What's Changed, and What Hasn't (A Letter to Imposter Syndrome)

Writing On Set For Loki, season 2 | Michele Blood

I don’t think I logically thought that once you see your name in the credits on a Marvel show on Disney+ I’d stop needing dry shampoo, but I think I kind of thought that? The only explanation I have is that I wanted to be a screenwriter for so long that I started envisioning this version of myself that made it, and she had really cool hair that never really got gross. But I still need dry shampoo around day 2 of no wash.

It wasn’t just the hair, though.

This cool version of me was also a morning person. I have consistently asked my loving husband to set the coffee pot at 5am almost every day since June and have not successfully been there when it brews once. At this point, it’s almost a joke. 5am? He asks when he goes to prep the pot at night. I always say yes (and flip him off for his tone). I want to be a morning person. It’s what he calls an “aspirational goal”, which is psychologist speak for this is going to be lukewarm by the time you actually drink it.

The cool version of me could order coffee and not think twice about the expense (lol I think about it a lot. I still do it, even when I shouldn’t, but I do think about it). Her car was always clean, ready to whip over to the studio lot in a moment’s notice. (I drive a van, and every time I open the sliding door I instinctively reach down to stop shoes, waterbottles, backpacks, and old Happy Meal boxes from cascading out.) She always had her nails done, sported a carefully curated wardrobe, and had a set writing schedule that didn’t move. (A swing and a miss for all three! 0/0, failing grade!)  

And most of all, she didn’t feel imposter syndrome ever again.

Guess what I’m gonna say.

~

When my first novel came out in 2019, I knew that the chances of my life being radically different were small. I’d talked to enough successful authors to know what to expect. My debut earned a Kirkus Star, some critical acclaim, and a bunch of lovely fans. I remember looking down at my book and thinking… I did it. I’m a published author. I can write, for real.

It wasn’t long before I set out to write my second book, and something popped up: that voice that was like… what if that was a fluke?

What if people liked your first book because they didn’t see the massive plot holes?

What if they were just being nice?  

I wrote Unchosen through it, even though I was doubting myself with every decision. What if I turned it in and it sucked? What if the publisher rejected it? (That had happened, before.)

So many people want to write. Why do you think you’re special?

Unchosen came out in the middle of the pandemic. Jan 2021. No events, no tour. I was morning sick with Ben through all of my interviews, and I was just totally convinced that this was the book where I’d be found out. The one where I’d be discovered as a fraud.

Unchosen didn’t get a Kirkus Star. It didn’t get many accolades, really. I figured the jig was up.

They found Ben’s abnormality on his 20-week scan, and for a couple of weeks I wasn’t sure if my baby just had bilateral club feet or something much worse. Sometimes club feet were indicative of fatal chromosomal abnormalities. I wasn’t sure if my son was going to survive. That perspective shift really helped in the “fucks given” department.

I went to the appointment alone, since COVID didn’t allow Ross to join me. I met with the specialist who did the scan. We found out Ben just had funky little feet, nothing more. Healthy heart, healthy lungs. He’d need extensive help if he was ever going to walk, but he would survive. I could breathe again, and everything else suddenly felt easier.

I wrote a lot, and I got rejected a lot. My agent left my agency that summer, leaving me in limbo for a long while. I wrote sample chapters for my publisher, and it wasn’t what they were looking for. I tried with a different story, and that was rejected, as well.

I didn’t think I was done writing, per say. I just really, really hoped I was living in my “turn of the third act” slump. You have to have a total fail/dark night of the soul before you rise up like a phoenix, right? At any point the music would swell, and I would get another shot. One day, I was going to arrive, and it was all going to be better.

And then, that day came. I shot my shot with the head writer of Loki S2. I knew it was a longshot, but I had to try (shoutout to my people for telling me it was worth it to give it a shot. Shoutout to the post C-section Dilaudid for the nerve to draft the DM!). I got an interview. And then he called me to tell me I was going to come write for Marvel. Ross has a video of me out in front of our house, crouching in the street, happy crying.

I wrote for Marvel, and then I went to London, where I spent five months on set. All day, every day, I was there, living an absolute dream. The first day I walked onto the sound stage, I teared up. And I teared up consistently throughout those five months. I’ve been a Marvel fan since Iron Man. I saw Thor on my honeymoon and watched Ragnarok to distract myself from morning sickness with River. The only big fight I’ve EVER had with Ash was about Civil War. (She’s #TeamTony, I’m #TeamCap. It got heated.) Marvel shaped me, and there I was, sitting with the actors and being trusted to help shape their stories.

For five months, I did the job that lit me up. I know now I’m deeply in love with screenwriting and filmmaking — the whole process. I walked away from the whole experience with my first writing credit and friends I’ll have for life.

The last week was almost all night shoots, while I was packing up my rented house to fly home. I’d pack all day (who knew moving 4 kids across the ocean for 5 months would mean you have so much stuff? I should have. I really, really should have.) and then get picked up to go to set for the night shoot. And then…it was over. We went home. Two flights, four kids, 12+ hours. My parents picked us up and it was all a blur. I showered and hit my sheets harder than I ever have. And after the jet lag let me out of its’ vice grip, I knew I’d been changed, right?

No more second guessing myself. I wrote for Marvel, and I did pretty good job. I’d arrived. No more doubt.

I don’t know how long it was before I started wondering if I’d ever write something good again. I want to say it was months, but it was probably actually only about 2 weeks. What if you can’t do this? What if they were just being nice? What if that was the peak? What if you never get another job again? All the eggs in one basket…

I lived for the next job — the next call saying someone wanted my brain. And since coming home, I’ve gotten several of those calls. I’ve had more jobs that are still very secret. I had all the outward affirmation I could want.

Then, a few months ago, I was looking at my old photos, and I pulled up the grainy video Ross has of me getting that first call about Loki. The one where I crouch in the street and he films me from our deck. I’m laughing, he’s laughing. And I realized something.

I’ve always loved movies where that moment happens for other people. It’s always my favorite part: the part where the hard work pays off. When Will Smith gets the internship in Pursuit of Happiness. The moment in Joy where her mops actually sell out. The moment when Erin Brocovich gets the job, even though it’s a long-shot. I would scour the internet for blogs about people winning — Veronica Roth’s “How I Got My Book Deal” blog post was my favorite back in 2012. Those stories kept me afloat. I was so stoked to have another one, right there on my street.

But I’d already had that moment before Loki, hadn’t I? Twice! When I’d sold my books. But maybe we’re always looking for the next one, and maybe that should have been my first warning sign: it wasn’t something I was looking for outside of me.

I don’t think there will ever be a moment when I stop feeling like I “lucked” into this, or that I will never write something good ever again. Just like there isn’t going to be just one moment where I “make it”. That moment doesn’t exist.

We put so much pressure on those moments and others like it — the moment we fall in love, the moment we become a parent, the moment when we turn 16 and 21 and 30, the moment we graduate or get engaged or get that “real” job — that are supposed to make us feel something. I should have known better, because I have lived those milestones and realized they are just markers in time, not measurements for readiness or, more importantly, worthiness.

But there I was, realizing it again. Big moments will never get rid of self-doubt. No big win will ever erase Imposter Syndrome. And someone asked me in last week’s Insta “AMA” if I still felt Imposter Syndrome, and it got me thinking: yes, but I don’t think that matters, anymore.

I think I answered it like “of course”, but I wanted to say something better, something bigger:

Fuck Imposter Syndrome. It’s a waste of time. It was a waste of time when I was first starting out, and it’s a waste of time, now. I think we all feel like imposters at times, no matter what it is we’re doing. I’ve felt like an Imposter Wife, an Imposter Mom, an Imposter Friend, an Imposter Daughter. Imposter Christian, Imposter Aunt, Imposter Fangirl. I’ve worked myself to the bone to feel I’ve earned titles I’m living every day. So… I’m so done giving that bitch any of my time, and you should be, too.

In his book, Keep Going, Austin Kleon says that in order to be the Noun (Writer), you have to do the verb (Writing.) And I think that should be enough to expel any time we spend wondering if we’re real anything. I’m a mother because I wipe butts and give hugs when things get scary. I’m a wife because I’m Ross’s partner. I’m a Christian because I love Jesus. I’m a fangirl because I cry at YouTube edits. And I’m a motherfucking writer because — dry shampoo or not — I write.

In the Hallway: Big News on All Fronts

I was writing all through the last few months. I scribbled in my journals and typed in my notes app, just to get it all down. Then I’d stare at it and save it and say I’d figure out what to do with it, later. Because I couldn’t post it. And I remembered that not everything I write needs to be shared, and that helped. It was like I was twelve again, pouring my heart into a spiral bound notebook that I’d try to unsuccessfully hide from my younger sisters. 

I spent most of December though February as sick as a dog. This morning sickness? It kicked my ass, Bane vs. Batman style. I was sick with all three of my other kids, but this was a whole different level. Ever puked so hard you peed your pants? Yeah, me neither. That would be ridiculous. Especially if you were throwing up APPLE SAUCE, the one thing your stomach is supposed to take, always. It’s stomach law. Apple sauce is always good currency, right? Your stomach isn’t supposed to pull that shit for apple sauce. Whatever. What was my point? 

My book came out right around the height of me not vomiting so hard I peed myself. Every picture you see of me with my book, smiling and made-up, is taken with grit teeth. They put me on Zofran, and I got an electro-shock bracelet that sent a literal electric current up my median nerve to try and help me keep food down. “This baby is a strong one,” the nurses would say. “No shit,” I’d moan back, my voice echoing on the porcelain bowl. I signed thousands of tip-ins for my book while laying in bed. The smell of the Sharpie was almost too strong. 

“What happens if I vomit all over these?” I asked my editor, half-joking. She said something about the book being extra special addition. (I didn’t, for the record.)

Then, February. My deadline for LIKE LIGHTNING was fast approaching, and I was running out of “next week I’ll feel better, and I’ll write then!”. My grandfather got COVID. My great-aunt went into hospice. I went to a prenatal check-up and the doctor said my fluid was low. “Are you stressed?” She asked, and I tried not to laugh. “We’ll check again in a couple of weeks,” she said. “Don’t worry about it!”

Those words have never, not once in the history of the human language, actually worked on someone with an anxiety disorder. Don’t worry! Ok, cool. Got that, brain? Don’t worry. Sit. Stay. Hold. 

I googled “low amniotic fluid” as I waited for blood draws. In the first and second trimester, there’s nothing you can do. You can only drink water and hope it goes back up. 

