October

your heartstrings that play soft and low

This past month has been a whirlwind. I handed back edits on three titles for my Fall 2026/ Spring 2027 lists. Amid that, I travelled to Cancun for one friend’s wedding, then to NYC for another’s. Needless to say, my sweet husband has learned a very valuable lesson about taking a road trip with me on the day Taylor Swift drops an album.

Life of A Showgirl will forever be fused with the last week of my life, which is appropriate because New York for me has become a sort of theater. I spend so much of my life orbiting the same two creatures, that the moments I have to appear from the neck-down now feel like performance.

“We are bumpkins,” my husband informs me as we struggle to update our Uber apps. He is right. I may know how to track horse droppings, but that helps little when trying to enter the subway using my phone (hot tip: you can do that now).

I love this city, and I always will. I was born here, and to this day, no place has a higher concentration of people I love and personal landmarks. It’s fun and alive, and when I’m in town, I feel like my blood is laced with cherry candy and bubblegum.

But I have to say, I’m happy to be home. New York is a metropolis made of reflective surfaces, and in truth, when I’m there I become one. After about three days, even the best three days ever, I have a hard time locating my own instincts.

For me, intuition is soft. It’s not the honking of a horn or the blaring of a fire-alarm; it’s a dog padding across a patch of sunlight. It’s the quiet voice that says when to hold on and when to let go.

To make art, you need to be practiced at both—at taking great big gulps of the world and walling it out. So much of creating is maintaining the membrane between your creation and reality. We’re in first pass for Into the Blue, and the book is now in so many hands that creative containment is tantamount to pitching a tent in the middle of an airport terminal. Outside voices are drifting in, which is a good thing; but at the end of the day, it’s still up to me to carry the torch across the finish line.

The choices are small now, but vital. This word or that word? Should I keep this or STET? This paragraph isn’t working, but if I change it, I’ll need to adjust its twin in part IV. At this point in the process, when fatigue is high and security is low, it can be easy to want to someone else to tell you what is right. To want the sure thing. But the truth is, no one knows for sure—not even intuition’s quiet voice.

Still, the quiet voice must be followed at all costs. To ignore it or drown it out risks almost irreparable damage to the creative self, and truly nothing is worth that. My gut is not always right, but here is what I will say: I have never regretted following it.

And here’s the thing about intuition—it’s not stagnant. We are constantly learning and growing. Case in point: last night my husband grudgingly admitted to having “Opalite” stuck in his head. He’s not a full on Swiftie (yet), but it goes to show that our subconsciouses are always adapting.

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Updates

Currently Reading: Mate by Ali Hazelwood

Currently Watching: Abbott Elementary

Weather: Cold and blustery! Our local flora is short and scrubby, but we more than make up for that with extreme displays of fall foliage at eye level. It’s starting—one more week of cool evenings, and my world will be red.

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Books I Read Last Month

Heartless Hunter/ Rebel Witch by Kristin Ciccarelli: This duology is (ever-so-lightly) based on The Scarlet Pimpernel, centered on a vigilante witch masquerading as a socialite to save her kind, and the witch hunter who is forced to fake-date her. It’s a game of cat and mouse I really enjoyed. The world building maps easily onto the French Revolution and wasn’t overdone. Rune is so fun to root for (like Aelin Galathynius, she appreciates a beautiful gown as much as she appreciates getting to stab someone in it) and Gideon is a stone cold fox who knows his way around a measuring tape (he makes her a dress!!! I’m underselling this scene, it’s heart-stopping). Kristin Ciccarelli doesn’t let up the pace, the twists, or the tension at all with the sequel—truly, you should order them both, you’ll want to jump into the second the minute you finish the first. These are cozy and dreamy—light torture, cool magic system, and a couple who are hot and sweet in all the right ways.

Shows I Watched

Halt and Catch Fire: This show is so beautiful, holy shit. It’s propulsive, and clever, and interesting, and the characters will never ever leave me AHHHH. I know next to nothing about tech and found it riveting. Obviously, I’m obsessed with Joe and Cameron’s arc…but I’m also obsessed with Joe : Gordon, Gordon: Cameron, Cameron : Donna, Bos : Everyone. Despite being on the verge of cancellation its entire run, the show eked out 4 seasons, and each one is incredible. I’ve thought a lot about why this didn’t attract a larger audience, and I think it’s because artistic collaborations are given primacy over the romantic/family relationships, which just isn’t widely relatable. But clearly artists love it—and love to steal from it. If you care about story craft/ performance/ both, this is truly a must-watch.

The Paper: So fun! This is a The Office spin-off, which takes place at a local Ohio newspaper, and it’s exactly what you want it to be—a modernized remix of The Office, containing all the same ingredients in different permutations (and unlike the original, the lighting is great from day one). I laughed out loud at every episode—my only regret is that they only filmed ten.