A Little Visit with Sullivan Barclay Krause

I was reading on the couch this afternoon when Sullivan Barclay Krause (who you'll remember from this post) came in and sat beside me. I could tell it was him and not just normal Sully because he opened by mentioning that he'd purchased a new apartment in Austin, Texas (I asked what he bought it with and he said money and I said yes but where did you get the money and he said Sarcan—they give you money there).

Then he was quiet for a minute, thinking—or waiting—studying me very seriously. He said, "Okay." Like he'd called a meeting and I'd finally shown up and now we could talk about whatever we needed to talk about.

"What's up?" I said.

"We're going to have a little visit," he said.

I laughed, but he didn't. He just smiled politely. "Okay," I said, also smiling politely. "What are we going to visit about?"

He spread his tiny fingers out and set them on his tiny knees, studying them. "I'm going to count down," he said, "and then I'll tell you what we're going to visit about and how we're going to visit about it. Okay? Ready? Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, carwashes. First we'll visit about what our favorite carwashes are and then we'll visit about how carwashes work. I'll go first. My favorite carwash is SUDS. What's yours?"

This might seem like a strange line of questioning, both in execution and subject matter, but it didn't surprise me much. Sully adores SUDS—so much so that we took him to SUDS on his birthday. So much so that the last time we took him to the dentist, we used a trip to SUDS as a bribe to get him to open his mouth. (The time before, we tried using Menchies and that didn't work at all.)

I thought carefully. I knew that if I said my favorite carwash was also SUDS he'd call me on it because—silly mom—how could two people possibly have the same carwash?

"The one on South Albert," I said. "Petro...Can? Is that what it's called?"

He nodded gravely. "And do you know how carwashes work?"

I shook my head.

He sighed. "They spray your car with soap and then there are brushes and water and it just," he sighed again, so much work to explain such complex things, "it just washes your car and then it sprays your car with water and then it blows your car dry. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, vacuum cleaners. First we'll visit about how you build vacuum cleaners and then we'll visit about how they work. Your turn: how did you build your green vacuum cleaner?"

This question was also unsurprising. Barclay recently purchased a shop vac and Sully helped him put it together and it was the highlight of Sully's whole month.

"I didn't really build it," I said. "It just kind of came...built."

"Mm." He nodded again, his tiny lips pursed. "Well I built my vacuum cleaner. Had to attach the hose, put the wheels on, put the lid on, all that stuff. Lots of work."

The conversation continued on like that. Lots of brow furrowing and throat clearing and head nodding. I'm really glad that Barclay and I have obviously given him such a good example of normal, healthy adult communication, and am also thankful for the reminder that if I'm ever stuck in an awkward, aimless visit with someone, I can take charge of things by counting down backwards from ten and naming a new topic.

#hashtagging

The hashtag.

Invented by Chris Messina in 2007, immediately dubbed "a thing for nerds." Maybe it still is a thing for nerds, but what even is a nerd in 2019?

Wikipedia describes a nerd as "a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted or lacking social skills." Ask any given thirty-something-year-old and they'd identify strongly with most or all of that definition. It should not surprise anybody, then, that hashtags are pretty widely used now.

There are those who use them "ironically" but in a way that serves no actual purpose (#icouldhavemadethisjokeinthecaptionbutforsomereasoniammakingitahashtaginstead).

There are those who use it for networking purposes, to connect with people who have common interests (#amwriting #amediting #writingcommunity #peoplewholikebutter).

There are those who don't understand how hashtags work at all (#you're going to wreck your hashtag if you use punctuation, symbols, & spaces and this hashtag will actually show up as just 'you').

There are those who use hashtags because they've seen other people do it but they don't really know why so they just go to town with relevant and irrelevant words (#why? #blog #hashtag #likeittoknowit #peanutbutter #blue #thatsdarling).

And then there are those who use hashtags to group their own content together so they can find it easier—for weddings, say, or pictures of their kids or pets or whatever. That's how I mostly use them, and I'm writing this blog post because someone asked me the other day why I hashtag all of my live music pictures on Instagram #suzyslivemusicdiary.

This is why:

How cool is it to be able to click one link and be able to see pictures from every single live music event I've been to for the past decade? The scrapbookers of the 90s are collectively dying of jealousy right now. 

