Friday, October 04, 2024
Ulp!
Friday, September 20, 2024
Book Tour!
Years ago, when I sold my first book, I made a list of writer goals. At the time, I didn't know very much about the actual life of a modern-day author. My ideals were informed by movies about fictitious authors, novels about fictitious authors, and magazine interviews with only very, very famous and successful real-life authors. I think this is why, when I made that list, it had on it all kinds of ridiculous, out-of-touch, nonsense goals. I really thought, there, I've done the hard part. Now it's all downhill; now I get to write down all my wildest daydreams and check them off as they come true, one by one.
LOL.
One of these goals? Go on a book tour! That was a feature in every single one of those movies and books, the debut author being sent by her publisher to various cool cities, picked up at the airport in a limo by a nervous publicist, somehow having amassed a large and loyal following in the three days since their book was acquired, edited, and published, despite not spending any time (on screen, anyway) doing any kind of social media marketing.
I was like, yes, that! Me! Want. Need, even!
But movies about writers are rarely accurate or realistic (despite the fact that they would, one would think, sometimes be written by writers) and one of the first things I learned as an author newbie was that most publishers don't really send most authors on books tours anymore. Yes, you might see authors going on book tours, but often those are paid for by the authors themselves, not the publishers (the exception seems to be that if you are already a very famous, very important author, then, as with everything in this business, you get to live that dream movie version of the author life—which is why my magazine exposure to only the most important writers of our time didn't give me such an accurate glimpse into the life of the...less important authors, which in reality is most of us).
I've released two books now. For my debut my friends threw me a party at The Paper Umbrella, which I never really posted about on here because I was so overwhelmed that entire summer, but it was beautiful and amazing and I was spoiled with a massive crowd of good friends and cookies decorated like the cover of Valencia and Valentine and twinkle lights in the back alley for when people got too warm in the shop and needed to get fresh air. It was so perfect that I didn't even mind that no one was sending me on a tour.
For my second book, I was meant to do a little signing at a book store in Saskatoon, as well as a launch party here in the city, and that was going to be the extent of my self-funded book tour, but everything got cancelled because it was June 2020 and there were, you know, other things going on in the world at the time.
So when I wrote my third book, the idea of a book tour was like a helium balloon I'd let go of long ago and completely forgotten about.
However.
When my agent sent me the deal memo from Radiant, who bought the Canadian rights to I Think We've Been Here Before, I was pleasantly surprised to see included in their offer that they would "support at least a three city tour" and that particular daydream came floating back into my brain.
It's fun when you let go of a dream and then it sneaks up on you again out of nowhere like that.
So anyway, all that to say, above is an early draft of my little book tour announcement graphic thing. There should be another date added soon, but the ones on there already are fairly finalized. If you're in any of these places at any of these times, you should come hang out. If you own a bookstore or are a librarian or have a book club and you want to hang, I'd be very happy to chat about adding your bookstore or library or whatever to the little book tour announcement graphic thing. If you're in Saskatchewan, you can book me through this form, and if you're not, email me at suzy@suzykrause.com and we can at least talk about it. :)
Friday, September 06, 2024
Book Soundtrack: I Think We've Been Here Before
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special
Chapter 4 (Hilda & Family): THE ONE MOMENT by OK Go
There's nothing more lovely
There's nothing more profound
Than the certainty
Than the certainty that all of this will end
That all of this will end
Chapter 5 (Nora and Sonja): WE WON'T LAST THROUGH DECEMBER by LJ Mercer
Chapter 9 (Petra): WE WILL BECOME SILHOUETTES by The Postal Service
I wanted to walk through the empty streets
And feel something constant under my feet
But all the news reports recommended that I stay indoors
Because the air outside will make
Our cells divide at an alarming rate
Until our shells simply cannot hold
All our insides in and that's when we'll explode
And it won't be a pretty sight
And we'll become
Silhouettes when our bodies finally go
Chapter 32 (Marlen & Hilda): SUBURBAN TREES by Jump, Little Children
Credits on the wall
Chapter 36 (Hank & Irene): IN THE VALLEY BELOW by Dove Season
There's room for both of us
You can't choose your love
You can't choose your love
I could use your love
Can't lose your love
If this is the end
Let's start all over
Start all over again
I believe we can
Start all over
On earth as it is in heaven
Chapter 37 (Nora & Jacob): LOVER by Taylor Swift
We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January
This is our place, we make the rules
And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear
Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?
