Top 10 most famous dead men I'd like to insult

Gonna tell you right up front there is no Top 10 list, that was only a clever hook to get you read this newsletter. But I am going to tell you about the rom-com-antasy I just finished drafting!

Also in this missive:

• My social media & 2026 goals

• What’s NOT next for Jen Comfort - book ideas I thought of that I’m pre-emptively rejecting for everyone’s sake

• Media I’ve consumed recently and whether I recommend it or not (CONTROVERSIAL TAKE: I find everyone on The Pitt insufferable except for the nurses and there’s way too much talking for a show that should be concerned with showing me the most creative, gruesome, urgent, and mysterious body problems!)

I’ve been saving this newsletter for when I finished this book, which actually took me a full year to write, and then fully re-write! That’s right, kids, the most efficient way to write a book is to write 235k words and then cut 127k of those words. The “deleted scenes” folder on my Scrivener has more words in it than the finished novel. I sent this to my crit partners with the disclaimer: “Hope it’s not dogshit because I’m too sick of this book to make any revisions! If you catch a typo I’m setting my entire laptop ON FIRE” (They know I’m kidding. I love suffering for my art.)

Book Updates

Sorry for being so secretive while I drafted this book, but I was riddled with imposter syndrome and I didn’t want to get anyone excited too soon. But now that it’s finally done, and I want to give you all a sneak peak!

• Tongue-in-cheek “sequel” to the Nutcracker with anti-capitalist themes (this book is not serious, it is a rom-com-antasy)

• High Heat (I’m not kidding; these scenes are so extra—sorry if the Rat King likes gets off on being tied up and tortured and maybe stepped on a little bit… he’s just under a lot of stress and that’s his RIGHT)

• Yes, he’s a rat-shifter. Yes, he really turns into a rat. If you are scared of rats, I will send you a version where I find>replace the word “rat” into an animal of your choice.

• For my latest version of “Jen Comfort Unlikable Heroine,” may I present a smoking hot, frivolous, nepo baby party girl who doesn’t read and would actually prefer if you could just stop being poor because your sadness is really bringing down the vibe!

• Queer-normative fantasy world! half these people are made of literal candy or are wooden dolls, and the other half are basically animals, and the third half are fairies, who—as we all know—are universally DTF… honestly the concept of gender & sexual orientation in this world makes no sense! What gender is an alien candycane, bruh??? YOU TELL ME!

Tropes:

• Bisexual ADHD heroine x Bisexual hero

• Grumpy/Sunshine

• Aboveground Girl/Belowground Boy

• Enemies-to-Lovers

• Morally Gray Villain MC

• Winter Wonderland road trip

All I ask is please don’t publicly post about this. I’m not worried about someone “stealing” my idea. (You can’t steal a retelling! If that were so, then I’m stealing the Nutcracker from Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who stole it from Alexandre Dumas, who stole it from E.T.A. Hoffman.) It’s just that I don’t have a contract for this book yet. And it will be real awkward if it doesn’t sell because then I have to explain to everyone that I’m too poor and too bad at marketing to self-publish!

So if you would like to read this book, please put in a good word with your local Etsy witches to bespell me a publishing contract. I’m not above relying on dark sorcery to get what I want—in fact, I recommend it. And while you’re at it, ask them to cast a [redacted] spell on [redacted].

And if I do get a contract for this book, you’ll all be the first to hear about it.

Speaking of, let’s talk about social media! Or my lack therof!

Why am I rarely online anymore?

The answer is a duology:

1. I found the expectations overwhelming—constantly feeling guilty for not interacting enough, or sharing and being supportive enough, or responding to DMs quickly enough.

2. I was literally addicted to scrolling reels, like I simply could not even do “15-minute” quota apps because I would just override the controls. And I would lie in bed or on my couch and mindlessly scroll cute animal or comedy reels but still not actually reply to DMs or repost anything I was supposed to repost. The only thing that worked was Bricking my phone.

   What’s a Brick? It’s a $60 chunk of NFC plastic that blocks my apps. This was recommended to me by fellow romance authors Rosie Danan and Ava Wilder, and at first I was like, “Sixty dollars?! That’s outrageous, I’ll use my willpower which is free.” (Is it, though?—my beleaguered Executive Function, being asked to do the work of champions on a pauper’s dopamine salary). Anyway, my husband bought this for me for my birthday, and I’m sorry to report that it actually works because I moved it into a super inconvenient place and my ADHD comes with poor object permanence. Eventually, I got used to not having access to social media for days at a time. And shockingly, my mental health and productivity improved!

