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. :)

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: 

This

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. 

Spiraling

Our mailman is one of those weirdos who listens to podcasts at full volume on his phone's speaker instead of using earbuds or headphones. So, every single morning at about 9 o'clock, I hear what sounds like a small crowd of self-important men making their way up my sidewalk, talking over each other, forcing laughter, saying, "Yeah, no, but here's the thing, my guy, here's the thing—" 

This is about the time I'm making my first cup of coffee for the day. The kids go downstairs and play video games, and I sit next to the open window and try to work on the new book, or publicity stuff for the other book, or, if nothing's flowing in either of those places, I'll come on here and write a blog post. 

Clearly nothing's flowing in either of those places at the moment, because here I am.

This is kind of to be expected though and I'm trying to be gentle with my brain. My next book comes out in a little more than a month (unless you're in the States, because the pub date there has been changed, but more on that later), and I'm in this awkward space where I know I'm supposed to be yelling at everyone to post about my book! and preorder now! and ask your library to order it in! but...I still feel so weird doing that. I thought this part of things would get easier as I gained confidence in myself, but I have learned, as I've said before, that publishing is a humility boot camp and I have not actually gained said confidence. 

Maybe later?

But now is not later, and I know this because I posted a giveaway the other day on Instagram (which is still open), and the way you enter is just to share the giveaway post, either on Instagram, or by text message to a friend, or with your book club, or on Facebook, or whatever, and it is so ridiculous how nervous I was to do that. I made the post the day my author copies came in the mail and then sat on it for a week, and then decided I might not do it after all, then made a quick mental u-turn, cutting dangerously across several lanes of oncoming traffic (this is maybe a metaphor for ignoring my self preservation instincts?) and hit that terrifying post button head-on.  

Then I spent the whole day cringing, wound up so tight I thought I was going to snap my neck if I turned to look at something behind me. The worst was when the name of one of my friends appeared on my screen. I worried they were secretly judging me for being so annoying about the whole book promo thing—or, worse, not secretly judging, but openly judging in group chats and in-person conversations with other people I know. And I was sympathizing with them! At what point do you start rolling your eyes a little, you know? At what point do I start to sound like the self-important men on my mailman's blaring podcasts? Join my Patreon! Buy my sponsored products! I have opinions about the infrastructure of New York!

There's just so much noise online these days, and we're all very tired of being advertised at; I'm worried about adding to it. Words like 'must read' have begun to sound less like a glowing endorsement and more like a homework assignment. I wish my books could just go out into the world, separate from me, and do their thing, but they're clinging to my legs, hiding behind me, making me speak for them like shy children. And I have to do it, because if I want to write more books, I need to sell the ones I've already written. I hate the word 'hustle' and yet hustle I must.

I guess at some point you just need to trust that your friends are going to love you even if they need to mute you on social media for a month or two? Or maybe you can even dare to believe that some of them enjoy seeing your name pop up on their screen, yet again, because they understand that a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do and she is so, so, so sorry but she's gonna do it anyway?

Anyway. There is no point to this ramble. I'm just spiraling (just a dainty, neat little spiral, nothing dramatic) and I need you to know that I am EXTREMELY aware that I'm very annoying, and I will continue to be annoying until probably December, and then I'm going to chill right out and be so fun to be around. 

(But actually I will be spiraling in a different direction at that point because my book will be out in the world and I never handle that well. Who keeps letting me do this?)

Something Like Fame

 I’m having extra thoughts this morning. I’m a person who has a lot of thoughts at the best of times (I’d say “don’t we all” but sometimes I ask Barclay what he’s thinking and he says, “Nothing,” and he really means it, and I can’t relate to that at all, though I admire and aspire to it) but they feel much more pressing today. And I do mean, literally, pressing. 

Like:

I generally picture the thoughts in my head as a cloud of mosquitos, just buzzing around in my whole skull, and sometimes these thoughts are at the front and sometimes these other thoughts are, and I’m aware of all of them all the time but I’m more aware of the ones that are buzzing around right behind my eyes. Today, I feel like all of the thoughts in my head are demanding my attention, up against my forehead, the backs of my eyeballs, filling up my sinuses. 

Miserable as that sounds, I don’t hate it. I just feel extremely…present. I can feel myself in my head.

One time, I saw someone on Twitter pose this question: Where do you exist in your body? I thought that was the weirdest thing to ask. I’m in my head! I thought. Aren’t we all in our heads? When you think about your self, isn’t it, whatever exactly ‘it’ is, in your head? If you got decapitated, wouldn’t you think “you” were in the head, not the body? 

But then people were replying that they feel like “they” exist in their chest, in their stomach, sometimes even outside of their body looking at it from somewhere else in the room, and my mind was blown. I am constantly being reminded that my experience of being a human person, my experience of existence, is not the same as everyone else’s, even down to these things that feel like they should be universal. 

I bet you’re very interested to see where this particular rabbit trail is going, aren’t you? Well, sorry, it’s going nowhere. It’s just one of the mosquitos buzzing around in my noggin. It does get weird in here.

Anyway.

I think this particular thought swarm is somewhat a result of last week’s news. It was really fun, sharing the press release about the book being optioned for TV, receiving so many encouraging notes and messages. And because I exist in my head (oh, here we go, I can tie that rabbit hole in here and make it a little less abstract), I don’t ever just feel my feelings; I think them. I observe them, I analyze them, I wonder about them. 

So I woke up this morning really thinking my feelings. I was thinking, specifically, about a couple of messages I got last week that jokingly were like, “Don’t let all this fame go to your head!” And, like, it was very much a joke, I do not actually have fame, but it got me thinking about fame, about why people want it so much. Or why they think they want it. I mean, when I see videos of actually famous people being mobbed as they try to just go to a restaurant with their friends, I mostly feel sorry for them. It doesn’t look fun. I feel like very few people actually want that. But I also feel like it’s a very common human thing to desire something tangential to it. Something easily mistaken for it.

