#44: Happy Halloween (Yes, I'm ALIIIIIVEEEE)
How do you start a newsletter near the end of the year when the last one you sent was in February and promised them regularly? The answer is many times over and then abandon it. So this one is IT. This one sticks. No matter what, and I promise to try to make this not a lie, I'm hoping to get back to the regular letter thing.
So why the radio silence? It's been a deeply weird year. Career-wise, it's been a really good one--Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds has been well-received around the world and hit the New York Times bestseller list (at number 11, appropriately!), a long-time dream of mine. THE (absolutely lovely, down-to-Earth) Matthew Modine came to YALLWEST to hang out and sign books with me. I got to go on a whirlwind Paris tour.
(This would make more sense if it was upside down instead of sideways, but I can't figure out how to make tiny letter flip it so sideways Matthew Modine and me).
While all that was happening, I was filled with a deep sense of imposter syndrome, because I'd been working on the same book for what felt like a very long time and while, yes, I wrote other things and finished them during this time, I struggled with this deeply fun book because I didn't want to screw it up. Usually I don't like books while I'm writing them, but I liked this one. A lot. The good news is I finally finished that book this fall, once the travel whirl was over and I could sit at my desk and focus. And we just sold it, yesterday, along with a second, about which more when I can say more. I'm EXCITED and really thrilled with the editor's vision for it. And I'm working on another something new. Funny how doing the work is the thing that most quiets that imposter syndrome voice, isn't it?
There've also been personal things that were good, bad, ugly, and just plain tough this year. For one, I will always remember this year as the one where my beloved, track star nephew Landon died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 22, and my family and his friends had to figure out how to live in a world with a hole in it. I still have a deep sadness, and always will, but I've also found recently that I'm filled with a renewed sense of gratitude at life, at family, at friends, at all the things I have. We only get so many days, may as well be grateful for all of them.
And be deeply grateful for the people in them.
Now I'm going to go type some words. More soon, xo,
Gwenda