great. Unless it is. Or it’s great some months, and ridiculous the rest of the year. Or it’s decent enough for awhile, and then drops off to nothing. Or it’s a slow start with four-figure contracts until, after two decades, you finally break into six-figure land. (I won’t go into specifics about publishing payment structures or what averages are here, simply because you can Google that stuff if you’re curious.)
The marketing isn’t anything special. You’d think that when a publisher, this huge machinery with millions of dollars and the single aim of selling books for profit, acquires your book—again, paying money for it—that they’d want to make a big return on it. No such thing. Not always. There’s a little effort, certainly. And for the record, I have been fortunate to be one of the chosen ones at my publisher—my books have always had more than a decent push from Candlewick’s salespeople, marketers, publicists, etc. Not every author fares as well. Most books are released, barely noted, and shelved on that great universal shelf full of stories written and forgotten.
To make enough money writing books in traditional publishing, you might need to churn out books quickly. Writing a book a year is standard in some niches, including young adult; even that might not be enough to earn a living wage.
Resources to promote your book, write your book, edit your book, research your book, and improve your writing craft are limited. If you’re lucky, you’ll be paired with a fantastic editor who guides you through the editing process with grace, patience, and expertise (hi, Kaylan!). Not everyone gets that. Of course, all of these resources are available if you can afford to buy them outright for yourself: writing classes, writing retreats, conferences, time to go on podcasts and talk about your book, sabbaticals to improve your craft, etc.
These are just a few of the downsides of traditional publishing, at least from what I’ve seen since I landed on the scene in 2013. They’re far worse for marginalized writers, and as you can guess, all of these resources and advances and marketing has only been squeezed since the pandemic started last year.
Tensions for writers are high right now. Anxiety is heightened. Work is hard. Pressure is on like nothing before. Publishing is behind—editors are burned out, manuscripts are stacking up, booksellers are dealing with their own struggles trying to keep business open, supply shortages are bumping pub dates, the list goes on. It’s rough all around, yes, and it’s brutal in a very cruel, very unfair way for many writers.
There’s always a “maybe I’ll win the lottery” mentality for traditional publishers—you hope you’ll be the one chosen for a six-figure advance, or for a major three-book deal, or for the big marketing money, or the book tour, or the NYTimes best-selling list placement, or what have you. And living with that hopefulness, the win-the-lottery kind… it can prey on your heart and your mental health after awhile.
I want to point out a couple important points really quick.
First, there is absolutely no doubt about it: the publishing industry is exploitative. Artists deserve to be paid for what they make. Creative professionals exist in this awful sphere of “we all read books/watch movies/enjoy art/wear clothes/play video games/listen to music and are spiritually buoyed by these things existing in the world,” and also “you should just feel lucky that people are reading your work; exposure is payment enough.” Publishing is a multi-million dollar business. Most publishing companies can afford to pay not only their writers more money, but also their employees. It’s demonstrably gotten worse in the last fifty years—a writer used to be able to live on their advances, their royalties, their freelance fees, but that’s less and less feasible.
What is feasible, however, is that a writer would expect to be paid a decent wage for completing a book, because as much as many people want to think of book-writing as a fun little hobby that can be completed in one bored rainy afternoon, the act of taking a book from idea to submission to polished and published… it requires hours and hours of work. Every writer is different, of course, and some are faster than others at different steps of the process.
But it’s important that you understand—most writers are doing part-time or full-time work on their books, but they are not being compensated like it’s part-time or full-time work.
Okay. Just making sure we’re clear here.
So it makes sense that I’ve seen many writers this year speak publicly about their burnout, their anxieties, their fear, their frustrations, and their exasperation about working so hard in this industry that doesn’t seem to care whether they’re here or not. It makes total sense.
The hurdles are tough, the requirements are many, and the payoff isn’t always there.
Except… what payoff are we all expecting, exactly?
For many writers, the word I’ve seen them use is fulfillment.
I’m just not feeling fulfilled.
The work isn’t fulfilling.
Publishing has become more of a hustle, more disappointment, more rejections, and less fulfillment.
How do we measure fulfillment? Like, how do we know when we’re fulfilled?
