WITH LOVE, FROM COLD WORLD is here!!
It’s finally here! The day WITH LOVE, FROM COLD WORLD is out stores! If you’re wondering how I’m feeling right now, I think Paramore said it best in “Hello Cold World”:
I feel happy, I feel sad/I feel like runnin’ through the walls/I’m overjoyed, I’m undecided/I don’t know who I am/Well, maybe I’m not perfect/At least I’m working on it
I always have a lot of mixed emotions around big events like this, not because I’m not happy or proud of the book (I really, really am), but because . . . idk how to have emotions that aren’t mixed, I guess? Every book is such a labor of love, emphasis on the love but also the LABOR.
It always fascinates me as a writer, to read other people’s books and wonder what was going on underneath the surface as they were writing. How that might’ve affected the overall book; what ways it bled through and what ways you’d never be able to tell. And as a writer (especially a semi-pantser, who often sits down at my desk with only a vague idea of what might come out), I always think about how I could’ve only written a particular book in the exact way I wrote it at that exact time.
So, with that in mind, I thought I’d share with you a few of the things happening behind-the-scenes during the writing of With Love, from Cold World, all of which very much shaped it into the book that’s now out on shelves:
The origin of this book goes way, way back — to when Paramore came out with “Hello Cold World” as part of their Singles Club and I started thinking, huh, “Cold World.” That would be an interesting place. What would that place be like? It was the spark of an idea percolating on the back burner, but I never took it much further than that.
Cut to: December 2020. I had just finished drafting Love in the Time of Serial Killers in September, had submitted it to Pitch Wars and found out I didn’t make it in by October, and was now querying it with some agents. They tell you to “write the wait” — advice I don’t always listen to because I do what I want!!! — but. In this case, I was in the mood to write a fun Christmas romance. I’ve always wanted to write a Christmas romance! And maybe that doesn’t make any sense after a book about true crime, but again, I do what I want!!!! This is one of the benefits to not being agented or under a book contract by the way — you can really write for yourself in a way that gets trickier once your work is Out There.
So I made myself a playlist of a LOT of Christmas songs (my kids were so shocked — they were like, are we actually . . . listening to seasonal music?! Which then immediately made me feel like a piece of shit for not making my house a Pinterest-worthy Winter Wonderland all these years I HAVE VERY COMPLICATED FEELINGS ABOUT CHRISTMAS THAT I PUT INTO THIS BOOK).
Anyway. I had my Christmas music playlist; I wrote out all the lyrics to Paramore’s “Hello Cold World” on the first page of my notebook to get me all limbered up, and I was ready to go.
I knew who Asa and Lauren were pretty much right away. She’s very reserved and by-the-book and he calls her a robot; he’s very easygoing and playful and she thinks of him as a clown. I went back and forth a bit on whether the book would be dual POV or not — maybe one day I’ll write a whole newsletter where I tell you what went into that decision. But once I wrote his perspective I really couldn’t imagine it any other way, so you’ll notice that the book is third-person dual POV (as opposed to LITTOSK, which was first-person single POV).
The pandemic influenced this book a lot. It is not explicitly referenced in the book, don’t worry — in fact, there’s a running thing where Lauren and Asa keep sharing drinks and at one point I wrote in my notebook: “haha sharing a cup in the middle of Covid . . . COULDN’T BE ME!”
But that first year of it in 2020 got me leaning even harder into my own routines and systems, in a way that informed Lauren’s character. (For example, best believe that the first thing I’m doing on August 1 to celebrate this book release is logging onto my budgeting app and lovingly assigning every dollar a job for the upcoming month, which is very Lauren of me.) It got me thinking a lot about working in an office, and how weird the dynamics could be between coworkers who see each other all the time but don’t necessarily know each other outside of that context.
I was also thinking a lot about the economy (MY FUCKING CURSE) and support networks. How we have these hierarchies in mind of what’s a “good” job versus not (Asa is aware that most people wouldn’t think much of him being 28 and still working at Cold World!), but it was often those people in frontline retail/restaurant/healthcare jobs we were all relying on to keep the country going. They’re good jobs. The fact that they’re not valued by our society with better money or benefits doesn’t reflect on the jobs; it reflects on our society. How we also have these ideas around what it means to be an “adult,” how you’re expected to live on your own by a certain age. But then the pandemic showed us how helpful communal living could be, money-wise and support-wise and mental health-wise. Asa’s relationship with his housemates is a feature, not a bug.
There were also volunteer things I’d been doing pre-pandemic that really changed, both in what I was able to do from a logistical standpoint and from my own emotional bandwidth. Those experiences inspired parts of Cold World, too, because they were on my mind a lot.
In a wild twist, I got THE email from my now-agent, asking to set up THE call, on THE most auspicious of days — December 13, 2020. (THAT’S RIGHT TAYLOR SWIFT’S BIRTHDAY!!! WEIRD BUT FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!) Per my notebook, I was about 11k into the manuscript by that point, and I mentioned it in passing on the call when she asked what else I was working on. “Sounds like Adventureland!” she said, and I remembered watching that movie a long time ago and generally liking it, so I just said, “Yes!” without any real idea if my book was, in fact, anything like Adventureland.
