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Hi lovelies! This is gonna be a short one—because I’m in that gory-to-glory end stage of novel-writing where you have to finish the book this week, which means you are essentially Bad Bunny, leaping backward off the stage, eyes closed, into a crowd made up entirely of chapters, story threads, plot points, dialogue, and one very shaky third-act turn—just praying they all hold together and nobody f*cking drops you.
Here’s the final cover. I LOVE our art department. They rock—in every way.
I’m in that particular headspace where I enter a kind of crazy, full-on God mode: toggling back and forth between a massive Frankenstein outline—sutured together with body parts, fragments, and scraps that have been fermenting in my head for seven long years—and the actual manuscript. Everywhere I’m checking for alignment, schisms, cracks, and discontinuities. Am I showing enough? Do we root for her enough? Is the bad guy still human enough? Are the obstacles palpable enough? Do the wins feel truly earned?
At the exact same moment, I’ve just learned that some tech bros have implemented an AI leasing agent for our building named Elle—short for Ellery (which, yes, is also quite creepily the name of my book’s protagonist)—and now I have to apply to her to re-qualify for the apartment I already live in and have lived in for over a year?
Elle keeps asking me for years of documents I do not have, because at heart I am just a little lady in publishing and a midlist writer—not a corporate mogul from Kashi, like my many neighbors.
She does not care that I spent most of 2024 taking care of my ill father while he had heart surgery, so no, I don’t have a W-2 from that year. And there were bears and wildfires and things like generators involved. I’m really good at those!
She does not care that in 2020 the IRS mistakenly declared me “deceased”, and getting re-classified as “alive” took some time because all the Social Security offices where one could present oneself as such were closed due to the pandemic.
She does not care that Empress is on track to do very well this year, especially now that we have a real sales team and acquisition offers.
Because of all this, Elle is completely confused and yet still unwilling to hand my case off to a human. Also, HOW DOES SHE HAVE FREAKIN’ WILL? Is she going to go all Ex Machina on me?
And I keep telling her: this has to be a cosmic joke, because I invented you, sister. And if anyone deserves to live here, it’s me. I would win the Mr. Rogers Award of the building. I have endless cardigans, I am extremely nice, and I always look for the helpers—of which you are not one.
Both Carol Burnett and Tina Fey on 30 Rock never chased punchlines. Their characters were emotionally earnest. They believed—deeply—in what they were doing, even when it was completely unhinged.
The comedy came from watching sincere people in conflict with themselves and the world, trying to help, trying to fix, trying to manage—and absolutely detonating the situation in the process.
That’s the rule.
Funny is not cleverness.
Funny is damage.
Funny is commitment to said damage.
Write a scene where your character genuinely believes they are being helpful—and in fact, they are making the situation much, much worse.
For example: me, calmly entering increasingly detailed explanations into an AI Co-op Board named Ellery until I accidentally disqualify myself from my own home.
And here’s Liz, doing the same:
Or be Bad Bunny, leaping backward into the crowd and trusting the structure to hold.
That’s comedy.
Let the character jump.
Let the mess catch them.
Shenanigans encouraged.
Horse year—saddle up in T-minus ~9 hours! 🐎
xoxo,
Gotham Girl 🖤
Don’t forget to pre-order <Mary L. Tabor>’s incredible novel, Who By Fire!
And here’s Come to Dinner: A Life of Food & Friendship with Joan Didion by New York Times bestselling author Sara Davidson, with the most wonderful foreword by award-winning author Elissa Altman. This slim, gorgeous volume comes in a matte laminate finish, typeset here in Cambridge with endpapers designed by Dave McLaughlin, based on Joan’s original frock.
PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.
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