Would you like to see the other hashtags I've been adding to? Of course you wouldn't! But I will show you anyway, for I am a blogger and it is what we do.

This one, I started fairly recently. I call it #bookmusiccombo and I add to it every time I read a book. Before I begin, I stand in front of my CD collection (yes, I still have a physical CD collection and I will never not have one) and decide which album matches the atmosphere of the book I am about to read—weirdly enough, the album art usually matches the book cover, like they were made for each other. If Barclay is in the room, I pull him into the decision and we both think it's very fun. You should try it sometime. (But get your own hashtag.)

This one is just for fun, because it's social media, and social media is all, really, just for fun. Plus, I love pictures of coffee in my Instagram feed. I don't know why; it just makes me happy. So if you follow me and you're like, Suzy, you post too many pictures of coffee; why do you do that? It's because I love seeing it, so I figure some other people love seeing it, and I want to contribute to the online caffeine zeitgeist (I don't fully understand how to use that word correctly, I'm sorry). 

Then there's this one, which is the modern equivalent of carrying your kids' pictures in your wallet. "Oh, yes, I have a video of him playing the drums RIGHT HERE, one sec—"

Okay one more. This one is fun for me, because I started it when I started writing Valencia and Valentine. The first few pictures are of my view from the Naked Bean when I was writing the first draft, then there's a shot of the mess on my coffee table the first time I pulled an all-night getting together a manuscript to send to an agent, and then there's the agency announcement, the book deal announcement, the cover reveal, and the physical copies arriving. That last picture, up in the left hand corner, was actually taken by my editor, with New York in the background (that's where a bit of the book takes place). And as people read the book and post pictures of it on Instagram (hopefully) they'll use the hashtag and I'll be able to see what they're saying about it. Fun, right? 

So. That's that.

A List of Distractions

I turned in the manuscript for my second novel a week or so ago. It's nowhere near finished—in fact, I'm eagerly awaiting what will surely be a many-pages-long edits letter—but for now, it's off my plate. Across the table. My brain keeps trying to reach over and pull it back, but I'm dutifully distracting it.

Distractions:

1. Sully, Scarlett, and Barclay (feeding them, hanging out with them, letting them know I like them and stuff).

2. Friends (being around them, talking to them, letting them know I like them and stuff).

3. Listening to and making endless Spotify playlists. (You can tell what kind of thing I'm working on if you follow me on Spotify because what I'm listening to is usually pretty inextricably linked to what I'm writing. One influences the other, for sure, but I never know what direction the energy is moving in. It's a chicken and egg thing.)

4. Researching book marketing. I'm supposed to have a call with my marketing team sometime soon, and I don't want to sound dumb. I mean, I'm going to sound dumb, but it makes me feel less nervous if I fool myself into thinking I might not. It's all a pointless charade. I'm so bad at talking on the phone. Help.

5. Working on book three. After much deliberation, I've decided that my jumping off point is going to be that time I discovered a homemade flyer on the ground in Saskatoon promising me "the best time of my life" and, being the naive farm kid I was, found myself in a back alley, after dark, with a whole bunch of strangers. And that's just the jumping off point. I've also decided that there will be at least two—or maybe twenty—magicians! Because I've always wanted to write a book with magicians in it. Little known fact.

6. Reading so many books all at the same time. I have (counts) five on the go at the moment: a magician's memoir, an apocalyptic thriller, a lighthearted book about the last remaining descendant of the Bronte family, a lit fic, and a YA fantasy.

7. Blogging! (Obviously.) Because (refer to item 4) all the articles about book marketing say you should be more noisy online, and this is about as loud as I'm comfortable with. 

Better Oblivion Part II

I watched Begin Again last night from atop an exercise bike (I don't have the time or patience for exercise or Netflix unless I combine them). I'd never heard of this movie before, but it had Mark Ruffalo in it and the premise sounded right up my alley (lost souls, chance meeting, music-making, New York).

The whole time I was watching it, I couldn't help but think of how it felt like a poppier, Americanized version of Once. This wasn't a bad thing; Once is one of my favorite movies, and whenever I watch it I think about how I either wish I lived in it or had written it or starred in it or something. My heart just wants to be part of that magic. There are very few movies that make me feel that way, but Begin Again struck the same inexplicable chord. 

Well GUESS WHAT? John Carney wrote and directed both movies. Mystery solved, and dear John Carney, please turn my books into movies. 

