Get in, girls, we're going on tour

oh my god how is it May? I’ve been telling myself I need to write this newsletter since early April and yet, here we are, halfway through the month and only THREE WEEKS FROM RELEASE DAY OF YOU WON’T FORGET ME!!! (the anxiety, she calls me, but more about that below).

I am very lucky to have the chance to go on tour again for YWFM, and all links to register can be found on my website! Tour is one of my favorite aspects of this job. There is no greater gift than connecting with someone over a story, and to have the chance to do that with so many of you with characters from my brain sludge is a true privilege.

I’m also thrilled to announce the gorgeous goodies for the YWFM pre-order campaign! This stunning art was done by the incredible Indigo (Cacao Creative) and I am truly, madly, deeply obsessed with it! A print will be included on all pre-orders from Novel Neighbor, Malaprops, Wildflower Fiction, Meet Cute, and Scribbles Bookshop.

Additionally, we have special sticker sets that come exclusively with pre-orders from Malaprop’s and Novel Neighbor (two different bunches!). As always, signed, personalized, and unhinged customizations can be ordered from Malaprop’s, my local indie bookstore and a spot that should be on everyone’s travel bucket list.

If you ever said to yourself I want a book that has the poppy energy of a Sabrina Carpenter album, the anger of an Olivia Rodrigo ballad, and the emotional messiness of TTPD, then this is the story for you (and don’t forget to pick up your SSRI refill, babe!)

Okay so, I know the adage is that we’re supposed to fake it till we make it and I’ve built an online presence about being alarmingly excited about things (which, in all fairness, I usually am!!!) but promoting the release of this book has been a tough one for me. I’ve talked about it before, but Cubby’s story is one I’ve been battling with for years at this point. I would try to push it one direction, then a different, but she was incredibly stubborn and unyielding despite my begging and pleading.

The result was a story that feels deeply personal, but in an uncomfortable way for me as her author, but also someone that creates and then commodifies that creation. The book tiptoed toward a character study of Cubby, a young musician vacillating between jadedness and naivety and trying to understand what it means to create art through the lens of depression. She’s messy and makes terrible decisions and is simultaneously desperate to be known and terrified of being perceived. She’s in a constant battle between putting out something that feels honest and putting out something that will keep her safe.

This is my seventh novel, but, like I mentioned, it’s taken me a while, written off and on between the release of it’s companion novel, Tilly in Technicolor, and my last release, Well, Actually. It’s a book of my own growing pains as I learned over and over again that putting out a piece of work is a vulnerable endeavor, one that can feel bruising or even crushing just as it can feel brave and affirming. It’s hard to create when what you’re making feels like just yours, but is destined to belong to others.

I’ve had this feeling before, namely with The Plus One, where I’m afraid to be excited about a book’s release because then it becomes all the more real that others are going to (maybe) read it, and perceive it, and have opinions about it, and good or bad, that’s scary!!!

I’ve also honestly just reached max capacity on my output in the post-capitalism hellscape. Because I am a recovering middle school gifted program kid that never developed the capacity for intrinsic validation, I’ve been in a deadline gauntlet this year. I’ve had two books due so far, and I curse past me for being like “oh, six weeks between deadlines? that's doable!!!” (NO IT ISN’T YOU DELUSIONAL FRUITLOOP!). June will also mark one year that I’ve owned my own dental practice and saying it’s been a year of drinking from a fire hose is a gross understatement. All that to say, I’ve had to drastically rework what time outside of patient care I have to prioritize creative projects, which means I have little to no energy left over to scream on the internet about my upcoming book and desperately plead with people to order it so I can then have enough sales that the powers that be allow me to keep publishing.

But that restructuring of my time has been good, in many ways, I’ve become well-acquainted with my spot on the couch, my blankets and emotional support drinks within reaching distance. My cat likes to cuddle on my chest in the mornings when I’m drafting before work, then at my feet in the evenings after. My husband sits across from me, playing a game and making heart eyes at me in between.

My horror novel is due on Monday, and while I know it and my unannounced other project I turned in back in March will need *plenty* of work the remainder of the year, some small part of me is already reminiscing about the winter I spent hunkered in that corner of my couch, plugging away at something new and different and challenging for me as a writer.

It hasn’t been all work, though! I’ve been hard at work on my garden, and it is bringing me so much joy. I set up two raised beds where I planted an outrageous amount of dahlia tubers and a separate raised bed for my other flowers (cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias). I’m also growing tomatoes, various peppers, cilantro, and basil.

I love growing things. I love taking small seeds and tucking them into warm dirt and fretting over them from above as they do the only thing they know how to do: grow. I can’t wait to see what all my little seedlings become!

I also saw the Florence + The Machine concert two weeks ago and I’m still not ready to talk about it because it was one of the greatest moments of my life and I get to worked up if I try to explain to the extent that show moved me has;fjla;dkjfa;lkdj

Here’s this thing:

I hope to see you on tour in just a few short weeks!!

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