in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with

"ever fallen in love (with someone you shouldn't've)" by the buzzcocks & the manuscript I still think about

I love writing. I need reminding of that sometimes, like right now, when I’m in the middle of drafting and everything seems hard. But when I’m in it, man.

Nothing feels better.

I go to bed dreaming about these fictional people who are so real to me; I wake up in the morning and get my daughter off to school and then go back to bed for 15 extra minutes of what I lovingly call my “weakness,” but which is really just a chance to daydream about my characters a little more. I drive to work listening to playlists of songs that remind me of them. And then sometimes, every once in a while, I actually sit at my computer and write some of the stuff in my head down.

(That’s a bit of a self-roast. I should be working on my novel right now, probably.)

One of the hardest parts of writing, to me, is you can’t always control those feelings. Sometimes you have a project you just fall out of love with, and you’re not sure why or how to get it back. And sometimes you have a project you love SO MUCH and yet . . . you have to let it go.

Around five years ago, I wrote this YA novel. It was set in 1983 and about this girl Jay, and . . . you know what, indulge me for a minute, I’m going to paste the query below because it will do a better job of explaining it all.

I’m still proud of this query! I think it’s a really strong query letter! If you’re querying dual POV in particular you can basically copy the format — brief punch-y description; who is person A and what do they want/what’re they missing; repeat for person B, bring ‘em together and get at the main emotional conflict, some housekeeping, add your bio and “Pasted below are the first ten pages per your guidelines” or what have you and ba-da-boom you have yourself a query letter.

At the time I wrote the novel, I had an agent. She was very respected in the industry, I’d been with her at that point for 12 (!) years, she’d sold books for me before. I’m very grateful for everything she did for me and my early career. When I went to NYC last fall, I was surprised at how sad I felt, actually, because it just felt weird to be in the city and not see her. I’d gone to the city five or six times while she represented me, and she would always take me somewhere very fancy (my favorite was The Modern in MoMA!) where I’d stress copy her order (something I do) except that I’d order still water instead of sparkling and somehow that one decision would make me feel like I was a real Country Mouse type of situation.

Anyway.

I loved this book so much, I believed in it so much, that I ended up leaving that agent over it. (It’s more complicated than that, of course, but basically: I was looking for someone who’d really champion the book and I’d lost confidence that she would.) It was one of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever made.

(btw, something I wish I’d known then that I’ll share with you now in case YOU need to hear it . . . a LOT of authors are on their second, third, fourth agents. It’s not that uncommon. There are any number of reasons agents and authors part ways — not even all bad ones! — and you should always know that’s an option available to you.)

So the phone call was tough, but it was okay! I felt empowered! I had this book I loved, that I believed in, I’d query the shit out of it and surely it would get picked up! What an exciting time, actually!!

QUERYING MONTAGE

(I bet we could Stephan Jenkins to write the original score for this)

-Alicia sends out flurry of queries, lovingly tracked in BOTH QueryTracker and a bespoke spreadsheet

-text on screen: One Agent, 2 Days After Receiving Partial: “I love your writing! You really have a great handle on the teenage voice! Can you send the rest?” [on screen: Alicia pumping her fist and spinning around in her desk chair like she’s Melanie Griffith at the end of Working Girl] Stamp: REJECTED

-text on screen: Another Agent, Halfway Through Reading Full: “Just a quick note to let you know that I’m really enjoying this story . . . would you be willing to send me a short note describing your other work(s) in progress?” [on screen: Alicia holding up her finger to the friend she’s currently vacationing with, in a “just a minute” gesture while she holes herself up in the worst AirBnB room you’ve ever seen, grinning while she writes out what will surely be an email she will look back on fondly as the One Where She Just Knew It Was About to Happen] Stamp: REJECTED

-text on screen: Another Agent, after 9 Months of Having the Full and Several Nudges: “I'm very sorry for my slowness in getting back to you! I think part of my slowness was because I picked this up so many times and kept setting it aside, just never quite able to be fully immersed.” [on screen: *note to producer - check how giving the middle finger on camera affects overall MPAA rating*] Stamp: REJECTED

I have so many of these. I could go on for a billion years. The basic gist is: my query worked. I had such a good request rate! I got so many kind responses! (One agent who will forever be my favorite said my work had such a “gentle melancholy” to it — your girl listens to Phoebe Bridgers and it shows!)

Unfortunately, they all boiled down to . . . no.

The main reason cited was the setting. They just could not sell a YA set in 1983. (I’m sorry, I’m still a little salty about this so I just have to point it out: THAT WAS IN THE FIRST LINE OF MY QUERY. The setting wasn’t a surprise?) I had two agents basically offer me a soft R&R (Revise & Resubmit), saying if I could rewrite it as a contemporary they’d be willing to take another look.

