I have moved the newsletter over to https://oliviaannegennaro.beehiiv.com/. I didn’t do a proper import because I wanted to start fresh, so this site still stands; however, I will not be updating it. If you subscribe here, I have automatically imported you to the new site. So you’ll get the newsletter, it just won’t look like Substack. Just wanted to make things crystal clear!

Thank you,

Olivia

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve, if that’s relevant to you!
Olivia

I’m a teacher again.

I’m a student again.

And I am…fine?

I’ve been waffling writing this for a while because this stage of my life is just beginning and and I always feel like I need to have some sort of closure before I reflect. Also, gestures at the wider world where more important and urgent things are happening.

But I am a writer. And I write this not really for self-promo right now, but to share and reflect with other writers.

Right now I’m in the middle of my four-day weekend thanks to the New Jersey Education Association convention, during which schools are closed. (It is too far away for me to go and the last thing I need right now is more work.) It has not gone exactly as I hoped. I put too much pressure on myself to be productive when I am supposed to have a break.

I have needed a break a little more than I realized, but overall, I am fine. This is important, because I stopped teaching the first go-round two years ago because my mental health forced me to stop. But now I have much more support at work (thanks, New Jersey) and a better work-life balance and support at home (thanks to Tay, my partner). Even then, when my colleagues ask how I’m doing, I often say “okay.” I feel muted sometimes. Maybe it’s another depressive episode? But I also know I am avoiding getting too excited about things because then what if I feel out of control like I did before? I can’t let teaching take over my life again. So I am measured and cautious and keep my emotions in check.

I’ve also finished my first grad school class and started my second, and I managed to balance all of that, too! (I am getting a Master’s in Special Education through a local university’s online program.) Even so, the one week I had in between classes I could feel a bit of a weight lifted from my responsibilities.

And I…haven’t been writing. This is the most I have written since school started. I think I was afraid, again. Afraid of getting caught up in something that demanded my attention which could lead to hyperfixation, which could lead to a lack of sleep, which could lead to a worsening mental health. Especially when the novel I am working on is so emotional. I had to even take a break after I wrote the following part of this newsletter to regulate my emotions.

But, also, sometimes writing can calm me down. I am not sure why I have these two different reactions at different times.

And yet, I am fine. I have had some rough mornings, but I’ve had nowhere near a panic attack at school. I got a good score on my first observation. I have become rather comfortable emailing parents. These are things that would have been massive causes of anxiety in the past. Heck, prior to last year just being inside a school brought a fresh wave of tortured memories. This is big for me.

I’m reading All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir right now because I can’t not read books that are emotionally intense apparently, and one of the character’s has struggled being completely honest in college essays which might be a detriment to her. It reminded me of my own frustrating college application experience. For the one school I applied to through Common App (I did get in, but didn’t go because it wasn’t where I really wanted to be), I think I wrote about how I wasn’t either an introvert or extrovert. (Because I did not yet understand the depths of my neurodiversity.) Boring, right? And my boyfriend at the time (we broke up that January after 2.5 years together, due to a large part the strain the college process put on us), wrote this funny thing about going to a Canadian museum and accidentally coming across some naked, sexual statues. And I was frustrated because I felt like I hadn’t had any Big Things happen to me yet, because I was 18 and my family rarely took “vacations” that weren’t to visit family. I didn’t have anything flashy. I barely understood my anxiety at the time, and it was so connected to school that wouldn’t it be a liability if I wrote about this big challenge that was still eating me alive?

And now, I have enough life experience to write compelling personal essays, but what I’ve been struggling with for over two years is that I am not always willing to share. Some things I want to keep to myself. Some things I don’t want to be consumable for others.

Maybe this is why I have gravitated back toward fiction. My main character in this novel I’ve been working on since 2019 has a new angle where I am unpacking the trauma she experienced from what happened to her, which isn’t what has ever happened to me, but emotionally it also is. The emotional truth is what fiction is about for me. (This also means it is rather heavy and difficult to write. I haven’t written so much as I am now in this newsletter since school started, not including my grad school papers which probably burnt me out on other writing).

This has made me decide to start journaling again.

This past Tuesday was an in-service day at school and I had some great discussions with the only male English teacher (gender is weird. I tend to get along with male teachers more in general…there is something culturally different there) about books and identity and everything. It made me reflect and I ended up typing out on my notes out an outline of What Happened when I lost my first teaching job back in Indiana. It’s a story I have told myself and some others over and over but not always completely truthfully or with full context. I still want to tell my mentor about it, because it impacts my approach to teaching so much. It is the reason I am just fine.

The good thing is that a lot of anti-LGBTQ school board candidates lost in New Jersey and nation wide. I feel some less despair, but we have such a fight ahead of us.

Let us have strength together.

Murray!!

If you don’t already know, my partner ’s debut novel (a queer magical middle grade novel-in-verse) is coming out next year. Specifically, we can now say, on May 21, 2024. It is available for pre-order and you can add it on Goodreads. And there is officially a cover now and I’m so glad I can share it because it is GORGEOUS (shoutout artist Sas Millidge). Also, she did an interview over at a fellow newsletter from !

I wouldn’t be promoting this so hard if this book didn’t mean a lot to me. It’s about surviving as a queer person by finding your people. And also, seeing Tay work (and reading along with her and correcting minor typos and grammar, lol) has inspired me, too.

A bit of a music coda…

Tay and I also went to the boygenius Madison Square Garden concert which was a beautiful experience that I’ll probably write about some other time. (I had to fight crying during “Please Stay” so hard…) But I mention it because Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker in their suits play a role in Murray…

(It’s my fault. I’ve been a fan since 2021 and introduced Tay. But now she is a giant Lucy Dacus and boygenius fan and it’s been so lovely to share these musical memories together.)

Music also plays a huge role in the novel I’m writing. It’s a part of the plot. Every chapter is named after a song. I have a playlist so gigantic I had to split it into five parts for every act of the novel. There is now a pivotal scene where a Julien Baker song plays a role, and because I love newsletters that end with a song (even if I admit I rarely click on them…), I think I’ll leave that song here:

I was going to write a little craft-related piece in July, but I got busy and it just wasn’t what I wanted to write. I like writing personal thoughts more, I guess—at least right now.

I’ve been sitting on some news that’s finally official and so I can finally talk about this experience of turning 26 and being at the precipice of change and a new stage of adulthood: I have a teaching job now (again), and I will also be pursuing grad school for certification and a Master’s in Teaching Students with Disabilities.

Because I live in America, a funny thing happened where I because I turned 26 in July, my parents' health insurance that I’ve been on dumped me at the end of July and my new job doesn’t start until September (because I now live in the part of the country that goes back to school after Labor Day), so I had to buy health insurance from the marketplace just for August. It was income-adjusted, but I think it’s gonna be a pain to cancel. Oh well, I have it, just in case. And I made it just under the wire to get a full-time job with benefits at this age where that is expected, apparently (unless you’re a freelancer/artist/multiple jobs worker, which the American healthcare system does not care). Shoutout to NJEA for negotiating for great benefits.

Back in Indiana, school is starting. On my Facebook page I see “Year 4 of Teaching!” selfies from friends I graduated college with. I see higher numbers from former colleagues. This year will be my Year 2, but with the caveat that I did not fully finish Year 1. I feel behind, and yet, I have grown.

I was freshly 23 when I started teaching, moving across Indiana to a small town where I got a nice apartment and proceeded to devote everything I had to teaching. This was how it was supposed to be. I was a straight A student my entire life. I struggled with some of student teaching, but I was offered the first job I interviewed for. So many teachers and friends loved me.