Once I was agented, Love in the Time of Serial Killers sold relatively quickly. I jumped on a call with my now-editor on January 28, 2021, and we mostly talked about LITTOSK but I had the chance to pitch my rivals-to-lovers Christmas fake-winter-attraction in Florida idea over the phone. I mentioned the inspiration from Snowcat Ridge, and she pulled up the website while we were on the call, which I took as very encouraging! (Us writers are looking for ANY encouragement we can get during these early interactions, I stg. I also remember me telling her I loved Berkley romances and literally going down my shelf and naming all the ones that were my favorites, and at one point she was like, “Wow, you really do know your romance!” and because I’m me I was 95% preening that she saw my Love and Knowledge of the Genre and 5% irritated that I’d been interrupted while I was on a roll naming books. I think I was alphabetizing by author at that time in my life, so picture me like, “The Roommate by Rosie Danan,” and her like, “Wow, you really do know your romance!” and me like “. . . Anyway, where was I, Well Met by Jen DeLuca . . .” hahaha I am SO awkward on the phone.)
By that phone call, I was about 59k into the manuscript, which is NOT BAD as far as progress goes! I was like, damn, you’ve got this! You’re cooking, baby!
And then Life Stuff started getting in the way. There was Book Stuff now that LITTOSK was under contract, with rounds of edits. There was Work Stuff going on. There was Home Stuff. So I took a long break from working on the book — about two months.
First, I took myself on a little overnight writing retreat in June 2021 to try to get back into it. I booked a Perfectly Fine hotel room at a Best Western in Wesley Chapel, where I could walk to an Outback and get food to go. I brought a copy of Grady Hendrix’s HorrorStor to read, which seemed like a weird vibe. On a whim, I searched for an old Christmas movie I remembered from my childhood to watch while I ate my dinner, a $7.99 Amazon charge I absolutely put into a spreadsheet to write off come tax time (Lauren would be proud!). The scene I wrote in that hotel room centered around that movie, and I thought, this is all probably extraneous, it’ll end up getting cut, why am I still talking about this fucking movie, but I actually love the way the scene came out and I’m glad it stayed in. And as weird and kinda sad I now feel when I look back on that night in the hotel room — the room so bland and lonely, the dinner so overpriced yet cold, the movie nostalgic but in a bittersweet way, me reading HorrorStor and thinking what the fuck is this (meant positively!), me happy I was writing again but still feeling like I didn’t write enough to justify the entire endeavor — I’m really grateful it gave me that scene. I don’t think it would’ve come out of me any other way.
Then something happened, it’s a long story and this newsletter is already so long, and I just . . . stopped working on the book at all. I focused on promoting LITTOSK and I shoved Cold World to the very bottom of my To Do list, even though I thought about Lauren and Asa all the time. I knew the ending I wanted to give them. I just . . . couldn’t do it yet.
There’s a single sentence in Cold World I notice every time I read it. Because I know that there’s roughly 8 months between that line and the one that comes directly after it. You wouldn’t know it — your eyes would skim right past. But *I* know it, and I always feel like I’m somehow passing through a portal when I move from one line to the next. I think of all that happened in those 8 months, all that needed to happen to get me to where I could give Lauren and Asa the ending they deserved. (For one thing, Harry’s House needed to come out, because “Matilda” unlocked part of it for me.)
ANYWAY. This was so much more than I intended to write. I’m already getting that itchy feeling, where I wonder if I should delete it all and let this stay a promo-only newsletter where I tell you that the book is out and where you can buy it and then I peace out. But then I think about the fact that I’ve been writing this for three hours and it’s technically August 1 already and “Party in the USA” is playing on my Cold World playlist and then rolling right into “Auld Land Syne.” Mixed feelings! Here they are!
So consider that the really long “how it started” part of the meme, and then below is a description of the final book so you can see how it’s going. You can now get With Love, from Cold World anywhere books are available, including the ebook or audiobook versions, or you can request at your local library!
Lauren Fox is the bookkeeper for Cold World, a tourist destination that’s always a winter wonderland despite being located in humid Orlando, Florida. Sure, it’s ranked way below any of the trademarked amusement parks, and maybe foot traffic could be better. But it’s a fun place to work, even if fun isn’t exactly Lauren’s middle name.
Her coworker Asa Williamson, on the other hand, is all about finding ways to enliven his days at Cold World — whether that means organizing the Secret Santa or teasing Lauren. When the owner asks Lauren and Asa to propose something (anything, really) to raise more revenue, their rivalry heats up as they compete to come up with the best idea. But the situation is more dire than they thought, and it might take these polar opposites working together to save the day. If Asa thought Lauren didn’t know how to enjoy herself, he’s surprised by how much he enjoys spending time with her. And if Lauren thought Asa wasn’t serious about anything, she’s surprised by how seriously he seems to take her.
As Lauren and Asa work to rescue their beloved wintry spot, they realize the real attraction might be the heat generating between them.
If you bought a ticket to my launch event at Tombolo Books, maybe I’ll see you tonight! It starts at 7pm and don’t worry, the Rays are playing in New York tonight so we won’t have to worry about that traffic. [THIS PARAGRAPH IS ALMOST WORD FOR WORD WHAT I SENT LAST YEAR I LOVE THAT THE RAYS ARE ALWAYS OUT OF TOWN ON PUB DAY! VERY CONVENIENT!]
I may have mixed emotions about a lot of things, but the love I have for Lauren and Asa is fierce and true. I love them so much. And I’m grateful for everyone else who’s shown their love for them in this lead-up to launch, and everyone who’s willing to meet them and hopefully fall in love, too. I’m really, really grateful!!
Congrats!!
Congratulations on your pub day! I can't wait to read this book, it sounds so fun. Thank you for offering a peek at your process for it; I love a view behind the scenes of how a book comes together.