This is an ongoing conversation I’ve been having with my friend Sarah, about why writers want to be published in the first place, about why we don’t just keep our stories in notebooks under our beds, why we’re constantly trying to push them out into the world even though the thought of doing that is so often physically uncomfortable for introverted, private people like her and me. 

We have landed on the idea that one of the best parts of writing is feeling seen. Not in an ‘I love people looking at me’ way, but more in an ‘I love people understanding me’ way. 

I actually started writing this blog post last Tuesday, the day after the announcement went out. I was sitting in my usual spot at the Brewed Awakening downtown, at the window bar looking out on Victoria Ave. It’s the best place for people watching and I feel fairly invisible there even though it’s such an obviously visible spot. But people aren’t peering into the window as they walk past; they’re in a hurry, they’re going to work, they’re meeting someone for coffee. I’m just sitting there, a little above eye-level; I have the advantage. 

On that particular day, I happened to see a familiar person walking past my perch in the window: my father-in-law, Marty.

He had his head down; it was a little windy that day, the temperature was still below zero, so he was buzzing along, but he must have sensed me in the window because he looked up and smiled at me. We waved at each other, he made a funny face—a natural reflex for him, I think. 

A moment later, the bell over the coffee shop door dinged, announcing Marty’s arrival in the shop. I thought, oh, he’s meeting someone here. He went up to the counter and ordered a large coffee and made his way over to me, walking the way people do when they’ve got a large cup of hot liquid filled right to the very top. I thought, oh, he’s coming to sit with me. But when he got to my spot, he merely set the cup on the bar in front of me, made small talk for a couple of minutes, and then said, “Well, I’ll let you get back to work!” And with a wave and a smile, he was back out on the street, going wherever he’d been going in the first place. My latte was almost gone and I was extremely happy for another cup of coffee, but it also felt like such a perfect illustration of the whole entire publishing Thing for me. 

Me, sitting in a coffee shop, observing, writing. A very enjoyable thing all on its own. But…if I’m being fully honest, the desire is not for it to be a thing all on its own. The desire, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously, is for it to be a transaction. The desire is to be seen, to have someone not just glance at you, not to just register your basic existence, but to understand you. Like Marty, looking up and noticing me in the window, understanding me enough to know that, yes, I would love another cup of coffee, and, yes, while I enjoy your company, I have come here to work so I don’t have a lot of time to sit and visit. I felt seen. 

And that’s the way I feel when people read my books and send me emails saying, “I read this and I GOT it.” And that’s the way I felt when Paul emailed me and wanted to talk about making my book into a TV show. He had all these ideas and thoughts and all of them made me feel very seen, very understood. Evidence that I had been successful in portraying the weird vision I had in my head when I started writing that book, because here was someone picturing all the same things and describing it back to me in a way that showed it was understandable. This is the exciting thing about picturing this story on a screen—the thought of people watching it and understanding the things I wanted to say with it. The thought of seeing other creative people interpreting it and adding their two cents to it, adding nuance and meaning that I didn’t originally put in there. Being part of something more collaborative than I’ve had the chance to be part of, previously. 

But, I don’t know. 

Maybe lots of people just actually want fame.

Maybe everyone reading this is like, “Nope, you got it all wrong. People just want fame and that’s a bad instinct that we should get rid of as a society.” Maybe they’re like, “You want fame and you’re trying to justify it by dressing it up as something else.” Maybe they’re still stuck on the weird part at the beginning, where I lost them by using the word “decapitated.” 

LOL. I don’t know. The thoughts are just buzzing around. I’m just telling you about them. 

If you get it, you get it. And that makes me happy.

Weirdness Journal Entry #1: The Mercury Cafe

I have now been in Publishing World for seven or eight years, and in that time I’ve never met any of the Publishing World main characters in real life. I’ve never met my agent, for example, never met any of the people who work at the publishing house (or any of the other authors there, many of whom I have become very close to online). I’ve never met any of the people working behind the scenes doing foreign translations or marketing or film rights stuff. There are even people I only communicate with through other people; I've not shared so much as an email with them myself. It’s a very disembodied thing, happening over the phone and the internet, which can make it feel a little unreal. 

And it’s not just the publishing professionals with whom I’ve felt this disconnect; it’s the whole literary ecosystem. Lake Union, who published my first two books, is in the States, so obviously they market my books to American readers (and they do a VERY good job of that). That’s where my readers live, where the book clubs are who invite me to join them on Zoom. Like the agents and editors and publicists, I don’t really get to meet readers. I get lovely emails from them, and they tag me on Instagram, but I very rarely get to see them face to face.

People say, you’re an author! That’s so fun! And I’m like, Yes, very fun! But…I’m not actually sure any of it’s real. What I might be is the victim of an elaborate hoax. It might actually be quite embarrassing.

So last spring, when my agent, Victoria, and I started talking about my third book, I threw out kind of a weird idea: I said, I want to stay with Lake Union, because I love my editors there, I love the way they treat their authors, I love their cover design and marketing and communication and—well, many other things. I love Lake Union. 

But.

Could we possibly, I asked her, hang on to the Canadian rights and sell those to a Canadian publisher? I even had one in mind: Radiant Press, an indie publisher right here in Regina. I met John Kennedy, the co-publisher of Radiant, at a Penny University event and had a brief conversation about publishing and marketing and creativity that was exciting to me, and I’d gone home and researched them a bit and felt very interested in working with them.