And then January 2021, the beginning of my second semester of teaching 7th graders in an already challenging COVID-era environment, I had some serious mental health struggles that did not clear up quickly—I wouldn’t know what was going on until August, months after I resigned at the beginning of April.

I have been trying to write about that since it happened, and maybe one day I will, but right now it is too sensitive and close. I have to prove that I can be a teacher, first. It isn’t fully in the past yet.

Looking at the number 26 still doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s the COVID effect, where everything after 2020 feels like it doesn’t count somehow, even though those are my formative adult years. Maybe it’s because it means I’m in the latter half of my 20s and I have only now just found proper stability in my life that was promised to me by my stellar schoolwork. I haven’t written nearly as much as I’d always wanted to.

But I’ve grown a lot in the past three years. I understand my mental health more and the ways I communicate best. I know I can’t make teaching my whole life. I feel like a proper adult now.

A little over a year ago, on my 25th birthday, I moved to New Jersey. This was perhaps a bigger change than this year, and there have been challenges, but I wouldn’t change my new life with for anything. Over this time, I’ve healed. I’ve been able to work in a school again. I work out regularly and go rock climbing and swim in the ocean. I’ve traveled (Portsmouth, New Hampshire is our new favorite).

So it’s summer now. I wrapped up summer school at my previous job last week, I have this week and next week mostly off, then New Teacher Orientation and vacation, then some babysitting. And then Labor Day weekend and…the first week of school! (I am thankful the first day is teacher-only.)

I always think I’m going to be super productive in the summer and get a lot of writing done. So far, this newsletter is the most writing I have done, though I have planned out and written a bit more of my novel. It’s weird, last time I had a break I got super into short fiction and poetry (I wrote about that time here), but this time? I just really want to finish this novel draft! (I have a little over 25k words so far.)

And yet, it’s hard to establish a proper routine for myself. I have this likely ADHD-related problem where if something is scheduled later in the day for me (which is most days), I have trouble committing to doing much before that time. I also notoriously have trouble prying myself away from remnants of dreams and getting up, waiting until it feels “right,” and then I get mad at myself that it is too late. As much as I want to treat writing as work, it doesn’t have the same boundaries as salaried/hourly jobs, for obvious reasons.

But also, I needed some rest.

And then I got my new teacher email and got sucked into a time hole of setting up accounts and exploring ideas for the new school year.

Instead of setting specific goals for myself, I’m going to focus on balance, I think. Consistent progress, not getting too obsessed with anything in particular. That is how I need to order my life.

And reading. Lots of reading.

Where does that leave this newsletter? I have a few larger essays I want to explore and polish up, mostly about music, but honestly my focus right now will be the novel and that process, as well as teaching. With my new job and grad school, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write—but I like having something like this once a month.

Until then,

Olivia

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Hello everyone,

First of all, I am now on Threads (the Instagram-powered Twitter alternative that is…hopefully an early version of what it will become). I am @books_bigideas on there, same as my Instagram. Also, if you found me from Threads, hi! I appreciate you!

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So, I had 2 weeks off from work (because I work at a school), and I took that time to be as focused on writing as much as possible. Of course, I had family visiting, two days at the beach, job searching stuff, and other family obligations—but I really tried to make writing my priority.

It started out with some pet projects. I discovered poetry helped me regulate my anxiety, as I wrote about in the last post. I started playing around with Chill Subs (really useful, once you bookmark things) and submitted a couple of poems for publication (one was probably already rejected; so it goes). I wrote some more and found a flash (ish?) fiction I had started two years ago that I really want to continue. And I read a ton of newsletters that had collected in my inbox the past few months. Some new faves are , , and .

But then…I found my way back to my novel. This wasn’t an original goal of mine, because I wanted something smaller, something that I would give me easier gratification. But I wrote probably about 2k words—not a ton, but I did get up to 25k total! And, more importantly, just by getting excited about reaching that milestone, I figured out some major plot points that I am writing toward. Like, I had a plan, but this plan is more concrete and better and still fits within the arc of my story. I knew these characters were going to have a fight to end the second act, but now I have a much more complex situation for them to fight about!

I’ve shared before how I struggle with word count goals, and I definitely do when it is consisted (“write 1000 words a day,” for instance), but with a milestone goal I felt more motivated. There was a destination I could reach, and it was close! I also have changed how I am thinking about writing this draft.

I tend to be careful and precious with drafts (to an extend…I tend not to name tertiary characters or places the first time around). Especially when I am reading high-quality fiction, I want to feel like I am crafting it! I want the words to sound right! I always feel like I’m writing with an imaginary audience peering over my shoulder. I have a tendency to skip scenes that aren’t working (especially transitions) instead of writing through them.

But instead, I started thinking of it as sketching. I am putting down words that might be useful later or might be erased, but overall I am trying to craft these scenes, so I’m throwing in setting descriptions, emotions and feelings, memories, and more. I can trim them later, but right now I’m throwing down ideas to round out these characters and this scene.

I also must recommend throwing in some weird quirky details that are ripped from your high school experience. Specifically, how your school’s thespians sold Singing Valentines every Valentine’s Day that would interrupt class and serenade/humiliate students. I usually avoid details, especially as the pertain to setting, so that was fun to write about.

I am planning to read more craft essays and books soon. I have an ARC of Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel, and I just bought Charlie Jane Anders’ Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories. I will report back with insights.

How is writing going for you?

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Recent reading recommendations

• I recently read Man O’War by Cory McCarthy and OH MAN WHAT A MASTERPIECE. I’ve never read a book like this, especially in YA (perhaps it could be considered a crossover…I didn’t write about it on that post because I want to give it more attention some other time, in a different context). This book stretches from sophomore year of high school to nearly the end of college (with a bonus epilogue even later), and it has these very strategic time-jumps that skip over some major decisions the main character makes surrounding coming out and transition. So we see River’s identity grow and shift as they unlearn internalized transphobia. This is all parallel to Indy, the love interest, who comes in and out of their life in this epic love story. This is an absolutely necessary, complex story about transmasculine identity. I know it was a Stonewall Honor but it needs MORE HYPE.

• I have also been listening to the audiobook of Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton, which has been a lot of fun. It was great to see Bloomington, Indiana show up!

• A Granta essay about writing and rock climbing by Natasha Calder…as someone who rock climbs, I have been thinking similar things!

• And this little essay, which reminded me of my partner and I:

  Cattywampus

  The Rhythm of a Relationship

  Every night, before bed, Stacy sweeps through the house checking for empty coffee mugs, half-full cups of tea, the occasional glass of seltzer with one sip left in it. She scoops it all up, loads it into the dishwasher, programs it to run in the night, and then gets up in the morning and puts all the clean dishes away first thing. I wake up at 6am to fe…

  Read more

  3 years ago · 9 likes · Heather Hogan

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I have been on a long personal test for about two and a half years. I have been thrown off my plan of life and scrambled around for stability; I have experienced deep pain and great euphoria; I have moved a third of the way across the country. Just when I thought I found that stability, things happened like…hitting a pothole and needing two new tires, for instance. (So many car expenses in the past year!)

At some point I might just accept that adult life is going to be this way. Even when I get that full-time teaching job, whether I have to wait until mid-year, or I get a long-term sub position, or I stick it out as an aide while pursuing special ed certification…something unexpected will always happen.

And somewhere in here, despite all of this, I have to write.

Writing has always been with me, but since high school it’s been on the backburner. School took priority. Teaching took priority. Figuring out what I wanted to write took priority. Moving took priority. Job applications have taken priority.

But every time I stray from writing, I fret about it. How old will I be when I finally publish a book? That’s a question that has loomed over me since I was in fifth grade, where I began the novel that I would finish less than a year later, still the first time I have ever fully completed a manuscript without skipping parts.

