juvenilia
My next book comes out in five days, on Tuesday, September 10th, so I am deep in promo mode, trying to figure out how to get people to, you know, care. Luckily, the book is about a fangirl who meets her boy band crush as an adult, so I have an easy go-to: putting little bits of my old fan fiction on Instagram. Everything I still have lives on my Google Drive, so it was nothing to go in and start screenshotting the most embarrassing, cringe-y little bits.
I’ve drawn from this well before, back when I was promoting GRACE AND THE FEVER. I read some of my old fic as part of a series called Romantic Comedy, and then on stage for Mortified. Both experiences were fun and silly and I haven’t thought about them much since they happened.
But this time, mining the archives felt different. I took a couple of screenshots— and I will be posting more, so like follow subscribe etc.— and of course, there was plenty of cringe to be found. But that wasn’t my primary reaction. Instead, I felt protective of my younger self. And I think it’s because instead of being embarrassed by her, I realized I was actually kind of… proud.
It’s been seven years, somehow, since GRACE came out. And in that time, I’ve done a lot of teaching and editing, which allows me to read other people’s drafts and watch their processes. Maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s just been long enough, but for the first time I was able to approach this work with gentleness. To see its flaws— so many flaws. But to see, also, the signs of strength to come. How inventive I was, or could be, at least. How interested I was already in structure and story. And how dedicated I was to figuring writing out.
Because for decades I’ve avoided seeing too much of myself in that girl and her shameless, earnest fantasizing. But what I saw this time is that she wasn’t just fantasizing. She was also writing. And isn’t that what I always tell my students, so often I’m sick of hearing myself say it? Just keep writing. The only way you will get better at this is to write, and write, and write, and write.
Well, that’s exactly what she was doing. For the first time, I understood that I owe her something. A debt of enormous gratitude. She was cringe. She was a beginner. She was also working her twelve-year-old ass off. And none of this would be possible without her.
Anyway, buy my book, ideally at one of these events if you live in New York or LA!!!!
In other news, I recently reviewed Moon Unit Zappa’s memoir for The LA Times, and Rufi Thorpe’s MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLE for Alta. I liked one book much better than the other!
& 831, my publisher, was profiled in Vanity Fair.