I wrote. Like Lightning is the most personal stories I’ve ever worked on. It’s about sexuality and the Bible and falling in love and honoring God and it’s all so messy. I worry about writing too much or too little. I’m not a theologian. I’m a mom. I drive a minivan and make questionable decisions. And I’m writing about this.

My grandfather was getting better. They took him to a rehab facility and he’d call and say he was ready to go home. He didn’t like the food. Get me out of here, he’d grump, and we took that as a sign he was on the mend. Just a few more days, Grandpa. 

It was a Sunday, and I was almost done with the book. I had a few more hours left, and was riding the high of my paltry allotment of cold brew and the in-sight finish line when my phone rang. My great-aunt was rapidly declining. I answered the phone and expected to hear that she’d died. But it was my mom, and her voice was all wrong. 

Grandpa passed a few minutes ago. 

It didn’t quite make sense. No, it didn’t make any sense. He was getting better. He was on the mend. He was going home, soon. But I guess that’s what COVID does. You think they’re getting better and then it’s a whiplash spiral downward. They’d called my dad to say he wasn’t doing well and that he should come. My dad wasn’t three blocks away when they called to say it was already over. 

I went and sat with my mom a while. Answered my kids’ questions. Why did he get sick? What did the virus do? Why couldn’t he get better? Is he a skeleton now? Can I see the skeleton? What do you mean that’s not a nice question; we all have skeletons — 

And I shuffled back to my office. I had a deadline. 

Ross followed me up and sat down. “You know that no one expects you to finish this book right now, right? You can email your editor and tell them. You don’t have to muscle through this.” 

And I knew he was right. But I also knew that I didn’t know what else I could do. My grandpa would’ve wanted me to finish the damn book. I wanted me to finish the damn book. So I stayed up ’til three in the morning, finishing the damn book and sent it off. 

I had to be up at seven the next morning to register Liam for T-K. I thought I’d crushed it (look at me, finishing a book in the wake of personal tragedy and still getting my son registered for school!) until they called back and told me he didn’t quality because I’d written in his birthday as May 28, 2019. His birthday is October 29, 2016. 

Hahaha sorry about that. I was writing about making out in a car outside a pizza joint and exploring sexual boundaries all the while knowing that my grandfather was in a freezer and would be for the next several months and I’m pregnant with low amniotic fluid and it’s all a lot— 

“I’ll just change it for you, ma’am,” the nice lady said. “He should be good to start in the fall.” 

~

I started keeping food down. I was making headway on a freelance project that got stuck in the gears while I was sick — the client was very understanding, and I was grateful. The most important thing is that you’re healthy! He’d say. 

We found out the baby is a boy. My amniotic fluid went back up, and I went for the full anatomy scan. The ultrasound tech was kind, and the jelly was warm (here’s to all the real ones who know what a difference warm ultrasound jelly can make). 

A couple days later, I got a call. 

“Hi, Ms. Blair? I’m calling to schedule your appointment with the perinatal specialist because of the abnormality we saw on the scan.” 

Everything went still, except for the small thought running in the back of my mind, carrying a torch that illuminated the dark fact I carry etched on the back of my skull: my older sister died of a congenital heart defect. 

“What abnormality?” 

She was quiet. “The doctor hasn’t reached out to you yet?” 

“No. What abnormality?” 

I wanted to shriek. Every second felt like torture. “The abnormality with his feet. We can get you in on the 12th, if that’s good?” 

Then, I wanted to shriek for a different reason. HIS FEET? HIS FEET? YOU JUST AGED ME TWELVE FUCKING YEARS BECAUSE OF HIS FEET? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND — 

“The twelfth is fine.” 

I hung up and slunk to the floor. His feet! They were all upset over feet? Feet were no big deal! But then I did what everyone does… I Googled. Foot deformity in unborn child. 

And it was like ice water in my veins. They hadn’t said what kind of abnormality. Was he missing his feet? Was it club feet? Was it something more involved? Was it a chromosomal defect? I went down that rabbit hole… 

Trisomy 13. 18. Both with short life expectancies. Both with feet deformity as a symptom. 

“Odds are, that’s not what this is,” Ross said softly as I looked down at my phone. 

“The odds haven’t been great this year though, have they?” 

~

I had to go alone. COVID restrictions. 

I stood in line for a temperature check. They put three wrist bands on me and sent me upstairs. The room was dark, save for the light of several ultrasound screens. I sat on the crinkly paper and prayed. 

The doctor came in, with the tech. They introduced themselves and smiled and I laid back. My son appeared on the screen — more detailed than I’d ever seen before. He was twisting and squirming and kicking. 

And it was quiet. The tech moved the camera thing around, and the doctor took notes. No words, just the scribble of pencil on paper. They did some electrical scan, and my son’s heart lit up with little fireworks of red and blue. 

It looks like the bifrost from Thor, I thought. 

Click, click. Scaaaaan. Click, click, scaaaaan. 

They got to his little feet, and I could see they were not right — his ankles are almost at right angles. 

“Ummm… what are your other kids names?” The tech asked me, and I knew. I knew because why else would she want to distract me. I started crying, and the tears soaked the mask. 

“Aryn. Liam. River,” I said. “His name is Ben,” I pointed to the screen. 

When she was done, the tech wiped my stomach down and I sat up. The lights came on. They told me he has club feet. I’d prepared myself for that, so I didn’t know why I was crying. 

They said it looked isolated — that he didn’t have any other issues — but they wanted to do more blood work to make sure. Chances are, he’s totally fine otherwise. 

I met with a genetic counselor. She told me she’d get me the results as fast as she could. She told me everything was going to be okay. The doctor hugged me. “You didn’t do this, you know,” she said. “Nothing you did or didn’t do caused this.” 

I went to get my blood drawn. The tech who took my info pointed to my mask and then to his face shield. 

“You should invest in one of these if you’re going to be coming here often,” he said. “COVID is no joke.” 

~

Everything waited until that email came. I wrote and worked and answered emails, but I was walking in a half-dream world where I was wondering if my son was even going to survive. Had it been the Zofran? The low amniotic fluid? She said it wasn’t my fault. 

My mom told me how she asked herself the same thing with my sister. She’d gone running almost every day of her pregnancy, and wondered if that had something to do with my sister’s heart. When I mentioned what I was thinking, my mom shook her head. “Don’t do that,” she said, and her voice carried the weight of someone who had walked that road and come back scarred. I knew that my questions probably conjured ghosts — ones that hurt. I nodded and sipped my coffee. “I won’t,” I said. I didn’t voice it around her, again. 

The genetic counselor said it could take a couple of weeks, but that Friday, she emailed. I just saw that I had a message — I could’t see what it said. My hands shook as I logged on. 

“Good news!” was the subject line. 

Ben was fine — all chromosomes were normal. No sign of anything other than club feet. 

I fell out of my chair and ran to Ross. Our baby is okay. Our baby is fine. 

But I knew I had to shift gears, and the shift came fast. The orthopedic specialist called the next day with the game plan. Weekly castings for a couple of months. A surgery — a small one. They used to do it on kitchen tables back in the day. It’ll be over before you know it, he assured me — and then braces. 

“It’s gonna be a lot,” he said. “But your son is gonna be a normal kid by the end of it,” he assured me. 

He asked if I have any questions, and I had a thousand. Make this good, Katie. This is the doctor that you’ll be seeing for a long time. You need to have a good relationship with him. You need to be mature and an advocate and — 

“What if he shits and it’s like… a massive diaper blowout — and it goes down the back of the casts? Like… what do we do? We can’t just let it sit there for a week.” 

“Umm,” he said. “We’ll figure that out if it happens, okay?” He says, and I think I can hear him trying not to laugh. I hope he’s trying not to laugh. 

“Sorry. It’s been a weird year,” I say. 

“That’s the truth,” he replied. 

~

April felt like catching my breath. On my hands and knees, trying to find my balance before I stood up. Ben was fine. Grandpa was dead. The book was done. My managers liked my new pilot. The vaccine started rolling out, and normalcy seemed almost… near. 

I got word from my agent that a book I thought was long dead, A Haunt for Jackals, had renewed interest at one of the Big Fives. My agent said we would just have to sit and wait. I had more generals on the screenwriting side, and I kept my belly out of the frame. 

It felt strange to be getting back into the swing of things after everything. I want to say I channeled my angst into my art, but I mostly just kept my head down and got things done. Prayed for more open doors. 

I finally got to see one of my friends in person. Hilary drove out. She played Exploding Kittens with my kids and we sat in the shade of the backyard, talking about what is next. Scripts, books, pitches. We are both trying so hard. Both in the hallway, passing a La Croix back and forth and busting our asses to open a door. “You know? We just have to remember that the people that are at the top had to, at one point, say ‘Yeah, I can do that. Yes, I want that.’ They speak up for themselves. They go for it. I need to remember that.” 

We ate Mexican food and I thought about that. Go for it. 

The next week, I got an email I never expected. My agent, whom I’ve been with for five years and had a great relationship with, was no longer at my agency. No more info than that. 

I was on my way to a blood draw for Ben when the President of the agency called me. I was late to the appointment, but I paced outside the hospital as I answered, my voice shaky. It was hot, and I sweat as I waddled back and forth in the parking lot, trying not to lose reception. 

He didn’t give me details — just that I no longer had an agent at Writers House. But, he said, I did have options. They would love it if I stayed at Writers House, and if I chose to, they’d help me find another agent in house. If I didn’t want to stay at Writers House, they would help me connect with other agents elsewhere. 

“Don’t make a decision now,” he said. He sounded like Howard Hamlin from Better Call Saul. I wondered if he dressed like him. 

I was stunned, and realized too late that my shirt didn’t entirely cover my belly, leaving me looking like Shmee from Hook. “Let me know when you decide,” he said kindly. “No rush. Next week is fine.” 

The rest of the day was spent on the phone, where I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I had no answers. After the kids were in bed, I sat on the couch, dumbfounded. I remember what it was like trying to find an agent all those years ago. It was a mountain of rejection, one right after the other. I knew I was in a different place than I was professionally in 2016, but it still felt daunting. Eventually, Ross pulled up the roster at the agency and started looking through the agents to see if there were any that I might fit well with. 

He read some names and titles, and I sipped my seltzer water, wishing it was something stronger. Finally, he said it — “There’s Jodi Reamer.” 