Well, the amount of money we’re making, let’s be frank. The actual joy of the work—the daily pleasure of doing your writing, of feeling happy about the practice. Validation from others in the industry—editors, agents, reviewers, readers, etc. The reception of your work, the buzz it’s creating, the movie options, the optics of things like mentions in the newspaper, coverage on NPR, etc.
“Fulfillment,” we call that.
But you know what?
If this were any other job, would we use those metrics to decide how fulfilled we were?
If you worked as a plumber, and you were questioning if you were fulfilled in this job, would you be looking at your paychecks? Your coworkers? The actual day-to-day work? Feedback from your clients? Awards you had won?
You might look to all of these things to decide if a job is right for you and your life, but I doubt you’d look to your co-workers to decide if you were fulfilled.
Maybe you would! Maybe for you, your biggest need is that you have social relationships to nurture, and your coworkers provide that for you.
But I kind of doubt you’d be pondering fulfillment in the same way if you were a plumber, or a cashier at Target, or a piano teacher, or a customer service representative.
I want to push back against the idea that writers were ever promised fulfillment in their careers.
Because who the hell looks for fulfillment in any career?
Every job/career is a series of tradeoffs, right? You might hate the day-to-day of working at Costco, but the location is close enough that you can walk to work, and the insurance is great for your family. You might absolutely love your work as a veterinary assistant, even if the pay is low. You can keep playin with all these combinations—“selling out” for money happens all the time, every day. Deciding to be a “starving artist” happens all the time, every day, even in fields that have nothing to do with art.
Every career is about deciding what your priorities are—what your non-negotiables are—and then drawing those lines. Lamenting the times when you feel like those lines don’t make sense anymore. Celebrating the times when drawing those lines pays off in a big way.
When I hear writers lamenting about the shitty parts of publishing (of which there are many, don’t forget!), I am nodding in sympathy the whole time. It’s exploitative. It’s detrimental to writers of color and writers of marginalized genders. It’s absolutely cutthroat for writers with disabilities. (If it’s rough for even white able-bodied writers, you know it’s just outright hellish for everyone else.)
But who ever promised you fulfillment?
I saw this in a very close encounter in 2019. My own writing, which was very fulfilling to me, had to take a backseat. I took on ghostwriting romance novels. Didn’t feel particularly fulfilling—but it paid our bills.
It wasn’t inspiring, not really. But I traded fulfillment for money that year. For security. I wrote off fulfillment as something that I’d come back for another time.
Because in writing, we have to make these tradeoffs, too. All the time.
Do I write something that I see as cookie-cutter upmarket, or do I write something a little stranger that excites me?
Do I push myself hard this week and risk burnout, or do I ask my agent for an extension even though it might put my pub date behind schedule?
Do I spend the day lost in envy as the Twitter tells me who got what deals and for how much? Do I self-publish on the side for creative gratification? Or for financial boons?
It could be that simple. Choose: creative fulfillment or money. Choose: financial fulfillment or less hustle. Sometimes you get both. But rarely.
And either way, fulfillment has never been part of the promise. It’s not in any publishing contract. It’s not a guarantee in any job.
And I know that writing is more than a job. I know this. I’ve known it in my bones since I was old enough to hold a pencil, or to talk and tell a story and capture the attention of my parents or my little sister or my classmates.
I know it’s more than what your royalty statements say, it’s more than how many starred reviews you get, it’s more than just punching in at an hourly gig and doing the bare minimum.
It is a job. But it’s more than just a job.
If it’s just a job for you, then leave. Do something else. Anything else in the world for fulfillment—find it, chase it down, come back and dabble in publishing as you please over the years. It’s just a job, and there’s always a little work here for you.
But if you agree? You agree that it’s more than just a job?
Then why would you think your paycheck comes with a side of purpose for you?
You already know how to find the fulfillment in this work. No one else can get it for you but you. It’s in the writing.
Back to the work.
Not the work—finishing drafts, sending pitches, asking for blurbs, stretching advances as far as you can, emailing your agent, authorly things that are required to catch and keep your next contract.
No, I mean the work—stories. Power. Play. Whatever the hell is going on inside your head and your heart. That work.
That’s where you should go if you’re searching for fulfillment.
COMING UP FOR ME
Now that the cover for The Patron Thief of Bread is out of the bag, I expect all the usual fixings are to follow: advanced reading copies! Reviews! Interviews! Crawling towards that release date!