Focusing on the product rarely helps. I know this. The same problem has plagued me since I started routinely browsed calls for pitches and answered some, hoping to be published in an online publication (and make some money). I love the word freelance. I’ve been hoping to do that since I started working at a newspaper, in part because it didn’t pay sustainably. And yet, it’s constant admin work, constant ideas, constant pitching—and I can’t do that as much as I would hope with the shape of my life right now (with the exception of some time this summer, when school is out).

So I return here.

I have been working on a novel. I have been trying to make that the number one priority. But I still itch for those personal essays I half-wrote and rewrote when I didn’t think I could return to fiction, when this was the only kind of writing I could produce to make sense of myself. I opened up some Word docs full of poetry recently and updated my lists of where I might submit them (Chill Subs is truly life-changing!). I started a new poem. And I found that it calmed me down from the anxiety of job-searching.

I yearn to share my writing, my thoughts, my life. And yet, I am always careful, knowing just how vulnerable teachers especially are right now. Especially queer teachers. I have watched so much progress turn backward in the past two years, and I often struggle emotionally with that.

I have been applying to jobs. A lot of jobs. Specifically, to return to teaching English. When I started making demo lessons for a couple of interviews, I felt more like myself than I have in years. That’s the best way to describe this. I need to teach. I have so much left to give that was cut short by my health the first time. So I keep applying. And prepare backup options.

But I can’t lose sight of writing, I am learning. It keeps me anchored. Make no mistake, writing is work. This is what kept me away from it, led to me putting it off—especially my novel. I became preoccupied with word counts and how much editing would need to be done. I lost sight of the creation itself. I would take naps that always start with trying to pinpoint the ethereal quality of the mood of my book, or my main character’s journey, or an essay I want to write…I have a lot of the mood, but not a lot of the words down. And I want to change that.

As much as I tried to lean into things like #1000WordsOfSummer (hosted on ), I’m finding that what is more beneficial to me is to focus on the time I spend writing, rather than the word count. There is a place for word count, sure, but perhaps not when I am drafting. It also discourages me from working on poetry or shorter projects, which I am thriving in right now.

I also can’t talk about staying anchored without mentioning my partner, . It’s been almost a year since I moved in with her, but even before that we’ve been a team. Throughout the trials and tribulations of living in this world, we have each other. And through her, I’ve had a front row seat to the publishing process, which has helped motivate me, as well as making it all seem possible. (Add her book on Goodreads!!)

I’m writing this on a short summer break before I head back to my special ed teacher’s assistant job for a summer session. In the meantime, I am prioritizing writing, especially that which can generate some of the income lost from these summer breaks (I am also off most of August). It’s hard to be open about money struggles, but nothing will happen if I don’t ask, right?

Here are a few things I want to do with this newsletter:

• Write honestly about my writing and life projects, like in this essay

• Interview some writing friends also dealing with their 20s (this is Quarter Life Crisis, after all)

• Give more book recommendations and analysis, like my recent post on Crossover YA.

• Write about non-book media that is helping me, like music and TV

• Poetry and memoir for paid subscribers

Also—if anyone wants to help me workshop some poetry, please leave a comment! (Comments are always open to everyone.)

If you would like to support me on this journey and help make this newsletter possible, please consider subscribing. There is a discount at the link below. I also have options of Patreon, Ko-Fi, PayPal, and Venmo. Thank you very much <3

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I’ve been reading more YA in part because I am writing a YA book, and you’ll notice several titles here are from my reading inspiration/research list (or have been added since). Plus I got back on Netgalley and requested a some YA, as you do. And I’ve noticed that a lot of books that are about the older teen years, often called “crossover” because these books appeal also to adults. And I noticed some patterns.

Please note that I am specifically talking about books that are categorized by the publisher as YA, not books that are categorized and sold as adult that still appeal to teen readers (regardless of if they have teen characters or not). (A book I read recently that’s the opposite of this is Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson, in which the narrator spends most of the novel telling about one summer when she was 16.)

There has been a lot of talk about how YA books are aging up and attracting adult readers (one could say this started with SFF books), how YA romcom covers look like their adult counterparts, how there’s never a good selection available to 12-15-year-olds (I would argue middle grade has been filling this gap more and more)…all valid discussions. But the marketing and audience angles are not what I’m looking to explore here. Instead, I want to look at the content and hallmarks of this mini-genre.

The books

These are not an exhaustive list—just books I’ve read recently (from late 2022 until now) that are also fairly recent releases. Also, they all feature queer main characters, which isn’t necessarily a feature of the genre…just a pattern in my own reading for the obvious reason that I am also queer. But I am focusing specifically on contemporary realistic (and one historical) books.

Note: these links are my family’s affiliate on Bookshop.com so if you do buy something, it gives us a small commission!

• How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow (2022)

• We Are Okay by Nina LaCour (2017)

• A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo (2022)

• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo (2021)

• Ander and Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa (2023)

• Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl by Sara Waxelbaum and Brianna R. Shrum (2023)

• The Quiet and the Loud by Helena Fox (2023)

Honorable mention: Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore (a favorite author), which is The Great Gatsby entry in Macmillan’s Remixed Classics series. Because this of the source material, the characters are off living on their own, but because it’s YA, they’re just 17-18 (the major change being that Tom and Daisy aren’t married yet). At least, that was how I understood it. I sort of wished the characters were in their 20s. It really wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Disclaimer: I received digital ARCs of Ander and Santi and Margo Zimmerman, and this post is part of my review of them.

Life after high school

A major hallmark of YA is the high school setting, and so what sets most of these books apart is the lack of it.

How to Excavate a Heart and We are Okay (the oldest book on this list by a considerable margin) features protagonists who are on the winter break of their freshman year of college. A Scatter of Light takes place the summer before the main character goes to college.

Ander and Santi and The Quiet and the Loud are gap year books. We generally don’t see many of these in an American-dominated YA industry because it’s rarer in America than other countries (The Quiet and the Loud is Australian; Ander’s parents are constantly on them for having delayed the start of college).

The two books set in high school—Telegraph Club and Margo Zimmerman—are somewhat preoccupied with the world beyond it. In Telegraph Club, the characters are seniors and sneak into a lesbian bar. In Margo, they too are seniors, and a major plot point involves retaining a college admission. There is also a “teen night” at a local lesbian bar that allows for a space very few teens actually are able to experience. The ending of that book, like Ander and Santi, also involves major decisions for the future.

The “mature” content

Okay, YA books have had sex in them for ages. We have Judy Blume’s Forever, after all. But I want to talk about the true crossover aspect of some of these books, which is that they appeal to adult romance/romcom readers.

“Booktok” is a darling of the press and publishers. I’m not even going to try to link to the numerous articles and editorializing. I have my own mixed feelings. But from my experience, a large part of the books that are becoming popular are romance. Particularly adult romance/romcoms, which have been on an upward swing and reaching more audiences since adopting trade paperback sizes and illustrated covers around 2018.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club became marketed as a “Booktok” book by its own publisher (though I haven’t seen it on any of those B&N tables!), and Lo herself credited TikTok for contributing to the book’s sales (it also won a ton of awards and had like the most possible starred reviews, but that only goes so far for the average reader). Jake Maia Arlow single-handedly did a lot of marketing for How to Excavate a Heart (they never actually were contacted by a publicist), and a big part of that was promoting the book on their TikTok (to the detriment of their mental health, according to more recent social media posts).

How to Excavate a Heart and Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl are perhaps the most “romcom”-like of my selection. Even then, Heart has some twists that challenge the usual romance narrative. The character development is squarely coming-of-age, where self-understanding is absolutely crucial for the main character before a romance can fully blossom.

