can this be a real thing, can it?
"snow on the beach" by taylor swift & a little bit about Book 2
It’s starting to be that time! When I’ve turned in edits for Book 2 and am about to announce the title and reveal the cover (next week!) The time when I can finally tell you more about it than just the vague hints here and there!
Part of my semi-secrecy around Book 2 has been because at any given time I legit live in fear of saying something I’m not allowed to. It’s charming when Tom Holland does it but I don’t have Tom’s disarming grin or his ability to open a movie.
But part of it is also because I really like keeping books mostly to myself while I’m working on them. For whatever reason, I’ve learned that’s something I need while I’m drafting — this very safe, insular space that’s just me and the characters and a few trusted friends who will talk about my characters with me like they’re real people.
(By the way, I could write a whole newsletter on this topic alone and, who knows, maybe one day I will, BUT — one of the best things you can do for yourself as a writer is just really check in with yourself about what you need at any step in the process. If you need to create a playlist to dial in to the vibe, then that absolutely IS writing and not just in that “everything you want to do is writing” meme kind of way. If you need people to read while you’re drafting just to cheer you on and tell you you’re brilliant, hey, no shame!! Find the right people who can do that for you and express to them that that’s what you’re looking for. When I’m in the middle of a draft, I might ask directed questions or send little sections to people for specific feedback, but mostly I want to save deeper editorial notes for once the draft is done. The biggest help to me while I’m actively writing is just someone to encourage me to keep going, you’ve got this, you’re cooking, buddy!)
Anyway.
Another very important step in the process is figuring out what Taylor Swift song best fits with your manuscript. My first handful of listens to Midnights, I swear I didn’t get past track four because I just couldn’t get over how perfectly “Snow on the Beach” matches up with Book 2.
What Taylor has said about the song:
“The song is about falling in love with someone at the same time as they’re falling in love with you, in this sort of in this cataclysmic, fated moment where you realize someone feels exactly the same way that you feel, at the same moment, and you’re kind of looking around going, Wait, is this real? Is this a dream? Is this for real? Is it really happening? Kinda like it would be if you were to see snow falling on a beach.”
And okay, I know that could describe pretty much any romance novel. I feel a little bit like Winona Ryder’s character in Reality Bites, where she’s unemployed and running up these huge phone bills talking to a phone psychic, and at one point she starts talking about how much she misses her friendship with Ethan Hawke (the rasp in his voice when he says “I have a planet of regret” was formative to my sexuality, but I digress). The psychic asks does his name start with N?, she’s getting a strong N vibration, and Winona’s all, “Newsstand! N, newsstand. He used to work at a newsstand!” HAHAHA, girl.
So yes, I know this song probably resonated with a lot of romance novelists out there, but let me make the case for how “Snow on the Beach” pairs does-Taylor-have-access-to-my-Google-docs-level perfectly with my Book 2, aka I’d like to tell you a little bit about Book 2 and let me do it through this song.
One night a few moons ago
I saw flecks of what could’ve been lights
But it might have just been you
Passing by unbeknownst to me
The two leads in my book are Lauren and Asa, who have worked together for two years at this fake winter attraction in Orlando, Florida. One aspect of their relationship that I had a lot of fun with while writing is that they’ve known each other a long time, they’ve had interactions at work, they have each formulated Strong Opinions on who the other one is. I love the idea that they’ll get to know each other throughout the book, and by the end of it they’ll look back on all those little interactions like, wow. That was you. And I never could’ve known how important you’d be to me. Or maybe I did, on some level?
Life is emotionally abusive
And time can’t stop me quite like you did
And my flight was awful thanks for asking
I’m unglued thanks to you
Both Asa and Lauren have their own baggage (I’m sorry, spoiler alert for any book I ever write, there will always be Baggage, but Dr. Taylor Swift said it! Life is emotionally abusive! Who among us doesn’t have baggage?).
There’s also a line in the book where Lauren says she feels “untethered” after being with Asa, and I am not too proud to admit I THOUGHT about changing it to “unglued” just as a little homage to this song. (The dangers of editing during a new Taylor Swift album cycle.) But “untethered” really made much more sense in the context of the paragraph so I showed some Restraint and left it as-is. Listen, Hemingway didn’t have to deal with this kind of shit!!! Do you think “A Clean Well Lighted Place” would’ve escaped unchanged after a listen to Taylor’s “Clean”?? It wouldn’t!!!