Anyway. On to the point:

There's a scene in Begin Again in which Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo's characters wander through New York City at night listening to the music of Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder through a headphone splitter. At one point, Ruffalo muses that when you put music to real life, it turns what's banal into pearls. The music is still playing in their ears only as they watch pedestrians pass, skateboarding kids, a man being arrested—and you see how he's right, how the soundtrack gives the scattered things coherence and a sense of meaning and beauty. 

As I was watching this scene unfold, I was struck by the memory of something I'd forgotten: a few years ago (three? four?), Barclay, Sully, and I went to Montreal together for a week. I'd just finished writing Valencia and Valentine and life felt very exciting and full of potential. I'd just sent out my first query letters and didn't yet know or understand how hard it was to land an agent. So I was naive, is what I'm saying, and naive excitement is so lovely; it gets into your head, like you're taking big breaths of helium, like you're newly in love. I was floating. 

We were downtown, and it was rush hour. We were standing on some street corner trying to decide what to do next, and I pulled out my headphones, plugged them in, and put on Rachmaninoff's Etude-Tableau in G-minor—my favorite piano song of all time and one I wrote into my book with maybe a little too much fervor. I gave one of the ear buds to Barclay and put one in my own ear and we just started walking, Sully asleep on my back in the carrier. Just like in the movie, we wandered Montreal, holding hands, watching the people crossing the streets and the traffic lights changing colors and the music made it all just a little surreal, like it had been orchestrated for us.

And I thought of the post I wrote yesterday about how you don't get to choose which memories you get to keep and which ones disappear without your permission. And then I thought, well, maybe this is better. Sure, you don't get to choose which memories disappear, but then sometimes they're given back to you when you least expect them. Like a present.

Better Oblivion

I'm on my trillionth listen through the Better Oblivion Community Center album. It's Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers's collab, and it's amazing—but I can't honestly tell you how much of the magic is the music itself and how much is nostalgic residue from the Bright Eyes days. I can't tell you; I don't know.

Oberst is one of those artists whose voice, all by itself, makes a song good for me. It's jagged and quavery and though he doesn't do anything fancy—what do you want from him? He's not Adele—it matches the lyrical content of his songs perfectly. But also, those songs, that voice, make up a large percentage of the soundtrack for my life circa 2005-2007.

Isn't it weird how you don't know what songs, friends, smells, whatever, are going to become capital "I" Important to you later on until it's later on? The summer I lived in Saskatoon, I borrowed so many CDs from the public library—stacks at a time, as many as I could fit into my backpack. And it wasn't like I didn't listen to all of them; I did. Sitting cross-legged on my air mattress in the closet-sized bedroom I shared with a girl named Patricia. Following along in the liner notes like it was one of those read-along children's book-and-tape situations. Taking it seriously, like I was studying for a test.

And now, though I listened to probably hundreds of albums, it's like I only listened to three: Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News, Brand New's Deja Entendu, and Bright Eyes's LIFTED or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.

(I wonder if I would've named a few more albums if I'd written this blog post even five years ago? Is my memory narrowing this list down without my knowledge?)

Okay, so now I'm thinking about how you don't get to choose which memories you keep.

I'm thinking about a memory from a few days ago: I was sitting in the living room reading a book and Sully ran in and gave me a hug and I gave it back and, a little surprised, asked, "What's this for?" and he replied, "It's just because I love you and I want you to know."

Melting, for a mom, right?

But here's another memory: This morning at Shoppers Drug Mart, I was squatting in front of a row of face lotions and Sully was standing on one side of me and Scarlett on the other. An older woman with a black nose stud the size of a marble and these huge, black, plastic glasses—eccentric vibes, definitely—looooooomed over the three of us and said hello, repeatedly, to both kids but not to me. She looked angry. I don't think she was, but she looked it, is what I'm saying. Sully and Scarlett stared at her, awestruck or maybe fearful, and didn't reply, despite her earnest attempts and my also earnest but much more quiet prompting. Finally she gave up and huffed, to me, "Not in a good mood today, I GUESS," and stalked away.

Which memory will I keep? Both? Neither? Just the weird one with the eccentric lady I'll probably never see again? Who knows! Either way I don't get to pick, and that's really too bad. It makes me feel desperate and cranky, like someone is routinely stealing my phone and deleting whatever photos and emails and text messages they feel like.