It was impossible: Jodi Reamer. The agent who discovered Twilight. She represents Stephanie Meyer and John Green. Ransom Riggs and Tahereh Mafi. She’s the agent that was at the top of my list every time I queried. 

I snorted. “Yeah, okay.” It was impossible. They were offering to help me find someone else within the agency, but certainly I couldn’t request Jodi Reamer. 

But I thought about what Hil had said, and what we’d talked about. This had just… happened. I never in a million years thought I would be agentless again. What did I have to lose by asking? 

It was a long shot, but hey — if this year hadn’t taught me to go for it, nothing would. 

I emailed the president of the agency, and I told him I was staying at WH. And when he asked if I had anyone I would love to work with, I only gave him one name: I would love to work with Jodi Reamer. 

He told me to stand by, that he’d run the idea past her. I thought it would die there, honestly. At least I gave it a shot. Hours later, he emailed back. Jodi wanted to read me. I sent my book back and I waited. She said she’d be in touch soon. I prepared myself for the rejection of all rejections. 

But hey. At least I gave it a shot. 

~

A week later, I was sitting at my computer, trying not to cry. A freelance client who had agreed to book me for the rest of the year decided to hold his contract off until September. (Which is totally fine, fair, and happens a lot). But…he also wanted to move the payment he was supposed to give me in May until then, as well. 

One day I’ll talk about what it’s like to be a young woman and a ghostwriter. The being called “honey” and “sweetheart”… I’m pretty used to that by now. But I wasn’t expecting this curveball — that because I’d needed more time while I was morning sick with Ben, he wanted more time before the contracted payout. The payout that we desperately needed. A payout that is about 1/4 my yearly ghostwriting salary. 

We figured it out, though I took a big financial hit — not something you want to be dealing with while also preparing for a baby. I went and sat on the porch and tried not to cry. But then, my phone beeped. 

It was Jodi. She loved the book and wanted to talk.

I screamed. Ross thought something was wrong, but quickly started screaming with me once I filled him in. 

I have a call with JODI REAMER!!!!! 

We normally would order sushi on a night like that to celebrate such a big win. But the back and forth with the client made us a little more wary and thrice as cautious — so we made peanut butter and banana sandwiches, instead. 

They were delicious. 

~

Jodi was everything I hoped for and more. She gets the book, and she gets me. I signed on the phon, and we’re already making one hell of a team. 

I found a book for Aryn, Liam, and River. It’s about a boy with club feet called “My Clever Night-Night Shoes”, and it’s all about the Ponseti Method — which is the therapy Ben will be doing until he’s two. We’ve talked to them about how Ben will look a little different when he’s born, and the importance of kindness and empathy, etc. etc., but I don’t think they heard much beyond figuring out that they’ll be able to scribble all over his casts. 

I’ve held a lot of this in for the past few months. I didn’t know how to explain it. I was scared. I still am. There’s a lot of changes happening around here, and they’re happening fast. 

But I’m ready for it, now. I’m ready for Ben and for staffing and selling more books and whatever other sucky rejections that are heading down the pike. 

I’m ready. 

In the Hallway: Fog in LA

It’s foggy in LA. It has been for three days. Usually, I’m all about that. I love the cold, the rain, the ambient glow of overcast. 

But I’m foggy in LA, too. I’ve just emerged from a deadline for a ghostwriting project that felt like a deep dive I haven’t fully emerged from, yet, and I don’t like when the weather and I are wearing the same thing. Like… one of us should change, bitch – it’s embarrassing. 

I promised the full story, though, so foggy me and the story of the never-ending Groundhog Day Deadline is what you’re gonna get. 

I got the second shot, last week. I was thinking I could blog from bed, afterwards, but I just curled up in my bed and watched about seven hours of Dateline murder mysteries and sipped on cucumber water. As I result, I am extra-hydrated, almost fully vaccinated, and never going to trust anyone who seems “perfectly nice” ever again. 

I don’t think I felt as shitty as other people, but, as many a burned-out millennial will tell you… the fact that I had a reason to sit and not feel guilty about being unproductive was something I liked. (10/10 would recommend taking breaks. It’s almost like humans were created to need them? Like it’s not good for us to run ourselves down to the bone or something?? Siri, remind me that I need to look into this). But as I sat there, watching the reenactments of a jealous lover stalking her unsuspecting prey into the woods, I knew I, too, was unable to escape the date that awaited me:  the work I’ve been putting off for weeks, now. 

This week, I’ve been focused on my ghostwriting gig – my day job. I’ve been working on this book for almost seven months, now, and the last 30,000 words just felt like a mountain I couldn’t climb. To be clear: I am grateful for my day job – absolutely, and especially in this past year. But there’s a special kind of separation that has to happen when I write for someone else. An emotional distance, if you will. At the risk of making a terrible comparison – it’s like story surrogacy. I grow this story like it’s my own while it’s in my care, but these characters don’t belong to me. They are someone else’s, and I will eventually hand them over. It takes a special headspace to be able to do that, especially when I’ve had a hard enough time trying to find the strength to finish even my own work on my own projects. 

People ask me all the time how I get over Writer’s Block. It’s very real, it’s a pain in the butt, and I don’t think it ever goes away, no matter how many books and screenplays you’ve got under your belt. You just learn to deal with the feeling of doubt and lethargy and “what’s the point”, because you can’t edit what isn’t done, and maybe the words might not be as bad as you think once you get some distance. But lately I’ve been choking back the response I really want to give when someone asks me how I deal with Writer’s Block, because it’s something like I remember that I’m fucking poor and have tiny babies to feed. Speeds that process right up. 

Just put that up there with the sage wisdom of Stephen King and Anne Lamott. I’ll wait. 

But it’s true. And my writing process wasn’t incredibly glamourous before the pandemic, either, but at least I could use my favorite Fossil messenger bag my mom got me for Christmas the year Aryn was born and go out. I could order a latte and sit near a window and imagine someone was falling in love with me from across the room because I actually did my makeup and that’s the only result that could come from that kind of effort. (I imagine this happens all the time, but they never approach me because my wedding ring inevitably glints in the low afternoon light and they just walk away without saying anything. I almost feel bad, knowing how many hearts I’ve probably broken at Klatch Coffee.) Even on the workdays (which were, once upon a time, Monday/Tuesday/Thursday) where I was feeling more like a half-functioning lizard person, I’d just drop my kids off at school, grab coffee, and slither back home in my sweatpants to hole up in my office. I’d go at least eight hours without talking to a single human being, and that was bliss. I’d stop work at four, figure out some dinner, and go pick my kids up. The lines between Work Life and Mom Life were clearer. 

For the past year, it has all run together. A melted, soupy mess of roles that blur and mix. Writing a few sentences and then checking on Aryn, because she’s doing school online but I’ve been hearing the pencil sharpener for a minute straight and I know she’s not paying attention. Go back to work for a bit and then walk to my mom’s to check on the kids – they’re fighting over Calico Critters and River’s having a breakdown, so I sit for a bit to sort it out before walking home. Chug more coffee and help Aryn find a worksheet she misplaced. It’s a HomeWorkWritingRefereeTwoWorkingParentsThreeKids stew. 

Usually, when I’m coming up on the end of a novel, I would go out so I could focus. This time? This week? This deadline? It was different. Every deadline in the pandemic has been. 

It looked a lot like this: I woke up later than I wanted to this week. I wanted to blame the fatigue from Mother Moderna, but I think the more likely culprit was Liam, my four-year-old son who has created a habit of running into our bedroom at around two o’clock every morning and situating himself directly behind my lightly sleeping body. “I got spooked out,” he always whispers, curling into my back and sticking his hands under my shoulder blades while his tiny little raptor-claw feet shove their way under my butt. “I’m cold,” he explains. I try to give him a blanket, but he doesn’t want that. The radiating heat from my now fully-awake form is enough for him. Thanks, bud. 

Nighttime was always the time for panic attacks when I was a kid. The still, dark room with one glowing light from the smoke alarm. The whir of a fan. The ticking of a clock… it always set me on edge, and it wasn’t long before it felt like there was something dark sitting on my chest, its fingers plunging through my ribs. My thoughts would spin and adrenaline would burn through my limbs and just when I thought it was over, another one would hit. It’s taken years of therapy and medication to get past that, but I still feel myself priming for battle when I wake up in the middle of the might. Which, as a mom to three young kids, happens a lot. I can go back to bed, now, but it takes a while to power my brain down and fall back asleep.  

So basically, sleep deprivation mixed with pandemic lethargy and just a bunch of I would rather do literally anything else but this, actually vibes made it so this project sat on my desk a lot longer than it needed to. 

But the fact is, I need to be paid. So, I had to do the words. 

Tired or not, I stumbled out of bed and chugged coffee, feeling not in the least bit ambitious (sorry, Dolly). I’d stare out the window for a while, letting the sun thaw my skin as I watched my mom’s two cats (remember the fosters from last Fall? They live two doors down, now) try and fail to catch bugs on the hillside behind our houses. When I could no longer put it off, I put on a fresh pair of sweats and shuffled to my office. Ross took the kids over to my mom’s (she’s been a lifesaver during this pandemic), and then went and locked himself in the bedroom to do a day of therapy. I sat in my office, working for hours until I heard Ross ushering the kids upstairs for bath time. I’d wash hair and sing bedtime songs and say get back in bed, River Grace twelve thousand times, and No, you can’t read in bed until you’re tired, Aryn, about three thousand times. Liam wants to see pictures of megalodons, sharks, lobsters, and t-rexes before he finally decides to sleep, so I made sure to sit next to the bed and pull up Google images that wouldn’t scar him. When the kids were finally out, I’d take a bath and massage my aching hands. Being that deep into drafting can feel like deep-sea diving, which I’ve never done and can therefore confidently use as a comparison. I wanted so badly to connect to other things. I wanted to come up for air, especially with this project. But I was on a mission, and I couldn’t disengage until it was done.

This week, the days felt the same. Even more than usual, and that’s saying something this year. 

Wake up. Eat. Stare at Mocha and Mochi on the hill; they’re so dumb and I love them. Write. Dinner. Kids’ bath. Get in bed, River Grace. No, you can’t read, Aryn. Megalodon, shark, lobster, t-rex. My bath. Bed. Didn’t I just get out of bed like an hour ago? What is time, even?

And I told myself that once I was done, I’d get to work on my own stuff. My heart projects that have taken a back seat this past month. That’s how you know you’re a writer, Ross joked: your carrot for finishing writing is more writing.

