Summer in Seattle is like living in an oven, but nevertheless I persist. I’ve been on a real resting kick lately, which means I’ve been reading and playing video games. (Currently, those are Kingdom Hearts 2 and Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright.) After spending all of June at home, I’ll be hitting the road again at the end of this month to go to San Diego Comic-Con(!!!) for the first time. I’m so, so excited about that, but it means I need to rest even more to make sure I show up as my best self for any readers I’m fortunate to see while I’m there.
I’m on a roll with reading this year. Currently, I’m working on Wench by Erynne Rivers, which I’ve wanted to read for ages and guilted the author into giving me a copy of since her UK edition comes out this month (the US edition is out in October). I’m also going to be watching Heartstopper Forever as soon as it drops this month, because I want to see Nick and Charlie walk into their happy future together. And thanks to Heartstopper, “Stupid Song” has been on repeat, as well as all the other bangers from Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.
Many of my favorite people were born in July, so this is a shout out to: authors Kelly Andrew, Aiden Thomas, Emma Lord, and De Elizabeth, my Uncle Aaron, and my best friends Lauren, Maura, Tyler, and Jen. All right, now let’s get into it!
Honesty time: in May, I had a full-on stress breakdown.
My debut novel, So Let Them Burn, came out in January 2024. As of 2026, I will have four (and a half, if I can count my short story “Second Class Magic” in the anthology The Secret Romantic’s Guide to Magic as a half) books out. Even after that, I have seven books under contract, one drafted, two started, and four unwritten. The original plan was for me to write three first drafts this year—and then go through edits on them—so I could release three books in 2027, two in 2028, and the final two in 2029.
If this sounds unhinged to you, then you’ll understand why my best friend, Chelsea Abdullah, has been begging me to rest since… we met, basically. Anyway, I had turned in the first of three drafts and I was juggling the other two between Bookcon and PGH Bookfest, Michael LaBorn’s Book Club and a NYPL School Visit, a joint birthday party and two weddings, podcast recordings and blurbing books I’d volunteered for and multiple in conversation book launches. Sleep? I don’t know her. Hello, stress, my old friend.
Then my agent called me up and said, “Hey! Just checking in to see how you’re doing.”
“Fine,” I chirped back.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Haha,” I replied, “I’m doing really bad actually.” The words sat like an anchor between us as I realized just how true it was. Depression had its hooks in me; my sister had pointed out that I had been “in a funk” for over a month now. My therapist had asked me when was the last time I remembered being happy and the answer was months before, in New Orleans. I couldn’t read. I barely slept. I was so tired all the time. All of this ran through my head at once, and I finally said it. Out loud:
“Vampire.”
Just kidding. What I actually said was: “I’m doing, like, really, really bad actually.”
By the end of that phone call, as always, my agent had a plan, but let’s reverse back to how I got to this place. I am an eldest daughter. A former gifted student. I am all stress and no sense when it comes to showing up for others. My well is always empty, but I will always find some water for you. We are working on this in therapy, but none of that is truly how I got here.
The fact of the matter is that publishing is a slow-ass industry that idolizes the big and flashy. Debuts and bestsellers get the glitz and glamour, while long-standing authors, midlist authors, hell even authors on their second books get overlooked. And there are just so many books being released all the time. It’s easy to think that if you don’t always have something to announce or promote, if you don’t sell the next thing and the next and the next, then you’ll be forgotten.
When you’re encouraged to go, go, go, you don’t really have time to check in with yourself. “Once I get past this deadline, I can sleep,” is a common refrain of authors barely keeping their heads above water. “I can go to the doctor, I can talk to my friends, I can read… but only after this deadline, this proposal, this festival.” I would know. I’m one of those authors. And I lived the other common adage, which is that if you don’t rest when you need to, your body will force the issue.
My body is still forcing the issue.
I’m not victim blaming here. Like I said, publishing encourages us to produce despite exhaustion, inconsistent pay, low pay, no pay, lack of support, etc. But any agent worth their commission can advocate for authors in that space. Who is advocating for authors when it comes to our mental, physical, and emotional health? Who is there to remind us that in this capitalist hellscape where we’ve monetized our creativity, we are as important, if not more so, than the words we can put on the page?
If you need a sign to move that deadline and sleep for two days straight, let this be it. Don’t repeat my mistakes. Schedule your books around your rest, not your rest around your books. The key to lasting long in this industry is to worry as much about ourselves as we do about our careers.
So if you’re an author, sit there for a moment as you read this. Think about it. I’m checking in. How are you really doing?
Welcome to the Rec Room, the section of my newsletter that I use to highlight books coming out each month I’m really excited about. For July, we have…
The cozy fantasy of TJ Klune meets the creeping horror of T. Kingfisher in this magical novel about a man who enters a deadly enchanted forest expecting it to endanger his life, but not his heart...
Revisit Rapunzel and Eugene from Disney’s Tangled as they race to protect a neighboring kingdom in this thrilling fantasy adventure penned by the New York Times bestselling author of Little Thieves.
Eli and his found family must go back to the time when magic first arrived in London to uncover his lost past in this scintillating sequel to King of Dead Things, a young adult urban fantasy steeped in Afro-Caribbean folklore—perfect for fans of Legendborn and Leigh Bardugo.
In this spooky, small-town Summerween romance, an amateur ghost hunter and a supernatural skeptic team up for a haunted home renovation project. But is their relationship the real fixer upper?
Sora is having a hot cat summer, and not in the sense of the temperature. She’s been laying down with her tummy out, just waiting for someone to get her a pet or a scratch—and of course we must attend to the queen.
Thank you for subscribing and/or for sticking around! I hope you like rambles, shenanigans, and nonsense, because that’s truly all this is. You can catch me at Lovestruck in Seattle’s first birthday celebration with Julia Quinn and Jo Segura, at San Diego Comic-Con (programming tbd), as well as in conversation with Elise Kova for Prince of Swords at Third Place Books Lake Forest Park. In the meantime, stay cool in this heatwave and remember to REST.
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