Lessons Learned One Year After Log Off's Publication

We're all in the same boat

It’s been exactly one year since the biggest day of my whole life, so I thought I might share some wisdom (lol) learned since the release of my debut novel, Log Off. If you’re more of a podcast person, I was on

Emily Hessney Lynch

’s podcast yesterday, where a lot of the same topics were discussed.

One of the questions I’ve been most frequently asked about this book was how I channeled a teenager’s voice. While I realize this answer sounds a bit dismissive of my own skills, the truth is, it’s just not that hard for me to slip back into a teenage mindset, lol. Qualities more associated with adolescents—intense and sometimes even bratty emotional reactions, an obsessive interest in art or artists, a deep loyalty toward my friends, and an almost cringe sincerity—are still qualities I very much have. I’ve toggled between thinking it was embarrassing to still be like that well into my thirties to thinking mostly everyone is like that. If it’s the right moment, you can see the intense and insecure kid in everyone, no matter their actual age or how grown-up they may seem. Some people are just better at hiding it.

Though at times, it doesn’t matter if everyone secretly holds this intensity, if you grow older and stay committed to writing books or making art or playing music, things can start to feel a little lonely. In your twenties, it seems like everyone is going to stay intensely committed to making art forever, but the truth is that some people’s priorities change or others drop off. Luckily, I got to plan the release and go on a thirteen-city tour with two people in their thirties who were just as insanely committed to the lifestyle as me, lol. I’m talking about my publisher

Lucy K Shaw

and Shabby Doll House pressmate

Oscar d'Artois

(The Island) obviously.

That’s my first piece of advice. When you’re considering how you will publish your book, or ways to promote your book, think about what you really value and what experiences will make you the happiest. And for both, work with people you like or whom share your values.

Also, if you’re planning to go on tour, try to go on tour with a friend or two. I’ve seen more and more authors touring together, even at the Big Five publisher level. If you can’t do a full tour, do a joint event with someone who also has a book out. It’s fun, you have the obvious advantage of drawing on both your audiences, and I genuinely think the social anxiety aspect of events is easier to handle if you have a crew. On the same note, you should use your power as a crew to not be clique-y, and instead realize you now have two or three times the number of hosts who can go out and make sure everyone at your event feels included and welcome.

sneaky pic that tourmate Oscar d’Artois took last year of me on a work call that weirdly looks like i’m cosplaying my own novel’s cover. lol, such is life.

Some more lessons learned:

• Like every writer, I used to occasionally get jealous of other people’s successes, or annoyed about certain advantages others had that I didn’t, and I fully expected having a book come out would only heighten those feelings, but it actually had the opposite effect. Instead, it made me realize we’re all in the same boat. That’s something I might have known before in an abstract way, but when I was deep in the process itself and looking more closely at what other people were doing around their own events and releases, I saw it in practice. I saw a writer I presumed to have a very confident and glamorous existence be extremely nervous at her own reading, or when I congratulated another writer for drawing a huge crowd at their book event, the first thing they expressed was disappointment that more people didn’t hang out after the event was over. You’ll always want something you don’t have, and someone will always want something you do have, and at the end of the day, after the excitement of an event or a release dies down, we all go back to the same thing—being alone with our weird thoughts that we hope will provide inspiration for the next thing we write.

• That transition back to the quieter life might be an adjustment. It was, and continues to be, for me. Months of work went into planning all the release stuff, from the tour to the final edits to the cover, and there was something quite existentially satisfying about waking up every day and knowing what I needed to do because there was always something to do. And then when we were on the tour, I loved the excitement of doing events and going from one city to the next and trying to frantically post on social media about it and also work my full-time day job. Keeping busy can be an addictive adrenaline rush that I’ll admit to chasing. My partner says that sometimes when life gets slower, he can see my mind thinking, “what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing.”