I daydreamed about my playlists. The plot twists. I’ve got a feature screenplay in the works – a revenge story that’s basically Promising Young Woman meets Jennifer’s Body. But with werewolves. And my agent greenlit my first adult fantasy: a grounded, Neil Gaiman-esque, standalone fantasy about a girl and a lighthouse. These stories excite me. They wake me up. I thought about them as I wrote to keep my lights on and pay for the daycare that’s re-opening in June. 

I did about 10,000 words a day until I was done. Then, I edited, polished, sent it off, and stared into the void for a couple of hours as my brain re-solidified. 

“Is your brain actually mush?” Aryn asked as I sipped La Croix at the counter. “Because that’s gross.” 

“It’s just a figure of speech,” I said, pressing my knuckles against the cold can. They were swollen.  

My turn, I thought. Now it’s my turn. My work. 

But I’m sitting here, now, at my desk. Nothing between me and my werewolf feminists or my mysterious lighthouse girl. And I’m a little burnt out. 

My managers and I are strategizing for my new pilot and book adaptation stuff. We’re talking about a meeting I have next month that I’m stoked about. I applied to two huge fellowships and incubators, and the notification dates are coming up in a few weeks. The answer is probably “no”, but right now it’s a “maybe”, so I’ll take it. There might be cool book stuff getting the “yes” soon, as well, though it could also be another no. 

I want something I’ve already written – something that’s out already, something that’s already ready – to open a door. But it might not. It might be this next thing that will, so I’ve got to write it, first. My hands still ache, so I’m going to give myself a bit of a break, I think. I’m sending out some CVs for professorships. It would be nice to keep the lights on in a way that didn’t completely wring me out, though I know that’s also a long-shot, too. But isn’t it all a long-shot? 

It’s foggy, still, and I’m over it. I’m over the monotony of it. The way a dreary day feels like it could be 11am or 3pm and you can’t know. I want sunshine, now. I want a change. I want it to be next week, when I’m finally fully vaccinated. I desperately want to be pretty in a Klatch Coffee again. 

But that’s not going to change today, and today is what I need to be present for. So I’m going to go for a walk and not look at my phone. It’s late Friday afternoon – I’m probably not getting any life-changing news from NY or LA, now. I’m almost done with a Jen Wilkin study on Exodus, so I’ll do some of that. Dinner will be something easy – probably grilled cheese with spinach smoothies. The kids will want to do a “dance party”, which is where I blast a probably-inappropriate Spotify playlist and let them jump off the couch onto a pile of pillows. I anticipate at least three fights and two meltdowns, but the fun will outweigh that. I’ll toss them in the bath and then get them to bed. I don’t know if the sun will be out tomorrow. I hope so. 

But we keep going, even if it’s not. 

In the Hallway: The Start of a New Blog Series

I was on the phone the other day with someone. A standard call about one of my kids. Nothing special. But at the end of it, the woman on the other line laughed and said, “you know? I have to admit, I Googled you before I called — you’re really intimidating.” 

I did my mom laugh and joked that if we could FaceTime, she wouldn’t feel intimidated at all. I’ve got pandemic hair that’s three different colors on a good day, and several new breakouts that are a result of using makeup wipes instead of my “bitch, you’re in your 30s” skincare regiment. I was already flirting with bralettes before the pandemic, but now I’m a full devotee. I’m pretty sure the ones I wear are meant for perky young college students and do nothing against the forces of gravity and the effects of several children. 

But I’ll be honest, I loved hearing it. I’ve always loved hearing it. I long to be intimidating — I think it’s something all scared girls want. I’ve been backed against walls in dark rooms and touched when I didn’t to be. I’ve been called sweetheart by men who were supposed to be working for me. I’ve sat in a pitch meeting where the development exec insinuated to the producer that we’d had sex. I say to the producer, because the exec didn’t bother looking at me. I was incidental. I twenty-three year-old joke in a blazer that stood no chance against my pit stains. 

So I love it. After all the forced laughter and baby weight and panic attacks… yes, I want people to be scared of me. I want to let Google spit out my name and list my accomplishments and leave it at that. I fought hard and woke up early and wrote several books and kicked at a door that felt like it would never open. I’ve published books. I’ve published two books, with two more on the way! I did it! And here’s where the difficulty comes in, right? Because I don’t want to diminish that at all — it was fucking hard to get here. But it feels like this: 

For years, I was locked out of this building — this huge, amazing mansion where all the cool things happened. It’s publishing. It’s Hollywood. It’s everything I’ve been working to get to. When I got the call in 2016 that Harper was signing me, I finally kicked that door in. God finally gave me the muscle to do it. That impossible slab of wood. HIS ANSWER WAS FINALLY YES, and I KICKED and it WORKED. 

But over the past five years, I’ve been in that house and realized what I probably should have seen from the beginning. Maybe people tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. The last thing you want to do when that massive door starts giving under your weight is someone trying to tell you to wait, there’s more you need to know. 

The foyer is great: pub announcements, changing that Twitter bio. I’m a publishing author at a Big Five. The ceilings are lofted, and the carpet is lush. I signed with UTA for adaptations. I’m free to scale the massive staircases and gape at the fact that I’ve arrived. People want me to give talks to their students. Me, the girl who barely graduated because she drew a fucking duck on her math final instead of even attempting to answer the last question. The house is beautiful. I got a check. A check for doing what I would do for fun regardless. 

But in the five years I’ve been in this massive building, I am starting to understand. Because the huge hallways are lined with doors, and I can hear things going on inside. Big things… things I want nothing more than to be a part of. But just because I’m in the house doesn’t mean I’m invited in those rooms. 

And the hallway is a weird place to be, because you’re not outside. You’re not in the cold. You can’t complain because… you’re in? But the hallways are a special kind of hard for that reason. 

You debut, but you don’t list. You have fans, but almost every awesome review starts with something like “I had never heard of this book!” And you don’t know how to fix it. People joke about how you must be rolling in cash because YA is so hot, but you know your advance lasted two minutes after taxes. Childcare. Mortgage. Your massive collection of bralettes. 

And the doors everywhere else are locked. You haven’t been invited in. You haven’t leveled-up to the point where your knock means anything. So you sink to the carpet in the hallway and you work. And you wait. And you don’t know if you can say anything, because how ungrateful are you? 

I’ve been in the hallway for five years, now. Writing and pushing and waiting. And the hallway is weird. I ghostwrite books to keep the bills paid. Whatever you see me writing? I’m doing another book in the shadows for someone else. It keeps my children fed and the wifi on, and takes a hell of a lot of bandwidth.

And there’s nothing else I can do but keep writing, and hope that something will open the doors. It feels a lot like being outside, again, but not really? How do you compare? Is it better because you’re at least inside? Is it worse because you didn’t have enough momentum to get all the way in on your first push? 

I signed with 3 Arts for screenwriting right before lockdown last year. I’ve had generals and check-ins with people who I never imagined would ever know my name. They step outside of the room and sit with me in the hallway. We chat and connect, and they tell me we’ll stay in touch… and then they go back inside and I wait, some more. I write, some more. Rejections and passes and “almost”s land in my inbox. Normally, they are just par for the course. Normally, I can even laugh at rejections and shake it off before getting back to work. 

But COVID made the hallway harder. It made everything harder, for everyone. I’m not telling anyone something they don’t already know. We all have the same story. My kids stayed home for a year, and my husband gave therapy to veterans from our bedroom. It was sanitizer-soaked anxiety where we feared the air we walked through and watched almost every system we’d once trusted fail us. All energy was diverted to “survival”, so my hallway self was left where she was, an anemic and exposed wire who felt every rejection like a gunshot. 

COVID killed my grandfather, and the world added him to a number that is so big it hardly matters, anymore. My family went through stuff that is private and hard and I still can’t tell if putting a candle close to it now will illuminate it or burn everything down. Anger that would normally just coat my veins in metal and make me feel battle ready instead just rusted on the spot and dragged me down. 

I’m tired of pretending that being through the front door is all I want, or that it’s easy to hear “no” for five years while everyone else thinks you’re kicking ass, because you’re scared to look like you’re not. I’m up for tv staffing, but my managers warned me that the first job is the hardest to get, so I’m writing and writing and not holding my breath and trying not to stare at my inbox. I finished another book in February and sent it off to my editor at Penguin and am holding my breath for her reaction. I have to finish my ghostwriting project this week so we can have electricity in May. I know I’m blessed to have a job that allows me to work from home and keep us afloat, so I try to keep the complaints to a minimum and succeed at that 28% of the time. 

I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep writing. I’ve got no intentions of slinking off and maintaining my dignity; I’ll sit in this hallway long past when it’s considered embarrassing, because I believe in my bones I’m meant to do this. But not being honest about it feels hard. I got one life-changing yes. It was and is an amazing blessing. But that wasn’t the start of a landslide victory streak that put me on the fast-track to Shonda-like wins. It was one yes. 

I want to update this blog a lot more, but I always run into this conundrum: how can I explain this weird career space? How can I be honest when it will just sound like I’m a spoiled brat with book deals and a severe entitlement complex? 

I want to set my default to “doing KICKASS, thanks”, and keep posting pictures of my coffee and my beautiful typewriter keyboard and my marker-stained kids. But I think I need to pivot. These posts are comin’ at you from the hallway. I’ve made it, but not quite. I jumped one hurdle, and there are a thousand more.

No more oscillating between the highlight reel or “I’m doing bad but feeling determined and inspirational!” stuff. Weekly posts, starting now. Everything from the dirty diapers to the deadlines. Sneak peeks on what’s coming down the pike. And I’ll *John Hammond voice* spare no mental breakdown! 

Because I want to be intimidating. But I’m not. 

I’m relentless. Embarrassing. I’m stubborn as hell and pretty pissed and deeply grateful. I’m good at this and I want it. I won’t stop ’til I get there, and I’m willing to share the whole turbulent shitshow if you’re willing to read.  

A Reverse Werewolf

(TW: SELF HARM)

~

I don’t know how to talk about cutting. I never did.

When my school counselor called me into his office to talk about the thick, gaping, infected lines inside my wrist, I deadass told him it was a mosquito bite.

“Mosquito bite,” he said slowly, subtext dripping from his thin lips. Do you think I’m stupid?

“A big mosquito,” I said back. I’ve never thought of myself as brave, but I must have been to lob a whopper like that at a school official.

I was in labor with Aryn, and they tried for an hour to find a vein for the IV. They had to bring in a black light and call the actual anesthesiologist. He found the thick, gnarled skin. “What happened here?”

