Client Spotlight: Two Regular Broads Who Didn't Give Up

“Every story we read finds a place within our psyches and helps us become the person we are.”

— Deborah Crossland

Hello camerados near and far!


I write to you on my porch. It's is over 80 degrees. I am wearing shorts and have decided maybe there is a god after all. Who else had a rough, never-ending winter???


This post is a shout-out to two incredible women that I've been working with over the past several years as a coach and colleague. I hope it acts as a source of inspiration for those of you who keep thinking to yourself, Will it ever happen for me?


I've been having all kinds of interesting conversations with the writers I work with lately, and my author buddies, and my agents. It's a weird time in publishing, no doubt about it. Don't even get me started on AI! If you feel like you need a break, I hear you. But I know some of you are out there slinging ink and forging ahead because you have a dream and a goal, dammit. 


The thing I'm most interested in working on with writers isn't getting published, but getting published or agented is a nice by-product of the work we do. I can't guarantee that. And no matter how good you are, you can't guarantee it, either. My goal is to use your writing and your writing practice as a springboard into fully embodying the most alive, connected, tapped-in version of you. And, if you're a writer, it's likely going to happen through writing. I don't know about any of you, but I'm a miserable wretch to all if I'm not writing. Whether or not it's published. I have to write or the world suffers. My cat and husband will both attest to this. 


Michelangelo said, "I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free."


I do that with my own books, sure, but I like to do that with writers, too. I like to see past the inner critic, the fear, the scarcity, the comparison...all the muck that gets in the way of our creativity and our purpose. I see that angel in the marble - you, beautiful writer. And so, together, we carve. We set you free. 


We trust that the blocks will yield through our careful attention to your inner landscape and the way your whole life intersects with your desire to tell stories. 


Frankly, I don't care all that much about publishing. I've never met a published author who is happy, who feels like it's enough to have at least one book out in the world. But I know how much it can mean, to see your name in lights, so to speak. The sense of accomplishment and personal authority is real. But I also want to live in a world where we as writers don't need anyone else to tell us we're good or worthy. Is there a way to believe it regardless of what happens? And is there a way to believe it while at the same time moving towards our goals? 


Below are two writers who did the work. The grueling, endless inner work of befriending their critic, allowing themselves grace, believing in their talent (and they have loads), and refusing to settle.


Both came to a place where their worth was intact regardless of whether or not they landed the agent or the book deal. And their good opinion of themselves was worth more than an editor or agent gracing them with a contract. 
 

The Six-Figure Book Deal

I can't tell you this writer's name because their deal isn't announced yet, but I can tell you that they are incredibly talented and that I had the great fortune to work with them for several years on a single book that is gorgeous and bingeable as hell. I read the first pages years ago and was IN. A voice for the ages. A world I wanted to hang out in forever. Writing that, if you broke it into pieces and drizzled chocolate over it, wouldn't be out of place in a Parisian candy shop. 


But the plot wasn't working. 


Fast-forward through loads of re-writes, years of hand-wringing, ping-ponging from joy (yes! character is fully realized!) to despair (that ending, tho). The emails and voice mails and texts and calls and track changes. The monumental effort of unlearning false stories about yourself.


The hard work of taking your inner critic to tea, splashing in a drop of whisky, and have a real come-to-Jesus meeting with them. 


The rejections. The fear that it might never happen. The almost-maybe-NO. The pandemic. The giving up. The returning. Landing that new, awesome agent with the book - a hail Mary round of submissions that hit someone's sweet spot. Going out on sub. Getting rejected. Nice rejections. Again, again, again. What if it's never going to--


And then, I get a voice message: The book, this beautiful book, sold at auction for six-figures. For ONE BOOK. That's how good it is. 


The week before this deal happened, though, we were on a call, playing out the possible scenarios. If they were offered a very small deal, with a small publisher, should they take it, even if their dream was go big or go home? We looked at all the possible ways things could go, how it felt in the body, how it matched up with all they've learned about themselves through writing this book, this book that is their teacher. 