• Visualizing my whole life like candy colored blocks of a Google calendar to conquer can be advantageous when dealing with the business side of writing or publishing, but it’s not the ideal mode for exploring that next thing to write. That thrives on a lot of mental idling and wandering. I recently interviewed

  Shelby Hinte
  for The Creative Independent, and she said, “with art, you do a lot of work that doesn’t overtly look like a product.” That’s true, and as you get older and become more aware of time, that’s not always easy to accept. It can be frustrating to spend a Sunday afternoon writing something that’s so bad you’re probably not going to use any of it, or realizing hours have past and all you have to show for it is falling down some internet k-hole that originated from lightly researching a topic semi-related to your current project. I’m always hoping that these false starts will pay off further down the line, but maybe I need to get rid of that line of thinking entirely and enjoy the pleasures of simply getting lost in an idea without immediately thinking about what it’s for.

• There are a lot of articles about how publishing a book won’t change your life, but I personally think publishing a book does kind of change your life. No, it probably won’t bring massive fame and fortune, but you’ll likely make some new friends. And as someone who published in lit mags for years, and also edited my own lit mag for years, I’ll say that publishing a book significantly opened up a wider amount of opportunities as a writer. Nearly every month I’ve done something that was a result of Log Off, whether it was a school visit, or being part of a reading series, or a podcast. And remember, my book was indie. Being on a larger press has its advantages, but I think—especially today—many of the opportunities for writers are similar, no matter where you publish, as long as you’ve put time into a literary community. Panels, reading series, school visits, are often a mix of authors from major and indie presses.

• Along those lines, there’s a lot of pressure around your book’s release date to do things right and not miss your shot or whatever. I do believe writers should give their book releases their all, or challenge themselves to try things outside of their comfort zone when it comes to promotion, but I think it’s important to stress this: there’s always going to feel like something more you could be doing, so therefore, you can’t really miss your shot. There was an opportunity I wanted this book to be part of around the release date, and I sent several emails about it, and then, months later, after I’d nearly forgotten about it, guess what? That opportunity reached out. But the real goal—and it’s easy to forget this when you’re sending a million emails—is not being on such-and-such podcast or getting press from this-or-that outlet, the real goal is people reading your book and having an experience with it. And that has no timestamp. In fact, it actually thrives on having more time to happen, because unless you are one of the Big Five’s leading titles, the way people discover interesting books is slowly and primarily through word of mouth. Every few days there’s someone new who reviews Log Off on Goodreads and I don’t know who they are or how they found the book and that’s amazing.

• There are also a lot of people I do know who have read the book and it’s moved me a lot. Both that they took the time to read it, and the conversations I’ve had with them as a result. Something that frustrates me in life is how often we all go through the motions, even with people we know well. It makes me want to shake each other and say, “Jesus, we’re all going to die one day, so let’s both drop this act, and tell each other what truly matters in our hearts.” (Lol, I told you at the beginning of this piece that I have semi-cringe adolescent leanings!) Art is one of the greatest ways to initiate those types of meaningful conversations, and so the best part of having this book out has been when people, whether strangers or close friends, have shared something about themselves as a result of reading it, whether a light nostalgia for the time period or something more deeply personal.

• I’ve always been involved and supportive of other writers, and let me tell you, after this year I’m committed to being even more so. Not simply because it’s good literary citizenship to pay it forward, but because now that I’ve been on the other side of it, I realize how much saying something to a writer matters. Previously, when someone I know has had a book out, there have been times when I just tapped a “like” and moved on. Or maybe I’ve even bought it and read it and liked it and not told them, because I was thinking “eh, they probably don’t want to hear from little ol’ me.” And now I see that no, most writers definitely do want any sort of affirmation that they can hear. In fact, they may need to hear those affirmations twice. Putting anything out into the world is vulnerable, and there’s always some deep-rooted fear that absolutely no one will care, so any message or action you send of support that says you do care proves their fear wrong.

On that note, thank you to everyone who read and showed up in some way for Log Off this past year. If you live in Rochester, I have an event this Saturday, June 7th at Writers & Books with Emily Hessney Lynch and then I’m going to go back to being in weird quiet mode for my own work. However, I know myself and I know I can’t get off that ride of “what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing.” So what’s the next thing? Channeling that energy into showing up for other writers, both IRL and online. Frankly, that’s something I’m more comfortable with anyway, over having to promote something that centers around myself.

So, with that in mind, I’ll end with a variation on Log Off’s last line: if you have a book coming out, why not reach out and let me help you a little?

<3,

Kristen