Netgalley, a sale, works in progress
a March smorgasbord
Hi, friends! Starting this month with a few bits of Official Author News:
One, the ebook of How You Get the Girl is on sale for all of March for $3.99, from wherever you prefer to buy your ebooks!
Two, Donut Summer is now available to request on NetGalley!
I had a bit of a panic when I learned this, even though I knew it would be going up soon, since I recently received pass pages. This is normally the stage where early reading copies are released, and one of the final proofreading stages of editing, where you can’t actually change anything big but you can make little tweaks and see how it looks as a Real Live Book. Here’s a peek at the title page, for instance!
I always expect pass pages to be this really satisfying event, where like, I’ve done allll the hard work and can now do one final read-through and feel Proud of Myself. Except, in this instance in particular, all I can see are those sentences I approved changes to in copy edits to make more grammatically correct but now don’t sound Like Me? And all those words I still repeated so weirdly often even though I swore I’d already trimmed them down? And in general, I am just kind of sick of myself?
But so far, the big moments that I want to hit still hit, the chapters that always make me cry are still making me cry, those few lines that made me laugh when I wrote them are still at least a little bit funny to me. So I know that, overall, it’s okay that it’s already going out into the world, that the early readers won’t see those few awkward sentences or that one unnecessary word on that one page and want to throw it in the trash like me.
Even if I wasn’t quite ready yet to see those thumbs down about the cover. lol
Reminder that you can preorder Donut Summer from wherever you most like to buy books (more info on an official preorder campaign forthcoming), and add it on Goodreads or StoryGraph any time.
One last bit of Official Author News:
I get to be in conversation with some amazing authors this year, and the next one coming up is Jasmine Guillory, to celebrate her newest (sapphic!) romance, Flirting Lessons. This is such a big deal that the event, while being hosted by Grand Gesture Books, won’t be held at the bookstore but at Portland Center Stage, one of my favorite arts venues in the city! Fancy!! Am I nervous? Yes, but Jasmine is such a star that I’m sure everything will be fine. The date is April 16th at 7PM, and you can purchase tickets (which include a copy of the book) here.
Coming up after that are events with Meryl Wilsner and Ashley Herring Blake! More info about those next time.
In addition to finishing work on Donut Summer, I’ve mostly been spending my time really trying to push forward in my work-in-progress. There are reasons why I’m focusing on this story in particular—one of which is that I love it! Even though writing it has been fucking hard!! I’m now past the 50k mark, which helps me see the light at the end of the drafting tunnel a little bit. But I also have a few other projects I’ve been noodling on for months/years now, and one day this past week, even though I’ve really been trying to hit my daily word counts for this main WIP, I woke up just feeling real horny for two other characters from another book—one that died on sub last year, whose story I’ve never fully finished.
So I opened up their document, and remembered them again, and wrote down what I could before the inspiration left me.
And part of me wants to be frustrated at myself about this: when I’m writing a bunch of different stuff piecemeal, it can feel like I’m working nonstop without getting anything done. My brain has worked this way for a few years now too when it comes to reading: I am now, constantly, reading at least (AT LEAST) three books at the same time. Sometimes one book will really hook into my gut and then I read just that one nonstop until I finish (the best feeling!!) but mostly I am constantly flipping between a bunch of shit at once. And the teacher-librarian in me just CANNOT believe that’s the best way to achieve reading comprehension.
But after I wrote those couple-thousand words this week in the story I hadn’t visited in a long time? I felt so fucking jazzed. It was good to remember these people I still care about, to think about doing them justice again. It made me excited to get back to my main WIP, too. I got to tally both of their word counts in my journal, a reminder that even if I almost always feel restless, like I’m not doing enough—even when I’m drafting multiple books while working on pass pages for another—I am doing enough; I am doing a lot; I am getting words down. It was energizing, revisiting those other characters again, and mostly I just felt blessed that it happened at all.
All of which is to say: if you wake up feeling horny for characters you’re not supposed to be writing, take it as a blessing, and write it the fuck down anyway, before it’s gone.
Speaking of books that hook into my gut—a few recs before I go:
I read Jamie Harrow’s One on One last week, one of those could-not-put-it-down, consumed-in-almost-24-hours experiences, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it, especially as I’ve been entrenched in March Madness. It’s true that I was probably primed to like this book, what with the college basketball, and being an Eastern PA native (the college the book revolves around is inspired by Villanova), but even without all that, I thought it was just so whip-smart and funny and real while also being so poignant and romantic. Content warning that this deals with sexual assault, but as a fan of sports and college sports in particular, especially when it comes to men’s sports, reading a book that dealt with both the love of the game and the inherent problematic power structures within the business head-on was just…very cathartic. Truly cannot wait to read Harrow’s next one, Fun at Parties, out in September.
In light of the Trans Rights Readathon happening this week, I also feel the need to mention two trans historical romances that I loved so much (and have also frequently thought about since reading them): TJ Alexander’s recently released A Gentleman’s Gentleman, and Joanna Lowell’s A Shore Thing. Both are beautifully written, fascinating, romantic, and were just deeply comforting and wonderful to me. I read them within the same month last year and it just made me feel so lucky, so big and expansive and happy, to live in a time where we can have these stories traditionally published (and hitting bestseller lists, too!). Also: they both have really wonderfully flamboyant spines. Cannot recommend either enough!
More to say, always, but that’s enough for now. Hope you’re taking care of you as best you can.
xo
anita
I'm a piecemeal writer and reader. You are definitely not alone in this! But my feeling is that it all adds up. In terms of writing, I often think my subconscious is toiling away in the background and sometimes it takes a few passes before it clicks. With reading, my brain really likes the variety of having at least a few books going at once: nonfiction that I can read at a slower pace and then fiction that allows me to make steady progress.
I feel you SO deeply on the piecemeal thing. My brain refuses to allow me to focus on one thing for the most part and it's been driving me bonkers. But I love the way you reframed it for yourself and will be stealing it!! Always love hearing you talk, my friend.