Chapter 55 (Marlen & Hilda): SONG OF GOOD HOPE by Glen Hansard
You'll know what they mean
You'll be fine now
Just stay close to me
And may good hope, walk with you through everything
On top of the world, at the end of the world, with you
Chapter 62 (Nora & Jacob): IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA by Neutral Milk Hotel
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me
And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Chapter 68 (Everyone): STARS AND MOONS by Dizzy
I am starting to see stars and moons
(It's an awful sham, but I follow suit)
This is how it ends, a courageous boom
(Neighbours wave their hands, as we're passing through)
And it's awful sad how two lovers bloom
(Come and watch them dance, dance into their doom)
I am starting to see stars and moons
(Come and watch them dance)
Chapter 69 (Everyone): DON’T BE AFRAID, YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD by Akron/Family
Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Chapter 70 (Everyone): THE LAST CHRISTMAS (WE EVER SPEND APART) by The Arkells
(Note: I put this song on the playlist before I read all of the lyrics. Then when I went to write this blog post, I laughed at how perfect they ended up being...)
I'm sitting by the windowsill
I got nothing but time to kill
I took this all for granted, but I won't do that again
That'll be the last Christmas
The sky is burning
No more need to hurry
We were right to worry
We were right to worry
The birds are gone now
The time has come now
Just close your eyes now
Just close your eyes now
The sea is crying
The moon is sighing
It's terrifying
It's terrifying
It's all around us
The end is ground us
The star has found us
I once read about a time machine
They learned to teach electrons
To go back to where they started
Should we go back to where we started?
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Three Stories
Have I ever told you about the time I was invited to an undisclosed location for supper by a complete stranger?
I don't think I've told this story here yet.
It happened a few years ago. I got an email in my inbox from someone who referred to themselves as 'The Concierge."
Dear Suzy, the message began, You are cordially invited to participate in The Influencers Dinner. This exclusive dining experience brings together twelve industry leaders ranging from TV/movie stars, Olympians, scientists, and business executives to famed artists, entrepreneurs, and Nobel Laureates for great conversation, food and drink.
Oh, I thought to myself, spam.
I read the rest of the email anyway because I nearly never don't. It had a specific date on it, and a time (7:00 PM sharp), and it said that the location would be provided upon RSVP (it did specify that the event might not be in Canada). There was also a bullet point list of what to expect:
* All attendees help prepare a simple meal together. No cooking experience is necessary.
* Guests do not discuss their careers.
* Once seated the attendees take turns guessing their fellow guest’s professions.
* The expense of the meal is covered by your host, Jon Levy.
* The guest list is kept secret.
* The invitation is non-transferable and only for you.
So then I was intrigued, right, because who wouldn't be? A meal at undisclosed location with quantifiably interesting strangers? It sounded cool, kind of shady, a little And Then There Were None-ish. I googled Jon Levy to see if there was a possibility that this thing might be real.
Here's what I found:
and this
and THIS.
Oh, I thought to myself, not spam.
I showed the email to Barclay. He said, "You should go."
I stared at him.
"You think I should?"
He nodded. "It sounds cool."
I frowned at him. "Doesn't it sound like we're all going to be murdered one by one by a host with a vendetta and I'm going to have to solve the mystery before he picks me off?"
"Well yeah," he said, "but there's a New York Times article saying it's not that. It looks legit."
He wasn't wrong. Still, I RSVPd no.
Next story:
Did I ever tell you about the time I was invited to the Olympics in Tokyo?
This was a couple of years before the dinner party thing. I got a phone call from a guy I met once back in 2007. He lives in BC and he's a—well. He's a whole bunch of things. Podcaster, musician, studio engineer, etc. We hadn't spoken in years, but we followed each other on Instagram and he read my blog (maybe still does? Hi Jordan! Do you still read my blog?).
Anyway. He called me up out of the blue and told me that he'd been commissioned by NBC to produce their Olympics podcasts, and he was going to Tokyo to do it, and he wanted me to come along with him as the writer.