I won't tell you what they decided about that, but, either way, my girl got the unicorn dream. 


It doesn't happen for everyone. It might not happen for you. But the badass, take-no-prisoners writer and human being you become when you allow yourself to dream, when you actually put in the work to be as good on the page as possible, and to do the hardest labor of all - knowing how to live and work with all your fears and manage to write in this dumpster-fire of a century....that's what it's about. For me, anyway. The book deal is the cherry on top. But all her effort, that beautiful book that she ended up with and was so proud of before the deal ever happened? That's the sundae. 

The Madeline Miller of YA

Deborah Crossland is a thousand times smarter than me and I want to take all her classes. Who gets a Phd in Mythology with an emphasis in depth psychology and then weaves myth into YA like Circe at her loom? THIS WOMAN.


I had the great honor of working with Deb as she was crafting her upcoming novel, The Quiet Part Out Loud. Oh the conversations we had about that book, and the way she took all my Writing Bingeable Characters advice to heart! A+ student in Character, this one. 


Before her super awesome agent picked her up, before her incredible book deal with S&S (and other exciting things I'm not allowed to mention) we did some dreaming about who she wanted to be as an author in the YA space. Imposter Syndrome is for real, especially for writers and perhaps even more so for scholars. So she got a double dose. 


I asked her, what if she were the Madeline Miller of YA? We're both obsessed (and if you aren't yet, get thee to a library because WHOA MAMA). It seemed like a no-brainer. A feminist doctor of mythology telling ancient stories in fresh new ways for young readers? 


I remember Deb lighting up - her voice was so excited and there was that aha! feeling. But then: wasn't that too audacious?


How could SHE be the Madeline Miller of YA? So that became our task: how to answer that question, and carve that dream out of stone and into reality. There was no set thing that would make her the MM of YA. It was about an orientation towards this identity and growing a sense of worthiness from a seedling to a full-fledged tree, dryads included. It was about all the little steps and the things that no one would ever recognize or know about. 


This week, I feel like she got there. It's one thing to write a book that is inspired by myth. Arguably, there are many who have tried. 


But Deb brought together her badass scholar self, her professor self, her writer self, and her YA self all together to write this article that just ran in Publisher's Weekly. 


It begins with her bio - you read this and tell me she isn't the Madeline Miller of YA:


Deborah Crossland has a PhD in mythological studies with an emphasis in depth psychology. She teaches English and mythology at San Joaquin County Delta College in Stockton, Calif. Her debut YA novel, The Quiet Part Out Loud, a contemporary retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth with a feminist bent, is due out in June from Simon & Schuster. Here, Crossland reflects on why book bans hinder teens most of all by denying access to stories that reflect their shifting identities and the issues they face.


Am I bragging? HELL YES. This is what happens when you let yourself believe that you have something to say, that other people might want to hear it, too. This is what happens when you say the quiet part out loud. 

Read Deb’s article here. Click on the book to learn more!

Here are a couple ways to work with seeing your angel in the marble and carving until you set them free....


1. Write your fancy-ass bio. You can use Deb's as an example. Write the bio even if you have yet to achieve the things you want in that bio. Put that bio above your writing space. Then: baby steps. 


2. Give a fake interview to your favorite publication. This is a big exercise I give all my writers, especially when they're working to take up space. (One of my writers is currently a little intimidated by The Paris Review interviewing her, but she's working on it). You can talk about how you never thought it would happen, but then....Or talk about how you got unstuck on the book you're currently stuck on. Talk about your influences, how you overcame the haters, or your writing process. I have been giving fake interviews my whole life. It's pretty surreal and magical when they stop being fake. 


3. Do the Be/Do/Feel/Already Have exercise on the portal. All magic happens with intention. You gotta mean it. The great thing about this exercise is that you'll realize you already are and have everything you want. But you're always allowed to super-size it! (Not a subscriber? Here’s the link to my free newsletter, and you’ll get instant access).

Are you ready to roll up your sleeves?

