Goodbye, Proofreads!

Well, that's that: I've sent off my final proofreads for Sorry I Missed You. This is the part where my editor politely pries my fingers off my manuscript and gives it to lots of other people and I try my best to distract myself from all of the untapped possibilities still in there. You know when you read a book and you think, "I wish the author would've explored that concept more" or "I needed more closure on this one storyline" or "I loved the whole book except this part..."?

Welcome to my entire life.

If they would've let me, I would've edited Valencia and Valentine for fifty more years. Same with Sorry I Missed You. I think you kind of need to be a chronic over-thinker in order to write a novel, but dang. It makes it almost impossible to let go of the thing. Especially since you write a book over the course of many months (or years, in my case) and you change as a person as you're writing. You meet new people and experience new things and life happens to you and around you, to your friends and on the news. And every time you return to these fictitious people, you can't help but want to teach them what you're learning, or introduce them to people you've met, or put them through something you're going through just so you can write it out. You gain empathy and perspective, and you want to put that in there, too.

I suppose it's good that I have people who pull this stuff out of my hands at some point—people I trust, who care a lot (my editor, for example, just emailed me about a missing comma; I love her) and who won't put it out there before it's ready.

So anyway. Those are off. ARCs are in production and the book wheels are in motion. I'm starting to work on marketing and publicity stuff. They tell me I need to make a street team (do you want to be on my street team? Apply within). The book comes out in a little over seven months.

Now, my most immediate job is housework.

You know how authors' houses in movies are just indoor junkyards? That's so accurate. If my kids are sleeping, I am working. My office is in the living room. I'm not sure when anyone expects me to do, like, housewifing. So I step over the piles of stuff, I move the piles of stuff, I sit on and amongst the piles of stuff. The piles of stuff grow and multiply and become cognizant and develop charming personalities and we give them names and they become part of the family. It's quite something.

So now that I have a little break from deadlines and contracts, I am going to take care of that. Goodbye, piles of stuff! Goodbye, Gretched and Larrin and Marvit! (My three favorite piles of stuff.)

Goodbye, blogworld! (Until next time.)

A COVER REVEAL! And So Many Other Words

At last, I get to share the cover for my second book. But first! Preamble!

Obviously.

This book is nothing—at all—like Valencia and Valentine. I just feel like I need to say that. People have asked if it's a sequel, or if it has similar themes, characters, anything—nope. But I did write both books, so it will bear a certain family resemblance, I'm sure. Personally, I think this one's funnier. Lighter. Fewer people die in it.

I got the idea for this one when I was out for a walk with Sullivan a few years ago. I'd recently finished writing Valencia and Valentine but I was not finished writing, period, if you know what I mean. I still wanted to sit at my desk and make stuff up, but I had no story. I had no characters, no hooks, no settings. So I put Sullivan in a wagon and I literally went out to find a story to write.

Sullivan loved that wagon; I could've walked for days with him happily reclining in there, watching the houses roll past—which was good, because I walked for probably two hours before I found this story. It was on a street full of old houses and mature trees that stretched their branches over the road like they were holding hands with each other, completely blocking the sky. I stopped in front of this massive white house with a creaky porch and three mailboxes. And I thought, this house looks like it's haunted, and also, I wonder if the people who live here get along with each other.

And then I thought about how fun it might be to write about a haunted house, and about tenants who are very different from each other and have nothing in common except this one thing: they all live in a haunted house. And then I thought about a friend of mine who'd recently suddenly stopped talking to me for no reason, and about a conversation I'd had with a different friend about that experience, about being "ghosted." And I thought that maybe the people who lived in the house could have that in common too—because it's kind of a universal experience, being ghosted, isn't it? And I thought I'd call it Ghosting Stories because of the ghosts in the house and the ghosts in the people's pasts (the title was the only part that didn't stick). And then I went home and started writing it.

I sold it to Lake Union at the same time as I sold V&V, its name has been changed to Sorry I Missed You, and it's coming out on June 2, 2020.

Okay. The cover.

The cover process is easily one of my favorite parts of having a book published. Maybe the main reason I love it so much is that, unlike every single other thing about publishing a book, it's not hard—I just wake up to an email one day that's like, "Here are some possible designs. Which ones do you like and why?"

I've never had a hard time having and giving opinions.

I weigh in and my lovely editor, Alicia, adds her thoughts and my wonderful agent, Victoria, agrees with us (we all seem to be on the same page about basically everything and WHAT A BLESSING THAT IS) and then the marketing team gives their opinion (their opinion, obviously, holds the most weight). We pick a design and go back and forth with the designer, who swiftly chisels and whittles and doodles away at it until it's something that a whole bunch of people can agree on, which is like a magic trick.

The aforementioned magician is Liz Casal. I wish I could show you all of the designs, because even the "rough sketches" she sent were incredible. As it is, I'm only going to show you this one:

Isn't it great? I'm going to paste the promo text below so you don't have to squint to read the back:

A poignant and heartwarming novel about friendship, ghosting, and searching for answers to life’s mysteries.

When Mackenzie, Sunna, and Maude move into a converted rental house, they are strangers with only one thing in common—important people in their lives have “ghosted” them. Mackenzie’s sister, Sunna’s best friend, and Maude’s fiancé—all gone with no explanation.

So when a mangled, near-indecipherable letter arrives in their shared mailbox—hinting at long-awaited answers—each tenant assumes it’s for her. The mismatched trio decides to stake out the coffee shop named in the letter—the only clue they have—and in the process, a bizarre kinship forms. But the more they learn about each other, the more questions (and suspicions) they begin to have. All the while, creepy sounds and strange happenings around the property suggest that the ghosts from their pasts might not be all that’s haunting them…

Will any of the housemates find the closure they are looking for? Or are some doors meant to remain closed?

Quirky, humorous, and utterly original, Sorry I Missed You is the perfect read for anyone who has ever felt haunted by their past (or by anything else).

So that's what's coming down the chute next.
You can preorder it here.