I told him I'd have to think about it. As one does.
Barclay got home from work and I told him about the phone call. I actually can't remember his reaction to that one, but it was probably similar to the dinner party thing. You should go and it sounds cool and all that. Barclay is truly the best, and that's one of the morals of these stories.
But, once again, I emailed Jordan and said I couldn't go.
(Side note, I just Googled him to make sure I was remembering correctly that it was NBC who commissioned the podcast and found out that, though the Olympics in Tokyo were kind of blighted by the whole Covid thing, Jordan went to the Olympics in Beijing in 2022 and won an Emmy for that podcast. One of two things is true: 1. I could've been on that team and won an Emmy or 2. I could've been on that team and kept Jordan from winning an Emmy and he's lucky I stayed home.)
So now you're blinking at the screen asking yourself, what is the point of these stories? You might be wishing I was standing in front of you right now so you should grab me by my shoulders and give me a good shake. You might be wanting more of an explanation as to why I said no to such objectively cool opportunities. Maybe you're wondering if I regret my decisions.
So.
Here's the thing: Sullivan was born almost 11 years ago and in that time, I have never—not once, not one single time—left the city overnight without him. I have done one staycation in a hotel in Regina while he slept at his grandparents' house twelve minutes away. I have, twice, gone for a day trip while he was in school.
I have watched friends go on trips without their children. Barclay has gone on trips alone. I see these people do this and while I do feel a twinge of envy, mostly I just think, HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING THIS? It feels like watching someone swim with sharks or jump out of an airplane or sit with their legs dangling over the side of a mountain—things I abstractly want to do but cannot comprehend doing. My jealousy toward those who can is tempered with terror. I can't picture myself doing that, just like I can't picture myself stepping off a high diving board.
I know it's not healthy. I know it's objectively kind of silly. But it's my fear, not yours, and if you were right inside my head, you'd get it.
Have you read Valencia and Valentine (it's okay if you haven't, but there are spoilers ahead)? I wrote that book when Sully was a few years old and this terror was new to me. In the book, there's a woman who is terrified of leaving her city. She can't fly, she can't drive. She goes to the airport and eats airport muffins while she watches the planes take off, and she reads travel books from the library and she daydreams, but she doesn't get up the courage to get on a flight herself until <spoiler> she's an elderly woman.
Lots of people on the internet were big mad about that ending. They said the book was depressing, because this woman spent her whole life afraid to do something and only did it at the very last minute, and even then she only went as far as the airport in New York and then turned around and flew home again. They felt that she didn't conquer her fear. But lots of other people understood the ending, and I think the people who understood it are the people who get that conquering a fear doesn't have to be this huge, extravagant thing, especially when your fear feels so insurmountable, and that there's not really a time limit on it either. To have done something that scares you, even at the last minute, and even if it's something that most people feel is no big deal...is a big deal. </end spoiler>
All that to say: I said no to Tokyo and to the Mystery Dinner Party because I was afraid. And both times, I thought of the book I had just written and published, and I thought of the scene where Valencia is sitting in the airplane seat looking out the window and thinking I should've done this sooner, and while I felt a tiny bit hypocritical, I didn't feel hopeless or regretful about any of it. I just thought, hm, I'm already working this out subconsciously. I'll get there someday. And wanting to get there is probably half the battle.
Okay, one more story.
When I signed with my Canadian publisher, they asked me to go get blurbs from a few Canadian authors. I already had some American ones, but this was a Canadian book published by a Canadian publisher, so we wanted to have some Canadian authors on the cover of it. One of the authors I reached out to was Marissa Stapley (I've told this part of this story before, here). Long story short (because you can read the long version of it at that link), Marissa read my book and sent along the loveliest blurb.
Then, in June, she also sent an email asking if I would like to do an event with her in Toronto. Just me and her, at a bookstore, talking about our books.
I admit, I dismissed it right away as something that would be amazing, but which would not be happening. I would allow myself a quick daydream, like I had with the Tokyo and dinner party emails, and then I'd come back to reality, my reality, where I can't leave the kids, and I would send a sad and apologetic email saying thank you so incredibly much, but no.