Margo, meanwhile, has plenty of banter, flirting, and a teacher/student role-play that wouldn’t be out of place in an adult romance novel, a genre that loves its quips and tropes. My partner (aka the author ) thought that the characters were more emotionally mature than high schoolers—perhaps more aligned with college, and could model that to younger readers. I sort of understand, but the characters are also seniors so there isn’t that much of a difference to me. This is also a book that is very much about identity, but it’s about the nuances of it and inter-community biases and stereotypes. Adult books tend to not have as much room for these explorations and teaching moments.

All of the books on my list except The Quiet and the Loud have sex on them, to varying degrees: it’s simply mentioned in Ander and Santi as a part of their relationship, sexual assault and trauma is a major plot/character point in How to Excavate a Heart, it’s described in varying shades of explicit in We Are Okay, Telegraph Club, A Scatter of Light, and Margo Zimmerman.

Malinda Lo actually wrote A Scatter of Light before Telegraph Club, but could not get a publisher to buy it because of the explicit lesbian sex scenes. A Scatter of Light is also the least romantic in terms of genre, definitely. Like, I don’t think I can emphasize enough that this book is not a romance. In fact, because of the messiness of it all, the book comes off as perhaps the most mature of the bunch, even though the main character is, well, not.

Looking ahead…

Despite the issue of younger YA readers being abandoned by the current market, I think we are in an exciting time where YA can expand to include those who are leaving high school or in early college, who are still teenagers anyway! The key is to do it meaningfully…there have definitely been some fantasy books (one author in particular…) that were originally intended for adults but aged down for market reasons, and that is not beneficial to teen readers. The focus audience still should be teenagers.

I will say, something I want to see more in queer YA (and, like, in general) are queer characters that do not have a romance (and not necessarily because they are aromantic). Romance is really commercial so I get this is unlikely to happen on a larger scale, but I just really want it! (I am writing something that falls into this category, by the way…)

Further reading

• 10 YA Books Set in College from Book Riot

• YA Goes Adulting: 14 Crossover Titles with Older Teen Characters from School Library Journal

• Who is a ‘Crossover’ book for? by in Publisher’s Weekly (which I cannot link because I am using the browser on my phone because there is a glitch where I can’t use my desktop to edit sometimes, and it will not let me use the link function…)

I am taking a break from my own writing to share how proud I am for my partner, Taylor Tracy ( ) because she can finally share that she sold a book! And, actually, a second book!!

Murray Out of Water is a love letter to the ocean. It’s about the pain and destructiveness of natural disasters. It’s about making your found family and finding the queer community, when you need it the most. The attitudes of some characters and their bigoted fears have unfortunately become more and more relevant since this was first written, which is why it is so exciting that it was picked up and will be going through some fantastic edits before hitting bookstores next summer. I love it so much and I cannot wait to read the final draft when it exists.

And then there is a whole other awesome book on the way the year after that…

Tay and I met on Twitter as musical theatre and book enthusiasts and became much more than just writer friends—we were best friends. I’ve been by her side through the ups and downs of writing and publishing, well before we were even dating and beginning our life together. Writing conversations (we had a great discussion about her edit letter!) are always magical. She inspires me every day to follow my dreams. I am so excited to go on this journey with her (driving her to events and bookstores, lol). Please join me in celebrating!

Add Murray Out of Water on Goodreads here!

See what Tay had to say about Murray and her long writing journey and sign up for her fantastic newsletter here:

This March, I participated in the Middle Grade March readathon, which is organized on Instagram. It’s simple: read middle grade books. And as someone who hadn’t read any yet this year or much last year, I thought it would

I ended up not doing much on Instagram (yet) or following the challenges, but I figured I would write up my thoughts on the 8 books I read over here.

Without further ado…

Iveliz Explains it All by Andrea Beatriz Arango

I’ve been trying to catch up on the ALA award winners/honors that I didn’t get to last year (we own quite a few, which unfortunately means they don’t have the stickers, but also means we have good taste), and this Newbery Honor novel-in-verse was the top of my list. Even though this is a novel-in-verse, it is heavy. Iveliz writes poems in her diary as a way of coping with her struggles with anger and friendship in 7th grade, much of which is brought on by PTSD she has. (A fair warning: there are some thoughts of self-harm and reference to it happening before.) She’s also helping her grandmother with dementia adapt to moving in with them (in Baltimore) from Puerto Rico.

Fight + Flight by Jules Machias

Jules Machias is becoming one of my favorite upper middle grade writers. I read their debut, Both Can Be True, last year. I know exactly what students I would’ve handed these books too. They’re long and advanced in the way they throw a lot of content-specific vocabulary at you—both in terms of queerness but also things like animal care/rescue and, in this book, physical therapy and associated physiology—and don’t spend too much time waiting for you to understand it all. It’s a little dizzying at first, but I found both to be compulsively readable after a certain point.

This one is about two girls: Avery, who is impulsive and outspoken and sure of who she is but dealing with physical setbacks after a surgery from a dirt bike accident and being diagnosed with hEDS; and Sarah, who is quiet, Catholic, and struggling with anxiety after her aunt passed away from COVID complications and her cousin (also her best friend) moved away as a result. Sarah’s perspective is written in the form of her journals with accompanying art. The two bond during a scary active shooter drill that everyone thinks is real, where surprisingly Avery is freaking out and Sarah is calm. This book deals with heavy topics, and it doesn’t shy away from complicating them.

The Science of Being Angry by Nicole Melleby

I didn’t get into this book as quickly as I hoped, but then I reached a point where it became an emotional roller coaster for me. Like, I cried. Joey has so much trouble controlling her emotions and has so many big feelings about blended and queer family (two moms, two fellow triplets, one step-brother). It becomes less a question of her genetics and finding her donor and more about the family as it is. I also loved the parents are flawed, too. (Disclaimer: Nicole is a writing friend of my partner’s.)

Nikhil Out Loud by Maulik Pancholy

This was my audiobook listen for the month and it was delightful! It’s read by the author, who is also an actor, I recommend the experience. For the first time in a while, I felt myself wanting to listen to an audiobook on the way to work.

I really enjoyed Pancholy’s The Best at It back in 2019, and this one is different in a key way: the main character is much more self-assured and already knows he is gay. In fact, he is a voice actor on a children’s animated TV show starring an Indian-American just like him! The catch, though, is that he has stage fright (and also can’t sing), which is an issue when he is cast in the school musical, seemingly just because he is known. He’s also just moved to Ohio from LA to take care of an ailing grandparent. Furthermore, his voice has started cracking, an inevitable part of his life, but it means his voice acting on the TV show is going to be up soon.

I will say, it’s great to see so many middle grade books where schools and adults support the LGBTQ kids…but I’m wondering if that is going to change (or should?) with a lot of these laws that are passing making it more difficult to support queer kids in schools, especially. It’s great to have uplifting stories, but also there are kids who need stories that reflect their circumstances, too.

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

This wasn’t initially on my list because I’m just not really into the supernatural and Mothman, but I went to the book launch and heard the author read the beginning of it and just wanted to continue (disclaimer: Robin is an “agent sibling” of my partner). While I maybe wasn’t as invested in the “is Mothman real?” aspect as the main character and some other readers might be, I did love the connection Noah had with him and how that reflected his own identity, figuring out his transness, his grief, and his friendships.

The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet by Jake Maia Arlow

(Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this title for review from Penguin Classroom and Netgalley.)