For now, I plan to check in on social media periodically, but please don’t take it personally if I’m really slow to respond or don’t see everything. I don’t know yet how to find balance, but that’s what I’d like to achieve as one of my 2026 goals, because I want to be on social media in moderation.

On the topic of 2026 Goals…

My first goal has been the same for approximately 30+ years of my life, starting at the age of 9 when I first understood that the concept of having a job would some day apply to me whether I liked it or not: I want to be a full-time author.

Now, I’ve had to modify this goal for the late-stage capitalist hellscape that’s evolved from the halcyon 1990s economy in which writin’ for a livin’ was at all realistic. My 2026-informed goal is to sell this Nutcracker book and then make enough from writing that I can quit one of my other two jobs.

But for accountability purposes, and in case anyone finds this kind of thing interesting (I always do!), here are the rest of my author goals this year:

• Read at least 1 romance novel per month that isn’t a friend’s book/book to blurb

• Write more newsletters

• Do things that make me feel confident in my writing skills again (not sure what those things are yet but I will try to figure it out)

• Find ways to stay connected with & support author community even though I have no events planned (does it mean spending more time on social media? If so, figure out what balance looks like re: engaging w/ apps)

• Ask for help/advice and actually accept help/advice when it’s given

What’s next?

Like many writers, I keep a “book ideas” log of brilliant pitches I come up with in various states of genius or highness or sleepiness. At any given time, I have about 30 ideas that range on a scale from “you’re going to JAIL if you write this” to “viable book concept.” So, while I’m on submission with the Nutcracker Book, I’ll be spending time figuring out what inspires me most.

Here are some book pitches that have already been cut from the qualifying round:

• Weregay - someone who’s only gay on the full moon meets and falls in love with someone who’s an actual werewolf on the full moon — can these two shimbos do anything right? (CONS: someone is going to say “oh so being gay is a curse to you the way being a wolf for one night is a curse??” and I’m going to be like, well, depends on who you ask, I mean it’s probably dependent on what your dating prospects and human rights laws look like where you live, and then I’m going to get CANCELED and the ensuing threads debate is going to set the anti-biphobia movement back 15 years and it will be MY FAULT! Even though the whole premise of this complaint is that being a werewolf is a curse, as if anyone in their right fuckin’ mind wouldn’t pay a bajillion dollars to spend 24 hours as a wolf just to see what it was like!)

• Railed - ADHD goldiggers go to a train enthusiast conference to meet rich autistic zaddies. Or to meet a train conductor so they can get a free ride to Canada to get health insurance/meet Santa. (por que no los dos?? neurodivergent baddies really can have it all!) (CON #1: getting canceled for perpetuating autism sterotypes even though they’re sometimes true! … CON #2: not really sure what the plot is here)

• Love on Opp - Peloton opps race each other every morning for the #1 spot and callout by their fave instructor but what they don’t realize is that in real life they’re both secret VAMPIRES who HATE EACH OTHER. (CON: I would need to do too much—any—research on Peloton and also I don’t think I can use a name brand.)

Look, I don’t make the rules about what’s publishable, but I think we’re all better off for that.

Recent Book Recs (written by my friends)

I’ve decided that as part of my ongoing commitment to being authentic, I’m going to be up front about when a recommendation is biased by my friendship with the author. Even though I was already a fan of most of these authors before we became friends! The truth is that I genuinely can’t separate the art from the artist, for both good and bad.1 Anyway, I adore these books and you should read them!!!

• In Every Possible Way (out June 16th, 2026) by Alicia Thompson - this is Alicia’s first book with magical realism, and she flawlessly executes a pretty ambitious, Before Sunrise x the Cranberries concept here. This is the first of her books that I think (I hope) will breach containment and capture the attention of literary romance readers who think they’re too good for “romance novels” and make Alicia the #1 NYT bestseller she deserves to be. Here are some “unofficial” blurbs I sent to Alicia to express my love for this book:

  • “Alicia Thompson must have made a deal with a dark sorceress because she possesses the unearthly ability to turn the way a song makes you feel into a book. In Every Possible Way lingers like a fairytale dream that’s also very, very sexy.”

  • “I was beside myself in the yearning trenches for nearly all of this exquisitely atmospheric and exceptionally steamy modern fairytale.”

  • “Alicia Thompson inspires important questions in In Every Possible Way, such as ‘Why am I not getting a personal tour of the best places to f*ck in Ireland by a brooding mechanic wearing a cable knit sweater?’ and I think that’s the kind of hard-boiled journalism this genre needs right now.”’