I closed the computer and told Barclay about the email, and he did his usual supportive-but-not-pressuring husband bit. And I said, Yeah, yeah, I know. But no.
And he said, But maybe you should actually think about it. Before you say no.
So I did. Being invited to go to Toronto and do an event with a literary superstar was absolutely a dream come true—but even more than that, Marissa and I have become friends, and I really think it would be so fun to actually meet her and go for supper and get to know her IRL. Not to mention the other friends I've made but not met who live in the Toronto area—other authors and people from the blogging world and people from the publishing world and a whole sweet book club of people I've met only on Zoom...
I thought of Valencia on the airplane saying I should've done this sooner and I thought of the angry Goodreads reviewer who said that she couldn't think of anything more depressing than an adult being stuck in a jail cell they've made up in their head (and I mean, this is a terrible perspective on anxiety but I still thought of it). I thought of Tokyo and all of the interesting people I might've met at the mystery dinner party. I thought of the times I travelled on my own before becoming a mother, and about how much fun I had then, and I thought of how often I talk to my kids about anxiety and fear and how I tell them that sometimes it's okay to sit something out if you feel like you need to, but sometimes it's really, really worth it to push yourself and do something that feels scary.
And then I realized that if I kept thinking, I would go in a circle and end up at the beginning, so I stopped thinking and I sent Marissa an email.
I said yes and I hit send before I could change my mind.
And today I'm booking my flights.
So. If you are in the Toronto area on October 10, you could come to Type Books (Junction) at 7:30 pm and witness a 37-year-old lady doing something incredibly normal and chill, but you'll know how big of a deal it'll all be inside my head and we can exchange knowing glances.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Spiraling
Monday, August 12, 2024
Quantum Entanglement and Modest Mouse
We went to the same school in The Middle of Nowhere, Saskatchewan but ran in different circles. She moved to Saskatoon after that and just so happened to live in a house with a close friend of mine. I'd stay in that house when I visited that friend, but didn't really interact with Becky at all when I was there (although! Once I played a Modest Mouse album on my friend's laptop and Becky got into them because of that, so that counts as the very first of many music recommendations to pass between the two of us. Years later, I would go for coffee with her for the first time and we'd talk about music and she'd say she liked Modest Mouse and I'd get so excited to have something in common with her and she'd tell me that it was me who'd introduced her to them in the first place).
When I moved to Regina and started dating my now-husband, he mentioned one day that he'd said my name at work and one of his coworkers had been like, "Huh, I wonder if that's the same Suzy I sort of know." I said, What's the girl's name? And he said, Becky. And I said, Of course it is.
We became real friends after that. I don't think we really had a choice, which is a good thing.
She moved away a few years ago, but we stay in touch, texting and visiting and sending snail mail. And here's the weird thing: on some other inexplicable level, our brains have stayed in touch even without our technological aid.
The first time I really noticed this, I was sitting at my desk working on a book and a song popped into my head that I hadn't heard or thought of in years—probably since I was a teenager. I texted Becky:
Remember this song from, like, 1998? It randomly popped into my head this morning.
Her reply:
SUZY. That song just as randomly came to me today; I've had it on repeat over here!
This keeps happening, and it never gets less weird—if anything it's stranger each time because the probability goes down. Chances of something like that happening once? Slim but not nonexistent. Chances of it happening over and over...?
So weird.
And it extends beyond music. She'll become interested in a very specific topic and text me about it, only to find I've been reading articles about that thing and listening to podcasts about it already. A person from some leg of our shared history will come to both of our minds, unbidden, at the same time. I'll think of her and my phone will light up with her name on the screen. It's like some part of our brains, at some point, got synced up.
One day, a year or so after the first notable instance of our invisible communications, I was listening to a podcast (and I so wish I could remember the name of it so I could share it with you) on which a physicist was explaining the concept of quantum entanglement. He was talking about how scientists had figured out how to entangle two particles so that they behave as one object. They could put one particle on a spaceship and send it into outer space, and still the objects would not become unlinked. The podcast explained that this was a process that happened naturally as well, but it wasn't very well understood yet how.
As described by Space.com:
"Quantum entanglement is a bizarre, counterintuitive phenomenon that explains how two subatomic particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space. Despite their vast separation, a change induced in one will affect the other."