Jake Maia Arlow is one of my favorite writers right now and especially excels at middle grade voice, and this one is a worthy successor to their first middle grade book, Almost Flying. Following a seventh grader who becomes diagnosed with Crohn’s, it has so much humor and I’m convinced more books should talk about poop! It’s a daily part of our lives! It’s especially a daily part of Al’s life, as she struggles with her mother’s constant worrying over her and being different. But when she joins a support group for other middle schoolers dealing with the same family of diseases—later dubbed “The Bathroom Club” in honor of The Breakfast Club—she finds a home.

This book is also a queer coming-of-age tale from multiple perspectives and identities and it’s just delightful. Like Arlow’s other middle grade, I love how our main character makes mistakes. A gift of the premise is also that digestion is affected by stress and emotional turmoil, so as Al’s personal life gets complicated, her Crohn’s gets worse.

Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff

I’ve been trying to catch up on some books I didn’t get to when they were released (some, like this one, I had an ARC of—though I read the finished copy), so I had to read Too Bright to See, the first middle grade novel by Kyle Lukoff. Look at all those awards!

Like Dear Mothman, this one involves the supernatural—a haunted house, specifically, with a ghost that needs our main character Bug to know something. The ghost appears to be the recently deceased uncle of Bug. There’s definitely something to be said about these two books and young trans characters connecting with the supernatural! In this one, dysphoria is its own kind of horror.

The ghost story is fairly straightforward and not particularly spooky—it reads more like a contemporary. But I really appreciated how Lukoff wove together shifting friendships and expectations on girls entering middle school. The most impressive was how the first-person narrative completely shifted in tone once Bug realized he is a trans boy…it became so much lighter and happier. Masterful.

Bonus: Tegan and Sara: Junior High by Tegan and Sara Quin, illustrated by Tillie Walden

(Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for review from Netgalley.)

This one’s a bonus because I read it on April 1, but close enough, right? I might be a bad queer woman (or maybe just too young), but I honestly haven’t listened to much Tegan and Sara, at least not intentionally. What drew me to this one was the illustrator, Tillie Walden, whose style I love. (My partner and I have limited edition prints of On a Sunbeam in our room.) And middle grade graphic novels are always fun.

I thought this was going to be a sort of prequel graphic memoir to the sisters’ High School, a memoir they wrote that has also been adapted into a TV series (though it appears to not only cover high school). It seemed obvious from the title, but that was not the case—not quite. While the story draws on some key aspects of their history (explained in the author’s note), they made those key aspects happen earlier in their lives and also—this is the weirdest one—updated it to present day. This didn’t really work for me. It’s just bizarre to have Tegan and Sara talk about being influenced by Billie Eilish? Plus, I think it would be more interesting if it was historical. It doesn’t have to be changed to still appeal to today’s kids. The various references might become dated fast.

I did appreciate the complicated friendship dynamics of this story, as well as how that complexity related to the sisters’ queerness. It avoids several coming-out tropes.

As for the illustrations (which, reading an ARC, should not be considered finished), I loved how each twin had a color (blue or red) and how they would interject and give their inner thoughts throughout. It showed their relationship to each other at different points in the story. But I do wish there was more color in the regular pages. Most middle grade graphic novels are full color?

In other news…

• I got my initial New Jersey teaching certificate!

• I’ve been basking in the glory of the new boygenius album.

• My partner read way more books than me for Middle Grade March. Here is her roundup:

  Fresh from the Tayberry Shrub

  Reading Update #2: Middle Grade March Madness

  Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, from which I earn a small commission of any purchases made. I also discuss several books for which I received free review copies from Netgalley and all opinions I express are honest and my own. I need to start this newsletter off with a disclaimer: I…

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  3 years ago · Taylor Tracy

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I have started two different versions of this newsletter, one about my first draft and one about how I started writing a picture book, but I didn’t finish them because it was dependent on me doing more writing.

I feel very much that I would rather “have written” than be writing…I want something to show off. Publish. Get feedback on. Instead…I have a LOT of incomplete drafts. Aside from blog/newsletter posts and some poems, I don’t think I’ve written something complete if it wasn’t an assignment since I hit 50k on a middle grade novel sometime in college, and even then I skipped over some scenes.

Part of this is languishing on projects, jumping back and forth to try to find the right one. I tend to draft pretty thoughtfully, and then sometimes I get stuck because I know I need to overhaul something. I have a WIP I’ve been going back in forth on since the beginning of college (lol, like 2017), where I have had to write out a character and then realized I wanted it to be dual POV. Oh, and current events also are impacting the very premise.

But especially since 2021, writing partial drafts has reflected something deeper: my own way of searching for meaning. I write to figure things out in my own life. When I had to leave my first teaching job, I had difficulty reading and writing. Eventually I found I could tolerate nonfiction, particularly essays (and especially on audiobooks), and because my new job was at a newspaper I thought I would pursue creative nonfiction. I drafted essays and sent some pitches, and I suppose I did complete a first draft of an essay, but most of what I wrote was too unwieldy for easy submission to an outlet. And a large part of that was because I was still figuring things out. I was writing and rewriting the story of my experience teaching and its demise. I’m still retelling that story to myself as I am in the certification process to teach again right now. There are some details I might keep to myself forever, and that’s okay, too. I can write some things just for myself.

My fiction has been less obviously a process of rewriting, but there are patterns that emerge. Most of my early writing when I was still in middle and high school, involved portal fantasies and alternate worlds (usually accessed by sleep). I literally wrote fanfiction of my own life to process some feelings I had, and I wrote 50k of a middle grade just to cope with the discovery of my anxiety disorder. My first (and currently only) published short story was my freshman college self writing about bisexuality and heteronormativity that I was left dealing with after high school. Even now, my main two YA projects stem from “what if?” scenarios of my real life.

But like when I try writing personal essays about teaching, some of my fiction is impacted by current events…namely, constant attacks on the LGBTQ community, especially kids, especially in schools. Reading about what Indiana might pass (including mandated outing of students!) might radically change some book ideas I have, and it also just hurts. I know I’m in New Jersey now, but I’m still plagued about what could have happened. (My entire relationship to teaching is imagining what could have been if I didn’t get sick.)

I am finishing writing this while on a bit of a vacation visiting my parents trying to reconnect with writing. I had an idea I may or may not follow through on: what if I adapted part of my novel into a short story? I think it would be a great exercise to flesh out my characters and the world, at least. I might dabble in some other short story ideas. Or flesh out a middle grade idea. Who knows! I don’t want to get distracted, but I want to keep writing as I figure things out.

Plug here for my premium series here (and on Patreon), where I reflect on earlier writing of mine (currently: poems) and put it in memoir-like context of my life at that time. The first post is up now. It’s behind a paywall because it’s my own IP, but you can pay as low as $1/month on Patreon, and it greatly supports me so I can keep writing!

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What do first drafts mean to you? Feel free to leave a comment.

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Books!

Note: all links are affiliate links that support my family + independent bookstores!

I had a pretty strong start to the year reading from my research/inspiration list for my novel. I loved Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin (tw self-harm), which I found oddly gripping; We Are Okay by Nina LaCour (tw grandparent death), which hurt my heart so much at one point I had to put it down; and A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo, which is the most unlike the book I’m writing but I’m so glad I read it (and it makes me even more excited to read Last Night at the Telegraph Club…yes, I know I need to get on that).

February I’m reading Black-authored books in honor of Black History Month, catching up with some recent releases and award-winners in the process. I read the delightful middle grade graphic novel Frizzy (Claribel A. Ortega/Rose Bousamra) which also won the Pura Belpré; the multiple award-winning We Deserve Monuments (Jas Hammonds, tw racism/lynching/homophobia), which was gripping even if I wanted a little more to the ending; and Friday I’m in Love by Camryn Garrett (disclaimer: we are Twitter mutuals), which could be stressful (especially regarding money) but was still a delightful f/f romance.

