Answers to your questions & January’s lost scene

Tonight, over on Facebook, I’ll be hosting a live Q & A. If you have any burning questions about All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (or any other book-related things), I’ll be answering them from 7:30 to 9:30 CST.

If you’ve been wondering where January’s lost scene is, it’s available exclusively this week on the Book of the Month Club’s blog.

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New year, same old me

As we do, I went into 2017 with plans for all kinds of improvements to my life. At work, I cleaned my desk off, and so far it’s produced mixed results. I’m less depressed to come to work, because my space is more orderly, but the cleanliness of my desk seems to invite people to make more requests of me. Perhaps because my work is not so clearly displayed, they think I don’t have enough of it?

I re-started my home yoga practice, which is almost completely to the good. Of course there’s time for it. There was always time for it.

Oh, I made the NYT Bestseller list. Which is not quite the result of any change on my part, but an outcropping of a lot of years of work and several lucky breaks. Or maybe it was all my positive thinking. (Probably not, I don’t really do much of that.)

This week, however, I found a thing that I used to think I wanted to change about myself, but now realize I don’t. When my editor and agent delivered the good news that All the Ugly and Wonderful Things was officially a bestseller, they also asked about my next project. Did I have a synopsis I could share with them?

Welllllll … I don’t really do synopses or outlines or any sort of planning when it comes to writing. I’m a complete pantser (which Autocorrect thinks should be panther.) I write lots and lots of words and after I’ve put several thousand of them together, I start to see the shape of a story. Then I write more words. Usually a lot more words. Then out of this mountain of words, I carve the story I want to tell. It’s not pretty. It’s not simple. But I realized this week that it totally works for me, and I need to stop feeling awkward or ashamed about my messy, chaotic process to creation.

Now, I did produce a synopsis for my agent and editor to look at, but it’s just a big pile of guesses. (Shh, don’t tell.) I don’t know if that’s what will happen in the story I’m working on. I’m okay with that. I used that crazy method to produce All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, and that seems to have worked out for me.

So whatever things you may have resolved to change in 2017, remember there are plenty of things about the same old you that are worth keeping.

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Book of the Year?!?!

Well, I may have been number two on Goodreads, but the Book of the Month Club has declared All the Ugly and Wonderful Things Book of the Year! This is really amazing, because this is the first time in their 90-year history that they’ve awarded a Book of the Year. They even have an adorable name for the award: The Lolly. (Named after their first Book of the Month Club selection, Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Fun fact: fellow Kansas William Allen White was on that first panel of judges who selected Lolly Willowes for the Book of the Month Club.) The Book of the Year even got a write-up in Parade Magazine!

To celebrate being Book of the Year, I’m going to be taking over the Book of the Month Club’s Twitter feed tomorrow, January 4th. It should be fun.

Also coming up is a live Q&A with me on Facebook. If you’ve read All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and would like a chance to discuss it with other readers and ask questions of the author, that’s what we’ll be doing on Tuesday, January 17th, 7:30-9:30 pm (CST). For more information on the Q&A, just visit the official event page on Facebook.

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