Or, as Einstein famously put it:
"Spooky action at a distance."
I found this concept fascinating. It feels, at first, a little magical and abstract, but I think the thing I love most about it is that it's just...science. It's testable and provable and it points to the fact that there is so much more going on around us (and within us?) than is physically or easily observable.
So. Am I saying that Becky and I are entangled on a quantum level, and that's why we always get the same super-random songs stuck in our heads, or get obsessed with the same topics at the same time without each other's knowledge, or any other number of strange coincidental things? I don't know. I've done a lot of reading about it, and there seems to be some debate about whether it's possible for people to become entangled with each other, but there also seems to be some proof of it. And when I was writing I Think We've Been Here Before, I decided that in the world in which I was setting this scenario and these characters? Yes. It's possible. And this is the cool thing about writing fiction: you get to learn as much as you possibly can about the way the world actually works, you get to marvel at it, sit in awe of it...and then, once you feel like you have a grasp on the rules, you get to break or bend or stretch whichever ones you want to suit your purposes. You get to fill in the blanks where scientists have said, "We don't know about this!"
It's very fun.
Monday, June 03, 2024
Book Soundtrack: Sorry I Missed You
Shortly after Sorry I Missed You came out, I began to get emails and texts and passing comments from various people asserting that they knew—they knew—exactly who I had used as inspiration for the character of Larry, the slightly embarrassing, badly-aging ex-punk. And their confidence was so funny, because no two people guessed the same person, and no one guessed the person who had really inspired him.
Partly because no single person had inspired him—he was an amalgamation of people I’ve seen in coffee shops and people I’ve met once or twice and now follow on instagram and people I knew in high school and people I know now and…well, me.
Actually, mostly me.
I get why people didn’t guess that one—Larry is a man, first of all, and I’m not a man. Larry is a solid decade or so older than me. Larry listens to old punk at the exclusion of all else while my taste in music spans a lot of genres and decades. Larry is a whole bunch of other things that I’m not.
Besides all of that, a lot of people just plain didn’t like Larry, and thought I had written him in an unlikeable way because I didn’t like him either. So how could he be me? If I were basing a character on myself, wouldn’t I cast them in a more agreeable light?
But this is true for pretty much every unlikeable character I’ve ever written: I think they come across as unlikeable or unliked because they’re based on me—because when I’m writing looking inward, I’m not afraid to be mean the way I would be if I’d been inspired by someone who could conceivably read the book and recognize themselves. Aren’t we all our own worst critic? And isn’t that, kind of, an asset in this case?
So what of mine did I give to Larry? A deep love for music—live music, especially—and an instinct to be a little gatekeepy about it, borne mostly out of sadness for the way the world is changing, sadness for the way that he himself is changing, sadness that things can’t just stay the way they were (because how they were, in that little pocket of time, in those venues, with those people, was just so fun. And maybe Larry, like myself, suffers from a lack of self-awareness about this. He has a hard time recognizing that things are fun for the next generations too, even if it looks different now).
But, as characters often do, Larry also gave some things to me!
Like I said: he was more than a decade older than I was when I wrote that book, so the music scene of his youth was pretty different from the one I’d experienced. I grew up in Frontier, a tiny village far, far away from…well, anything. We did not have a thriving punk scene. We did not have an indie record store. We didn’t even have high speed internet; if I wanted to download a single song it required four hours of internet connection, usually thwarted by a family member innocently picking up the phone somewhere in the house. So my exposure to punk music in my teen years was limited to a couple of local bands (“local” meaning within a two hour radius of me) and a CD binder I borrowed from a friend for the better part of a year that contained a lot of burned CDs and every single Fat Wreck Chords compilation album ever made. There was also one Very Exciting Road Trip to Calgary for the Warped Tour at the end of my grade 12 year. After that, I moved to Saskatoon and started going to punk and hardcore shows at the Bassment all the time, but that scene was, by then, fairly far removed from the DIY punk scene of the 90s.