Meanwhile, I’m listening to Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones, really the only memoir/essays so far this year that have scratched that itch for me when I read/listen to the genre.

In other news…

• I got my substitute certification and have been subbing sometimes at the school I work at, and I passed my PRAXIS exam and am on my way to a New Jersey teacher license!

On our travels so far we have been to the Indianapolis Museum of Art/Newfields, the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, the Indianapolis Zoo, and the Mesker Park Zoo. You can check out images on my partner’s Instagram.

We have also been to more indie bookstores: the Book Loft in Columbus, OH, Indy Reads in Indianapolis, and both Blustocking Social and Your Brother’s Bookstore in Evansville, IN—my hometown. Both of those opened up since I moved out so I hadn’t visited them before.

• boygenius is back!!!! Unfortunately I might not get to see them because I just couldn’t put myself through part of a music festival, but…a full-length album is coming!! The current songs released are fantastic! I was honestly never expecting this, so I’m thrilled.

And since it is exclusive creative writing from me and I want to protect it from being copied elsewhere, I’m making this an exclusive to subscribers to here or my Patreon. My subscriptions here are at the lowest Substack allows, USD$5/month (or $50/year), but on Patreon you can pledge as low as $1. It all goes toward supporting my writing practice.

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“Escape”

The first poem on that Word document is titled “Escape,” and the document’s properties say that the file was created in October 1, 2015—early on in my senior year of high school. I have a pretty clear memory of pulling up this document sitting at my laptop in the living room of my family’s house.

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As I’m becoming more and more serious about the novel I’m writing, I have been building a pile of books to read as research and to keep my creative juices flowing. I believe reading in the genre I’m writing is important for honing my own writing—plus, it will help to find comps and

There are a few major topics and themes I’m looking for:

• mental health, especially our cultural reactions to suicide

• queerness, especially sapphic, questioning, and aromantic identities

• complicated relationships, especially friendships (and friendships that walk the line into being something more)

• academically intense school environment

• young adult/coming of age

The stack

• Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin - I just finished reading this and it was such a good choice! The writing style put me in the right mood and fit the character’s mindset. Note: suicide is a frequent theme, as is alcoholism, and there’s a reference to self-harm (not depicted).

• We Are Okay by Nina LaCour - This is my next read. I’ve been meaning to read this since it won the Printz (early 2018), but it always looks just so sad…but that’s what I do need. (I also read LaCour’s new book Yerba Buena, her first for adults, and loved it.)

• All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir - This was a big acclaimed 2022 book and my partner got it for me for Christmas, saying it might be good research for my novel. I do like that it focuses on a central friendship.

• When We Were Them by Lauren Taylor Namey - This is about a friendship breakup and looks emotional, just what I need.

• The Silence That Binds Us by Joanna Ho - This involves a suicide and academic pressure (or does it?) and “taking back the narrative.” Perfect.

• A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo - Okay, I just really need to catch up on reading Malinda Lo. But her newest release is an almost-contemporary involving a complicated first relationship and sexuality, so I tossed it in here.

• The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver - I need to catch up on Mason Deaver’s books—I’ve only read their debut—and this one seems to have the right mood with grief and friendships.

• When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk - Another friendship breakup book. I’ve really liked her other two YA books.

• Not My Problem by Ciara Smyth - I’ve heard this is a good sapphic book and there appears to be a theme of academic pressure. Plus, I think it might be closer to the character voice my main character has.

Books I’ve already read

• How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox - I read this back in like 2019, so I don’t have a lot of specifics off the top of my head, but it deals heavily with mental health and also ambiguous/developing sexuality and relationship

• Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie - This one I read very recently though! I loved how messy this was. It isn’t as lighthearted as it looks…although compared to the other books on here, it is smoother sailing.

• Loveless by Alice Oseman - Not to brag, but I’ve been reading the now very popular Oseman since their first novel (soon to be reprinted!) was released in the U.S. in 2015, when I was still a teenager, and this book was no exception. I particularly like the complex relationships and lack of romance.

• When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert - I love Gilbert, but this hit so close to home when I first started reading it in 2021 that I had to pause for months. It was still very good though.

I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten, but this is a pretty robust list. Do you have any suggestions?

About one year ago, I had my first kiss with my then-long-distance partner and then we found out that Betty White was reportedly dead. It was both of our first gay kisses and it was too much for the universe, apparently.

So much has happened since then…the various anniversaries of my manic episode that caused some havoc in 2021, including leaving my teaching job; my partner came out and lost her grandma; we traveled to see each other; I moved from Indiana to New Jersey and helped my partner and her mom move out of their family home; I left my collapsing small newspaper job to work in education again; I had car trouble; we traveled up and down the northeast, visiting bookstores, theatres, concerts, zoos, and aquariums…It hasn’t been easy. But we have each other and we’re building this little life.

In other news, Twitter, the website where we met and the book/writing community thrives, is falling apart. I tried Mastodon but then it seemed like more people from the community went to Hive, and I just could not start another new thing. I found myself posting and even lurking less and less (getting into Duolingo and a solitaire app also helped), and I am…fine with that. I don't have anything to really promote right now, so I might as well just write longer form things, here and in my novel. Twitter is also killing Revue, where I previously had this newsletter, and I honestly don’t have enough energy to archive it. I think I am just letting go and moving on. I can’t even get much traffic from posting this to Twitter since that website deprioritizes links, apparently.

I also didn't spend much time at all trying to pitch to outlets, because everything I had ideas for was too timely to get done with my schedule, or I wrote something too long for the submission guidelines. It wasn’t worth the energy when I could be writing other things. I think I will gravitate more toward essays submissions for more literary places instead of pitches. I often don’t want to center my hot take opinion on various things anyway, and I don’t have the time or connections for more thorough freelance journalism.

I read lots of great books this year, too many to do a proper round-up…and like last year I also am enjoying keeping some of my thoughts to myself. While reading is connected to my writing, of course, I also want to preserve some of it as enjoyment. Still, here are some favorites from the year:

• Nonfiction: Ace by Angela Chen (audio); Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz; I Came All This Way to Meet You by (audio); Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby (audio); The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman (audio)

• Literary Fiction: Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (audio); Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour

• Graphic Novels: Heartstopper: Vol. 4 (and beyond online) by Alice Oseman; The Girl From the Sea by ; The Fire Never Goes Out by N.D. Stevenson ( ); Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

• Middle Grade: The Shape of Thunder by Jasmine Warga (audio); Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea by Ashley Herring Blake; Almost Flying by Jake Maia Arlow; Starfish by Lisa Fipps; Both Can Be True by Jules Machias; Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King

• Young Adult: Loveless by Alice Oseman; The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore; Nothing Burns As Bright As You by Ashley Woodfolk; The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta; Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore; Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender; I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman; How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

• Romance: Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake

And yet, I still didn’t even read 50 books this year (not including picture books), which used to be the norm for me. I fell behind reading newsletters, too. But my partner reminded me that this isn’t about quantity. The quality of what I did was significant. Emotionally, I think I came a long way.

So, I think for next year I am just going to have the main goal of working on my novel, and whatever else I create will also happen without the added pressure. There doesn't seem a point in doing paid posts here and on Patreon, because no one is paying, so they would go to no one. If you would like to support my writing though, you can do so by subscribing or pledging here or on Patreon.

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Elsewhere, I am working on becoming a certified teacher in New Jersey. I would like a teacher job in the fall, but I need to make sure it is the right fit for me. Right now is the anxious waiting time before applications start appearing, which is before I’m (hopefully) certified. I have a back-up plan, too.

But. One day at a time.

