if i can shake it, i'ma make this something worth dreaming of

"l.e.s. artistes" by santigold & the miami book fair

I just got back from the Miami Book Fair and I had the best, most restorative time. I actually felt like it was a weekend filled with these little epiphanies — some of which I’ll share with you and some of which I’m still turning over in my head.

I spent the weekend with one of my best friends, one of my oldest writing friends, who I first met at a YA writing workshop in Miami over 16 years ago. We’ve both agreed that we looked across the table at each other and just . . . knew. Friendship at first sight.

Since then, one semi-tradition we’ve always tried to uphold was some sort of NaNoWriMo-related trip in November whenever we could manage it, where we could hang out and sightsee and get some writing done. We’ve gone to Nashville, New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, St. Pete, probably some others I’m not even remembering right now. I keep very poor records of my NaNoWriMos (I barely ever used the official site) so I really couldn’t tell you which years I “won” and which I didn’t, whether I was following all the rules or doing a modified cheat version (something I’d recommend to anyone! can’t write 50k? set a smaller goal! want to revise something you already wrote instead of writing something new? no website is the boss of you!). I just know that I really like these traditions, associating November with writing and friendship.

Full disclosure, I barely wrote on this particular trip. It was a quick one, and my head was just not in that space. I brought my writing notebook with me and scrawled some “brain dump” type notes about my current project in there, and other than that I didn’t even get my laptop out enough to need to charge it. Here’s what I did instead:

Took Public Transport

Brightline Train + Miami Metromover

My friend lives in Orlando now, so we took the Brightline train from Orlando to Miami and I would definitely recommend it! So much more chill than dealing with the airport, and if you factor in gas and parking charges at the hotel, etc., not really that much more expensive than driving. They serve food, but it’s a pretty limited menu and at least when we rode it several of the items were sold out, so I would say don’t count on having one of your main meals on the train and you should be fine.

My friend also used to live in Miami for a long time — where she lived when we met! — so I relied on her to navigate around the city and its public transport. We ended up only using the Metromover, but it worked perfectly for everything we wanted to do. It’s free, it runs pretty regularly, and it’ll take you around a central loop downtown, into Brickell, etc. The weather was really nice this past weekend, but it’s late November and STILL hot and sunny enough that it can be brutal even walking the few blocks from the station to wherever you want to go. I’d recommend being prepared with your sunscreen, water, sunglasses, whatever. Miami Heat’s not just a basketball team.

Ate Amazing Food

not a single miss!!!!!!

I would definitely not consider myself a “foodie” — like I legit think Olive Garden is a great way to treat yourself and sometimes get so nervous at *fancy* restaurants that I just copy the other person’s order exactly — but we did pretty all right for ourselves in Miami (again, largely thanks to my friend’s expertise). We got breakfast at The Daily Creative Food Co., where I ordered the “New Yorican” sandwich with scrambled egg, chorizo, provolone, plantain, and spicy mayo. So good I went back and ordered it again the next day, which is the highest compliment I can give a place! I’m not scared to order something twice if I’m out of town and unsure I’ll ever have the chance to eat it again!

At the Miami Book Fair, we got tacos from one of the food trucks and then I had some ice cream and churro. Can’t go wrong.

I would have to change like 18 different things in my life to pull off this jacket (starting with, I should probably live in Miami) but it’s pretty iconic

Then we took the Metromover out to Piola in Brickell because my friend remembered a pasta dish she used to love there (the penne rosate, with smoked salmon and a cream tomato sauce with parsley) and if there’s one thing I love to do, it’s try to track down something you’ve had before and remember well and want to experience again. It was delicious, as was the salad we also ordered! My favorite kind of trip is one where you eat well AND spend the entire time gassing yourself up about how fucking well you’re eating, so win-win!

Attended a Romance Panel

I only really attended the Miami Book Fair on Sunday, and between walking around and my own signing I was only able to catch one panel — “The Art of Romance” with TJ Alexander, J.J.Arias, Liana De la Rosa, Adriana Herrera, K. Arsenault Rivera, and Analeigh Sbrana, moderated by Danica Nava. What a panel to catch tho! The authors were all so thoughtful and hilarious and inspiring. I’ve seen Adriana speak on several panels by now and I always come away with such love and respect for romance and what she does in the genre specifically — I also just really love her speaking voice, if I’m being honest. At one point, when discussing romance as a feminist genre, she said in her m/f books she sees the man at the beginning as the patriarchy and her job is to “break him down into pieces.” She also talked a lot about how she’s very mission-driven and one of her missions is to show black and brown women being adored the way they deserve. Liana De la Rosa is one of my favorite writers and people — I had the honor of being on a couple panels with her at the Tucson Festival of Books earlier this year! — and she talked about loving that *moment* in romance where you feel all giddy, and how one of the joys of writing is knowing you’ll have those moments but not always knowing how they’ll happen until you get there. At one point someone asked TJ Alexander about keeping track of where everyone’s limbs were in a polyamorous scene and they said “that’s a copyeditor’s problem” lol. It was a really good panel, is my point!!! And Danica did a great job moderating and I got to (very briefly) say hi in person, which is always nice.

