Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! My head has been full of stories for as long as I can remember. I was definitely that kid hiding at the back of math class (and science and Spanish . . . you get the idea), flipping to the end of my notebook to write down scenes and dialogue.  But I didn’t imagine writing for publication until I was much older. I went to law school, started working as a lawyer, found a stable career with a steady paycheck and then resurrected my writing dreams. Even after that, it took me a while to shift from the mindset of “this is my hobby” to “I want a writing career.”

First, I feel obligated to say: this story is not typical! If you’re a writer aspiring to be published, don’t let this demoralize you! Before I signed with my agent, I queried two manuscripts unsuccessfully and wracked up plenty of rejections. (If you're in the query trenches - i get it! Hang in there! Much love to you!)

After my two failed attempts at querying, my co-author, Kimberly Jones and I wrote I’m Not Dying with You Tonight. When it was just a partial manuscript, an author friend referred it to her agent. Success, right? Nope. She rejected it! :( While she offered some very positive feedback, she said she felt we needed to complete the book, that rushing would do a disservice to the story. I confess, that was disappointing to hear. She was my dream agent.

But . . . she was right. We did need to take our time, find the story’s arc and the voices, without feeling pressured by time or current events. We took her advice and went back to work. We finished a draft, revised and revised and revised, sent it to early readers, got feedback and revised some more. The manuscript was infinitely better for the work we put into it, and as strange as it sounds, I’m grateful to have heard that initial no.

After the manuscript was finally complete and revised, we sent it off to another agent we’d been referred to and took a chance and also sent it to the agent who’d originally rejected the partial.

To my everlasting joy, this time, she did offer representation! I signed with Tracey Adams of Adams Literary, who was and remains my dream agent!

Tracey submitted our manuscript to publishers (the dreaded process of being “on sub” for you writers out there) where we wracked up a lot more rejections before I’m Not Dying with You Tonight found a home at Sourcebooks Fire.

Oh, yes. The journey to publication was bumpy! And honestly, even after my first book was published, my writing career has remained unpredictable - full of joy and super rewarding but punctuated with difficult and disappointing days.

There have been days I’ve considered stepping away entirely. Ask my friend, Kate, about that one time I cried in her lap at a coffee shop after she asked me what the state of writing was for me. My first book is dedicated to her because she lifted me up that day and encouraged me to keep going.

I believe creativity is a cycle of destruction and reconstruction of faith. You have to start by having faith in your own ability to make art and remind yourself of that when it gets hard. You have to have enough faith in your project to share it with others. And as my co-author says, art is no. You hear a lot more no than you do yes in the world of art - including publishing. It feels so personal; it can take a huge toll on your confidence. Which, in turn, makes you think about abandoning the whole endeavor. But then, you gather around you a trusted community of fellow creators into whose laps you can cry when you need. Because you will.

And you work to reconstruct your faith in yourself and your art again. Painstakingly. Day by day. Sometimes word by word. But you do it, because you love it and you don’t know how to really, truly walk away.

Creativity is the most fragile and the most resilient thing in the world all at once. It’s easily broken, but really really difficult to permanently destroy.

Forever.

No really. I’m a slow writer and my day job/family life doesn’t leave me much time for writing. If you’re wondering where my next book is . . . me too!

My ideas come from two places: a what if question that takes hold of my imagination or a scene that pops into my head fully-formed and demands a story be written to match. But ideas come from everywhere. The real trick isn’t finding ideas, it’s sticking with them! (See below)

FINISH WRITING THE THING.

I am the queen of the 30-page novel, perpetually seduced by that temptress, the New Idea. For a long time, I’d run off with every New Idea that popped into my head when writing on the current project got hard. But until I stopped doing that, I wasn’t improving at the craft of writing. And I wasn’t producing anything capable of being published, either.

So my best advice is finish projects. Drafts, edit, revise, get feedback, revise some more. Learn, improve and don’t give up.

Of course, this doesn’t mean every single idea/novel will be published. Heck, even after I got one book published, I’ve had others rejected! And I have many “trunk novels” that deserve to be trunk novels read by no one. But if I’d never learned to finish, I wouldn’t be as strong a writer as I am now.

Gosh, I hope so! My co-authored novels have been optioned by production companies, so here’s hoping!

I really like to live in the world of my favorite books. I immersed myself into a love of macarons after reading Anna and the French Kiss and learned to bake November Cakes from Scorpio Races. One time, I planned an entire trip around London based on the locations in the Shopaholic series. Give me a way to bring a book to life and I’ll try it! Well, maybe not zombie books.

See the Contact page for my speaking agent’s information!