2022 Highlights

• Finally saw Hadestown and the Company revival on Broadway, with my partner, which we wanted to do in 2020 before the world shut down.

• Saw a professional production of one of my favorite musicals, Next to Normal (Westport Country Playhouse)

• Visited my alma mater Indiana University and its town Bloomington for the first time since February 2020 and got to show my partner the various places I’ve texted her.

• Went to New Jersey Pride in Asbury Park with our friend Cody, who I finally met in person

• Swam in the ocean for the first time and read many books on the beach

• Met my favorite author, A.S. King

• Started rock climbing

• Made some more peace and closure with having to leave my teaching job last year

• Work as a 1:1 aide with a wonderful student

• Saw one of my new favorite bands, the UK’s Bears in Trees, play a magical show in a bar in Brooklyn

• Went all-out decorating for Christmas in our new place

Further reading

• The End of Discourse by DongWon Song

• This essay from :

  Welcome to Garbagetown

  Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media

  I’m just so angry. It’s been boiling and bubbling (and toiling and troubling) for awhile now. Not just since a spoilt, sadistic emerald heir stole—and yes, I am using that word; I’m using it deliberately and with fury aforethought—Twitter out from under the people who created it and made it the “town square” that so many seething gargoyles want to contro…

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  4 years ago · 248 likes · 170 comments · Catherynne M. Valente

Well. I thought I was set on having my newsletter over on Revue before I took a hiatus to adjust to moving, but…with the change in Twitter ownership leaving the site uncertain and making changes left and right, I’m afraid the Twitter-owned Revue won’t be much of a priority, so I want to get out while I can.

Substack definitely has a lot more features and more of a community and I’ve always preferred it for that…it just also has become a place where anti-trans rhetoric thrives, monitizes, and gets recommended by the platform itself. There are a lot of great people on here that I admire, however. Still, if you are not engaging with Substack, I understand and will have everything available on my Patreon as well.

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My main goal here is to build a mailing list for my writing and avoid getting sucked into social media. I have turned on paid subscriptions and have some plans for that, but right now it is mainly an option to support me. In the future I plan to have some creative work behind a paywall, but most essays and all news will be free.

I’m keeping the “Quarter Life Crisis” theme for now because it fits me well, although the newsletter will be less themed as far as the writing goes. I want to talk about the books I’ve been loving, how music moves me, my writing process, TV shows that make me think…all the stuff I’ve missed about blogging. And this is just frankly the best platform to do it on right now.

While you’re here, you should subscribe to my partner’s newsletter because we have plans for that too!

Best,
Olivia

I write this during the final two weeks of the year where it feels like it should be over but apparently it isn’t? So I’ve held most plans for the shiny new-ness (and greater possibility of people reading their emails) of the new year.

I started this post during a different time of rest: Thanksgiving weekend. November is known to us writes as NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month, where writers all over the world attempt to hammer out 50,000 words. I’ve used their online platform before to keep track of words, but I’ve never seriously participated. It was always a busy time for school, and quick drafting is just isn’t how I write. Plus, this year I’ve been working on short pieces.

My partner, however, has participated for eleven years, almost every year for the past 13 or so. Some of their work I’ve loved was written during Novembers. But this year, they just couldn’t do it—and neither could I do some sort of “writing every day” thing I’d hoped. It’s been a rough year.

So, we came up with “NoWriMo”—no writing month. No pressure to create or all the public accountability that comes with it. We were burnt out.

And…it worked?? When I gave myself the space to not be creative every day or at all, I realized that I still wanted to write, but in a healthier capacity: instead of focusing on the end result—a finished draft, publication, payment—I wanted to write because it was therapeutic. I’ve reached a stage where instead of obsessively chronicling everything, I am starting a new draft that is more distilled. Instead of just thinking about having written something during the day, I crafted paragraphs and put them in my notes. Okay, I still feel pressure because what I’m working on will probably be a part of my MFA application, but I actually find that application less stressful than submitting something for publication.

This year, my health and circumstances forced me to rest more often, and I found so much value in resting instead of overworking myself. So, I’m giving you permission to rest. It isn’t laziness, it is rest.

New Year’s is often full of productivity-related resolutions and goals. It doesn’t have to be, though. I got a new planner, but I’m going to use it more like a diary, rather than set goals I don’t complete and then burn out. I want to see what I actually get done.

Make it your goal to find your limits and rest accordingly. Take some time off so your creativity can come back. Use your vacation time and sick time if you need to. Go to bed early. Sleep in on weekends. I know we’re not all able to have these luxuries, unfortunately. But we should.

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Further Reading

• NPR: “You Aren’t Lazy. You Just Need to Slow Down.”

• Dame: “Hustle Culture is Grinding Us Down”

Elsewhere…

• Dickinson (Apple TV+) has ended, and buried among its many literary treasures might be how Emily’s older brother Austin definitely has a quarter life crisis with his source for meaning in season 2 and his subsequent fallout. Also, a great show, especially if you’re a literature nerd like me (the portrayals of Walt Whitman and—believe it or not—Sylvia Plath had me laughing).

• On some recent interviews like his appearance on Fresh Air, Kieran Culkin (aka Roman Roy in Succession, aka the real-life brother but on-screen cousin of the Home Alone kid) says he fully decided he wanted to be an actor—something he’d been doing his whole life—in his mid-thirties. Maybe (Also, Roman did his own sort of “growing up” in the recent (third) season and I still keep thinking about that final scene…)

• The newest episode of Depresh Mode was a gentle reminder of the collective trauma of the pandemic and what that might look like moving forward.

This newsletter is dedicated to Mr. Stephen Sondheim.

I can’t resist a timely post, especially where musicals are involved. In my introduction to this newsletter, I described how the musical Pippin helped shape my understanding of the quarter life crisis. And, in no surprise to anyone who knows me, I’ve got another musical to talk about this week: Tick, Tick…Boom!, Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical work that was adapted into a film by Lin-Manuel Miranda and released on Netflix recently.

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As its title suggests, this is a (very meta-) musical all about time and impending doom and/or deadlines (honestly, what’s the difference?), as Larson approaches 30 with his struggling musical theatre career, his friends moving on to more stable jobs, and the AIDS epidemic ushering some of his friends to an early death. The show, originally a one- to three-person stripped-down stage show featuring Larson, predates his success with Rent,1 a musical that itself is inevitably tied to his own tragic early death at 35 from an aortic aneurysm before its first off-Broadway preview. Tick, Tick…Boom!, re-staged in 2001 (featuring Raúl Esparza), has always been performed to a wider audience within the post-Rent, post-death context. The film addresses this context explicitly with an additional frame story. It’s cheesy in some places, but necessary.

Tick, Tick…Boom! might leave its titular ticking as a vague existential fear, but its plot counts down to Jonathan’s 30th birthday, the culmination of the workshop of the musical he’s been working on all his 20s, and an imminent break-up. His crisis is not just about the art—it’s also about no longer drawing attention for being a young composer, and the anxious anticipation of finally reaching a new stage of his life. (Slight spoiler alert: the workshop doesn’t land any producers, so out of frustration he writes the original version of Tick, Tick…Boom! I told you this show was meta.)

Recently there was a very popular Tweet making the rounds about how, especially as an artist, you don’t need to accomplish your best work before you’re 30. This is a myth-ridden anxiety that has persisted just about as much as the mad artist martyr who is brilliant and tragic with their untreated mental illness and/or addiction. (The irony, of course, is that Larson became one of those mythic figures himself after passing away at 35 before Rent’s debut.) Even if you’re not a writer, many of us feel this impending countdown to the societally-scripted settling down: landing that dream job and getting married and having kids.

