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.