good reads
Sometimes-- rarely, but sometimes-- an editor gives me an assignment and I can immediately envision it: like oh, yeah, I know the words to that song. I very much felt this way when I got asked to write about a bunch of iconic LA locations and pair them up with matching book recommendations. Honestly I wish it was an ongoing concern so I could tell everyone to go to the La Brea Tar Pits and read Darcy Little Badger's Elatsoe, one of my favorite YA novels I'd read recently, or to head to the bar at Permanent Records and swoon your way through Beating Heart Baby, by Lio Min (not out yet but soon!) (also NB I hate the word "swoon" and find it overused and annoying especially as it applies to YA, but in this instance it really must be said. Swoon as in you will fall into a swoon, need a fainting couch, etc. Francesca Lia Block x Mary HK Choi x brown, queer LA, yes I will be pitching longer-form pieces about it shortly).
Anyway. I got a job recently! It's a six-month gig, so I'm still technically freelance, but for the next half-year I'm on someone's payroll. I had to email my accountant to adjust my quarterly taxes, since for the first time in six years, they're not 1099ing me. It'll be a long time before the thing I'm working on comes out, but I'll tell you about it when it does, of course.
That's an exact count, by the way, six years. Six years ago today I opened up campus for an event, sat in the dance studio while someone talked about something-- my brain, which was very sick at the time, has completely blocked the contents-- and then handed over my keys to the guy who was taking over for me so he could lock everything up. He doesn't have that job anymore either. It didn't make him sick like it made me sick, but it was too much work for one person. I've made more money freelancing than I ever did in non-profits.
I had no plan when I left. I had sold two books but neither was out yet. I was so fucking naive! I'd never made more than $75 for a piece of non-fiction. I was still unraveling from untreated mental illness. I was very privileged and never in any real danger. It still astonishes me, when I think about it, that that girl made this life for me. She had no idea how hard it would be. If I had known how hard it would be-- how hard it still is-- I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done it. But I did, or I am. I was young and stupid but I have to give myself credit. I worked very hard. Somehow, I did not give up.
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Today is also the last day to get an early bird special on HEA WTF, the romcom boot camp I'm teaching with Amy Spalding and Aminah Mae Safi! Two people I didn't know six years ago, who are now close friends and colleagues. Time: it does pass! (I did know how to write a sex scene even then, though. Fan fiction for life.)