But before then, you can expect another fun surprise that I’ll announce next month (though if you’re watching carefully, you might learn about it before then).
And I’d be remiss not to mention my very last session of my writing class, The Fast Draft Method! Repeat, this is the last time I will be teaching this class until at least 2023, so if you have ever been interested in this course, now is your big chance! All the information can be found right here. Class starts September 7th. I hope to see you there!
TIDBITS
WORKING ON
As mentioned earlier, I’m laying down groundwork for my next book under contract, which is a YA with Candlewick Press.
I don’t really want to spill the beans about its pitch yet, but it’s experimental, nostalgic, dark, and super delightful to work on so far. Right now I’m still brainstorming, pulling threads together, in that mode where pieces of the story suddenly land in my brain at 6 PM when I’m in the middle of dinner, and I have to rush to write them down. It’s a glorious mode to be in, but I’m also getting itchy to actually start writing (a good sign!).
Circus Book revisions are due any day, and I am pretty dang excited to work on that book again, now that it’s getting tighter and closer to being a real book.
Oh! And I’m also doing a fun experiment with my dear friend, genius writer Hayley Chewins. She’s sending me a pitch every day, and we’re both writing picture books! So far, we’ve each written fourteen of them! Isn’t that wild? It takes less than half an hour for me, and even though most of them are pretty bad (I am a novice picture book writer at best), it’s been such a delightful creative playtime for me. It’s reminding me how to trust my instincts, how to take the pressure off my work, and how to simplify things when my brain tries to snowball them into tangled webs.
READING
I read so many wonderful things in August! Some highlights include: Kate-In-Waiting by Becky Albertalli, A Game of Fox and Squirrels by AUTHOR, A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee, If We Were Villains by AUTHOR, Bunny by AUTHOR, Ace of Shades by AUTHOR, and my first reread of A Secret History by Donna Tartt in a good eight years. (Can you see a theme here? It may or may not have anything to do with my work-in-progress.)
I also took a weekend off from prose novels and read a stack of graphic novels, and oh, my goodness, I recommend this SO MUCH.
I literally told Finley (the graphic novel queen in this household) to bring me a stack, and I cruised through them in a joyous stupor. Some of the ones I read include:
Lost Soul, Be At Peace by Maggie Thrash
Shark Summer by Ira Marcks
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki
Little Witches by Leigh Dragoon
ParaNorthern and the Chaos Bunny A-Hop-Alypse by Stephanie Cooke
Fake Blood and Long Distance by Whitney Gardner
LISTENING TO
Lorde’s new album, Solar Power! Which just makes me want to listen to Lorde’s other albums, too! I’m not a sunshine person, as you know, but Solar Power is still so listenable. There’s a lot of Paul Simon influencing it, so I listened to some Paul Simon for good measure (hello, Graceland!).
Also, Katy Perry, the Whip It! Soundtrack, Max Richter, and all the Halloween movies on the Bechdel Cast podcast.
The girls have been listening to a bunch of old musicals that I loved in high school (again, for secret reasons relating to my YA work-in-progress, I’ve been diving back into these musicals, which is… emotional). These include Cabaret, Tick, Tick, Boom!, Wicked, Aida, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Rent, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and, of course, Little Shop of Horrors (which has never left circulation in my house, because no amount of lingering trauma from a particularly cutthroat drama club can pull me away from Audrey II.
WATCHING
This was a marvelous month of this media for me, too!
We watched The Green Knight during its special one-night screening, and it was so haunting and gorgeous and smart and different. It was exactly the kind of movie I love. It’s not for everyone, certainly. But it requires patience from its viewer, and it delivers mega pay-offs. Highly recommend.
I saw Inception for the first time (review: we go into someone’s dreams and it’s just gunfights between dudes?). I rewatched PEN15 Season 2. I watched Van Helsing for the first time (DELIGHTFULLY terrible). I also watched this video on Envy by Natalie from Contrapoints, and I think every author should watch it.
We also watched The Princess Bride with our girls, as well as Wolf Walkers, Song of the Sea, Heavyweights, and Eurovision (again! Another constant replay at our house).
Thank you for letting me hang out in your inbox! I’ll see you next month! Stay cozy!