This kind of work takes time. A creative season with me can be a good start. Or a manuscript critique if you think you're ready for that. And if that's not available to you, finding at least one true blue writing partner can make all the difference. It's not for nothing that both of these women have solid CPs and community. It does, indeed, take a village. 

Here's to you and your angels in the marble! 

What It’s Like To Have A Book Come Out During COVID19

My new book, Little Universes, came out today. On a day in the middle of a global pandemic, when all bookstores and libraries are closed, much of the world is in some form of quarantine, when readers spend more time devouring updates on the CDC website than novels, when getting a package in the mail is a cause for stress and Lysol wipes.

I’ve done one signing: I wore gloves while I signed a cart of books, pushed toward me from a safe distance by a masked bookseller at my local indie. There will be no book launch, no events, no pictures with my cheek squished next to readers holding my novel in their hands. That’s as it should be: My book is pubbing on the week that COVID19 is projected to hit my country the worst thus far.

The woman it’s dedicated to—my best friend—is a nurse whose hospital does not have a mask for her to use during one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known.

My sister, who inspired much of this story about sisters, is a single mom trying to homeschool two kids. My entire publishing team is in New York City, which is expected to be pummeled by the pandemic this very day, trying to keep themselves out of medical tents set up in Central Park while also somehow finding the bandwidth to promote a book to a world that is falling apart.

The only person in my family who will likely be able to read my book is my dad, who’s a truck driver who loves audiobooks. The last picture I got of him was a selfie in a laundromat in which he wore gloves and a mask. We had a discussion about whether or not he was applying enough bleach on the surfaces of the public showers he has to use at truck stops—showers used by people from all over the country crossing multiple state lines—and how he had to cancel a load going to Brooklyn because he’d have to quarantine for two weeks after and he can’t afford to do that. Should he get that small business loan the government is offering? What would he do if he got sick? Where would he even live, since his truck is his home?

Every time I’ve posted something about my book since the pandemic hit the world in earnest, I’ve felt conflicted: Is it okay to take up a few moments of people’s time right now to share about a book I love, an offering I made for the world, something I think will help them during this crisis, but would require them to do nothing but read words on a page for a while?

Is it okay to feel sad about what having this book come out now means for me and my career when the entire world is suffering through a shared crisis? Is it okay to celebrate the long, hard road I’ve walked to write a book that, to me, distills everything I know to be true?

Since most of the people reading this are writers, I will tell you what I tell the writers I work with, and tell myself. I will tell you how I answered the questions above:

Right now, the people on the front lines of this crisis are our health care workers, scientists, and policy experts. Our job as writers is to bear witness to what’s happening, and to be foot soldiers in the fight for morale. Hold space for others through our words, whether they provide escape or solace or clarity.

But when the dust of COVID19 settles, it’s the artists who will be on the front lines of the crisis.

The artists who will be keeping the world afloat through the waves of grief and loss and uncertainty that will threaten to drown us all. When the people of the world open their doors and step back out into the world en masse, a world that will no doubt be significantly different, it is the writers and painters and musicians and makers of things who will be taking their place to do battle with humanity’s greatest enemy: The fact that we and everyone we love is going to die, and to be okay in the face of that. To thrive in the inhospitable environment of mortality.

And that’s where Little Universes comes in.

I think my book and the universe conspired together to have Little Universes come out during a global pandemic.

Just look at the epigraph, a piece of Tracy K. Smith’s devastatingly brilliant poem, The Universe As Primal Scream:

I’m ready
To meet what refuses to let us keep anything
For long.

I always say that our books are our teachers, and Little Universes has been my toughest and most rewarding one thus far.

Like all good teachers, it never stops instructing me. Little Universes is about impermanence, about how nothing is for keeps; but the deeper lesson, the one in its tender beating heart, is how to be okay with loss and uncertainty. Really okay. No matter how much of it you experience. No matter how many times the rug is pulled out from under your feet.

In the book, Hannah and Mae lose their parents to a tsunami—the experience is as horrible as it sounds. But they learn something vital as they rage and grieve and curse and question—a truth I believe only the hardest lessons can teach us:

The same wave that threatens to drown you also has the power to carry you safely to the shore.