So I had to do a little research, is what I’m saying, which was very fun. I read Razorcake and a lot of very pretentious but wonderful blogs and I scoured Reddit and followed several musical rabbit holes all over the place on Spotify. I found, expectedly, that people who are really intense about music are intense about it in very similar ways across genres and generations—and maybe that’s why so many people read Sorry I Missed You and thought, “HEY, that’s meant to be so-and-so!” or “Hey, I think that’s me!” or whatever.
Annnnyway.
Here’s the playlist I made when I was writing that book. It has a few songs from my “research,” as well as a lot of songs about ghosting and being ghosted, songs about aging, and songs about getting over people who feel impossible to get over. Because those are the things that book is about. :)
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
The Sky is Falling!
I went downtown yesterday and found it full of police cars and a firetruck and a crowd of people looking up at one of Regina's very few skyscrapers. My first thought was that someone was going to jump, but before I could worry about that for too long a lady yelled at me, "THERE'S GLASS FALLING FROM THE SKY!"
I looked up.
That's not a great instinct, is it? Apparently I have not one ounce of self-preservation.
But the crowd of people was acting very casual. Even the lady who yelled at me wasn't frantic; it felt more like she just wanted to be the one to tell people, like it made her feel important to be the one spreading the news, and I thought, fair enough. It's fun to get to be the one to tell people stuff, and how much more when that stuff is really important? Like, "The sky is falling!"? Chicken Little knows. There's a reason that story is an enduring classic; it's so relatable.
All this to say, no one seemed worried, so I wasn't worried either. Like, if there was glass falling from the sky in an actively harmful way, wouldn't everyone be running for cover? Screaming? Shielding themselves with their jackets and backpacks and significant others? But everyone was just staring upward, eyes and mouths open, like they wanted to be showered in glass from the heavens.
It's times like this when you really understand that people, at the very core of their being, think they're invincible. Like, none of us would ever say it it like that, but we do. We say, "See you later," as we leave our friends without considering that it's entirely possible we might not see them later. We do risky things all day every day without a care in the world. We hear there's glass raining from the sky and we look up.
We are so silly!
Anyway, I walked on. (I saw on Instagram later that a pane of glass from high up on one of the towers had blown out, or something. I hope it didn't hit anyone.)
I was listening to music in my headphones as I walked, and I was at the part in Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand, about 60 seconds in, where there's a bell ringing in the background, and I suddenly became aware that the bell was not only in my headphones but also outside of my headphones. I paused the music and looked around and, sure enough, there was a man standing nearby with a bell, ringing it over and over again, only slightly off-time with the one in the song. It was odd, to feel as though whoever was ringing the bell in the song had climbed out into my real life, standing right there in front of me. He was also yelling, at the top of his lungs, "JESUS LOVES YOU! JESUS LOVES YOU! JESUS LOVES YOU!" He had literature to hand out.
Everyone around the man was ducking and trying to avoid eye contact with him, and I starting laughing to myself as I hurried past. I was thinking, this is probably what we all should've done when there was glass raining from the sky. We're not afraid of dying, as a society, because we don't actually think we will, but we are terrified of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Weirdness Journal Entry #5: Jocey!
What, you thought we could go more than a few weeks without an entry in the Weirdness Journal? Silly you.
[In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot! Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about. This entry is about Jocey.]
When Valencia and Valentine released, my friends Theresa and Brad threw my book launch party at their little stationery shop, The Paper Umbrella—oh! I went off searching for a bit of context for anyone who's new here so you'll understand how wonderful these people are and I came across this old video that I made for their blog years ago when they had a Valentine's Day letter-writing contest. (Be warned, the video was made with my old point-and-shoot digital camera, but I think their amazingness still shows through!)Thursday, April 18, 2024
Weirdness Journal Entry #4: The Lightning Bottles Part 2
This blog is turning into a full-time weirdness journal. I think that's okay.
[In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot! Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about.]
Today's entry has to do with Marissa Stapley again! (Refresh your memory here.) The TL;DR is that I asked this writer I admire, Marissa, to blurb ITWBHB and she said yes and then she asked me to blurb her book, The Lightning Bottles, and when I read it I found that there were a number of intriguing similarities between her book and mine—themes, settings, very abstract but particular ideas—and that both books were set to be released this coming fall around the same time. I mentioned this to her as I was reading and we had a delightful conversation about synchronicities.Wednesday, April 03, 2024
Weirdness Journal Entry #3: The Lightning Bottles
Welp, time for another entry in the weirdness journal!