It's not fair.

But the point is, listen to the Better Oblivion Community Center Album, because it's really good, probably even better if you were already a Bright Eyes fan, and write down every single memory you want to keep because if they disappear before you do, you won't even know they're gone. 

Galleys!

I got my galleys (the almost-complete version of the book that is given to reviewers a few months early so their reviews can coincide with the publication date—basically the book's dress rehearsal) last week.

I was walking through the living room on Wednesday afternoon when I glanced out the window and saw the UPS truck parked across the street. I hadn't ordered anything. I did not consider that maybe one of the neighbors had ordered something. 

I said, "Barclay..." and drifted to the door just as the bell rang. I couldn't feel my fingers. The hair on my head was standing straight up in the air. I have very long hair. Just picture it.

By the time I opened the door, the UPS guy was already walking away, having done his job. I imagined yelling all kinds of bizarre things after him and worried that, in that moment, when I had so little control over my fingers and hair and feet, that I might.

"HEY! THIS BOX CONTAINS AND SIGNIFIES THE CULMINATION OF ALL OF MY DREAMS SINCE AGE SIX I HOPE YOU WERE GENTLE WITH IT."

Instead, I silently picked up the box and brought it into the house. And then I was very calm. Like everything inside me that was crashing waves was now a still pond with not one living thing in it. Like I was sleepwalking.

Sullivan wanted to know what was in the box. Of course he did.

"My books," I said calmly. I've seen many videos on Instagram of authors receiving their first book shipment. There's usually lots of squealing. Tears, often. I wondered vaguely if I should shriek a little. I thought that I should ask Barclay to take a picture of my face when I opened the box, but then I immediately forgot the thought. It just floated out of my head.

"You ordered books?!" Sullivan yelled. He loves when I order books because they usually come in bubble wrap (what's up with that, anyway? Books aren't breakable).

"No," I said, smiling. So calm. "These are my books. I wrote them. It."

I set the box on the floor and waited, as though I thought it might open itself. It failed to do so.

Sully ran to get scissors. (He did not run once he had the scissors. Don't worry.) He helped me open the box and dig through the paper, so it went faster than I wanted it to. I felt surprised, realizing that I wanted it to go slower, that even though I'd been eagerly anticipating this moment for months, I now didn't want it to happen yet.

That was unexpected.

But, I mean, props to my subconscious. After all, the anticipation of something good is almost always better than the actual good thing. The moment right before the fulfillment of a dream or longing is so rare and fleeting and beautiful. I knew, without knowing, that I should savor it.

So I peeled back the layers of paper slowly, taking little breaths, and then Sully pulled the first book up, like pulling a carrot out of the ground. He was so excited, and that was the next surprise: that seeing him holding the book and being so excited about it was better than me holding the book and being excited about it.

To both my amazement and his, he pulled another out, and then another, and another, handing them to me one by one. 

I stared at them in wonderment. "Well, isn't that something," I said. It was a dorky thing to say, but I said it.

Sullivan, still unearthing the last few books one by one, paused. "No, it's not. It's not anything," he said. Then, "Well. It is a book. Can I have this one?"

I told him that, no, I couldn't keep these; these were for giving away.

"You can give this one away to me, then," he said, unconcerned, and he ran off to his bedroom to add it to his bookshelf. (I snuck into his room later and stole it back. He came to me within fifteen minutes, looking very disappointed, and said, "Mo-om. Did you take my book? It's not on my shelf."
We've gone back and forth on this a few times; he is very observant. I am not winning.)

Physical ARCs are exciting for a lot of reasons, but the main ones for me have nothing to do with marketing or exposure or trade reviews: if your book gets ARCs, you get to hold it in your hands a few months earlier than you would've otherwise. You get to put it on your bookcase, see how it gets along with your other books. You get to carry it around in your purse for a few days—not to show people, just to have it there with you. You get to keep it by your computer while you write your next book, to remind you where you're going and how great it feels to get there. 

And then, you get to see how it looks in other people's hands. 

The ABCs of 2018

Welp. The planet and everyone on it lasted another year, which is, frankly, astounding to me at this point. (I have never claimed to be an optimist.) Happy last day of 2018, everyone. Let's see how far we can make it into 2019!

