"It seemed incredible that it could be the same road, the same asphalt, that they had traveled so many times together. You thought that you were the permanent part of your own experience, the net that held it all together—until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another so quickly over time that the buildings and the trees and even the pavement turned out to have more substance than you did."

And We (I) Should Keep Talking

I’ve been a bit absent as of late, but for good reason—work has kicked up in a major, major way. As I mentioned before, I launched a new channel on Glamour.com, Inspired, where we house all of the content about the inspring women we talk about every day, plus an anchor blog, The Conversation, that updates almost daily. As a result, I’ve not only gotten my hands dirtier with this launch, but I also took on a project that’s much different than anything I’ve ever done.

This article, by Carolyn Jones, called Politics and Abortion: Why I Told My Story, and Why We Should Keep Talking is the first original piece of long-form content for the channel. It was a response to a blog post I wrote for the channel about Ms. Jones’s piece in the Texas Observer about her abortion. The post received 53 comments, which is a substantial number for a Glamour.com blog post, especially on the new channel. I reached our to Ms. Jones to see if she waned to do a response; she said yes, and I edited it. I think it’s strong, resonant, and has really stretched the limit of the kind of original content we do online at Glamour, opening the door for us as editors and contributors, especially on the cusp of a monumental election.

Personally, the project with Carolyn and the launch of the channel has been significant for me, too. My fiction manuscript is with an editor right now, and because it’s been five years in the making—yes, I’ve officially hit its half-decade birthday; excuse me while I celebrate by vomiting—my relationship with its ownership has been a Coney Island Cyclone-esque one. It’s nice to have something again built totally from the ground, and to watch its evolution, development, and success happen on a short-term scale in an entirely transparent way. 

In short, I’ve had my faith in self and ability recharged, and I’m human; regardless of how capable and professional one is, everyone needs that at times.

I’ve also lit a spark under myself to continue to dedicate myself to projects of increased substance. I love the main thrust of my day job. I love my writers, and being able to assign, edit, delegate, teach, and train. I love what I write. I’ve just opened another avenue to be able to do even more, and I’d be insane not to take advantage of it. Look what it’s done already.

MT

"The moment someone comes across as real and unstaged and comfortable, it has so much more power."

"Area code 718 romantics love to see their hometown’s name every time they pull something out of the fridge, to pretend a borough of 2.5 million people is a small English village, to partake of a Shop Class As Soulcraft authenticity that’s missing in their Twitter-addled, cubicle-drone lives, and to reassure themselves that Brooklyn is more “real” than Manhattan and not just an annex with shorter buildings."

"Watching him roll out his blankets, I wished to ask him what was in his heart just then, for I wanted so badly to trust him, that he had at last made a moral decision, but I could not think of the correct words to say, and I was fearful of what the answer might be, and besides that I was spent, and just as soon as I laid my head on the ground I dropped on the most impenetrable kind of dreamless, leaden sleep."

Reblogged from ANOBIUM ON TUMBLR.

You know you’re a professional writer when you can write in any voice, no matter how you’re feeling. Even if it’s not your best day, you just turn it off and go because you have to.

Feels Good to Be Inspired

So, there’s this whole fiction thing that I’ve been working on for the last, oh, billion years, yes. But, since my manuscript has yet to make me a quazillionaire, I do some other stuff to pay the bills, like be an editor for Glamour.com.

Thursday, I launched my biggest project my the years of being there: a new channel called Inspired, taking about news, politics, women’s issues and generally badass ladies. I’d be humbled if you’d take a read, and maybe come on back once or twice (an hour).

“You cut it off and then you keep it in your heart you/Break another one because it makes you start to/Feel alive, I know it gives you a kick/But it’s a lie and you’re just making it stick”
—Braid, “The Right Time”

Opening quote to the novel, perhaps?

My Life as a Quarter-Centurion

Roughly three years ago, I’d promised to myself that on my twenty-fifth birthday, I’d be able to walk into a bookstore and snap a photo standing next to my own book. I knew it was an ambitious goal, and I was the only one pressuring myself to make it happen, but with the way things were going with the manuscript—having finished it a few days after I turned twenty-two, and agented soon thereafter—everyone agreed it wan’t terribly farfetched.

Well, it’s my twenty-fifth birthday today. And as the few thousands of you who follow me know, I’m far cozier with Track Changes than I am with a Sharpie, scribbling my name on title pages across America. Turns out, that’s actually OK.

I’ve always been a person who’s strived to be above and beyond in every aspect of her life. It’s almost always paid off; I learned what the feeling of dreams coming true was like much earlier than many people (full-well knowing some never do at all). When I set my publication goal three years ago, age was so important to me—yeah, I’d already proven to myself that I could write a novel, and at an unusually young age at that, but it wasn’t enough: I wanted to be published exceptionally young, too. Now, looking back, I don’t feel like I’ve broken a promise to myself. In fact, I feel kind of bad for the twenty-two-year-old who was so focused on the number. If I’d had the manuscript go to press a year ago, about the time it would have gone off to be on shelves now, it wouldn’t have been the book that it is now—or even the book that it’s still turning into.

The book that everyone knows it will be.

I’m proud of the patience I’ve learned, the value of quality and, probably most importantly, the toughening of my skin. I have faith enough to honestly believe something with happen, maturity enough to not pin my self-worth to it just in case it doesn’t, and wisdom enough to want to offer the best possible piece of work of which I’m capable, however long that may take.

I may not have a bestseller, but what I do have is a birthday present for which I’m genuinely grateful.

MT

No Loitering

Yesterday, things got epic in Park Slope café-loitering land: I have a new chapter one. And, well, that’s pretty weird, considering the absolute newest prose (yesterday) is now co-mingling on the page with the absolute oldest (May 2007). 

Now, play nice, kids.

doodlersrevue asked: Any words of wisdom for a wannabe writer?

Write through it all.

Write through the zeal, the pain, the love, the heartbreak, the frustration, the mania, the beauty, the misery, the lauding, the humiliation, the self-assurance, the mortification, the hope, the despair, the confidence, the bottomlessness, the thoughts, the emptiness, the yes, the no, the lucid, the hazy, the promise, the disappointment, the accomplishment, the failure, the acceptance, the denial, the green lights, the caveats, the questions, the answers.

Write through it all.

"45. It ended because another person wants you to need to be with them, with her, specifically—not because you’re afraid to be alone."

Brain, Meet Function—You Two Should Get Friendlier

Well, now I remember what it’s like to work yourself sick—not that I’d ever claimed to have forgotten. The last two weeks have been something of a whirlwind: I was told the back half of the manuscript was wanted, so deliver the back half of the manuscript I would.

That’s about fifty-thousand words for anyone who’s keeping score.

I’ve seen more stunning moons against pitch-black skies and sunrises since last Saturday than I’d like to admit, but I was continually amazed at how lucid my thoughts and edits were regardless. I was focused and on a mission, and perhaps what’s more: the prose that came out was, well, good. And necessary to the novel. Yesterday, when I finally handed it off through a haze of fever, chills, body-aches and a throbbing headache, I actually felt like I was handing off something better than what it was when it started. (Yes, if you’ve spent nearly five years with a manuscript, you understand that this actually is something worth noting.)

Oh, and after I pressed send, I slept for nineteen hours. True story. But today I remember my name, so that’s a start, right? Right! (Go with me here. Please, for the love of god, go with me.)

Binge editing. Resumption of standard twenty-four hour cycle TK.