The joy of being unreliable

Sometimes losing an identity is a good thing

Dear Writer,

You know that friend who is always 10 minutes early for everything and never forgets the bean dip if she says she’s gonna bring bean dip and if she’s ever even a minute late or brings salsa instead of bean dip like she said she was going to, she vomits apologies on you forever as though she just burned down your house instead of was maybe a few minutes late with the wrong side dish?

Yeah. I’m that friend.

Well, I used to be that friend.

Now, I’m the friend who forgets the coffee date you set up weeks ago and ends up being fifteen minutes late and when she shows up she gets halfway through an apology before busting into an anecdote about how she kind of thinks her mother might have stolen a baby in the sixties.

Now, I’m that friend.

I enjoy the new me so much more.

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Drafting starts June 21! Join me and a whole cohort of other writers as we create worlds, battle demons, fall in love, plot murders, solve murders, and share our favorite parts of what we wrote every day.

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So, the last time y’all heard from me, I wasn’t going to do Dear Writer anymore, and I moved to a private newsletter because social media was giving me facial ticks and the direction that Substack was going in was making me uncomfortable and I just… couldn’t… anymore.

And then, those of you who followed me to my new newsletter got a letter from me every week, as promised, for a month or so and then I vanished?

Well, I have discovered something about myself.

I’m unreliable.

And maybe that’s okay.

I have spent my life trying so hard to be someone that other people could rely on all the time, which meant that I made my life centered around everyone else. While I did that, I also overcommitted myself to a million things I thought I should be doing for… reasons… and when I eventually ran out of gas trying to do eight million things, I’d just hobble off to the side of the road and disappear for a while.

During this latest disappearance, I completed an agent hunt, finished another revision on NOTHING IS EVER ALWAYS and sent that off to my new agent, started a new year of the Year of Writing Magically (it’s so awesome, y’all, I cannot tell you how much I love doing this every year), and bought a van that Ian and I are going to live in full-time starting in August.

No. I’m serious. Here is visual evidence of me cutting a hole into the roof of my future home and installing a MaxxAir Fan.

I have been up to shit.

But as I realized that I needed to remind y’all that drafting starts June 21 because I want you all to experience the unbelievable fun that is drafting with the Year of Writing Magically cohort, I realized that I missed Dear Writer, and all of you here, and I didn’t need to give it up just because the app forces me into Notes and Chats and all this weird shit that created like a mini-Twitter out of Substack that made it almost as toxic.

But you know what? I don’t have to use the phone app. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Jeez.

And yeah… there’s something to be said about owning your own mailing list and not being tied into a social media infrastructure that could collapse at any moment but… I like the interface here. It makes writing to you easier, and I have realized in recent months that I love easy. I love it so much. I don’t need any more friction in my life so… I’m back.

Big deal. Who cares? Nothing matters anymore. Let’s party.

So, over the next few months I’ll be building out my new home and drafting my new novel MONSTERS AREN’T REAL and it’s gonna be busy. I’m not going to be reliable. I cannot be relied upon to show up here every Wednesday at 6 a.m. with stuff to say that’s going to be interesting… and that’s okay.

Because if you hang here with me, maybe I won’t be reliable, but you will get van pictures, and snippets from the novels, and messy schedules, and maybe the story about how I think that my mother might have stolen a baby in the sixties.

Might have. Maybe.

Probably not.

But… maybe.

I’ll be back, but before I return, I hope y’all will go and sign up to join me for drafting if you want to write a novel this year. Basically, imagine Nanowrimo, but a little more chill as you get three months instead of one, with a tight, supportive community, and daily sharing of snippets where the only feedback you’re allowed to receive is, “What’s your favorite part?”

It’s so fun, it’s $50. The world is on fire. What the hell else are you gonna do this summer?

All this to say… I’m back.

Everything,

L