So here's my 2018 alphabet. I love doing this every year; my friend Courtney got me into it. I don't expect anyone to read mine—it's super long—but you should do one yourself. It's fun, both to do now and to look back on later.
(2017, 2016)


a - A few of the things I did anywhere from more than twice to every single week: walked around the lake and to the park, hung out at friends' houses, taco night at The Lobby with Shlee, early morning writing sessions at the Bean, trips to the museums and art gallery, made elaborate Sunday brunches with Barclay.

b - Built a desk and some bookshelves in our bedroom—can't have too many desks, can't have too many bookshelves. Made a desk for Sully in his bedroom too (he was so thrilled; he said, "OH I GET MY OWN THUMB TACK BOARD!" and, "Um, my desk needs a plant like yours has. In a real vase.")

c - Car trips: To Erin's house with Kate, to Frontier to visit my family a couple of times, lots of trips out of town to see Scarlett's parents, to Saskatoon for a cousin's wedding and to Medicine Hat for another cousin's wedding. No flying again this year (come on, 2019).

d - Drove also to Moose Jaw to attend the Saskatchewan Festival of Words with Hannah.

e - Editing. In 2018 alone, I closely edited V&V (counts on fingers) seven, maybe eight times. Editing with a publisher is a whole new ball game—editorial letters! Copy edits! Proofreads! Style sheets! It's like taking a writing class every time you do a round, which is excellent.

f - Film agent. We got an amazing film agent attached to V&V, and maybe nothing will come of it but it was really fun to start brainstorming actresses and daydreaming about sending my baby to Hollywood.

g - Gardened! Or, tried. And, subsequently, failed miserably. I killed everything in the yard, you guys. Everything. Even the grass died.

h - Had our car broken into twice—the second time was yesterday morning. I got up at 4:30 am to take a friend to the airport and was, like, super overjoyed to discover that the car had been trashed only moments earlier (there were fresh footprints in the falling snow) (I was so sleepy and so mad I was tempted to follow those footprints and give a good lecture to somebody).

I - I sold an article to Freelance Magazine (the Sask Writers' Guild's quarterly), to be published in 2019. It'll be my first publication in a physical magazine, which is very fun.

j - Just was such a bad book club member. (Last year's J was 'joined a book club.') I don't think I read even one of the book club books this year. Am I even still in the book club? I joined another one, too, and haven't been to a single meeting.

k - Kaeli, my good friend, started teaching Intro to Bullet Journalling classes at the Paper Umbrella and I went to one. She taught me a lot this year about how great it feels to support your friends in their endeavors, and how great it feels when they support you back.

l - Lake Union Publishing offered me a two-book book deal in January.

m - Music, live! This year I saw Jack White, Tokyo Police Club, a Beatles tribute band, Robyn Koester, Nazareth, Bruce Cockburn, Shakey Graves, Walk Off the Earth, Matt Holubowski, Neko Case, the Arkells, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, Big Wreck, Delhi 2 Dublin, Begonia, Close Talker, and Bears in Hazenmore. Went to Swampfest, Winterruption, and Folk Fest.

n - Neglected a lot of housework this year. It's like, WHEN, you know?

o - Onions, red. This year, I got super into red onions. I used to only buy white onions, but I haven't purchased a white onion in months. Crazy, isn't it? Red onions.

p - Peregrine Landscape Construction: the name of Barclay's new business that he started in August of this year. I'm so excited for him and proud of him; he's got one employee and they have half a season under their belt. Going well!

q - Quite enjoyed many quiet evenings this year at the kitchen table with Barclay, him working on his business and me on my books, drinking coffee and sometimes interrupting each other to ask for opinions or advice or whatever.

r - Read 14 books—which I'm going to consider pretty good, considering it was a crazy busy year. This doesn't include the books Barclay read out loud to me though, so...probably closer to 20.

s - Sullivan turned 4 & Scarlett turned 2—today, actually! (Happy Birthday, Scarlatti!)

t - Tourism Regina sent me to some fun events—mostly concerts and music festivals (above) but also the CP Women's Open, Nuit Blanche, Cinema Under the Stars, the RCMP Heritage Museum, the Ex, Fan Expo, and Video Games Live.

u - Undertow by Stars was one of my favorite songs. (The song itself is off of the Sad Robots EP, which is from 2008 or something, but, I don't know, it just never caught me until this year, and then I listened to it a lot.)

v - Vacation. Our family vacation this year was a couple of days in Saskatoon. We walked around, drank coffee, etc. It was super chill.

w - Wrote my second book, which I'm going to turn in to my publisher in the new year.

x - XXXI (see y)

y - Yes, I turned 31.

z - zebra sightings: 0.