But also, and I didn’t say this to Victoria at the time, I’d long had this romantic idea of being an author who lived in the same city as their publisher—like every author in every movie, who writes in their New York apartment and then strolls down the street for an in-person meeting with their publishing team, who is VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK! and leans across a table—a real table, with a good, solid cup of coffee on it—gesticulating wildly as they discuss cover design and marketing strategies and launch parties. I think I’ve grown out of my desire to actually live in New York, but I’ve developed a Canadian version of that daydream: I've pictured myself in Regina’s Cathedral Village, in the Mercury Cafe, in one of those bright red booths by the window, my editor across the table holding a cup of coffee and speaking in that Publishing World lingo I’ve grown so fond of but don't often get to use in my everyday life. 

This is the daydream I’ve been having for well over a year now. I’m not making this up. 

You’re thinking, Suzy, why would I think you’re making this up?

You’ll see. Hang on.

Victoria is wonderful. She is smart and industry-savvy and willing to try new things. Still, this plan made her pause. She warned me that holding back rights was a risky move, that most publishers wanted world rights, and that if I kept those rights and then couldn’t sell them, the book would simply not be released in Canada. 

At all.

So I paused too. For all of 30 seconds. 

And then I was like, “Let’s try it anyway.”

Because I had that vision, about the red booths and the coffee, about being part of the Canadian publishing ecosystem and meeting my readers and not feeling like I didn’t exist in my own country.

I should try to make a long story short, here, because a lot happened between this and the next thing. We sent the book off to Lake Union in...October? I think? 

We had a tentative offer in December; it came through while I was sitting in the school gymnasium waiting for Scarlett's Christmas concert to start.

The deal memo came in January, and I signed the contract in March—for world rights except Canada. It was official! We were going to try to sell the Canadian rights all by themselve. It was a bit leap-of-faithy, and pretty scary. What if Radiant didn't want my book? 

Then again: what if they did?

Ah, here's where I can shorten the long story a bit more: they did. 

Phew. Right? PHEW. 

I signed with them in November, a little over a year after sending the manuscript to Lake Union. (Publishing is nothing if not the actual slowest thing in the world.)

And then, in January of 2024, I got an email from Debra, the publisher at Radiant Press, and—I'm being 100% honest with you right now—in this email she asked me if I would like to meet up at the Mercury Cafe for coffee to discuss my book. 

It was only in that moment that I realized how weirdly specific my daydream had been, about meeting up with a publisher in one of the red booths at the Mercury Cafe. It's not like I live in a tiny village with one local watering hole, you know what I mean? There are many, many places to conduct business in Regina, Saskatchewan. But my brain was like, "THE FIFTIES DINER ON 13TH. THAT'LL BE IT." 

And it was.

Our meeting happened on Tuesday. I walked up to the Mercury, experiencing the oddest sense of deja vu, because it was just like in my daydream. And John was there, standing out front, and he turned to me and said, "Ah—Suzy?" 

And I said, "Yes, hello!" 

And we shook hands and he told me Debra would be there soon and we went into the diner and we stood there for a moment, surveying the space—tables and chairs to the left, the big red window booths to the right. John gestured at one of the booths, like he knew he was supposed to, and said, "Shall we sit here?"

Do you want to know what the weirdest thing about all of this is? My book, the one we met at the Mercury to discuss, is about a family who finds themselves at the end of the world. And as they face this completely unprecedented thing, they find that it feels like something they remember. And they keep having these moments of deja vu, these glitchy little things that happen that make it seem like they've seen into the future, but it doesn't feel to them like seeing the future, it feels like remembering it, like having a daydream and then having the daydream come true. 

So, I don't know, man. I'm having a weird time. You don't know the half of it.

ANYWAY.

The meeting was wonderful; it was exactly what I dreamed it would be, because of course it was. We sat in the big red booth for two and a half hours and I drank probably five cups of coffee. We talked about my book and about books in general and about cover design and marketing and launch parties and it felt collaborative and fun and New Yorky, but in a very Saskatchewany way. 

Life is so weird, isn't it?

Weird and good.

A New Project

I’m back at the Bean this morning. This is no small feat today; it’s almost -50 with the windchill and the walk from my car to the coffee shop was treacherous—by the time I made it inside, my eyeballs were frozen like grapes in their sockets and I’d completely forgotten what it was like to feel warmth or comfort or joy. Victoria was standing behind the counter and I stared at her for a moment, trying to catch my breath. 

“It’s cold out there!” I said at last. 

Because I am a writer, a wordsmith, a capital C Creative. 

I wonder how many times this past week and today and this coming week Victoria has had and will have this exact sentence spoken to her in exactly this way. It makes me sad to realize I am so derivative, so pedestrian, so lacking in pizazz or originality.

But I am cold, okay, my brain is frozen, the synapses are not firing; I am like a car who needs someone with a bigger, more durable winter brain to come along and hook me up to jumper cables.

In lieu of that, I am writing here, on this blog, trying to jump start my brain by myself. 

I’m working on a new project. 

I Think We’ve Been Here Before comes out next September, which means that I have eight months ahead of marketing and promotion and meetings and publicity. In some ways, this is my least favourite part of publishing. I hate—have always hated—talking about my books. (I thought this shyness would go away with time but it hasn’t.) But there are also things that happen in this period of time that I like a lot and am so excited for. Reaching out to my favourite book bloggers to send ARCs, taking fun little pictures for social media, brainstorming ways to make connections with booksellers and libraries and readers, holding the finished copies in my hands and reading early reviews. It sounds like such a contradiction to say I hate promoting my book but also I love promoting my book and I don’t know what to tell you: I contain multitudes. 

But I have found that the very best use of this time is to work on The Next Thing, so that’s what I’m doing, and I’m having a very nice time. It’s quite weird and I’m at the stage where it’s new and shiny and I’m just watching the words appear on the screen like someone else is writing through my fingers, just daydreaming and letting the story be as strange as it wants to be without having to consider whether an editor at a publishing house will be able to win over an acquisitions board with it. In some ways, this is my favourite part of publishing. I love—have always loved—being surprised by an idea as it forms, daydreaming about where it could go and where it will land. But there is also a very uncomfortable aspect to this stage, if I’m being honest, an impatience to get the whole thing out and send it off to my agent, to see if has any merit or if I’m just being silly. It sounds like such a contradiction to say I love the beginning part of writing a book but also that I hate it and I don’t know what to tell you. 