Signed Books at the Steamy Lit Booth

Mel at the Steamy Lit Booth!

The only reason I was at the Miami Book Fair at all was because of Mel at Steamy Lit, so of course I had to give a shout out with this cute picture! Steamy Lit has a location in Deerfield Beach I’ve been to several times, but they’re also opening a new store in Tampa in less than a week. Very exciting news for romance lovers in my area! I got to meet lots of Miami-based readers while signing books, and also hung out with Jayne Allen and K. Arsenault Rivera who were signing at the same time. I also just happened to run into one of my faves, Celestine Martin, who signed a copy of her latest book Deja Brew for me.

Went to the Miami Public Library

My friend is a librarian, and of course we both love books, so on Monday before we had to catch our train back we decided to visit the Miami Public Library downtown. It’s a really beautiful building, with lots of Spanish tile and vibrant art inside. We even saw a few books in the children’s section by Micol Ostow, who was the YA author who taught that workshop where we met all those years ago! If you want to know my two main memories from that class (other than it obviously giving me this most precious friendship):

1. I was once talking with Micol about a fellow YA author who I really liked, who she happened to be friends with, and she said, “You’d be surprised by what she looks like in real life compared to her author photo” and I think about that an INORDINATE amount. I want to specify that the implication was not that this author looked worse or anything like that, just that there was something about her face in motion versus her face in a picture that was so different. Now I just can’t stop thinking about it. I wonder what that author looked like in real life at that time. I wonder how many authors look exactly as you’d expect from their photos, and how many surprise you in some way. I don’t think about my own author photo or I’d have to go lie down.

2. I had these really rustle-y black pants I wore a lot back then, I have no idea why. I think I thought they were “dressy” enough to pass as pants I could also wear to work? But I became very self-conscious about how much I was “rustling” as I sat next to this woman in class, and so at one point I leaned over to be like, “Hey, sorry about the rustling” but in that way where I expected her to be like, “Oh no problem at all!” or “I didn’t even notice!” or “haha it IS pretty funny, let’s laugh about it together” but instead she just gave me the dirtiest look like “ugh YES you are so rustle-y it is driving me out of my mind” and that look has also stayed with me even though I myself am very sensitive to sounds so I can’t really blame her.

Saw Some Stuff

This was really just my excuse to show off the roosters that were hanging out at the Metromover station (they just hopped on up the stairs and started cock-a-doodle-dooing at us from the tree!); a payphone booth (I saw like THREE payphones in Miami which is more payphones than I’ve seen in a long time); a sign in the hotel elevator warning us not to jump (would not have even occurred to me but suddenly I was DYING to jump! I want to know more about this fine! I want to know how often they’ve had to deal with this! I want to know why the guy on the right looks more like he’s floating in a pool!); and a little framed picture of young Henry Flagler at the Brightline station (the placard had to make sure you knew what a hottie he used to be????)

I’m already getting the warning that this post is too long for email, but I have one story about this friend of mine that I want to share with you because it’s just so wild. So, I already told you that we met at this Miami writing workshop. Since she lived in Miami and I was just staying there for a few days, at one point she gave me a ride somewhere, and we stopped by her apartment first. I got to very briefly meet her two-year-old and her husband, who honestly looked vaguely familiar to me? But I figured it was just because he had very distinctive curly blond hair, the kind of hair that if you’d ever known someone with that kind of hair you’d forever be reminded of them if you ever saw it on someone else.

Cut to: years later. I couldn’t even tell you how many but I’d had a baby by then, she’d had another baby, I’d stayed with her down in Miami and gotten to know her whole family pretty well, including her husband. We were talking on the phone one night and somehow got on the subject of the halcyon AOL chatroom days of our youth. She said her husband used to be pretty active on AOL, and even had some embarrassing emo screen name.