But I couldn’t do it. The book I’d fallen in love with was set in 1983, and to me it had to be that way. Jay’s love of that era of punk music, the way they connected over landline calls with no cell phones or social media in sight, the fact that in my head canon Jay was born February 20, 1967, making her 16 when the story takes place and more importantly BIRTHDAY TWINS WITH KURT COBAIN . . . I mean. It just wasn’t the same book if I changed the setting.

So I trunked it. Let it linger in my Google docs. Whatever the equivalent is. I set that book aside, and I wrote another YA (went nowhere), an ill-advised adult sequel to that same YA (went nowhere), and then, finally, Love in the Time of Serial Killers.

And for years, when I saw agents or authors tweeting out inspirational quotes about “Just write the book of your heart. We all need that book” I was like, THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING!

This is no shade on anyone who’s ever given that advice, by the way. It’s solid! You SHOULD write the book of your heart! If for no other reason than because I think you need that story, and you’ll probably have more fun writing it than the alternative. But yeah, it can be tough to hear over and over when people make it sound like The Book of Your Heart automatically equals The Book That Will Get You Published when . . . that’s not always true.

But also — guess what? You can have more books of your heart. I promise you. And in SOME cases, you can even cannibalize the book of your heart and put little pieces of it in other stuff you write!

Not that I did that on purpose. But recently, as I was reading back through Call Me, I noticed a few details and beats that I ended up putting into With Love, from Cold World. (The male leads are both artists, both couples end up [redacted for spoilers], I describe eyes as more gray than blue, that kind of thing.) And I’m definitely having the chance to write through some of my “they’re secretly chatting, and SHE knows who HE is but HE doesn’t know who SHE is” shit that I love in my current manuscript.

For years, I’ve thought of Call Me as “the book I shouldn’t have fallen in love with.” It was set in 1983. It was doomed from the start.

And yet. I don’t regret it at all. I still love this fucking book, even though I see it more clearly now as the self-indulgent homage to A Cinderella Story; that scene in Empire Records when she shaves her head; the basketball scenes of One Tree Hill; eighties radio bops like “867-5309/Jenny” and punk classics like “Rise Above” by Black Flag; Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael; the energy of Watts in Some Kind of Wonderful; and a bunch of other stuff swirling around my head at the time. The only tattoo I have related to any of my books is for this one!

Every once in a while I think the most punk rock thing to do would just be to self-publish it in a limited print run, let all the proceeds go to some charity, save a couple to put on my shelf, and then put it to bed. But then other times I like that it still lives in this liminal space of limitless potential. It never got to be anything, so who knows. It could be whatever it wants.

And one plus? My references will never get dated!

I’m adding preorder links for Cold World (which is very, very much another book of my heart — I love it so much it’s unhealthy) because I guess I should be trying to sell that one, huh, instead of something that doesn’t exist! So, if you feel so inclined:

• you can preorder from anywhere, and then fill out my Google form;

• you can preorder the B&N exclusive edition (featuring an alternate color cover and an essay I wrote about Paramore), and then fill out my Google form;

• you can preorder from my local indie, Tombolo Books, which means you get the swag automatically with no need to fill out any extra form! Also make sure you write any personalization notes in the comment section of your order — if you have anything you particularly want me to write or doodle, let me know!; or

• if you happen to be local to Tampa/St. Pete, you can preorder and RSVP to my launch event at Tombolo the evening of August 1, 2023 all in one go!

Currently reading . . . Recently I posted a stack of books I’ve had hanging out in my work area for a while, in the Golden Age when I had easy access to a Little Free Library I could walk to during my lunch hour. I asked which one I should read first, and the majority of people recommended The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. They said it was a gripping, fast read and that’s exactly what it is! You know what set-up I will never get sick of I mean I will NEVER get sick of? “Something weird happened x years ago and now it’s happening again.” Or “X years ago, this weird thing happened, and now someone tangentially related in some way needs to investigate to address some Personal Wound but also oh no, it might happen again.” POUR IT DOWN MY GULLET.

watching . . . My husband and I wrapped up the first two seasons of Money Heist and what a ride!! I just love this show so much. It’s just a bunch of robbers and a bunch of police, and they’re all so passionate about what they do, and every time you think one’s got the edge over the other SORPRESA! This is a good place to mention that today is actually my wedding anniversary (this only just occurred to me lol) and you know who I absolutely did fall in love with and it’s good, I should’ve actually? My husband, who I met at a local punk record store, when he was like 18 playing guitar in a band and I was standing all by myself because I was like 16 and didn’t know anyone and when he came over to talk to me I said, “I’m standing alone for a reason.” I guess all these years later I’m glad he kept talking to me.

listening to . . . “Bryan’s Punk Mix” aka sometimes when I want to torture myself aka when I want to listen to a fucking BANGER punk mix if I do say so myself — I listen to the “mix tape” that Jay made for Bryan in my story. It starts with “F**ck Armageddon…This Is Hell” by Bad Religion, features Black Flag and The Clash and The Dickies and Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys and Zero Boys and Sex Pistols and ends with, what else, “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve),” which Bryan tries to decide is some kind of Message.