The time is flying
And everything is dying
I thought by now
I'd have a dog, a kid, and wife

—Jonathan in “Boho Days”

Turning 30 is one of the anxieties I believe fuels the quarter-life crisis—especially those who are floundering in an artistic career and/or family-oriented. Honestly, the brilliant young but mad artist myth I mentioned earlier is sort of a chicken and egg situation: hasn’t the attention from that early well-received work made it harder to continue to produce? This is especially true now with social media creating an increased sense of attention. People are watching you.

Interestingly, this is an anxiety we saw earlier (at least semi-ironically) this year on Netflix in a song in Bo Burnham’s special Inside, which also featured 1990, except in that it was the year he was born. (So, Larson would be 30 years older than Burnham…and meanwhile, Stephen Sondheim was2 30 years older than Larson and three times as old as Burnham last year…but I digress.)

They're singing, "Happy Birthday"
You just wish you could run away
Who cares about a birthday?
But 30/90, hey!
Can you be optimistic?
You're no longer the ingenue
Turn 30, 1990
Boom! You're passé
What can you do?

—Jonathan and Michael in “30/90”

For our purposes, there are two particular moments in the film where Jonathan hears the titular ticking, and he spirals.

The first is the “Sunday” sequence: Jonathan has to write this song for the upcoming workshop, but as I know well, creativity does not happen under pressure. He’s trying to work Sunday brunch at the diner, which of course is just added stress. And what better time to think about what you really want to work on artistically when you’re stuck at your day job? (Okay, maybe that’s just me projecting.)

So, he re-imagines Sunday brunch as an homage to the Act 1 finale of Sunday in the Park with George, a Sondheim musical about the artist’s plight. The anxiety melts away, the diner wall falls so he can arrange his scene just like George. Bernadette Peters appears, as does André De Shields, two Schuyler Sisters, three original cast members from Rent, and other icons.

It’s a dream, a fantasy. Everything he wants is still hoped for, all in his head, while in reality he is a struggling waiter and composer waiting and waiting for someone to produce him. He lacks the control he imagines.

The second moment is when he is participating in a two-hour advertising focus group at Michael’s company, purely to make $75 (honestly, pretty good deal, can I do that sometimes?). He initially shines with his poetic outlook and contemplates how he could do it for an easier living…but then the claustrophobia sets in as he realizes just how pointless (and possibly dangerous) the product is. “This could be the rest of my life," he says, eyes widening. Tick, tick, tick.

These moments come from the tension between money-making jobs and time for creativity and artistry. As many of us have experienced, the two often do not go well together, and it causes this existential “what am I doing with my life??” crisis. When you’ve got something you need to write, sitting through a job to make money is incredibly difficult—and even restricting of creativity. You want more time to work on your art, but then you also need to make money. It’s hard. It makes work-life balance a work-create-life balance even harder to manage. And it’s basically where my head is at least half the work week—and I have a job that’s at least getting me writing experience!

After no producer commissions Larson, his agent—who is a bit shady and clearly lying about inviting Hal Prince, at the very least—offers some advice I needed to hear. “You start writing the next one. And after you finish that one, you start on the next. And on and on, and that’s what it is to be a writer, honey,” she says. “You just keep throwing them at the wall and hoping against hope that eventually something sticks.”

So I spent some time writing poetry after I finished the film. I’m writing this essay. I’m slowly crafting a personal essay—really, the fifth or so draft of it—that’s important and healing to me, which likely will be in my MFA application. I don’t have as much time as I want, but I know worrying about it will only waste the time I have.

Why should we blaze a trail
When the well worn path seems safe and
So inviting?
How, as we travel, can we
See the dismay
And keep from fighting?

—“Louder Than Words”

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On August 18, 2020, I received a medical profession’s advice to “Research Quarter Life Crisis (multiple websites and books).” This was hilarious at the time, because not only was I going through something definitely more complex than that (in two days I would be diagnosed as a type of bipolar), but because the subject was not at all new to me.

In fact, I spent a good portion of the summer obsessed with the musical Pippin, thanks to rediscovering it through a podcast and promotion for a new London production. The show has always haunted me (one word: fire), but unlike when I first saw the Broadway revival touring production as a freshman in college (and two years later as my university theatre’s production), I no longer characterized it as a meta-theatrical commentary of the Hero’s Journey. Yes, it is that, but it is also something I knew all to well: the post-college search for meaning, for a purpose, that leads to meandering, quitting new things out of fear of becoming trapped in them, and either settling for something ordinary or, uh…burnout. It’s Quarter Life Crisis: The Musical. (There are definitely similarities between this process and a manic/hypomanic episode, too.)

I’ve been trying to write about this weird year in my life since it started, whether for just myself, friends, or a wider public as my writing has shifted from fiction to primarily creative nonfiction essays and poetry. All the while, I’ve stopped and started projects, trying to find my voice while worrying it was changing forever. I’ve documented what I can, hoping one day I will come back to my camera roll and scraps of writing and make sense of it. Part of the reason I had to pause my fiction writing anyway was my lack of perspective; I was going through the same things my young characters were, and I didn’t know how to guide them.

Then I realized: this process is worthy in itself. It is probably near-universal as we grow into adulthood, and acutely highlighted now with the pandemic upending everything we’ve once relied on. So, finally, I found a project I could stick with because it wasn’t based on my voice as some sort of unchanging authority. And here it is.

This won’t simply be personal essays or a weekly diary, however. I will connect back to research, history, other writing. I want to really study this period, grasping onto any foothold to find. And your comments will also be valuable throughout. My goal is to publish at least every other week, but I’m going to avoid putting extra pressure on myself (a topic worthy of itself).

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“Quarter Life Crisis” is something of a pop psychology phenomenon, following on from the more well-known midlife crisis, but a clinical psychologist does describe it as “a period of insecurity, doubt and disappointment surrounding your career, relationships and financial situation.” Which…mood.

One thing we do know is the brain isn’t fully finished developing until you’re 25, which is also the age when you’ve ideally got your life all figured out: a career, a family, all that life stuff that comes after education in the great (heteronormative) American Dream. The incongruity between what one should have and what one does have is itself a problem, but making major decisions when your brain is still settling? That’s just a recipe for disaster.

I studied adolescent psychology for my planned career as a middle school English teacher, which I lasted about seven months in, almost three of those spent on medical leave or remote learning (once due to a COVID-related shutdown, and then again due to snow). Teaching 7th graders just 10 years younger than me, I found myself generationally closer to them than my colleagues (many of whom could be my parents, and indeed often functioned as such). The pandemic highlighted the junior high crisis: a lack of motivation, identity crisis, lashing out at the world…and it wasn’t that different from what I was going through living on my own for the first time. I struggled because I couldn’t convince them what I had failed to believe myself: that the tests this year were important (or we should be taking them at all), that “doing work” was the main goal (as opposed to learning), and so on…in the middle of a pandemic, it all felt absurd.

I wanted to hone in on the much harder feat of building a community where they listened to and cared about each other, creating as few traumas as possible. But that posed its own challenges in the post-2020 election landscape. The sense of alienation, disillusionment, hopelessness, and detachment among vulnerable young people was palpable. (I started to listen to Phoebe Bridgers and her various collaborations at this time, which is not a coincidence.)

As someone who has wanted to be a writer since I was five, every time I see someone who is successful before they’re 25, I’m jealous. But that jealousy has become muted. These are people who face enormous pressure to repeat success when they are still growing and changing. Why else do you think they quit? Stumble? Have mental health breaks? Totally change their musical style?

I’m glad I didn’t finish writing a novel and get it published before I was ready to talk about the very personal things inside. It’s still there, waiting for me. In the meantime, I have this.

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