I told him I fell off of a fence. In retrospect, he was there to give me an IV, I was in labor, and I should have told him the truth. It would have taught him not to ask stupid questions.

Should I say I still am a cutter? Is this like being an alcoholic – once one, always one? I don’t know. There isn’t a playbook. I know girls like me didn’t invent self-harm. But it felt like we did. Angry, lonely girls who had no real enemies except the ones in their minds. We told our moms we were going to Forever21 but went to Hot Topic. We took traded burned Linkin Park CDs because our parents wouldn’t let us buy them. We’d never been hungry. Never been cold or abused. But there was something dark that hunted us. Something that roved in the corners and the edges and that place where the sunlight hit the window just the wrong way. And there was no reason. That meant the wiring was off, then. The hardware was fucked, even though we looked fine. We were raging, but no one deserved our ire, so we took it out on ourselves. I know we didn’t invent it.

But it feels like we did.

It feels like I did.

No one showed me. No one taught me. It was like it was something that always inside me that wanted to get out. A really fucked-up scavenger hunt. I knew where to run the metal over my wrist, and I knew how to hide it. It felt like something I’d always been doing.

You don’t just stop something like that.  

I stopped because it hurt my mom to see the marks on my arm as I passed the communion plate in church and my sleeve slipped up.

I stopped because my therapist did a check, and I didn’t want a lecture.

Then, I stopped because my boyfriend at the time told me he’d have me committed to a mental ward if he ever saw marks. One day, he gently cradled my face as he threatened me (like the touch itself could turn a threat into a promise), that when we were married and had children, he’d have them taken away from me if he ever saw cuts, because it meant I was a danger to them. He was a cop, so I believed he could do what he said.

But I didn’t marry that man. I didn’t have his children.

I married a goofy redheaded giant who makes me breakfast and who has a Ph.D. in feelings. My ex’s threats rang in my ears; a splinter in my memory. I didn’t stop because I was afraid of him or what he would do. I stopped because I wanted to see myself as he saw me, and I wanted to protect the person he loved. Even if I had to protect her from me.

I stopped because I know it’s not good. My rational mind, my spirit, my heart… they all know that cutting is just digging for poison. It’s a laser-focused search for something dark that is at the same time too big and too small to ever find.

I stopped because I have children, and they deserve a mother who doesn’t come apart at the seams.

And for a long time, I was able to keep it under control. I had some mis-steps… moments where I pulled a butcher knife from the drawer and ran it along my tendons or where I snatched a metal nail file and pulled it up my arms. But I always came back to myself before the blood started, and I put it all away. I was able to Jumanji that shit. Lock it up tight, throw it in the river. Pretend it doesn’t exist.

So I don’t know when the weird thoughts started coming back. (Even though the very axiom of Jumanji is that it never stays buried). And not just the urge to cut, but a new darkness that had never come with it, before. I’d dealt with darkness, though. I’d been raised with it lurking just off-screen. I’d do what I always did: buck up. Batten the hatches, grit my teeth, and swing at the bastard with everything I had; it would pass, eventually.   

But I was losing the fight.

If I could choose to be a fantasy character, I’d want to be a vampire. Self-possessed and aloof, remembering long histories and keeping restrained rage in a terrifying smile. I’d be powerful even though I looked weak.

But I was the opposite. I looked strong: my dream career, three kids, and exciting things on the horizon, though in reality: I was weak. I searched for a while to find what that made me. Somewhere, I started realizing I was a werewolf.

Not in the cool way. I didn’t have yellow eyes and fangs. Every month, werewolves have to lock themselves in a bunker or tie themselves to steel and try and remember who they are because their power might make them forget, right? They’re about to become strong and angry and big and unstoppable? But even that didn’t fit, totally. Werewolves got stronger. I was… getting weaker. Smaller. I was…

A Reverse Werewolf.

That works, right? What else would you call a creature who loses their power every month? What do you call a woman who forgets who she is because she’s too tired to remember? What do you call a mom who can barely muster the strength to stick waffles in the toaster? A writer who almost misses deadlines because she can’t make her fingers smart? A friend who ignores texts or a Christian who just prays something like “what the fuck is happening?”

A Reverse Werewolf.

I started blocking out times on my calendar. “Bad days”, I would say. And I assumed, as I had for so long, that I just needed to TRY HARDER. Get more sleep. Eat more greens. Just BUCK THE FUCK UP.

But every few weeks, time would slow down and I felt like I was swimming through acrylic paint. I’d sob for no reason and wonder how the hell my kids could have a good life with a mom like me. I’d stare at emails and think “write back, Katie”, but I couldn’t move. Sharp things started looking useful, again. I started wondering where I could cut and no one would see. But I live with and love a man who sees all of me, and so that plan was dead in the water.

This isn’t good, something inside me said. Tiny fire alarms. But then, just like that, the prickly haze would lift, like someone snatched a wool blanket off of my brain. I was sitting on the porch one morning on one of my “good days”, sipping my cold brew and watching the resident hawk circling above. Ross came outside and sat with me.

He’d been paying attention to the timing of my “bad days”, and he thought I might have Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, or PMDD. I was having a good day, so I didn’t want to talk about it. But he insisted. I heard him out, and he pulled out his DSM-V and read me the diagnosis criteria. I hit every.

Single.

One.

I did some research and looked back on my planner. It all started to add up.

But I resisted talking to my doctor, because I still wanted to believe that I could handle it on my own. I could exercise more. I could try CBD oil. Yoga. Probiotics. And I didn’t want to admit why: because I didn’t want to up my meds. Deep down, I worried that changing my dosage of Prozac would affect my ability to write. My ability to feel. And that ability to feel is what kept me alive, sometimes.

I was scared about who I’d be if my sword felt dull.

So I avoided the talk with my doctor, and I told Ross to give me a month to try and “deal with it on my own”. I got sleep. I ate spinach. And the serotonin fairy flitted down and adjusted the dials on my brain and I was GOOD, THE END.

Just kidding. I was fucked.

And a couple of weeks later I was lying in bed again, staring at the ceiling and my thoughts got dark. I won’t go into detail, because frankly, they scare me to remember. But somewhere I realized I was being stupid. And I remembered what Stephen King said when he talked about making the decision to go to rehab. He too had the thought: what if I need this for my work? What if I can’t write sober? And he decided to risk it, because, as he says:

“Life isn’t a support system for life. It’s the other way around.”

Life isn’t a support system for life. It’s the other way around.

I realized I was squandering my gifts by believing the twisted thought that they made me worthy. They don’t. I’m worthy without them, because I’m a daughter of Christ.

I sat up, hair greasy, mascara rings under my eyes. I crawled to my computer as I listened to the sound of my kids playing downstairs and made a decision. I needed to live, and live well. I was tired of this really fucked up lycanthropy. So I emailed my doctor, and we had an appointment the next day.

And it took her three minutes to find out that I have severe PMDD. She was surprised I hadn’t called earlier.  

Now, my meds are adjusted. I’m doing stretches every night. I’m getting outside every day. I’m honest with my children and told them I have a sickness, but I’m taking medicine, now. I want to be honest with them. I want them to know there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

As I write this, the calendar is counting down, again. I know that tomorrow, I might be more tired. I know that my thoughts might be a little more unwieldy. I look at the moon, now, and I make sure I take time to prep. I email people early. I grocery shop and deep clean, because I might not feel like it at all for several days. My people all know, and they are ready to help me have grace with myself.

So I want you all to know this – if you take one thing from this missive from the mouth of my werewolf cave – you are more than the art you make. You’re worth the “trouble”, you’re worth the “help”, and admitting you need support doesn’t make you weak. It certainly doesn’t make you less of a creative.

It makes you human.

And while I’d rather be a vampire, for now – human is all we got.  

Whoa Dream Big

He got this look on his face, one I know well: brows furrowed, chin cocked to the side. And I knew what my husband was going to say before he said it, because that’s what happens when you’ve been with someone for one third of your life. He set his bowl down and took two long strides into the living room, eyeing me.

“Whoa Dream Big?”

It’s his way of announcing that he’s going to talk about dreams and wild hopes – all things that seemed ridiculous as he stood there, holes in his socks and semi-permanent purple half-moons under this eyes.

I was perched on the couch, coffee cup clutched in my talons. The kids were around – jumping off of some high, sheer drop, or coloring on a wall. I don’t know. They’re a little collective whirlwind of chaos, now, as though they realized they can raze more square miles if they work together. Aryn leads, Liam shrieks behind her, and then River Grace teeters after them, eager to drool on the ashes of whatever they leave behind. So – picture that general din of chaos in the background, the low rumble of Pompeii – circa 79AD – mixed with a weekly Midwest tornado drill.  

“Now?” I ask. My hair is an unruly bun, my glasses covered in smudges.

“Two minutes,” he says, and I know that there was no point in fighting it.  

Whoa Dream Big is a sacred invocation. A safe harbor.

“You could sell one of your pilots this year. You could get staffed this year. That could happen soon.”

I am quiet, because 2019 transformed me from a wide-eyed, hopeful fawn of a writer galloping through meadows and riding the winds of newly-birthed literary dreams into the old crone who levels her shotgun at that poor creature and pulls the trigger without thinking twice. I’m super fun to be around is what I’m saying.

I don’t know when Whoa Dream Big started, exactly. I know it was inspired by a line from Juno. And maybe it started as a joke – I don’t remember.

Whoa Dream Big is the no-judgement zone. It’s the place where we can say our most ridiculous dreams without feeling proud or entitled or presumptuous. Worse, without feeling delusional. We would talk about Whoa Dream Big things on cross-country road trips.

We’d whisper about it over sleeping babies. I’d look up at the huge “Author Signing Tonight!” signs at big book stores and smirk. Whoa Dream Big?

We watched The Director and the Jedi documentary, and as Rian Johnson talked about writing for Star Wars Ross nudged my shoulder. Whoa Dream Big.

But those felt far. Over the past year, Whoa Dream Big started to feel silly to me. Naïve. A thousand writers, at any given moment, are thinking the same thing. So somewhere, I stopped saying it, and I stopped smiling when he said it. I’d curl my lip and sneer, or roll my eyes and walk away.

There is something special about the flavor of the failures you sample on the other side of “success”. I didn’t think everything would be easy once I published a book. I wasn’t stupid. I’ve watched Magic Beyond Words – the Lifetime adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s life – enough to feel like I was prepared for the third-act dip, thank you very much. I’m not an idiot.