Okay. I think my brain battery has been sufficiently jump-started, so I’m going to get back at it. May we all survive this ridiculous polar vortex.

I Think We've Been Here Before

Happy New Year! 

I hope your holidays were eventful, if you like eventful holidays, or uneventful if that's what you prefer. I hope you partied hard or slept a lot, or some pleasant combination of both.

As for me, I did more partying than sleeping and I'm tired but very happy to get back into routine and eat something healthy...right after I finish all the left over snacks I've hidden from the kids on top of the fridge.

Anyway! New year, new news: I've written another book and it's Official:

It’s called I Think We’ve Been Here Before and I’ve been describing it to people as slice of life speculative fiction—think, the coziness of Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café with the something's-not-quite-right undercurrent of Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It comes out September 2024. 

Here's a picture of me signing the contract, for posterity (not sure why posterity wants it, but anyway):

And here's the synopsis, straight from my publisher:

With the end of the world predicted, reality bends in an unexpectedly quirky and heartwarming novel about human connection and the meaning of life and death by the bestselling author of Sorry I Missed You.

Marlen and Hilda Jorgensen’s family has received two significant pieces of news: one, Marlen has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Two, a cosmic blast is set to render humanity extinct within a matter of months. It seems the coming Christmas on their Saskatchewan farm could be their last.

Preparing for the inevitable, they navigate the time they have left together. Marlen and Hilda have channeled their energy into improbably prophetic works of art. Hilda’s elderly father receives a longed-for visitor from his past. Hilda’s teenaged nephew goes missing, and his mother refuses to believe the world is ending. All the while, Hilda’s daughter struggles to find her way home from Berlin with the help of an oddly familiar stranger. For everyone, there’s an unsettling feeling that this unprecedented reality is something they remember…

I sold this book to Lake Union, the magnificent publisher behind my first two books, last spring, and because I sold it on spec. (a general synopsis of the book idea and first three chapters) I had to then write it super fast, which was exhilarating and terrifying and all-consuming. I spent the summer editing it, working early mornings and late nights, and now it’s in the weird purgatoryish place between editing and publishing, where my only job is to convince as many people as possible to buy it. (like so: I THINK WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE is available for preorder for all of my non-Canadian friends wherever books are sold. You can order it from your local indie, which is always my favorite option, but it’s also on Chapters, B&N, Target, Amazon, etc. Canadian friends: I will absolutely let you know when it’s available for you.)

Would you like to see the cover? This is not it:

That’s right—I said not. The graphic above is one of the cover designs that didn’t quite make the final cut. Isn’t it so pretty though? It’s currently the lock screen on my phone. The artist is Philip Pascuzzo, whose name you might recognize—as well as designing that iconic little blue bird formerly known as the Twitter symbol, he also designed the cover for my first novel, Valencia and Valentine. And now, he’s responsible for the beautiful artwork you see above, and also for the artwork that will be on the final cover of this, my third novel. 

The actual cover: 

I love it. 

But wait! More news! Just a little bit more.

I’m extremely pleased to announce that the incredible Radiant Press will be releasing this book in Canada.  I met them a few years ago and had a very fun conversation about publishing and creativity and marketing and I remember leaving that conversation all amped up and trying to brainstorm ways that I could work with them in the future.

Well, as they say, the future is now.

Okay. That's all the sharable news I have at the moment, but I'll keep you in the loop.

Thank you so much for being here, reading this, reading my weird little books, being so great. I'm thankful for you—if there were no you, there would be no any of this, and I would just be bored all the time.

On Shelving a Book

According to my DMs, the thing that most seemed to leap out at people from my last post was the fact that I wrote an entire 80,000 word book and then just…set it aside and wrote a different one. People want to know if it’s painful to shelve a book, and my answer is: at first, yes, very, excruciating. It sucks so much and you feel incapacitated and demoralized and depressed but then…you get over it. You move on.

I remember listening to a podcast years ago, right after writing my very first book, hearing an author talk about how many books she’d shelved in her career. I remember thinking to myself, How is that woman still living? I will never. I could never. I would die. 

Because writing a book is hard; I had just learned this firsthand. 80,000 words is a lot—a lot of research, a lot of mental exertion, a lot of time. Writing a book is like catching a wild animal. 

No. No, I need a more violent metaphor. Okay, this: 

Writing a book is like catching a wild animal, but the wild animal is in pieces, and that thing is elusive. And you have to attempt to put the pieces together while the in-pieces animal attempts to eat you and claw your eyeballs out. And there are 80,000 pieces and they are mostly nails and teeth.

(At least, it’s like that for me. Maybe other authors, like Nick Hornby or Rainbow Rowell who have written an inordinate number of novels and seem to breathe them out in their sleep, would compare writing a book to laying on a couch or falling down stairs made of cotton candy and landing on a giant pillow full of marshmallows. Or maybe they’re just really good with wild animals! Who knows?)

Anyway, when I heard that podcast episode I was really skeptical of the idea that a person could invest that kind of metaphorical blood, sweat, and [not metaphorical] tears into a project before realizing it wasn’t going to work/sell/be something into which they wanted to invest more. Surely you’d know a few chapters in? Surely you’d only let a wild animal take one or two bites out of you before you realize this specific one’s not worth the pain?

But now I get it. 