Dear Loved Ones IRL

“Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it." - John Green

I was on a walk with someone the other day and she asked how the book stuff was going and I said it was going well and she said, "I'm so excited to read it!"

And I, immediately flattered and flustered and touched, said, "Yeah!...and then we can both pretend you didn't, right?"

She seemed surprised and asked me to explain myself, and I promptly found that I couldn't. I just did a lot of mumbling about how the whole thing is so fun, and so exciting, yes, it is, totally, and also I just never want to have to discuss it with anyone I know very well in real life. 

This confused things further because, of course, there is this: I have a blog where I write a lot, including about the books, and it is not a private blog. I have an Instagram account where I share, on average, a picture a day, and where I talk about the writing process a lot. And then, you know, I wrote these books and, with great effort and absolutely on purpose, am having them published. Publicly. 

So it's understandably confusing when I say to someone that I want to pretend with close friends and family, offline, that none of this is actually happening. Yes. Confounding.

I have had ten thousand iterations of this conversation in the past year or so, and I've found that I'm not getting any better at explaining myself. In fact, at best I'm confusing everyone, and at worst I'm offending them or maybe even hurting their feelings. The fact that I came here, to my blog, to work out and write out what I can never seem to say in real life almost feels like an explanation in and of itself. But I'll try to elaborate just a touch more. 

Okay.

I'm not even sure where to start. Maybe with this:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then, I contradict myself

(I am large, I contain multitudes)

- Walt Whitman

I have always wanted to be an author. I have always loved writing. And I have always been terrified of people reading what I write. I want people to read what I've written, because that's obviously a measure of success as an author, and I want to be published so that lots of people can read what I've written, and I don't want anyone to read what I've written because I'm the one who wrote it. 

When I started this blog, I protected it from everyone I knew in real life—Barclay, my family, my friends, everyone. There was a tiny community of strangers who read my blog, and I read theirs, and it was just a great way to practise writing and to connect with other people who loved writing too. It was a simpler time, when the internet wasn't so searchable, when blogs weren't so discoverable. As people began to find this place, though, I realized I had to make a decision: give up this hobby that I loved and the community I built here, because CRIPPLING EMBARRASSMENT, or keep on going and pretend like I didn't die inside every time someone in real life told me they'd stumbled across my blog or someone had shared it with them. 

This already sounds dumb. Bear with me; these are just my actual feelings. I just actually feel them. 

So the book thing, at first, was much the same as the blog thing. I was going to keep it a secret. I was going to use a pen name and tell NO ONE. My dream has never been fame; my dream has been the finished product: a legit book. Professionally edited and designed and published. 

Barclay said, "There are a few people who would want to know you wrote a book." And then I almost decided not to write a book because, well, he was right. People would be put out if I didn't tell them, and I was not willing to tell them. But then I found that I was so attached to the idea of publishing a book that I also couldn't not do that. I was stuck between something I could not do and something I could not not do and at first I couldn't tell whether it would be harder to do something hard or to not do something wonderful...and somehow, I ended up here.

And this is how it's been for every single step in the process. Weighing the outcome against my fear, briefly considering giving up, and then pushing forward in spite of myself.

My bestest-best friends know that I mostly deliver book news by text message (or not at all) and then get really, really weird about it if they want to follow up in real life. I can barely even say the names of my books out loud because I wrote those too. 

I got my book deal in January and didn't tell my parents about it until April (and then I did it via super awkward text message, sandwiched in between a picture of something Sullivan made and a funny story about something he said).

And Barclay will attest to the fact that any time I get good news about this process, or any time I have a phone meeting with my agent or editor, I get actually, physically ill. The better the news, the sicker I get. My whole entire being suffers from stage fright. (It's actually kind of incredible, the way the brain is, like, connected to the body like that.)

All that said, I'm loving it. I have had a headache for months and the knots in my shoulders are like rocks, but I'm having the time of my life, I really am. I'm so happy and sick and it's all I want to talk about and I do not want to talk about it at all—like really, at all. I would not create a fictional character like this because my editors would say she didn't make sense. They'd say, "So her life-long dream is finally coming true and she just wants to pretend nothing's happening? This is dumb."