I won’t lie: Publishing has been a painful experience for me from my first book to this, my seventh. Many of you read a piece I wrote last year that went viral, about how bewildering the ups and downs have been. Perhaps, with a different sort of book, helmed by the Heather of olden days who did not meditate, having a novel come out in the midst of COVID19 would have been the wave that killed me dead.

But this Heather is on the other side of Little Universes, a book which taught her that her only job on this planet—her only job—is to do right by the miracle.

We are made of the stuff of stars and, if that’s not WOW enough for you, then consider how many atoms and choices and people and loss and gain and luck and tragedy and mystery had to conspire for you—your individual self—to be here on this planet, at this time. Whether you bow to the Buddha, pray to Jesus, or tip your cap to Carl Sagan, the fact of the matter is that in order to do right by all that brought you into being, you’ve got to show up. Right here, right now.

How will you, writer, do right by the miracle?

Little Universes is one humble attempt I’ve made to do right by the miracle. An offering. I like to imagine placing it before my readers as though they are an altar or doorway in Bali, the novel resting on a banana leaf covered with flowers. To me, it has already done its work because I’ve done my work, the hard inner work of not placing my value or the value of the art I made on how well it sells, or how good the reviews are, or whether it stays in print. I made the thing to help us all navigate this thing, life, a little easier. Mission accomplished.

I sort of feel like God on the seventh day: It is good.

You’re hurting right now. I know that not just because that’s the First Noble Truth—suffering is a part of life—but because you’re a human on Earth during the COVID19 pandemic. I wrote this book during a hurting, and a healing. And so I hope it can give you some of the warm assurance it gave me—tough, but tender love.

Tough: This book and, by extension, the books your yourself might one day write, might totally sink. Drown in the waves of “content” in the world. This book might be a tinier blip than I or anyone close to it hoped for.

Tender: That’s okay. Because we did our job—we did right by the miracle by offering our words to the world, to help make it a little less confusing and a little more bearable for those in it.

As Jo, one of the characters in the book says:

“This one life: It’s all we get. It’s not about the likes and the degrees and the bank account. It’s about the love, man. It’s only about the love.”

I finished the first draft of the book during a major depression, unaware that a new medication I was on for migraine had a side effect of suicidal thoughts. It was a great wave and as I clawed for the surface, I, like Hannah, realized something very important:

“Under the wave, I found out what I was made of. Realized nobody is going to save me but me, that there is sometimes a choice—to stay or go—and that you might not know what you’ll choose until the breath has left your lungs and…you suddenly come face-to-face with the voice in your head, the hidden you, that spark of light that has been singing you out of the darkness for as long as you can remember. And she is wise and beautiful—maiden and mother and crone—and she says, she says, You are enough. And now you have a choice: to float or drown, and if you are enough, then drowning isn’t an option.”

You are enough, writer. Drowning isn’t an option.

Little Universes was borne out of a lifetime of spiritual questing, my own relentless search for meaning in an incomprehensible universe. From walking with monks in a Korean rice field to poking about the oldest magick shops in London, from temples in Calcutta to Midnight Mass in Rome, I have searched and searched only to have my book teach me the most important lesson of all in my darkest hour of need:

Everything you are and need is within you. It has been all along.

So what is it like to publish a book during COVID19? It…is. It’s what happening right here and right now. It is a wave and I am riding it to wherever it will take me.

When I began working on this book, I was ready to meet what refuses to let us keep anything for long.

Today? I have met that great What. I greet her / him / they / it with one of Hannah’s poems from the book:

Last Words

1. Say thank you
2. Say I love you
3. Say these words until you die

So reader, and fellow writer: Thank you. I love you.

Tonight there is a super moon. A time for release. For moving on. I think I’ll go sit outside with Hannah and Mae. Together, we’ll look up, as Whitman says, in perfect silence at the stars, many of which shine though long dead.

Gone, but we can still see their light.

Begin The Journey

Below is the playlist I listened to on repeat as I wrote this book. It is, as Hannah says, sound medicine. From my heart to yours.

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