Suddenly, it all hit me at once. *I* had a very embarrassing goth little AOL screen name (no, I am not going to share it). I used to talk to this kid from Lakeland, also with a now-hilariously-melodramatic screen name, mostly about our shared musical taste. I saw him at a couple punk shows, with his distinctive blond curly hair, even though we never spoke in person. (Later we’d just message each other like, “I think I saw you at Warped Tour yesterday?”). In fact, we even talked about him driving up to visit this girl he’d started seeing, who was already in college (we were seniors in high school at this point) and I teased him about it because oooooh an older woman! THAT COLLEGE GIRL WAS MY NOW-FRIEND! WHO I WOULD MEET IN MIAMI YEARS LATER HAVING NO IDEA IT WOULD ALSO PUT ME BACK IN TOUCH WITH THIS PERSON FROM AOL I’D LOST TOUCH WITH A LONG TIME BEFORE!

I don’t know, I worry I’m not telling this story very well but it blows my mind every time I think of it. It really does feel like fate somehow, to me, that we would be in each other’s lives the way we are now.

If I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling so jaded about writing lately. And this weekend really reminded me of a couple things: first, that I’m not really jaded about writing at all, because I love writing. I’ve been feeling jaded about publishing, which is a whole separate thing.

And second, that I really don’t want to feel this way. I think back to those Past Mes — the one rustling in that YA writing workshop; the one crying in a Nashville Airbnb because I’d just gotten a pretty rough query rejection; the one sitting in a St. Pete coffeeshop feeling so stuck and stalled out and telling myself you know what, just start writing this ill-advised adult romance sequel to a YA romance that no one actually wanted lololol and see what happens which turned out to be the kick-start that got me back into the adult romance genre at all. And I think, goddamn, you’re signing books at the Miami Book Fair what the fuck are you so jaded about?!?!

this came across my instagram feed today and it felt a little too fitting lolol

Obviously, it’s possible in any career to get burned out, or to have bad days, or to deal with various things that get you down. I don’t want to minimize that or pretend I’ll never feel that way again. This is not a toxic positivity post, I promise.

My friend was the one who’d recommended Maria Bamford’s memoir to me, so we discussed it a little while we were hanging out. And she brought up this other skit of Maria’s, where she talked about how it felt to ask a couple how they’d met and the couple is like “oh, we were just introduced by a mutual friend . . .” or whatever in this offhand way, and Maria couldn’t BELIEVE how blasé they could be about something so MAGICAL as this moment where you meet the person who most completes you in your life. “Oh, I’m sorry if you’re bored with your miracle!!!”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this weekend was a really good reminder of that, not to let ourselves get too bored by our own miracles. Whether it’s finishing a book or publishing a book or having a book touch one single other person in the world, or whether it’s the way someone deeply important to you managed to come into your life, it’s all pretty beautiful, huh?

What Micah (from my next book) might see out of her hotel room window the morning she’s about to leave on a cruise that will absolutely change her life. She and John never get bored of their miracle, I promise you that.

I’m so excited to talk more about Never Been Shipped in the next few months, but in the meantime, a reminder that you can preorder from Tombolo Books and I’ll sign your book any way you want (just put any personalization requests in the comments of your order!) and also include some swag (TBD but I’m very excited by what I’m planning!). In fact, if you order any of my books from Tombolo and put comments in the order as to how you want them personalized by December 13? or so?, I’d be happy to sign them any way you wanted. Could make a good gift for the holidays!

Currently reading . . . I just finished the audiobook of Minka Kelly’s memoir, Tell Me Everything. This was such an unexpectedly powerful book to me. I didn’t know much about Minka Kelly beyond that she’s very pretty and she played Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights, but goddamn she really went through a lot in her life. I listened to this book almost entirely based on what Jess said about it in her newsletter Completely Booked, because I trust Jess’ taste implicitly but ESPECIALLY in matters of celebrity memoir. Jess said that her therapist calls the actress her “friend Minka” because of how often Jess cites her in therapy hahaha and I totally get it because I spent this whole weekend hanging out with my friend saying things like, “oooh, tamales, did you know that Minka Kelly’s family in Albuquerque had a special tamale recipe . . .” or “you know, Minka also dealt with that in her childhood which is why . . .” I also had so many therapeutic-esque epiphanies while reading the book that I legit have to sit with them for a minute. It feels so cheesy to say that Minka Kelly’s memoir might’ve changed my life but fuck, it might’ve changed my life?

watching . . . I’m still watching Derry Girls and loving it! I’m about halfway through the second season now.

listening to . . . I finished one podcast about Michael Jackson and I’m on to another one already. My daughter also made me a playlist that includes songs by Kate Bush, Marina and the Diamonds, Tally Hall, and then a bunch of songs in other languages (French, Spanish, Japanese) because she says she really likes that. I realized I never said why I chose this week’s song, and I’m sorry for burying it all the way down here but it’s because I was trying to think like, what song reminds me of this particular friend, and in those early days when we were driving around Miami I feel like we were always listening to Santigold!!! This song makes me nostalgic for those days any time I hear it.