Recently, I attended a one-day writing class with YA author Maggie Stiefvater. One thing that she said that’s stuck with me (and I’m paraphrasing here) was that more than a writer, she considers herself a storyteller. She doesn’t strive to write the perfect novel, or to come up with the most ingenious plot idea, but just to…tell as many stories as possible. And fuck if that isn’t a Big Unemployment Mood. With all this time on my hands, so many stories are clamoring for my attention and I can’t decide which one to (try to) tell first. So catch me trying to revise two novels and write one more, edit a short story, write a screenplay, and maybe a treatment for an animated children’s show. All at once! And by that, I mean watch me do nothing because I’m overwhelmed by choice and also writing/editing is hard.
On that note, hi! I’ve decided to keep what’s bound to be a really irregular blog now that my site is live, mostly for the benefit of my mom, various family members, and friends I don’t get to catch up with enough. Seriously, if you’re someone who doesn’t have some sort of familial investment in my life, you don’t have to read this. I can promise you there’s nothing of value to be found.
For those who haven’t heard, I was recently laid off from BuzzFeed. It was a whole thing, several hundred of us, and my entire spectacularly talented team was eliminated. There was crying, but more than crying, there was solidarity and support. For the most part, I’ve come around to seeing it as a positive thing. My type-A Virgo ass has been following a linear path for the last 27 years; I would never shake things up on my own. One thing I am sad about, however, is what a wildly big platform BuzzFeed was, and how that was such an opportunity to get genuinely helpful and compassionate mental health content into the world. But there will be other ways to do that!
Speaking of, I officially turned in my first draft of The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care to my editor today, and it was…anticlimactic. I’m both proud and mortified that I managed to turn around a draft in two months. Proud because hello, and mortified because, perfectionist that I am, I have never showed a “first draft” to another human being that hadn’t gone through at least three personal revisions behind the scenes. And that’s just not possible with a 40,000 word book. ~More info to come on preorders and release dates.~
Other than that, the only semi-exciting update I have is that I’m heading to LA at the end of the week to meet some internet friends, have a few meetings, and maybe get a feel for whether or not returning to the best coast is in my near-ish future.
Can’t you just sense the upcoming existential crisis?
xx
Anna