My shelved book, which I once affectionately referred to as The TFLC but which now I don’t generally refer to much at all, was one I started writing in 2019. Valencia and Valentine had just come out and I was in the middle of copy edits on Sorry I Missed You. I wrote this post around that time, to give you some emotional context. I was tired. I had been unpleasantly surprised by how hard it actually was to send a book into the world and receive feedback from so many people all at once—feedback on the book, feedback on ME. This wild animal, which I had painstakingly pieced together and set free, turned right around and tore me to pieces. It was weird. I was sad.

But something I know about myself (and always, always forget) is that I have some serious emotional range. I’m like Celine Dion, but with feelings. I can hit all the notes. Where I differ from Celine is that I don’t tend to travel as quickly from one end of my range to the other. When I’m hitting the emotional high notes, I tend to forget that I’ve ever spent time in the lower end of my range. I sing entire songs in falsetto, entire albums in bass. This metaphor is weird and probably you can tell that it’s 10:05 at night and I’ve had too much coffee today but the point is that in October 2019 I was moping around my house like Eeyore, ears dragging on the ground, being all, I’ll never write another book and I hate the thing I once loved and what even am I if I’m not this and why do the fine people of Goodreads hate me so much…

So within just a few short weeks, I was singing high notes again (you can tell when you read this), and with this shift in the atmosphere of my head came a new book. I could picture the cover art. I could vividly imagine the characters milling around in my brain like actors backstage before the curtains open. I felt grateful and happy, I was living my dream life once again. 

I started writing. I wrote fast. I felt like I had gotten a bit better at taming and assembling wild animals. I sent chapters to friends for feedback, and they were nice to me. 

And then…welp. March 2020 happened. You already know what this means. The kids came home from school, the world shut down, everyone started fighting with each other (honestly, I think this was the thing that affected me the most). I was set to launch my second book in just three short months and instead of prepping for a book tour I was obsessively watching the news and attending Zoom birthday parties and not ever leaving my house.

I finished the book, but I did it in a fog. I sent it to my agent, but when she called me to discuss edits I found that I just couldn’t do it. Every time I opened the document I felt ill and the thought of spending more time in that world felt inexplicably bad. Maybe it was the pandemic, the uncertainty, the animosity, the isolation. Maybe the lingering stress of V&V’s launch was looming behind me or maybe the thought of SIMY’s impending launch was looming up ahead.  Maybe it was all of these things and some other things too. Whatever it was, that book had bad vibes and I couldn’t get rid of them.

So finally, I set it aside and I’ve never picked it up again.

I think there are lots of reasons people abandon their books. For me, it was the bad vibes. For others it might be that the book was too hard to tame, or not worth taming, or not tameable, period. I’ve known people who have shelved really sweet books because the publishing industry just couldn’t see how sweet they were. I’ve known people who have shelved books because, simply put, they were tired of them. There are, I see now, no invalid reasons. My only advice to my past self would be to abandon an unviable book a little sooner. You can always come back to it, I’d say to me, but sitting here trying to wrangle this thing into submission is just wearing you out, and you’re starting to put the pieces together in ways that make zero sense. This book is all claws.

But, alas, knowing me I’d reply, Just let me try one more thing…

I can be so annoyingly stubborn sometimes.

Okay, where am I… Right, so I shelved that book. The TFLC. It felt like, if you don’t mind one more metaphor, setting a house on fire. Do you save stuff on your way out? Do you copy and paste your favorite lines into a fireproof document to come back to later? Do you take the best characters with you?

Probably the most pressing question: do you have the energy to build another house, knowing that burning it down is a thing that is, apparently, on the table? For a while, I thought the answer to this was no. You can tell not by a sad-sounding blog post or an upbeat-sounding blog post I wrote in that time, but by the fact that there were no blog posts at all. (Yikes, this blog makes me very easy to analyze.)

But the launch of SIMY was healing. I was ready, this time, for the public-facing elements of releasing a book, and for the weird personal elements too. I was ready for the buildup and the comedown and, honestly, I think a big part of it being better the second time around was that I finally understood how not a big deal the whole thing was. People send books out into the world all the time. Good books, bad books, mediocre ones. Some people love the terrible ones, some loathe the beautiful ones. It is, as they say, what it is, and I learned that you just have to do the best you can at capturing and assembling your weird book animal thing and then you have to take it out to an open field and set it free and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction so it doesn’t turn on you and tear you to pieces. 

:)

After SIMY came out, I waited for another book idea to come along, because they are out there, roaming around, nonstop, and it did, and I wrote it. It was not easy; it had claws and teeth and chainsaws. This was fine, because it also had very good vibes.

(More on this soon.)

Sorry I Missed You Goes to Russia!

 Last week, my Russian publisher sent me the proposed cover and promo text for their translation of Sorry I Missed You—or, as it'll be titled over there, Sorry, But I Miss You. 

This might be one of my favorite parts of publishing. It's super fun to see your work described in another language, what elements of the book they pull out to put on the back cover, how they translate the title—your own name made of symbols you don't understand. 

I posted the cover on Instagram and some friends wanted to know about the behind-the-scenes process of book translations and foreign rights from the author's perspective. It's very long and complicated and involved, so I thought it deserved a whole blog post. Are you ready? Here it is:

So first of all, you sit there and wait for an email from either your agent or your publisher (depending on who holds your world rights) to say that someone wants to buy your book and translate it into another language. And then you sit there and wait for a contract to sign. And then you sit there and wait for the foreign publisher to send you the cover and promo text. And then you sit there and wait for your pub date, which will likely be a surprise (they might tell you which month they're considering, maybe). And then, someday, you'll see your book on Instagram or someplace and go, Oh, hey, it must be out there now! and you'll get some physical copies in the mail, if that's in your contract, and you won't be able to read them but you'll put them on your shelf and say to yourself, "Neat!" 

Phew. Lots of work. Very grueling. 

Are you interested in seeing the promo text? Sure you are! 

“Three women. Each has an intimate question.