But shit, I didn’t know it could feel like this.

I didn’t know I’d feel delusional, still, even with my name on the spine of a book at Barnes & Noble. I didn’t know that publishing could still throw several curveballs, shelving things I thought were ready and ordering new books I didn’t think I’d write for years (right. More news on that one, soon). I didn’t know I could still cry over rejections – that they could feel as raw and fresh as my first “pass” on a full.

We’re too old for Whoa Dream Big. I have too many rejections in my inbox to justify Whoa Dream Big. Just let Whoa Dream Big wander out into the forest and die like the wounded animal it is.

But Ross didn’t think about it like that. I wanted to sit at the bottom of the empty well that was last year, bloody and tired, and smash whatever remained of my Whoa Dream Big optimism on the stone. But he always found me, and took it from my hands. He tucked it into his pocket and told me he’d keep it until I could take it back.

He wasn’t any less tired. He wasn’t any less sad. But I can say one thing with certainty – Whoa Dream Big would have died in 2019 if Ross hadn’t saved it.

So smash cut back to the living room. Me eyeing daggers at him, because it’s 2020 and he’s bringing it back. He knows what he’s doing. This isn’t a simple sentence. It’s him telling me it’s time to get up. Time to try, again.

A standoff.

The kids knock over a lamp. They tear the stairs apart with their teeth. They smash the hall mirror and make crowns with the glass shards.

“Yes. Theoretically, that could happen,” I mumble, finally. “But it is a long shot.”

I glare at him, daring him to argue.

“Every success you’ve had has been a long shot,” he says. “So. I’ll take those odds.”

It hits me just where he was hoping it would. I can’t argue.

And at some point between the kids dismantling the Christmas tree to build their bonfire behind the couch and them wrapping Cricket in toilet paper, I realize he’s right. 2019 kicked my ass, but what am I going to do?

Maybe that’s the worst part of this whole thing. Or the best part. Both. It’s that I believe I was wired for this. Made for this. And no matter how many times I get clotheslined, I’m going to come back for more.

So I look at my husband, the man who has never let Whoa Dream Big die, even when I’ve literally said something along the lines of if you say Whoa Dream Big right now I will actually shove a fork through your fucking hand, or something equally charming.

“Whoa Dream Big: sell the adult fantasy,” I say. To his credit, he tries not to look too triumphant. “Sell the pilot and/or get staffed.” I lift my chin. “Yeah. That’s possible. That’s possible this year.”

He waggles his eyebrows and walks backwards into the kitchen. Whoa Dream Big is alive and well. Aryn finishes fastening a detonation device to the downstairs toilet as Liam and River build a small retaining wall of pillows and tell us all to stand back.

And I sip my lukewarm coffee and take a deep breath, thinking about all the moves I’m making in the next couple weeks. The bathroom erupts and the house collapses into the hillside. Aryn and Liam shriek with joy, and River wears a terrified Kovacs around her neck like a scarf. My home is in ruins, but I pick rubble and drywall out of my coffee and bite my lip like a true YA protagonist as I contemplate what I just agreed to. What I just let back in: hope.

Because, listen. There is something dangerous about keeping your dreams in the dark warmth of you and never letting them see the sunlight. And I’d seen that same sentiment hand-lettered on canvas selling for $49.99 at Target, but I didn’t really get it until I got it.

I’m going to be embarrassed, again. I’m going to try and put things out there that flop. I’m going to say stupid shit and wish I hadn’t. I’m going to art really, really hard and watch in real time as people shrug it off.

And then I’ll look up to the God that made me and the husband He gave me and I’ll do it again.

2020, we’re coming for you.

Whoa Dream Big.

Without a Yes

I think the problem is that I was already planning on what I would say when the answer was “yes”. Already planning my Instagram post – which filter would make me look properly humbled and stunned. The writerly Miss America. 

If I was writing my story, NBC is a win I would have given me. The pacing seemed right. The chances of getting to the finals on your first year are, as I was told so many times, slim to none. I wasn’t supposed to make it that far, and as it unfolded, I felt like I was unwrapping an answer.

That is why this year has been so fucking hard. That’s why. It was all gearing up for this win.

I was ready for the yes. Hands open, smile poised like someone who is walking into a room and trying to hide the fact that she knows there are dozens of her closest friends hiding in the shadows, ready to jump out and yell “surprise!”

This yes would write me into the movie I was directing, and I’d felt like I played my part – the character working through the first act. I’d cried with my forehead against the steering wheel after dropping Aryn off at school. I’d plucked a “past due” notice out of the mailbox and opened it over a steaming cup of shitty coffee, my hair in a messy bun. I’d done the weary walk through the house at 2am, leaning on the doorway of my kids’ bedrooms as I prayed something like how is this going to work?

I thought the yes was mine. I thought I could taste it – powdered sugar and champagne bubbles on the tip of my tongue, filling in all the hard parts of this year with a shimmering and that’s why.  

That yes was going to remake me.

That yes was going to change everything.  

And the problem is

that the answer

was no.

~

In the space of three months earlier this year, I wrote two pilots and a spec. I finished one novel and launched another. I polished personal statements and watched interviews with former fellowship winners. I lobbed drafts over to my people, waiting to catch the edits they volleyed back over. I’d spin back to the work table, nimble fingers tinkering for hours until the story was tight and shiny.

Publishing threw some serious curve balls. I wrote more.  

Half-empty coffee cups, post-its, and hummus-smeared plates towering on the edges of my desk. Eyes burning, jaw set.

It was the training montage, set to “Harder Better Faster Stronger” by Willa Amai.

I’d crawl into bed at 2am, characters and their bloody missions and quick, pithy dialogue swirling in my chest like pregnancy heartburn.

It was hard, but it made sense. It was the second act. So, obviously.

I submitted everything, and then I waited. I waited, and I had a weird little feeling in my heart. A good kind of splinter. This is it.

So when I got the email that I made the first round, I screamed.

Not just because I was at the top of the top of submissions, but because that little hopeful splinter was right.

I turned in my supplementary materials, and I waited again. There’s a Reddit thread I followed feverishly:

Anyone heard anything, yet? Anyone?

I’d log on and stop breathing when I saw new comments posted. I’d find my footing again when I realize it was just someone asking again.

Anything from NBC?

Interview requests were coming soon, and I prayed. Ross prayed. Our whole family prayed. I’d read and re-read my pilot – DEATH, BUT MAKE IT FASHION: my most “out there” idea to date – what if Regina George was Death? And what if she stopped the awkward girl from killing herself because she wouldn’t let her die in hideous Tinkerbell pajamas? And what if they became unlikely friends? – and imagined them reading it. Were they sitting back in their chairs, pulling off their glasses, and looking up like “we found her”? Because that’s what I would write, if I were writing my story.

I was at a stoplight, on my way to get a feverish Liam early from daycare when my phone beeped, and I saw my drug of choice: the (1) marker by the inbox.

And it was them. They loved my pilot, and they wanted to meet me.

I screamed again, and the splinter cracked me wide open. It was in two days. Bills landed in our inbox as I scrambled to find work. Bronchitis hit, taking out Aryn and Ross in one fell swoop.

But it made sense. It was the third act. I was bound to face some sort of adversary. That’s what I would do to my character, and I was a good storyteller:

A finalist at NBC, in fact.

This is it.

I wandered the lot on the day of my interview. I got coffee. I relished in the feeling of arriving. I tucked my hair behind my ear and gaped at the spectacle of it all – the golf carts zipping between sound stages, the larger-than-life posters on the sides of the buildings – because if I were writing this character, she’d be uncertain, even as every door opened before her.   

I thought the interview went well. We laughed a lot. I turned the charm up as high as it could go (which, for me, is about a six and a half). We talked about kids, and how they loved my writing. They told me they’d be in touch soon.

I called Ross, hands shaking as I breathlessly recounted everything. And I looked around, loving the small voice that whispered, see you soon.

Weeks passed. They sent out an email letting us know they needed more time to decide. They’d call by the following Friday.

I went to urgent care with a high fever and bronchitis.

Totally something that would happen to me right before the biggest win of my screenwriting career. CLASSIC.

I found out I have to rewrite some stuff for some secret stuff I CAN’T SAY MORE YET.   

Wow, I’m going to be so busy when I start the fellowship!

 I was in a private group with some of the other finalists. One, in particular, is a real gem. We lamented together. Every day, we’d check in – anything?

No. Ugh.

My baby sister was getting married that weekend. The Friday of their self-imposed deadline was also the day I had to head out to Malibu for the rehearsal dinner.

What a perfect day! A win and then dinner with all my favorite people!

I could picture it: sitting at the table with my family, a small smile on my lips. I could see the way my sister’s eyebrows would shoot up as I told her and she hugged me and chastised me for not telling her sooner. It’s your day, not mine! I’d say.

I couldn’t have written it better myself.

Friday morning. I woke up thinking – today is the day. Ross smiled as he left. Today is the day.

I turned on National Treasure, and Aryn and I snuggled in to eat breakfast together.

I checked in on the finalist group – TODAY!!!!

And my friend messaged me. She asked what time the kids were leaving for school. I told her they were all staying home today – we were leaving for a wedding.

 Then, some of these:

…

…

…

…

And my heart sunk down to the base of my spine and just kind of sat there as I watched those ellipses ripple. I heard the swish swish swish of my blood in my ears.

She said she’d want someone to tell her, if the roles were flipped:  

Swish swish.

They’d called her Wednesday.

And all my narration – the ribbon of words I’d been spinning above my own head for the past six months – got caught in the zipper of my gritted teeth.

Nicholas Cage ran from Sean Bean and Aryn asked questions about the plot and sat there, quiet, as my story crumbled around me. Act One landed in the kitchen.

Act Two buckled and crashed down the stairs.

Act Three ripped in half.  

I wrote back that I was so happy for her, which was a huge fucking lie and we both knew it but I am grateful that, in that moment, my human being protocol remembered to not be an asshole.

But I felt like an asshole, sitting there amongst the shipwreck of a story that didn’t make it past the harbor.

I thought it would be a yes.

I prayed for a yes.

Everyone prayed for a yes.

God, everyone prayed for a yes.

I cried because I was devastated. I cried because I fucking hated this plot twist, this ending that was more like the shitty non-endings to the short stories I read in grad school than the feel-good movie I believed I was living in.