You wanting me
Tonight feels impossible
But it’s coming down no sound it’s all around
Like snow on the beach
This part of the song is so perfect I wish I could like, include it as an epigraph. But I don’t have Taylor Swift lyrics permission money so I shan’t be doing that.
I will tell you one inspiration for my book, which was this snow attraction in Central Florida that just sounded BONKERS to me. It opened, then closed almost immediately because of all kinds of issues and now it’s open again! Best BELIEVE I’m planning to venture out there sometime in the next couple of months. Snow on the beach*! It’s real!
*Dade City does not have an actual beach, but close enough.
I’ve never seen someone lit from within
Blurring out my periphery
My smile is like I won a contest
And to hide that would be so dishonest
And it’s fine to fake it ’til you make it
‘Til you do
‘Til it’s true
Book 2 is dual POV! There was a brief moment when I questioned that decision, when I thought about writing it solely from Lauren’s perspective, but the minute I wrote a chapter for Asa I knew his journey had to be half the book. I just really fell in love with him. He’s bisexual, he smells really good, he likes to pull pranks and find ways to have fun at his job, he has such a big heart. He’s lit from within in a way that Lauren can’t help but be drawn to. She’s always tended to be more serious, and she struggles with how to show her own emotions and connect with other people. Being with Asa puts her more in touch with that part of herself.
I can’t speak afraid to jinx it
I don’t even dare to wish it
But your eyes are flying saucers
From another planet
Now I’m all for you like Janet
Can this be a real thing? Can it?
This song is just so good. I love everything about it, and if my book could have even a fraction of these vibes I’d be happy. I’m sorry to still be such a tease about it and not tell you any more, BUT — next Wednesday, 11/2, I’m going to drop an EMAIL-ONLY newsletter with my cover and title reveal! So if you’re interested in having that exclusive info a day earlier than anyone else, please subscribe!
And if you’re like, “what’s a day in the scheme of things, I’ll just see it when you post it on your social media 18,000x in the next year,” well, fair.
A few links before I let you go:
I appeared on the Tall, Dark & Fictional podcast and it was a lot of fun. This is a podcast I listen to on my way to work pretty much the day it drops, because it just feels like I’m hanging out with friends and getting to hear lots of discussion about romance. Then I actually recorded with Cat & SJ and it turns out . . . it felt like hanging out with friends and getting to discuss romance! I talked a lot about my (quite long!) writing journey, but the real highlight is when they asked me if I’d fuck a minotaur or a centaur and I realized I wasn’t clear on what those even were (I’ve got it now).
Actually I don’t have any more links to share except why not, Paramore performed “All I Wanted” live for the first time ever and instead of crying because it happened without me I’m going to smile that it happened at all. *watery, tearful smile* No, but seriously, Paramore guitarist Taylor York always encouraged Hayley to do it, they even put it on the set list for one Parahoy cruise, but then she never went through with it, and now Taylor and Hayley are dating and they performed it and I just am an exploding ball of feelings. It’s a great fucking song. A future newsletter song for sure.
Currently reading . . . I haven’t read much in October! Which I’m low-key proud of, because sometimes when I have a lot of stuff to do (like, edits for example), my toxic trait is still trying to keep up the same breakneck pace of reading I always do, other obligations be damned. You can take my life but you’ll never take my reading! But I made Smarter Choices this time around and very deliberately left my TBR pile untouched. Except I did read a few things. For Love of the Bard by Jessica Martin (charming, and you do NOT need to know Shakespeare to enjoy, my knowledge of Twelfth Night comes entirely from She’s the Man and I managed just fine). And now I’m reading Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn and it’s an absolute BLAST.
watching . . . I know my team is out of it, but I’ve been watching ALL the post-season baseball. Go Phillies. (Although I will acknowledge that the Astros have a hell of a team this year and I do love Dusty Baker.)
listening to . . . It’s been nothing but Midnights over here, baby. I’m not ready to list favorite songs or anything like that (mostly because I truly love them all with the exception of maaaaaybe two that I haven’t clicked with yet). But I will say that I literally woke up yesterday thinking about how I really like the “sexy baby” lyric. And then I woke up this morning thinking, she really had me by the throat from the very verse of the very first song with the way she sang the word “melancholia-a-a-a-a.”