And I'd say, "Oh, it's not that she wants to pretend it's not happening. She'd be okay talking to strangers about it."

And they'd be like, "What about her charming, supportive husband who cares so much and asks so many intentional questions?"

And I'd say, "Mm...maybe him sometimes. Depending on her mood. But he's kind of figured her out and knows which questions make her eye twitch and he avoids those. It's really actually very sweet."

Anyway. This is my brain, hello and welcome, I'm sorry if it's weird. I will try my best to not be a jerk, but maybe, if you know me in real life, you could sometimes—just sometimes—meet me in the middle and pretend like I'm an architect or an accountant or some other occupation where we don't really talk about the specifics of my job very much. And the rest of the time I will laugh too much and turn too red and make self-deprecating jokes and steer the conversation hard the other way without even meaning to. (Don't forget that I'm saving you too, because what if you want to talk about this, like, all the time and then you actually read it and you hate it and suddenly you don't know how to mention it in front of me without being super awkward...)

And we will mutually understand that we love each other and that's actually why I'm so shy about this in front of you, and neither of us think that makes much sense but, hey, people don't make sense in all kinds of ways! You're weird too, you just don't write about it on the internet.

Which is probably a good call.

On Blurbs and Blurbing

So, blurbs. You know what they are, even if you think you don't (this has been true for 100% of the people who looked at me funny and said, "Your what?" when I told them my first blurbs came in).

The blurb (aka endorsement) is that little sentence or paragraph of promotional praise you find on the cover of a book (or just inside, or on the back, or on the Amazon page, or wherever). It's written by another author, usually one that has some clout in the publishing world, and I guess its purpose is to show that, look, a legit literary person read this book all the way through and they liked it, so if you like them/if you like books like theirs/if you like books that can be read all the way through and spoken glowingly about, you might like this book too. 

I've always noticed blurbs on the covers of books and wondered about the process behind them—how did this other author get ahold of this book in time to write this praise before the cover was finalized and the book was published? Did that author really even like or read that book or were they bribed? I know we got blurbs for the C+C book, but I wasn't really in on the process and this felt like a new thing to me still, so I googled it and came across these nuggets of wisdom from authors who have gone before me:

1. Asking for blurbs is humiliating and horrible—especially for debut authors.

2. Blurbing is important, but it's more for industry people than it is for consumers.

3. It's not uncommon to ask a lot of people to blurb your book and come up with nothing.

The gist of it: Brace yourself (that's a direct quote). No one's heard of you. You're asking people who have never heard of you to read an entire book you've written and, if they like it, say something nice about it. Not only that, you're asking this of other authors—people who are presumably very busy writing books, beta reading for their actual friends and writing groups, promoting their own work, doing conferences and tours, etc. You're asking them to put their name on your book, which is kind of a massive favour. 

So, okay then. I was ready when the email came from Alicia saying we were going to see if we could get some blurbs for V&V. I prepared myself to get exactly zero blurbs. If I even got one blurb that said, "This book is okay!" that would be great, I thought. And then I thought, "Wow, this is exactly like walking the hallways on the first day of high school asking other students if they think you're pretty, and then if they say yes, asking them, In what way and will you write that down for me?"

Not my thing, you know?

But we did it! (Actually, Alicia and Victoria did it! They do everything! I like them so much!) And it feels like a big enough deal to blog about. They sent out a (very early, not completely edited) copy of the book to some authors they thought might like it and who write in the same genre as I do, and then we waited. They've now begun to trickle in, and it's very, very good for my frazzled nerves.

(My nerves are so much more frazzled than I thought possible at the beginning of this whole thing, which is why if you've asked me about my book at any point in the past nine months, I've stared at you like you slapped me across the face and dumbly said, "Uhhh...yeah...it's...let's not talk about that, please." But that's a subject for a whole other blog post because this one is about BLURBS.)

Yay.

Valencia and Valentine Has A Cover!

We've all heard that dumb old saying about not judging the covers of books. It's very old and I think we could retire it. I always judge the covers of books and I always will because that's the whole dang point of covers of books: they're supposed to give you an idea of the style or mood of the book, maybe hint at a character or two, or the setting, or a detail pertinent to the plot. They're supposed to imply genre and they tell you who wrote it and what it's called. Everything is intentional, if a cover is well-designed, right down to the colours and the fonts.