I cried because I was embarrassed. I talked about the finals with my friends and my parents and my in-laws and, most importantly, obviously – strangers on the internet who may, at one point, have mistakenly thought I was cool. I believed it would have a happy ending, It’s so much easier to post photos of book signings and interviews than to show me striking out. Swinging as hard as I can and hitting nothing, swish swish.

I tried.  

I’d called dibs on this yes.

I woke up early and stayed up late for this yes.

This yes and I made eye contact.

This yes was mine.

I pulled myself together and packed our bags. I did my makeup with extra eyeliner, like that ploy would suddenly work after all these years – like I didn’t know better from countless attempts to patch up a teenaged bathroom breakdown. Like I didn’t know that I’d wind up looking like a sad girl with a lot of makeup.

My sister asked at dinner, and I shrugged like I didn’t care. Which basically told everyone watching that I cared a whole fucking bunch. She hugged me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  

It’s your day, not mine, I said.

~

Now, I’m not quite sure what to do. I’m off-book. Life threw the script out. I think this pacing is shit. I didn’t realize how hard I was counting on this yes to make this tough year make sense.

The pages are turning, but not in the way I thought.

I signed on to do a ghostwriting job that is a financial game-changer. The money doesn’t come until next month, though. That’s a huge prayer answered. Just not the one I wanted. Not the career bunker-buster I thought was coming. I just feel like I’m standing still, now.

My stuff is out with a couple of people. My novel edits due at the end of the month. I’ve been praying, every day, for something to change.

Please give me a yes. Give me the yes I thought NBC was. Show me that I’m not totally delusional. Give me my yes.

But yesterday I was praying after I dropped Aryn off, and I just felt a shift.

A realization.

This isn’t how I would’ve written it. Everything feels off because this is now how I would have done it.

But I’m not writing this story.

I never have been.

This yes wasn’t mine.

And maybe there is another one with my name on it that will change my life tomorrow. Or in two weeks. Or in six months.

But right now? Right now I know that I have to keep pushing. I have to crack my knuckles and face this next chapter

next book

next scene

next page

– whatever it is – 

Without a win. No kill in my jaws, no wind in my sails. No reasons, no understanding.

Now, I come back to the work I’ve been called to, confused and sad.

I sit in the hallway, splinters under my nails as I lick my wounds and wait for doors to open.

And I’ll write. I’ll write this novel and the next pilot and the pilot after that and the book after that and then the feature I’ve been thinking about and the adult fantasy and I’ll do it even when all I hear is no.

I’ll do it on His timing, and I’ll do it without a yes.

* DISCLAIMER: I am a healthy white woman with three healthy kids and a healthy, loving husband. I live in house full of twinkle lights. I’ve never been hungry, and even on my darkest days I know I won’t be. My parents are generous and understanding. I do my dream job for a living, and my coworkers are animals. I know I got it good.

This is the blog post equivalent of me crying in the bathroom at a school dance. Right now, this feels like everything. Right now, this is devastating. Maybe it won’t be in six months. But *right now*, I’ve got mascara running down my cheeks and a limp corsage on my wrist and I just got dumped in front of everyone.  

So. If you want, come sit on the tile floor with me and hand me rolled up toilet paper so I can wipe my glittery snot. But don’t think I don’t know, for one second, how blessed I am. Or that this, too, shall pass.

On Wanting

“What I can say, Katie, is that you want this more than anyone in this graduating class.”

It’s been years, and I constantly go back to that moment. Sweating through my blazer, my cheap Forever 21 necklace strategically covering a baby vomit stain on my shirt, waiting for my academic jury to reach their decision as to whether or not I would finish the MFA Program.

Before she told me I passed, my program director said this to me.  

You want this more than anyone.

I was confused. Not because it wasn’t true – it was. I’d squeezed my pregnant belly into the classroom seats. I attended class three weeks after a near-death C-section. I finished scripts for my MFA program while rocking an infant to sleep on my parent’s kitchen floor, where my husband and I lived for a year… all while completing two different graduate programs at once.  

You want this more. Not – you deserve this more. Not you are the most talented.

I rolled that proclamation around my mind, trying to place it. It didn’t sound like a compliment, and – for years – I wasn’t sure she meant it as one.   

I am thinking about it a lot more, lately. Especially since I thought that the days of sleeping on a kitchen floor were over, and it feels like they are back with a vengeance. And there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to air all my dirty laundry on here, because my brand looks better if I stick to photos of cold brew and River’s gummy grin. I have a lot more to lose, now. I have an *~image~* to maintain. Four books with major publishers. Three adorable kids. String-light filled house. Cozy writing room and the endless hustle, because I am **aWEsOOmE**.

But screw it. I’ve been trying to write for months, and it’s like rusty water slipping from a tap because I’m trying so hard to keep this image of myself put together. So here I am, hitting the faucet with a rubber mallet while loosing a war cry. It’s going to be messy.

This year has been really, really hard. And it’s been the year that’s supposed to be my victory lap – my book came out! It’s the year for travel. It’s the year to cash in and realize that I have arrived.

But it doesn’t feel that way.

Both of my books slated for 2020 were moved to 2021. This happens all the time in publishing, but it meant that my income shifted, as well. Fine – I took some freelance work to keep us afloat.

Then, my grandfather died.

A few weeks later, I had to sit in the radiology department with my infant daughter for a scan because they weren’t sure if she had macrocephaly.

My mom had always told me what it was like to try and hold down my older sister when it came time for heart scans. How they had to put her in a tube. How she screamed. I had to hold my own daughter down in the same way, biting back tears as the smell of antiseptic and ultrasound jelly filled nose and the thought – that River is now the same age my sister was when she died – filled my head.  My daughter is fine, thank God. No macrocephaly. But the sorrow that dislodged in me is like brick wall that shifted in an earthquake. Some of the edges are pointing out, now. Crooked teeth. I brush up against them accidentally sometimes, and I bleed.

Student loans came due. Ross described it a bit like the scene where the Upside Down slowly strangles Hopper in Stranger Things. I felt that. My freelancing gig kept us above water.

Then, there was the “Cricket has a strange growth on her lip” week. That was fun. She’s fine too, thank God. Never have I been more thankful that she’s just a loveable idiot who stuck her face in a black widow’s web.

People post things about my book on the internet. Sometimes what they say is nice. Sometimes it’s not. I retweet the nice things. I remember the mean things to convert into fuel when I feel strong enough.

Two weeks ago, the freelancing gig popped into my DMs to let me know they were discontinuing my contract “for the time being”, because they’d decided to discontinue their blog series. They wanted to let me know ASAP so I had “plenty of time! SMILEY FACE SMILEY FACCCCEEE”. (Yeah, there were EMOJIS in the message.) They gave me a week’s notice.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had bills or a life or basic human needs – but one week’s notice is not “plenty of time”. ANGRY FACE ANGRY FAAACCCEEEE

Both our cars have the engine lights on. The sliding door on the passenger side of my van no longer works. A step on our stairs is missing its front face because it just… fell off. I just got over a 24-hour flu that made it so I couldn’t even stand. I can keep full meals down, now.

Ross works overtime a couple times a week. I make mac and cheese and do baths and jammies and prayers and I try to keep the “losing my shit” to a minimum. So like… four or five times. Tops.

Last night I had to decide whether or not to buy paper towels or fruit, because we couldn’t afford both at once. My email is full of waiting and maybes and almosts. It’s full of rewrite and no and try again.

You want this more than anyone.

I lean my head against the wall when I shower, now. Like a character in a movie. And I think about those words.

You want this more than anyone.

I weightlift in the garage and scream-sing “Waving Through a Window” from Dear Evan Hansen. Sorry, neighbor next door. Maybe this makes up for leaving your blind dog outside in the cold to bark for three straight years.

You want this more than anyone.

Those words used to haunt me. I’ve thought a lot about why.

Because girls aren’t supposed to want things the most. We’re not supposed to claim and conquer. Hell, we even look around the room before we raise our hand when we know the answer. We’re taught cautionary tales about women who want too much. I learned the fate of Joan of Arc in history class. I’ve seen women candidates poll low for their “crazy eyes” and Serena Williams suffer criticism for the passionate defense of her game. I watched Daenerys Targaryen’s body collapse to the stone before the Iron Throne, undone by her excess of want.

We’re prized for being demure, and winning only looks good on us when it catches us by surprise.

And sometimes still I wonder if maybe this is what I get for wanting. Maybe the road doesn’t have to be this hard if I just.. stopped pushing so damn hard and did something else. Anything else. Maybe I’d feel less delusional. Maybe things would be easier. (Even though, full disclaimer: I know full well that my hard time? My worst time? It’s still a time where I have a house. I have a van to gripe about and food to feed my kids – my healthy, safe kids.) Still. Maybe that thought is why I didn’t blog for so long. I didn’t want to let you know how hard I was trying.

How much I want this.

But I have this little metal ball spinning under my ribs. It glows at night and warms me up, and it tells me that I serve a God who made me with a specific purpose. And that I will fulfill it, and that I really believe, with everything I am, that this “writing thing” is it. I believe this is what I am made to do. I am made to tell stories. I am made to raise my kids. I am made to do both, so I believe He will show me how to do both. My moment will come. I have to believe that.

And when it does, I don’t want to arrive with my hair in place, sly smile on my lips like I just flitted down and lighted on this opportunity by pure happenstance. Shiny little wings winking as I cover my mouth like the winner of the Miss America pageant. What is this? Success? Me? No! Oh my gah I can’t believe it—

No way. I punched through steel for this. I wiped tears off my face with my wrists because my hands were covered in baby shit for this. I woke up at five in the morning for this. I cried in the pantry so my kids couldn’t see for this. I re-wrote from page one six times for this. I crash-landed for this. Dirt and flames and blood and ash on my sweaty face for this.

This year has been a trial by fire. And through it, two small, still-piping hot ball bearings roll through. They clink across the floor, and they’re hot in my palm as I cradle them. Tiny wins:

I signed with UTA for my screenwriting. They’d always represented my book-to-film stuff, but now they represent me. My agent took my pilot out last week.

I made the semi-finals for NBC Writers on the Verge. I made the cut from about 2500 down to about 120. I’ll take that.

Maybe I shouldn’t write that. Maybe it will just be embarrassing when I don’t make it to the finals. Or when my pilot goes back on a shelf.  

But I just told you I can barely afford paper towels, so I guess we’re past that, right? And honestly, it won’t matter. I’ll keep going, even if the answer is no on these things. Even if I tuck these ball bearing wins into my pocket to cool and carry them through the rest of 2019. Even if these are the only professional wins the fire spits back out.