• The Lust Crusade by Jo Segura (out now!) - this is by far Jo’s steamiest—and funniest—book, and my favorite of all her adventure romances. I also think that readers who didn’t love the secret-keeping heroes from books #1 and #2 will absolutely adore Theo from this book, since he is a sweet baby angel who has never done anything wrong! This is the perfect escapist romp to read during a snowstorm, but be warned that the descriptions of all the Greek food will make you hungry.

• Still Into You by Erin Connor (out now!) - I adored Unromance and I adore Erin. One time, we did an event together and when the host read our author bios we laughed because they were almost identical. Anyway, if you are a bisexual emo millennial then this book is for you! As with her debut, this one is top-tier HOT, but with a little more second-chance angst between two people with a history and my all-time favorite trope of Forbidden Romance. It’s giving delicious shades of Daisy Jones and the Six (another favorite of mine, which I read before writing Midnight Duet).

Recent Book & Media Recs (not written by friends)

• The Gilded Heiress by Joanna Shupe - absolutely flawless retelling of Anastasia in New England. It’s actually extremely rare to find a well-written “rogue” hero. I personally find them very hard to write because they need to be witty and clever and I specialize in writing golden retriever himbos and very straightlaced men who need to be punished for their sins. (My go-to comparison is Cadeon from Kresley Cole’s IAD series, and I’m not sure that in 2026 anyone could get away with writing a Monster-guzzling dirtbag who unapologetically pays for motel room pay-per-view porn, because Threads couldn’t even handle the idea of a hero with a mullet—obviously, this is now a challenge I hope to take on some day.) Anyway, Shupe has been doing this long enough that her plotting and craft is God-tier and I will come back to this book time and again to remind myself of how it’s done.

  Other Media

• Heated Rivalry - obviously. 1000/5 stars, I’ve already watched every episode 4x.

• The Pitt - 2/5 stars. It feels like this show is pandering in a very specific way that I should like, but it feels too obvious.

• One Battle After Another - 3/5 stars. I loved the concept and the acting, but this movie felt like it it was having an identity crisis. I read an interview where PTA says he basically melded two “visions” for this movie—an action/car-chase flick and a satirical political romp—and tbh it shows. I think PTA is at the point in his career where no one wants to tell him that he’s not always a visionary genius? Even visionary geniuses need constructive feedback. Stay humble, bro! (It still won a bunch of awards, and my cinephile husband said it was incredible, so I’ll allow that I’m not sophisticated enough to judge this movie.)

• Sinners - 4/5 stars. Fun, creative, gorgeous—but am I wrong for wanting a happy ending? (I guess you could argue it was a happy ending, but only for the characters I cared about the least, tbh.) This is why I don’t watch horror movies; I get too sad when characters I like die! Just let hot people LIVE!

• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You - DNF. I guess if you’re looking for something to really stress you out, this is the movie for you.

• Big Trouble in Little China - 11/5 stars. I’m going to die on the hill that movies were at their peak when everyone involved in production was doing lines of pure 1980s cocaine. Today’s movies simply lack the unhinged, unmitigated originality that comes from creative talent being given free reign to push the boundaries of plausibility. Movies these days are too self-aware, too cautious, too concerned with how some greasy, unemployed shitheads might talk about it on their podcast, and too smudged with corporate fingerprints. Too afraid to put their boy “heroes” in knee-high boots and Kim Cattrall in a soaking wet white t-shirt. If you’ve never seen this classic, I recommend watching it with zero idea of what to expect, so you can relate more closely to Jack Burton (Kurt Russell). What I love most about this movie is that it really doesn’t give a shit whether the audience “gets” the plot. As Lo Pan would say, “Shut up, Mr. Burton! You are not brought upon this world to get it!" (Honestly, this quote played in my mind a lot as I was writing my Nutcracker book.)

• Tango in the Night by Fleetwood Mac (1987) - 5/5 stars. Music was at its peak when everyone involved in production was doing lines of pure 1980s cocaine.2 This is actually my favorite FM album and I think it’s better than Rumours, which I guess is an unpopular opinion and I don’t care. The song Isn’t it Midnight is such a dark horse! It’s so fucking catchy, Christine McVie is a stunnah on lead vocals, and that guitar wailing in the background is giving it’s all. I’m no Lindsey Buckinham stan, but you have to give credit where it’s due, and he and Christine carried this album. Also, I really appreciate this music video for the pure Behind the Music style, even though that version of the song isn’t my favorite.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I’ll have more to share soon! If not, I’ll just send you all more terrible book ideas and terrible opinions on popular media until you give up and unsubscribe. :) LOVE YOU, BE SAFE, BE KIND TO ANIMALS, FREE P@LESTINE, AND FUCK THE EYE-CEE-EE. Smoochez.