The other woman, er, book

on cheating and staying focused

Sometimes when I am too stressed out by the book I am supposed to be writing, or my other writing responsibilities, I cheat with someone else, a book I’m making on the side. I love the idea of writing books in pairs, or at least half of one book while finishing another whole one. I did this with Cost of Living, and now it’s happening with the new book. The book under contract—Burn This House Down, forthcoming, I should tell you, in 2025—used to be the half book I worked on when I was upset with Cost of Living. Now there is a new-new book. It doesn’t have a name yet. I am terrible at titles. There is also another one, maybe, after that, more nonfiction, unless those sections get folded into BTHD. I am trying not to force anything, to just make the book as I can.

This photo may or may not have anything to do with the novel.

I know cheating on my current book with a new book is an executive dysfunction thing, a coping mechanism, a way of sketching out what I have and where I need to go. I tend to get really obsessed with structure, much to my detriment. In a lot of early drafts, I am trying to stuff the book into whatever container I can find. It’s all Tupperware, none of it mine, and all with missing lids, but I try anyway. The container problem is a big one for me, alongside describing what the book actually is. I tell everyone that the book under contract is a cultural history, or a memoir, or a book of essays, or a history of psychopaths, but it’s none of these things, or maybe all of them. I don’t know what it is at this point; I’m still writing to find out, and part of that is almost for my editor or agent or PR person to decide. A big surprise for me with Cost of Living was how people gravitated to small parts of the book, or described it to me in wildly different ways. I tell people different things as a way of trying on some new ideas. I both admire and am deeply afraid of the people who make an outline and then write the book. I don’t understand that kind of work at all. It feels too didactic, too 1:1. I don’t know what the book is about until I write it. Even then, I feel like I need someone else to explain it to me. But if I start working on one project and then periodically go to the other project when things get hard, I can at least keep moving—and try to avoid my container problems. Structure is so hard. I just want to loop a bunch of sentences together and then make paragraphs and have a lot of white space. This time, at least, I made a small timeline so I can know a little better about what goes where. That’s useful too.

It’s okay, I tell myself, to take whatever time I need. The other book is a novel, has nothing to do with Burn This House Down, and I really like it. The body count is high. The book is very dark, and decidedly not of this world. I don’t know yet if it’ll be the next book. The voice for this one comes and goes. Mostly these days BTHD wakes me up in the middle of the night to work, and that is exhausting. The voice for the novel comes when I am reading or thinking or walking the dog. When I hate everything, I work on other things altogether, like substack posts or reporting projects that are all way overdue or very occasionally, email. The point is to keep working, even though it is much easier to do anything else. (I am really, really bad at email. If I owe you an email, just email me again, because I probably can’t find it, and I’m sorry. Or text me. I was unprepared for email, in life. My close friends will attest to this). When all else fails, I look at houses on Zillow. Please link/tag me w/your faves. I love houses in ruin, because I imagine what it’s like to fix them. Yes, I know the next book is called Burn This House Down. Probably something to that too.

On the reporting front, I have been writing on a couple of topics for a long time, and I’m almost there, but I keep finding more information I want to include, so the story keeps changing. I am not a reporter, but I keep forgetting this, and a combination of my earnestness and eagerness to please and my Midwestern sensibility means I just say “yes!” over and over again. I have no business saying yes. I am an essayist, despite my best intentions. Instead of shining a flashlight on what I want to see, which is what I’m doing when I write an essay, in reporting, I have to train it on an entire scene, many people, lots of opinions. It’s hard for me to synthesize all these disparate parts and opinions, to find the story in all of it. The novel is not like this either. I get to focus my flashlight on one scene, one horrible moment, for as long as I want. It’s so much fun. I can’t wait to share, once I have my arms around it.

PS, I’m posting some demitasse seconds on twitter today. Just message me if you’re interested. Shipping is free in the US. Here’s a tiny porcelain demitasse, light blue celadon, no handle. There are others. Anyway.

PPS, I turned on paid subscriptions for those who have expressed an interest in that, but all my posts are open to everyone right now. I will have some cup giveaways and additional posts for subscribers in the future.