it's just a spark, but it's enough to keep me going

Many — and I do mean MANY — an emo night for me has started with Hayley Williams saying, “This next song is called ‘Last Hope.’”

This song is an absolute anthem. I cry approximately 7/10 times I hear it and the remaining 3/10 times, well, what can I tell you. Occasionally I feel dead inside.

It is also the perfect distillation of my emotions around the creative process — and especially the publishing experience. So let’s unpack it, shall we?

I don’t even know myself at all/I thought I would be happy by now

But the more I try to push it, I realize/Gotta let go of control

“I thought I would be happy by now.” Ooof. I feel that “by now” in my gut. No matter how many times people warn you about how the goalposts keep moving, how once you land the agent you’ll be worried about the book deal, once you get the book deal you’ll be worried about marketing, once the book’s out there you’ll be worried about the reviews, and on and on and on . . . I think there’s always this temptation to see happiness or success as some kind of end point. When the truth is more that they move and shift, too, and aren’t places where you can plant a flag and claim the land as yours.

And letting go is the hardest part. Another piece of advice I hear all the time (and agree with!) is the idea of setting goals for yourself that are achievable, that are within your control. You can’t CONTROL how many agents request your manuscript, or how much your advance is, or whether your book is a bestseller. But I understand the frustration behind that, too, the sheer agony of wanting something so badly but knowing that you’re playing a game that is at least part chance.

It’s just a spark, but it’s enough/to keep me going

And when it’s dark out, no one’s around/it keeps glowing

CHEESEBALL ALERT this line is so important to me, I have “it’s just a spark” tattooed on my forearm. In the same spot that Hayley has her “accentuate the positive/eliminate the negative” tattoo. My sister and I got the tattoos together, and when I sent the description over to the tattoo artist I included a link to this video, all casual like “just in case you want to get the vibe,” aka please just enjoy this perfect 5:27 minutes of music with me, and then when we showed up she was like, “I didn’t watch the video, but you want the words and a spark-like thing, I got it.” She was super nice and did a great job. But also, if I send you this video it is my heart reaching out to your heart and I just really want you to watch it. /END CHEESEBALL ALERT.

A lot of you might not know this, but LOVE IN THE TIME OF SERIAL KILLERS isn’t my first book. It’s my adult romance debut, and it feels kind of like my first book because the last time I published anything was *checks calendar* ten years ago. If you think I took ten years off because I just wanted to spend Time with My Family or Work on My Craft, well . . . I didn’t. I mean, I did spend time with my family, and I did work on my craft, but I wanted to be publishing books at the same time! But it just wasn’t happening, for a variety of reasons, some of which probably deserve their own newsletter at some point, who knows.

Suffice to say, there were SO many little sparks along the way that kept me going. Sometimes it would be having a friend read my work, and tell me that a certain part made them laugh or cry. Sometimes it would be a random person tweeting at me telling me how much they enjoyed my first book. (Okay, to be fair, maybe two people did this? And now I’m really good friends with both of them lol.)

Once, I was visiting Nashville with a friend when I got an email from an agent who sounded really excited about a YA novel I’d queried, asking me all these follow-up questions. What other genres did I want to write in? What other projects did I have on the back burner? Did I have a vision for my career? I closed myself in the AirBnB bedroom for a half hour and jabbed out my response on my phone, staring out the window at the city lights and allowing myself to dream. Did I have a vision!!!

Or there was another agent, who repped an author whose book I’d recently read and fallen in love with. She’d requested a partial and then, days later, upgraded it to a full with a note: “I love your writing! You really have a great handle on the teenage voice.” (I can type this from memory.) I got the email on a Friday afternoon at work just as I was putting the finishing touches on a big appeal brief we had to file, and when I tell you I felt like Melanie Griffith at the end of Working Girl putting her feet up on her own desk like the bad bitch she was! Look at me absolutely KILLING it in every way possible! So many sparks this shit’s about to catch fire!

Those agents both ended up rejecting the manuscript.

As did another agent, another, another, this time I got close with a second read but I was too much like something else on their list, this time I got a lovely email where she complimented my “gentle melancholy” (SORRY IF I’M BRAGGING BUT THIS IS LITERALLY THE PHOEBE BRIDGERS VIBE I’M ALWAYS GOING FOR), another agent who sent a hilarious “sorry it took so long to get back to you but I guess that just shows how little I’m into it” email, and on and on.