One letter - it contains all the answers. Who will get it?

Larry inherited a mansion, but in order to live in it, you need to follow a bunch of strange rules. For example, not listening to modern music or planting flowers nearby. Since Larry is already full of problems, he decides to rent the house. 

It is occupied by three women, Maud, Sunnah and Mackenzie. It soon turns out that each of them had a person in their life who disappeared without explanation.

 

Therefore, when they find a tattered letter in the mailbox, where only one thing is clear - they want to meet with someone in a coffee shop - everyone hopes to see a "ghost" from their former life. 

 

But Larry is not interested in this, he has a lot of other concerns, and he is also convinced that ghosts, and real ones, have settled in the attic. Anyway, in their usually quiet city, something amiss is going on. Someone threatens to smash the gallery where he works. There is certainly no time for mysticism!"

 

Is this a good time to mention that, with Halloween just days away, Sorry I Missed You has ghosts in it but is not too scary for wimps like me who don't love being toooooo too scared? Because, contrary to the Russians' promo text, there is certainly time for mysticism, and the time is certainly now. So if you or someone you love wants a Halloween-appropriate read that won't keep you up at night, you know, I'm just going to drop some buy links here. (I don't really hustle much, so please bear with me when I get the urge...)

BOOKSHOP / BARNES & NOBLE / CHAPTERS / AMAZON.COM / INDIEBOUND / TARGET / PENNY UNIVERSITY (local to Regina) / FOUND (local to Cochrane, AB) / 

Out of Gas—But Also, Some News!

The kids' bus was a half hour late this morning, and for a minute there I thought it wasn't coming at all. Which would be fine if it were Monday or Wednesday or even Friday, but not today. 

Not. Today.

Today is one of two days I have, every week, where both kids go to school, where I have a glorious seven and a half hours of alone time. Where my house is silent, except for the occasional sound of me talking to...well. The appliances, mostly. (Don't pretend like you've never told your coffee grinder to hurry up or accidentally apologized to the fridge when you banged your toe into it on your way past.) 

If you're a mom who works from home, you know how valuable seven and a half hours can be. You know how much time that is and also how little time that is, how helpful it is and how greedy it makes you, how it's never enough, no matter how much it is—like a serving of lasagne. Yes. Seven and a half hours is exactly like a serving of lasagne.

Anyway, the bus came, much to my utter relief, and I put my kids on it and I waved at them through the window as they disappeared down the street, and I went into my house and I yelled, "HALLELUJAH" because that is now part of my daily routine on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I made coffee and baked one of those pre-baked-but-not-all-the-way croissants and I sat at the kitchen table and smiled at the wall. Alone with my appliances and thoughts. At last.

Oh no! My thoughts!

That's the problem lately. My thoughts. 

I used to really enjoy being alone with my thoughts. Even when they weren't particularly positive, I still enjoyed the room to hear them out, move them around, write them down. Often, that would lead to little bursts of creativity, and I could take the things I was thinking about and put them into fictional characters' heads and build stories around them. 

But one day I stuck the key into the ignition of my brain and it made a sad little trying noise but wouldn't turn over. No sparks. No interesting thoughts, nothing inspiring, nothing creative.

It's probably a combination of a lot of things, and I've been troubleshooting in my head—is it the pandemic? Is it the lack of quiet time? Did I grow out of creativity? (Is that a thing?)

I think I've figured it out though: the thing it boils down to, mostly, is that I am more creative when I believe in myself, cheesy as that sounds. I'm more creative when I take myself seriously, as counterintuitive as that sounds. I am more creative when I think of myself as being creative—which, come on, brain. How do you manufacture a feeling about the way you are when you're not that way? 

The thing is, I have never felt less sure of myself, less confident in my writing ability than I have since publishing that first novel. That was when the brain ignition thing happened. I don't know if this is a super common writer thing or what [feel free to weigh in if this applies to you] but it's not something I anticipated. I always thought that getting an agent would make me feel like a 'real' writer, and then I would never struggle with self-doubt again. And then I got an agent and struggled with self-doubt even harder and thought that getting a book deal would be the thing that legitimized me in my own brain. Then it was actually holding a physical copy of the book, and then it was selling another one (because maybe the first book was a fluke?). The goal posts move so fast it's like they're on wheels, and I am realizing that I'm probably just going to feel, always, like I'm not a real writer, unless I can figure out a way to make myself less dependent on my feelings about myself. 

Which...help.

ANYWAY. That's a problem I'm having. And I have to confront it every time the kids leave me alone in my house to go to school. Which is probably not a bad thing? And until such a time as my thoughts become friendly and creativity-sparking again and I learn to rely less on external validation, I am trying very hard to celebrate the milestones that give me even a temporary feeling of being "a real author." The proverbial equivalent of taking a taxi since my car is out of gas. This week, it's this:

Sorry I Missed You was translated into Estonian and is now on sale there! And if you click on the screen shot above, it'll take you to an article or announcement or something of the sort which I can't read because it's not in English. Hopefully it doesn't say, "Suzy Krause is a big phony and not a real author."

...

...hopefully.

Stronger, Happier, More Excited: A Life Update

It's almost November, wow. That means 2020 is almost over and people can stop making jokes about what a bad year it is. ...or they can start making jokes about how bad 2021 is. Personally, I'm hoping we all just wake up on January first and the sky is blue and there's a message in the clouds that reads "HAPPY NEW YEAR! ALL THE BAD STUFF IS OVER YOU CAN JUST SPEND THIS YEAR CHILLING OUT!"

But. Yeah. 

Anyway.

I'm coming to you live from isolation; one of us was exposed to Covid last week (at school; it was bound to happen sooner or later I guess) so now we're supposed to just hang out here until we get sick or until we don't get sick, and I figured, why not write a little update post? For allllll of the millions of people who wish I would. 

Let's...see...

Well. I've started doing these YouTube workout videos in the evenings, now that it gets dark before supper and I can't do my usual walk around the neighborhood after the kids are sleeping. It's been really nice; I feel stronger. I've started taking vitamin D, too, which makes me feel like I should feel noticeably happier, so I'm not sure if I'm happier because I feel like I should feel happier or if I feel happier because of the vitamin D, but I do feel happier, and that's nice too. I've also started painting my fingernails again, which means that I'm not picking at them, which is good for Barclay's mental health. 

So I'm stronger and happier, and Barclay is not grinding his teeth listening to me pick my nails all day long, so he's happier too. Although...he's also taking Vitamin D, so his happiness may be unrelated to my fingernails, or it may be a placebo effect as well. Who knows? Happiness is strange. I'll take it however it comes.

What else...I'm working, as always, on a novel. People are always asking me about that, they ask me, "Suzy, tell me about your next novel."

To which I reply, "Well, it's a long story..."

Ha Ha Ha.

I haven't actually been quick enough to think to say that in real life. But I will next time. I hope. 

Anyway. It is kind of a long story. I'm not under contract with the publisher of my last two books at the moment, but my previous contract had an option clause in it so that the next time I write a book I have to show it to them before I try shopping it around anywhere else—which is great, since I loved working with them. 

So I wrote this novel last year, a whole fat 75,000-word book, with the intention of sending it to Lake Union. I finished writing it in March or April—in the midst of that first lockdown, and sent it to my agent, who wrote up an editorial letter and sent it back. My second book came out around then and the editorial letter was a tad overwhelming, so I sat on it for a while, took a little brain vacation...and then I started writing a new book. That old one had some Big Things missing, and I didn't know what they were, so I figured I'd give it a rest and come back to it when I had the brain capacity to figure out what the work was that needed to be done there.

I had an idea for a new book that I was really excited about, so I started writing it, and a few chapters in I realized that this new book, essentially, consisted of all the Big Things that were missing from the previous book. As though my subconscious was still working on that book even though I'd "moved on." 

So where I'm at right now is: I'm welding these two books together. And I'm really excited about it. And it feels great to feel excited, because there were a few months there where I was thinking I should go back to school to become a professional Anything Other Than This. 

But then, who knows? Maybe this excitement has nothing to do with the book. 

Maybe it's the Vitamin D.

Hey! I'm Not Afraid Anymore!

It's July! We made it to July! 

Maybe you're like, whoa, Suzy, none of us thought we weren't going to make it to July; did you think we weren't going to make it to July?

Well I don't know. Kind of? It's been one of those years, and you can't tell me it hasn't been. I had a dream the other night where I looked up into the sky and saw a glowing ball of fire headed straight for earth and I knew we were going to die, and in the dream I just sighed as though I were a little disappointed and calmly said to Barclay, "I'm not even surprised, with the way this year has been." Like 2020 was my disappointing teenaged child who had, yet again, failed me in some major but not unusual way.

And then we just stood there with our arms around each other and stared into the huge night sky as the ball of fire grew bigger and bigger...

So my subconscious is, like, over it, right? My subconscious is like, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO BE SURPRISED JUST TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, 2020.

But look at us! July!

Okay! 

So now that I've jinxed us good, on to the blog post:

I'd like to revisit a post I wrote in February—this one: 2020 A New Year's Resolution. In that post I wrote  about my resolution for this year, which was, in a nutshell, to be brave, and to stop telling myself and others that I was not brave, especially in regards to things like interviews and podcasts and stuff like that. Public speaking. 

This was a pretty lofty goal for me—after all, I wasn't just nervous about doing interviews. I was pretty much panic-stricken. I'd get physically ill about a week before an interview. It was all I'd think about. I'd shake through the whole thing. I hated, hated, hated doing them. And then after I did them, I'd feel sick about having done them, and I'd feel almost more nervous in retrospect than I had before or during the actual interview—nervous to the point where I wouldn't tell anyone that I'd even done an interview (like, not even Barclay, you guys) because I couldn't stand the thought of a single other person on the planet listening to these things. 

And you might be thinking, okay, so just don't do interviews. Just say no to people—and this is also something I've been working on, the just saying no when I don't feel up to something. (That's been going well, actually! I've been very picky about what I've said yes to this summer, and I think that's been healthy and good and nice.) 

But I also think—have always thought—it's healthy to do things that are hard for you. AND, I think it's important to figure out why the things that are hard for you...are hard for you. Especially when it comes to fear. Like, why am I deathly afraid of talking in front of people? Talking in front of people isn't dangerous, so why are my actual survival instincts kicking in over it?

Besides. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this wasn't just something that affected me when I was doing interviews or book club talks—which makes sense, because fear is rarely localized. It rarely pops up for no reason in one area of your life and then just stays where it is, affecting nothing and being affected by nothing. I've noticed this fear popping up in all kinds of weird places. Self-consciousness in conversations with friends. Having a hard time meeting new people. Second guessing EVERYTHING. Etcetera, etcetera. Blah blah blah. I felt like this weird fear had some serious vine-like potential to just grow all over my life and wrap itself around everything. So my motivation for getting rid of it isn't some vain I WANT TO BE A PODCAST SUPERSTAR AND TALK A BUNCH IN PUBLIC thing, it's more that I want to be a person who is comfortable in my skin and with my voice coming out of my face and with the thoughts in my head. I guess I just noticed that this is a fear with a trajectory, and I would like to point that thing in the right direction. You know?

So.

I don't know where this specific fear came from—like I said in that other blog post, I haven't always been this afraid of being seen and heard—and I'm not sure exactly what to do to get its roots out of me, but I'm a big believer in small changes. So at the beginning of this year, I started with the very smallest thing: I stopped saying (out loud to other people AND in the quiet of my own brain) that I was afraid of public speaking. I mean, sometimes I slipped, but most of the time I caught myself. And—wonder of wonders—it's...working? I think? Slowly but surely. 