If you were not meant to judge a book by its cover, a book would not have a cover. 

That said, I'm finally allowed to show you the cover of my book, so judge away, people. It was designed by Philip Pascuzzo (one of the designers behind the famous Twitter logo). It's going to be in hardcover and paperback, which is especially exciting to me because Lake Union is known for their beautiful hardcovers and it'll be a dream come true to have my name on one. 

Isn't it so pretty? I have it saved as the lock screen on my phone so I see it all day every day. Many thanks to Pepco Studios, but also to Lake Union and Alicia and Victoria for all the back-and-forth brainstorming sessions and allowing me to give my input. It was suuuuch a cool process. 

One step closer to pub day!

PS: You can preorder here (or click on the cover above), but I also just wanted to take a moment to add that preordering/buying a book is not the only way to show support to a person who has written one (though it really does help and I'm enormously thankful for everyone who's done this, srsly). 

A few other (free) ways are:

Add the book to your to-reads on Goodreads.

Request the book at your local library (if all copies of a book are reserved before the title comes out, the system has a way of noticing this popularity and marking the book as one for “more orders”). 

Same with bookstores. If you happen to be there anyway, I mean. It helps bookstore employees become aware of a book they might not have known about otherwise and maybe they'll read it and maybe they'll like it and then maybe they'll start handselling it, which would be the best.

Sullivan at 22

I don't know why the word 'eccentric' is most commonly applied to old people. After all, the most eccentric person I know is four years old.

This week, Sully has assumed an alternate personality, one which he embodies whole-heartedly and without breaking character for hours at a time. His name is Sullivan Barclay Krause; he is 22 years old and lives in BC with his wife and two children (who are, coincidentally, 1 and 4 and named Scarlett and Sullivan). He is fairly deadpan, speaks to me as a fellow adult, drinks americanos, likes jazz, and takes his kids to the park, like, all the time. He even asked me for my number so we could hang out sometime.

Today, he came for lunch. I asked him how his day was and he sighed deeply and said, "Welp. My car broked down. AGAIN."

I said, "Oh? What happened to it?"

"Welp. I was just going to the guitar store to buy some picks and a bad guy comed up and started punching it and it broked." Here, he rolled his eyes and shook his head and his little shoulders rose and fell and he let out another massive sigh.

"That's terrible," I said. "Just for no reason?"

"Oh no, he had a reason," said Sullivan Barclay Krause (never only Sullivan or Sully). "I just don't know what his reason was."

"Ah," I said. "You're probably right."

"I am," he said sagely.

"Hey, Sully," I said, clearing the table, nudging a blanket that had been left in the middle of the floor with my foot, "would you—"

"Sullivan Barclay Krause," he reminded me. "I'm 22. I'm an adult."

"Right. Hey, Sullivan Barclay Krause, would you mind putting that blanket back on the couch?"

"Sure," he said. "Where's your couch at?"

I pointed to the couch, and he nodded approvingly. "Ah," he said. "It's a nice couch. My wife has the same one."

"Ah," I said. (We say 'Ah' back and forth to each other so much when he's 22, apparently.) "Would you also mind putting those pillows back on it? My son's always throwing them on the floor."

I said this very pointedly, but Sullivan Barclay Krause was oblivious, neatly stacking my pillows on the couch that is the same as the one his wife has. And then, rolling his eyes again, he said, "Yes. My daughter is always doing the same thing."

"Ah," I said. "Do you want some coffee?"

"No," he said. "I've got coffee at home."

"Okay."

He stood in the middle of the living room and put his hands on his skinny little hips, surveying it. "Yep, yep, yep," he said, making a very grown-up sound out of the side of his mouth, the kind you make when you're in a pause in a conversation and you don't know where to go with it. "I see your husband likes to play video games."

"He does," I said. "What does your wife do?" I thought maybe he'd tell me his wife was a writer or a mom, since she seemed loosely based on me from all he's told me about her this week.

"She works at Suds. The car wash," he said. "She runs all the brushes."

Anyway, it went on like that. I just wanted to write this part of the conversation down verbatim before I forgot it, because 22 year-old Sullivan Barclay Krause is my favourite.