So now I open a new Final Draft doc and crack my knuckles. I have dried blood on my cheek, and I’m not sure where it’s from. But I’ll handle that later.

I have work to do.

Because flattering or not, the words are true.

I want this more than anyone.  

This Year in Story

It’s the end of the year. Christmas Eve, to be exact.

I’m thinking a lot about where I was this exact time last year. I was a mother of two, just finishing my first semester as a college professor. I had just signed my second book deal, this time with Penguin. We were living at our first actual house as a family – a small little condo with a red door that overlooked a gully full of trees. I had just got my first huge tattoo, which moved me from the kind of girl who has a couple little delicate tats to a girl with full-on bicep ink. I lost both my grandmothers within three months of each other.

I’m thinking a lot about what changed in this year, but story was a constant. It was the God-given balm on my soul that got me through a lot of the curve balls this year chucked at my head.

I got pregnant with River Grace, and our little red door condo was too small. I fell in love with the Gallagher family as I binge-watched Shameless. I taught myself how to apply for a home loan and open escrow because if Fiona could fight for a better life, I could, too.

We moved two doors down from my parents, which meant an overlap of a couple months where we lived with each other. I finished drafting while vomiting. I thought I miscarried and sat in a hospital room, a crinkly paper gown hanging off my shoulder while they brought in buckets and scalpels and wouldn’t tell me what was happening. Then, I felt relief I didn’t know I could experience when they did an ultrasound and I saw her little heart beating. I still couldn’t shake the feel of the thin gown and the whisper of the blood as it dripped down my legs, so I lost myself in Signs – the movie that marked me as a child and told me to hold on. That no matter what, there was a God who would see me through.

I watched The Exorcist TV show to distract me during the move. I don’t really know what that says about my mood.

My parents moved to their new house, and the morning sickness ebbed. We made a home, and the first night I sat in my finished living room, we watched Spider-Man: Homecoming. My parents house became mine to the sound of Tony telling Peter: if you’re nothing without the suit than you shouldn’t have it.

A voice in the back of my head that told me something was wrong with my inner circle got louder.

I ended a professional relationship. It was really hard. He talked me out of it once before the women in my writing circle reminded me that I’m not a fainting violet and that I need to follow my gut. I watched Game of Thrones – the scene where Olenna talks to Daenarys. I thought about that while drafting one of the hardest emails of my professional career.

I met my book-to-film agent, Mary Pender. We ate speghetti in Beverly Hills and talked big dreams. I had coffee with Lee Jessup and she took me on as a client. I let Avengers: Infinity War break my heart into a million pieces as I held the hands of one of my best friends in the dark theater.

Through the summer, we watched True Blood and I fell irrevocably in love with Eric Northman and all of Bon Temps.

Aryn started kindergarten, after I fought tooth and nail to get her into a good school they said was full. I got Liam into a new daycare so they could be at the same place. It was expensive. I finished another rough draft of the joint project I’m working on. I did copyedits on The Beckoning Shadow and edits on The Breath of Bones. I read Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff and The Men We Reaped by Jesamyn Ward. I dove head-first into Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. I let myself get swept away by Naomi Novik’s Uprooted and Kat Howard’s An Unkindness of Magicians. I got thoroughly spooked by Mindy McGinnis’s This Darkness Mine.

I started working on a pilot as I licked the wounds from the professional breakup. I wasn’t sure I trusted my story sense. I signed up for a class at Script Anatomy, and a working TV writer told me I have something worth fighting for. So I did. I am. We watched The Americans, and Oleg deserved better. Don’t @ me.

I went into labor, and they made me sign a paper saying that I understood going for a natural birth after a C-section could kill me. I countered that any kind of birth could kill me.

Touché, they said.

The epidural was only partially effective, but I pulled my daughter out with my own two hands, and it was worth it.

River Grace was born, and the postpartum anxiety kicked in. Hard. I bit back adrenaline as it rattled my jaw. I started grinding my teeth. I weaned her, because breastfeeding is a mindfuck and a half and anyone who wants to give me shit for that can eat a bowl of butts.

Sleepless nights with a fussy baby, then. But The Haunting of Hill House came at me sideways, knocking me down in a way I was incredibly thankful for. It rattled me. It rattles me still and now I have to close my office door at night because the BENT NECK LADY fear is REAL.

Then, Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass Series, where I met Manon Blackbeak while sipping bourbon and listening to the rain pelt the windows. She left a mark on me I never want to fade. On the cliff edge with Abraxos, with all eyes on her, turning to her troops: We are the Thirteen from now until the darkness claims us. Let’s remind them why.

I thought of that as anxiety ripped up my throat over and over, and I think of it now as I peer around the corner at 2019.

2019.

My book comes out. I will have another nephew in April. My youngest sister is getting married. And I’m excited to see what stories will catch me by surprise. The class of #Novel19s is not going to disappoint. (Seriously, all. Go look at that hashtag. It’s gonna be a good book year.) I have things in the works with my books at both Harper and Penguin, and things I’m going to shoot for in the TV space. I’ve got Writers House and UTA at my back, and they’re telling me to go for my wildest dreams.

So don’t blink, 2019. Because I’m making more moves.

So I Guess More Dreams Came True? (An Update and Thoughts on Finals Week)

It’s finals week.

bahahahah not for me, I’m done with that.

But being a writer professor gave me a bitch-slap of nostalgia and suck, and I couldn’t help but reminisce, badly and mostly while sipping a whiskey sour, about my finals weeks.

The ones where I was under-prepared, under-motivated, and over-caffeinated.

All-nighters, triple-shot espresso, sweats and highlighters. And, of course, that was always the week you a) found out the guy you were ‘talking to’ was ‘talking to’ another girl at the pool table in the student lounge, b) caught the viral plague, c) started your period, or d) all f***ing three at once.

But I when I would feel overwhelmed, I'd write that E.L. Doctorow quote on a piece of paper and stick it somewhere I could see it: "You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." It gave me comfort.

Now, I’m not in school anymore. I mean, not technically*

*Technically I am because I FA-HAILED my language exam for my MA in Lit and have to take it again. Le sigh. Can’t win them all. Or – no puedo win todos. SEE, I KNOW SPANISH.

Anyway. Even though I’m not in school, I still had one hell of a semester. 

This will be a three-year long blog if I go in to detail, but here’s the short version:

We got a Border Collie/Lab mix named Molly. She’s adorable and Cricket is still getting used to her big little sister. Liam can now walk, and – oh – he can open up Molly’s kennel and eat all her dog food while sitting on her bed. Impressive and disgusting.

My grandmother passed away. That’s too painful to poke at, so if you’ll follow me, we’ll continue down the Gallery of Things That Happened Fall 2017.

I got a huge tattoo. I taught three college writing classes. I fell in love with Trollhunters, Stranger Things, and Shameless. I had a cool dinner with a cool person in LA and we talked about things I never thought I’d ever be talking about. I turned in revisions for my debut novel.

Oh, and we’ll pause here at some big news.

I signed another two-book deal!

This is where I insert my sister’s reaction when I told her this, which was to eye me suspiciously and ask through a mouthful of Chipotle: “I thought you already had a book deal?”

Yes, I do. I have a two-book deal with HarperCollins, but that’s different than this one. This one is super, super cool and with Penguin RandomHouse.

Earlier this year, my agent, manager and I decided to take another look at a book I’d set aside for a year while I focused on my debut. This book didn’t fit at Harper, and I was totally fine with that. But it still bopped around in the back of my mind, my characters tugging at my heartstrings every once in a while like… “hey, remember us?”

So Bri (kickass agent boss lady) and Scott (kickass manager extraordinaire) decided to take this book, then titled A HAUNT FOR JACKALS, out again to see if we could find it a home.

I cleaned it a bit, and then Bri sent it out on submission. I put it out of my mind as much as I could, because anyone who has ever been on sub knows how it feels to wonder if anyone is going to get this bloody little shard of your heart in their inbox and think it’s worth their time (and their house’s money).

Anyway. Six days later, I was teaching my writing class. They were in the middle of a writing exercise when my phone buzzed. I look down and it said “BRIANNE JOHNSON”.

And I sputtered out “hey guys I need you to give me a minute, okay?” and I ran to the door as fast as I could, because I had a boot on–

(–Oh right because I fell off my bike and flashed a bunch of freshmen boys on my way down and partially tore a ligament. That’d be bad enough, but I was already prepped from the humiliation of my first day where I a) taught the wrong class and then b) set off the fire alarm while saving a baby lizard. But that’s a blog for another time.)

“Don’t run on your boot, Professor!” someone yelled at me.

I was in the hallway outside my classroom when Bri told that PENGUIN wanted my little book about secrets. Not only one, either. They wanted a duology. They wanted me to finish telling the story I started back in 2015 while living in my parents’ kitchen.

I doubled over crying as she told me the details. Then I called my husband and my mom, because that’s what you do when your book finds a home. I turned around, tears streaming down my face, to see my students all pressed against the classroom window.

“My book sold!” I called out, and they erupted in cheers as I cried. They hugged me.

So 2019 is looking like a pretty busy year, you guys. My book from Harper and my book from Penguin will both hit the shelves… and then 2020 will also see two books releasing – one from Harper, and one from Penguin.

And that’s not all.

Back in 2016, I wrote a screenplay for a client, who also happens to be a Director at Apple. (Like as in Apple… like the thing you’re probably reading this on, right now.)

Earlier this year, we decided to go ahead on a joint project we’re referring to as “Darker Percy Jackson”. I’m writing that book, as well, and the website for the franchise will be launching soon.

I wonder what Finals Week Katie would think about this, now. I wonder what I’d tell her. Probably something like this – your headlights are good enough, girl. Especially when those headlights are Jesus.

He led me through living in a kitchen. Through post-partum depression while living in a kitchen. Through shitty internships where I was waking up at 4am to beat LA traffic and shitty internships where I was seen as a pair of boobs and not a writer like they’d promised I’d be and then shitty jobs where my soul was sucked out through my eyes and then back to a shitty internship where I doubted my ability to make a photocopy.

He led me here.

So my bebes who are doing finals week? Listen up. (You too, Becca. I know you’re reading this.)

You are enough. These exams are tough, but you’re tougher. Remember who leads you, and He’s not gonna let you fail. And this is coming from someone who wrote a joke about a duck on her math final.

You’re gonna get through. And you’re gonna find some fucking amazing things at the other end.