(I should add that this isn't me telling all anxious people that if you stop saying you're anxious you'll stop being anxious; that would be silly and impossible. This is just me saying: Hey. Don't tell yourself you're bad at stuff because YOU WILL BELIEVE YOURSELF.)

Anyway. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. 

(Wait, why do they say that? I'll check. OH. Okay. Here's a thing I've [very] recently learned: The original version is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." So. Interesting.)

So the proof of the pudding is in the eating: I did a podcast interview last Thursday and we talked about this a little bit, about this resolution and how it seems to be working, which is kind of a full-circle moment, to talk about not being afraid to do podcasts on a podcast. And I, who was not only not feeling ill, but even quite enjoying myself, had one of those rare moments where you can actually see and measure personal progress in a very tangible way. It! Felt! Great!

But also, the interview itself was very fun. We talked about Jimmy Eat World and Rush and Taylor Swift and Stars and Garth Brooks and Olafur Arnalds and Rachmaninoff. We talked about publishing and blogging and lasagne and Scotland. We also talked about reviews and I jinxed myself there too by saying people were leaving nice reviews for Sorry I Missed You. (I woke up this morning to many bad reviews, including one saying I was conceited for classifying my book as "book club fiction" and including book club questions in the back because what book club in their right mind is going to waste their time with the drivel I've written?—which is funny because Lake Union is a book club fiction imprint and I am not responsible for that classification AT ALL. Oh well. People be people.)

I will leave it here, for anyone to listen to who wants to, because I'm not afraid of you. (Please do picture adorable little Kevin McCallister marching out of his big white house yelling, "Hey! I'm not afraid anymore!")

Day 35: That Upcoming Book Launch

It feels weird to celebrate nice things right now. Not like I feel guilty and am actively trying not to celebrate, it's just that the nice things don't feel like they matter very much. It's like my house is on fire and I'm sitting on the front lawn watching it burn down and my neighbor calls across the street, "Hey! You've done such a nice job with that flower garden!" And I look at the flower garden and think, yeah, I'm happy with how that turned out...but how long before it's on fire too?

(This analogy is a little bit absurd for me to use because I don't exactly do flower gardens. It's like when I was hoisting my grocery bags into the shopping cart yesterday at the grocery store and I said to the cashier, "Well, the gym may be closed but there's my workout for today!" The gym may be closed. My workout for today. As though I am a person who has actually noticed that the gym is closed. As though I am a person who lifts things just so I will later be able to lift heavier things. And, anyway, since when do I make jokes like this to cashiers? It's only been a month of isolation! Do social skills really deteriorate that fast?)

Anyway. I'm thinking about this stuff because Sorry I Missed You is coming out in about a month and a half and I'm trying to figure out how to feel about it and how to celebrate it and how to promote it and all that. I saw someone on the internet the other day—on Twitter or Reddit or someplace—talking about an author whose book had gotten cancelled when their publishing house folded (due to, obviously, the Current Situation). They said, "It's so tacky to be complaining about losing your book deal when people around you are losing actual jobs."

I wanted to fight them, honestly. But I couldn't figure out if I was mad because I thought they were wrong or if I was mad because I thought they were right. I've had fleeting worries about my pub date getting pushed back or about the paperbacks sitting unopened in a warehouse until 2022, and I've wondered if it was wrong for me to feel anxious about my books in light of EVERYTHING.

(Why yes, I am going out of my way not to refer to What's Going On by its actual name.)

Is it tacky to worry about decreased sales? Is it tacky to tell people your book is discounted or up for preorder or available now for curb-side pickup at your local indie?

I mean, it feels tacky, just because I'm not a person who, at the best of times, would stand up on a picnic bench in the middle of a crowded park (aw, remember crowded parks?) and yell at people to look at me and buy my stuff.

But also, this...is my actual job. And the people who've worked so hard on the production of this book, from my agent to my editors to the designers (etc, etc, etc; there are so many people involved here)—it's their job too. And we've all been working on this thing for a while now with the hopes that it will pay off in the end and I guess where I come out on it is that writing books can, from the outside, seem like a pure vanity project but it's...literally how we put food on the table? So maybe the tacky thing, right now, is telling people their job isn't a job? PERHAPS.

(Even as I type that I cringe at myself. I don't want to sound whiny. I have it really good: I'm safe, I'm home, I can do my work here, and when I'm not working I have endless entertainment at my fingertips. I get that there are levels of trauma and that I'm nowhere near the top. Or the bottom. Or wherever the worst one is. I'm not trying to complain, I'm really not.)

Anyway. It's a weird time. I think we all get that. It's a weird, hard time and it's hard for different people in different ways and one of the things that's hard about it is knowing how to talk about it to other people who are experiencing the same event through even a slightly different lens. How and when to express disappointment or excitement. How to carry on, business as usual, when business isn't usual.

I guess we just do what we can with the best of intentions?

My editor emailed me last week to let me know that we got a really nice Kirkus review for Sorry I Missed You, and I guess that's what kind of sparked this whole thought eruption. I read it and smiled and told Barclay what a Kirkus review was and why it was a big deal to me and then I just kind of sat there. Last year, when I got my first trade review for V&V, I celebrated. I cried from relief and excitement. It was a milestone! It felt big and magical and important! But this year isn't last year.

That's an understatement.

I think this is pretty indicative of what this book's whole launch is going to be—anticlimactic, tentative and unreal, coated in layers of guilt and nervousness and thankfulness and distraction. Occasional spurts of excitement followed by days where I don't think about it at all. Missteps of all kinds! Overthinking and under thinking! Coffee!

Actually, that just sums up the past 35 days, book launch or no book launch.

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.)