In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot!
Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about.
This entry is about the one and only Marissa Stapley.
So about a month ago I was sitting in a coffee shop staring at my computer screen (I spend so much of my time doing this, much less of it actually typing things). I’d been tasked by my Canadian publisher with the daunting job of finding some Canadian authors to blurb this book (most of the endorsements I’d already obtained were from American authors, because, to this point, most of my author life has been States-centric). I'd been putting it off—I’d already used up all of my bravery on the American authors!—but that day I realized I couldn’t any longer. I needed to just do it, already. I consoled myself: these people don’t know who you are, and if they feel offended by your presence in their email inbox, they can just delete you and will forget about you within five minutes.
One of these emails went to Marissa Stapley, and I felt especially apologetic as I hit send on that one. Authors often talk about how success in the literary world is a moving target, but Marissa is one of those people who has, in my humble opinion, quantifiably achieved it. She was the first Canadian author to have a book selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club! She is critically-acclaimed, she is New York Times-bestselling, she is multiple-times optioned for TV!
I felt sheepish, asking if she wanted to read my book, is what I’m saying. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and this girl did it (applause). Much to my delight, Marissa graciously emailed back quickly and said she’d take a look, so I sent the book over before I could second guess myself anymore.
Hurdle one, down.
I was even more delighted when Marissa emailed again, only a few days later to say that she was halfway through, was enjoying the book, and wondered if I might read and blurb her upcoming novel(!!!), The Lightning Bottles, set to publish exactly one week before mine.
I tried, sort of, to feign nonchalance. I said I would love to, with maybe one too many exclamation points (playing it cool is for cool people).
Okay, so here’s where it gets strange.
Marissa had her publisher send over the ARC and when it arrived I opened it immediately, settled in on my couch with a blanket and a playlist of 90s grunge music. I had only a vague idea of what the book was about; I knew it was set in the 90s and followed the story of a fictitious alt-rock band, which was all I needed to know to be very excited about it (the intersection of literature and music is my happiest place, and the 90s might be my favorite decade). It felt lucky, to get the chance to read this book early.
One page in, I noticed a funny little coincidence: The first chapter of her book was set in Berlin. It caught my eye because the first chapter of my book is also set in Berlin. I laughed to myself. I mean, my book is set only half in Berlin; the other half is set in Canada, alternating back and forth, so it’s not exactly the same, but still.
Interesting, I thought, that our books come out around the same time and both have Berlin in common.
By the end of the chapter, I’d noticed another little similarity: a major theme in Marissa’s book was, apparently, street art, which is true of my book as well. In both of our novels, there's a central question, a mystery, and street art is a thread woven throughout the entire novel pointing to or hinting at the answer.
Neat-o, I said to myself. And, considering these books are coming out at the same time, we might have been writing some of these scenes at the same time. Wild!
I turned the page—only to find that Chapter Two of Marissa's book, like mine, was set in Canada. Goosebumps! It was at this point that I got out a sticky note and a pen and started keeping track of all the little similarities.
We both have a character named Petra! I scribbled. We both have… for the sake of keeping this spoiler-free I won’t go into anything else. :)
Our books are nothing alike on the surface—mine's about a rural Saskatchewan family facing the possible end of the world, hers is a portrait of a two-piece alt-rock band facing the possible end of their career/relationship, and yet...it's as though we were both drawing from the same invisible inspiration bucket, interpreting the very specific prompts in ways that would suit our respective novels.
What does it mean? Don't say nothing.
I generally don't think anything means nothing, but lately this feels extra true. I mean, I almost didn't reach out to Marissa in the first place. The chances of us writing these sister books at the same time, of them coming out at the same time, of them being this oddly same-but-not-same, of me getting to read an early copy of hers...?
At the very least, it's weird enough for the weirdness journal.
And in any case, you should preorder Marissa's book. Like I said, it comes out the week before mine, and seems to be somewhat entangled with mine in a nerdy quantum physics kind of way. Plus, I LOVED IT. I've been thinking about it all week, and it's sent me off on several musical rabbit trails. Here, I'll make it easy for you; click on this: