because it came from you

"dreams" by the cranberries (covered by hayley williams) & notes from the drafting cave

I love cover songs. Sometimes I think it would be cool to have one song that EVERYONE covers, just so we could have some kind of baseline, could compare actual apples to apples. Kind of like the compulsory exercises, but for music. Except of course it would be hard to pick which song it would be, it’s still not apples to apples because some fruits can take the form of an apple easier than others, at some point we’d be so oversaturated with this song we’d stop being able to listen with new ears to a new version, etc.

When I was at my deepest point with Third Eye Blind (remember I was one of their Top 100 Listeners in 2023! I put it on my business cards!), I listened to this podcast episode where Max Collins from Eve6 talked about “Semi-Charmed Life.” I think about this one podcast episode probably more than I should — “he’s such an asshole it’s almost generous” remains one of my favorite things anyone has ever said about old Stephan — but Max said something in particular that’s stayed with me. He said that he didn’t believe there were good songs, per se, only good performances of songs. He said it brought him no joy to say it, but he had to admit that Third Eye Blind’s performance of “Semi-Charmed Life” was perfect. Nobody could’ve done the song like that.

I’m not a musician, but I don’t know that I agree with Max on the good songs thing. I do think some songs just have really strong bones — the melody, the lyrics, some alchemy of various factors. And you see it in covers, where a song can be reinterpreted or taken apart and put back together, and there’s still something special at the center of it. Like your bar band cover of “Jolene” might be mid, but you just put glasses on the hot girl, we’re not fooled!!! We can still see she’s an A List actress under there!

But at some point I do think this becomes a philosophical debate of like, what is a song if it’s not performed, and then how do you separate those two things, and that’s above my pay grade. My point is more to talk about books, which is something I *do* know.

One piece of writing advice I feel like you see floating all around the time goes something like: every story is unique, because it’s yours. Maybe that’s not advice so much as an affirmation, but it’s one I really wholeheartedly believe in, and one that I want people to sit with more. Yes, there are only seven plots . . . or maybe three . . . or maybe one. Yes, that trope has been done before, a million times. Yes, Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached came out the VERY SAME YEAR, WHICH IS INSANE¹.

If you’re writing something, and you’re worried it’s been done before, I would say . . . well, it hasn’t been done by you. And I do believe that one of your jobs as a writer is to make everything you write the most you that you possibly can. Multiple times per book I have parts that I’m writing and thinking, wait, can you do this? In a book? They are parts that bring me personally a lot of joy and are probably cringe to other people. Like, working in a puzzle to guess the missing MLB team AND putting in four Third Eye Blind references AND making Fastball’s “The Way” a pivotal part of a baseball romance is not for everybody and I understand that. I’m a simple man. I’m writing for myself. I’m having fun.

When I read books, I also live for those moments, where you can just tell that this is something that’s important to the author, or has happened to them, or is something they know a lot about, etc. And maybe the closest analogy I can make to that distinction between a good song vs. a good performance of a song is that I feel like I can actually forgive some structural or technical problems in a book (plot, etc.) if the performance of the book is good (writing voice, a certain je ne sais quoi that makes it enjoyable to read, etc.).

I have my head in the world of two books right now, because I’m starting to promote Never Been Shipped (which comes out in June!) and finishing up the drafting of In Every Possible Way (which will come out . . . next summer?). I’ve been thinking a lot about these little moments, easter eggs and references and places where I can see stuff I was personally going through bleeding into the book. For example, I will just tell you that at one point I thought “what if you somehow referenced all 38 canonically excellent Cranberries songs from their first three albums throughout the book, just for fun” and then I was like, ALICIA, you have enough on your plate and also how are you going to work in “I Just Shot John Lennon,” you fucking clown.

Like I’ve already given myself enough challenges with this book (a COMA a FOREIGN COUNTRY a CONDENSED TIME FRAME the fact that it’s [redacted] and doesn’t have [redacted]), why would I even do that to myself. But it did occur to me².

genuinely what’s wrong with me

This whole month has also been SO bleak, in a way I know I don’t even need to describe because we’re all living it. I’ve been struggling on a micro level and a macro level. At various points I’ve thought, how do I even write romance right now? Like physically, how do I find the energy? Mentally, emotionally, how can I possibly do it? I’ve been worried I wouldn’t be able to write this book, or that it would come out SO SAD somehow, like I wrote half of this when I was with Linda and half when we were broken up so it’s a little uneven.

But against all odds, I’ve done it??? Like I don’t want to count any words before they’re written, but I’m on track to finish in the next couple of days. And I’m not saying the draft is perfect by any means but I genuinely feel like it might be one of the most joyful and romantic things I’ve ever written? I really wanted it to FEEL like Cranberries’ “Dreams” and to me, it does.

So if this week’s newsletter is a little disjointed, I’m sorry, my head’s still in the drafting clouds a bit. But I wanted to share this cover of “Dreams” with you, because I think it’s such a beautiful song and Hayley does such a good job with it. It felt like the perfect encapsulation of these two worlds I’ve been in lately.

OH and because I do actually have things going on — Never Been Shipped is up on NetGalley, I’m going to be at Love Y’All in Atlanta over Valentine’s Day weekend, I’m going to be on a romance CRUISE ffs — let me share this sweepstakes with you! I just keep forgetting to include this kind of stuff in my newsletter!!!! Arguably the entire reason you are supposed to send out newsletters!!!!! Of the books on the above graphic (and besides my own, obvs), I have only read The Love Lyric by Kristina Forest but I was obsessed with it, and literally all of the other books are at the top of my wishlist because they look so good.

Currently reading . . . I’m not reading very much right now, because I’m too deep in drafting mode. I can usually read while I’m writing — if anything, it keeps me feeling energized and excited and creative, just being around other stories. But I’ve been trying to grind out a truly bonkers amount of words every day, so I literally haven’t had the time. I have been reading an upcoming romance, Slipstream by Madge Maril, about an F1 driver and the documentarian who’s filming him for a feature. Except they’re both actually trying to sabotage the film, for their own reasons . . . which means of course they have to pretend to be in a relationship, for reasons . . . which means at one point he has to basically snuggle her for an entire two-and-a-half hour plane ride, FOR REASONS . . . I’m super into this book.

watching . . . This week in Dakota Watch I covered her entire 2014 filmography, which means I’m coming up on the Fifty Shades movies. (I’ve been skipping around, but at one point I went back and have been trying to mostly go chronologically, depending on availability on streaming, etc.) In Dakota’s “Most Known For” section on IMDB, it’s the three Fifty Shades movies and then . . . The Social Network? That can’t be right. Like yes, it’s arguably one of the more well-known movies she’s been in, but is it what SHE is known for? I’d put Persuasion in that slot by now, I think.

• Date and Switch (2014) - A decade is a long time in “I just found out my best friend is gay” media, huh? Dakota played the ex of the gay friend, and then the love interest for the straight friend who takes the gay friend’s coming out incredibly badly, which was a bummer because by the end of the movie I didn’t want the straight friend to get a single thing he wanted.

• Need for Speed (2014) - Like watching someone play Gran Turismo x a two-hour Ford Mustang commercial x I guess probably Breaking Bad because of Aaron Paul but I couldn’t watch that show because it stressed me out too much. Speaking of stressful, some of the car stunts in this movie were s t r e s s f u l, but I can appreciate a good action movie that delivers on the promise of the premise with set pieces. Pick that car up with a helicopter. We love to see it.

• Cymbeline (2014) - Imagine going into one of those “shit looks modern but they talk Shakespearean” movies and not KNOWING until they started talking lol. That’s what happened to me. All of a sudden they were like “thou hast” and I was like wait what. Fun fact: this is actually Dakota’s worst rated movie on IMDB, even worse than the Fifty Shades series. Ethan Hawke’s raspy delivery of Shakespeare lines probably earned at least 3.0 of the 3.7 rating alone, but I’ll admit it was hard to watch Dakota find what she thinks is the decapitated body of her boyfriend and say “O Postumus, where is thy head?” and keep a straight face. Also at one point this guy carried in takeout pizzas SIDEWAYS like TUCKED UNDER HIS ARM so . . . obviously this movie isn’t looking to be taken seriously.

A+ couple casting tho, I can get behind this

listening to . . . I was listening to Noah Kahan while driving my kids to school the other day, and when he sings I was raised out in the cold my son was like, “Relatable.” Bro, it’s been sub-50 for ONE WEEK!!! Granted, it was very cold for Florida. Some parts of the state even got snow, which felt very With Love, from Cold World-coded.

I’ve also continued listening to episodes of the Celebrity Memoir Book Club podcast. I’m *almost* done with episodes for memoirs I’ve actually read (approximately 42) so have to make a decision soon on whether I’ll start listening to ones for memoirs I haven’t, or whether I need to read the memoir first. Wouldn’t this be a fun job, and by “fun” I mean probably not at all — you’re the person who reads a very early version of the memoir for the celebrity and gives them a report on how they’re coming across. Like, “you say you do everything for your family, but it seems like you actually . . . only care about success and . . . the way your family’s success might reflect back on you . . .” or “you say it was just a matter of right time right place, but you do know . . . you’re a nepo baby, right? like it’s one of the most famous things about you . . .” or whatever. Because truly I don’t think some of these celebrities have any idea how their memoirs actually land. Stuff you might be able to get away with in interviews and sound bites sure does COME OUT in a 300-page book.

1. I tweeted about this so much I ended up getting invited to participate in a round table on the topic, one of my proudest accomplishments.

2. And I reserve the right to still do it.