Lots of sparks. No fire.

Anyway, back to Paramore. All of this is why I think the most crucial line in possibly the whole song is in this part, where she says, “And when it’s dark out, no one’s around . . . it keeps glowing.” Because those are the sparks we have to flame. Those are the ones that keep us going. The ones where it’s just us, and our laptops and our words and our snacks and our music and our faces making the same dumb expressions as our characters as we try to work out a scene. Those are the sparks that get me through it, even now. Even post-agent, post-book deal, whatever.

CHEESEBALL ALERT if you want to know when I usually start to cry it’s when she says, “Come on, Chicago!!!” and her voice breaks /END CHEESEBALL ALERT OR SHOULD I JUST LEAVE IT OPEN AT THIS POINT

And every night I try my best to dream/tomorrow makes it better

Then I wake up to the cold reality/That not a thing has changed

The vibes of this video are perfect, by the way. The giant wall of lights in the background, Hayley’s hair, that boxer get-up that she wore for every single date on that co-headlining tour with Fall Out Boy, the part when she covers her eyes when singing “so if I keep my eyes closed with a blind hope,” I know we have Mixed Feelings about Jeremy Davis at this point but this is still one of the sickest Paramore bass lines, when the camera shakes as it spans over the crowd as they’re getting into it, that second where the camera goes in and out of focus on Taylor playing guitar, Taylor’s hair, basically there’s a lot of great hair in this video.

And the salt in my wounds isn’t burning any more than it used to

It’s not that I don’t feel the pain, it’s just I’m not afraid of hurting anymore

OOOOOOF.

And the blood in these veins isn’t pumping any less than it ever has

And that’s the hope I have, the only thing I know that’s keeping me alive

(If you want to know my Crying Pivot Point #2, it’s usually the way she sings that second line.)

When artists are behind an instrument and then they get up! Just them and the mic, pumping up that crowd! I’m a simple man because that does it for me every time. Strongly felt emotion in music is all I care about!

I know from my deep knowledge of Paramore lore (okay, mostly Parahoy cruise ship Q&A’s) that “Last Hope” was one of the hardest songs for them to write on their self-titled album. They said it just took a while to come together, and there was something they had to “crack” about it before it worked. I also know that Hayley’s blue-haired period is one she’s talked about as being a particular low point for her, emotionally, and that behind the scenes her long-time friend and stylist literally cried at one point because he thought he was destroying her hair with all the dye.

I hope that the art that other people create, the art that sparks something in me, can spark something in themselves, too. I hope that this song still has some power to get Paramore through tough times the way it gets me through tough times. Because sometimes we have to find the spark in our own work, ya know? Isn’t that at the heart of why we create?

If you’ve read this far, I appreciate you! And I would love to be able to provide some little spark for you, however small. If you’re currently querying or about to query and would like some feedback on your query letter, reply to this email and I’d be happy to help! Or just in general, if you want to reach out across the internet divide, I’d love to hear from you. I’ve had this song on repeat so I’m ready to get all Cheeseball with anyone who’ll listen.

Currently reading . . . A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant. I’m loving it so far. Very unique historical romance where the heroine Lydia is a kept woman and the book basically opens with the love interest stuck Will hiding out in the library while Lydia meets up with her lover for a quick assignation. She’s a whiz at vingt-et-un and wants Will to join her in a card counting scheme, and the book includes a scene where she essentially explains the Monty Hall problem to him and he, predictably, is like, “That makes no goddamn sense.” Things I never thought I’d find in a historical romance! A brief moment of voyeurism/exhibitionism while she hooks up with another man, and an explanation of the Monty Hall problem that was more entertaining than the one Ask Marilyn provided in her column that fascinated me years ago. (No offense to Marilyn, since it still caught my attention.) Highly recommend if you enjoy historical romance.

watching . . . the fourth season of Seinfeld. I reached the one with the classic gif of them all dancing and freaking out at the door of Jerry’s apartment, and it felt like coming home. A small detail I really love is how Jerry always unlocks and opens his apartment door after someone buzzes to come up. I know you’re not really supposed to root for the characters per se, but I do always appreciate shows about groups of friends where they actually seem like friends.

listening to . . . “Hello Cold World” by Paramore which is actually a HINT as to Book #2 scheduled for 2023!