I have written this newsletter ten times

& sent none of them!

It’s become something of a joke in my apartment—I’ll say I’m going to send my first newsletter “this week,” and then my roommate nods and smiles and doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, because we both know I’m lying. I’ve written so many drafts and sent zero. It felt like this one should be about The Prospects—my debut novel, which released in April of this year—because that’s what most people signing up for my newsletter know me for, but for a handful of reasons, that has proved challenging.

a picture of The Prospects, held up in front of the seats and field at a Brooklyn Cyclones game, at their Pride Night this June; I love thinking about how many games Gene has gone to at this ballpark, how many he would get to take Luis to.

Most centrally: I’m mired deep in Book Two, and it’s kind of all I can think about. This one won’t come out for a while (probably 2026, don’t quote me though), but I’m on my third draft right now, which is, usually, the stage where I start to feel like a book might really be a book. And, honestly? I am starting to feel like this book might really be a book! I can’t wait to tell you more about it—what it is, who it’s about, the weird question of genre, drafting from the depths of seasonal (and regular, non-seasonal) depression, how I have to relearn how to edit every time I do it, etc. Most of all, I can’t wait to tell you why I wanted to write this book. But that’s for later.¹

The other major reason is just—fuck, it feels vulnerable to talk about art sometimes, doesn’t it? I recently shared Book Two with a really small handful of people for the first time. As it always does when sharing a new project, it felt a little bit like I was coughing up my own guts and handing them over for inspection. Then you have to be like, “Haha, does that make any sense? No worries if not!!!!!!!!”

I’ve had that coughed-up feeling before. It isn’t new to Book Two. It’s happened with everything I have ever written, on some level, including and perhaps especially The Prospects.

Still, I expected it to go away when that book came out. In some ways, it has! For example, it no longer feels like a jump scare every time I see the book in public and have to face the fact that people have read it. I honestly mostly feel proud, and grateful for everything that had to happen for that book to exist.

But in some ways—I don’t know! It’s still a deeply personal piece of work, to me, and it can be hard to talk about in a lighthearted “here’s my intro newsletter” kind of way! Much like Gene, I am not a casual, laidback person!! I would LOVE to tell you about, say, the various superstitions I imagine Gene and Luis and Vince and Baker would have, or maybe a newsletter about how and why I construct budgets for my characters. Honestly, I want nothing more than to write a Fictional Budgets Email.

But before I can do that, it feels like I have to hold up a giant sign that says THIS BOOK MEANS SO MUCH TO ME, PLEASE BE NICE.² (Honestly—would a sign help?)

I think that’s a really common feeling for artists—certainly, just about every writer I talk to feels like this, at least some of the time. But I also think more or less daily about this newsletter Colin Meloy sent out this summer, during The Decemberists’ tour for their first new album since 2018. In it, he talks about how, when the band performs “A Beginning Song” at concerts, he knows that it isn’t their most popular song, but also that, when he looks out at the audience, he can always tell that there are a few people there who it really resonates with.

Maybe it’s relevant to mention that “A Beginning Song” is my favorite Decemberists song (as much as such a thing is possible to pick when you’ve been listening to a band religiously since you were fifteen). I think I could make “If I am waiting, should I be waiting? / If I am wanting, should I be wanting?” the epigraph to every book I’ve ever written or ever will write. That song was and is a life-changing piece of art to me.

I get what Colin Meloy means, though. No piece of art connects with every single person who comes into contact with it—but, if you’re lucky, it connects with some people. It feels magical, when it does. Maybe “A Beginning Song” isn’t The Decemberists’ most popular song, but I cried openly when they played it at the Brooklyn stop on their tour. It was only the second song that has ever made me cry at a concert.

Which brings me to the first song that ever made me cry at a concert: Orville Peck’s “Drive Me, Crazy,” which is where I got the title of this newsletter from. If you haven’t ever heard it, you should listen to it now. It’s about two long-haul truckers and the brief moment of connection between them as they pass each other on the highway. I’ve always loved a song that really tells a story. The more esoteric the better, much of the time.

Have you listened yet?

Okay, once you’ve listened—

When he says, “Breaker-breaker, you there? Keep me company,” can’t you just feel the loneliness, the longing, the hopeful reach towards human connection??? Haven’t you ever felt that exact ache in your chest?

That’s art to me. That hopeful reach. Putting it all out there and feeling coughed-up and still hoping that someone’s in the audience recognizing every bit of what you were trying to convey. Breaker-breaker, you there??? Keep me company!

Anyways. I’m tentatively hoping to send these newsletters out every other week. My next one is probably just going to be about the fictional budgets mentioned above, or, like, how much I like writing dialogue. Maybe it’ll be a list of all the things I’ve procrastinated on over the years, if I’m still as behind on my edits then as I am now! But thanks for humoring me, today, as I gazed at my own navel. Next time I’ll try to remember to put more jokes in.

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News & Updates

• I’m going to be Andie Burke’s conversation partner on Friday, September 13 at The Ripped Bodice in Brooklyn, to discuss her new novel, Fall for Him. You can get tickets now! I’m excited to read the book and chat about it—and I love a Friday the 13th, it must be said!!

• I have not checked my Instagram DMs/notifications in approximately three months, so…my apologies! I have been busily writing during that time, though, so hopefully you can forgive me.

• Outside of writing, I have been very into trying to get all of the strawberries and B-Sides in Celeste and also knitting a baby sweater³ for a friend of a friend.

1. Okay, one thing I will say, since you’re all the way here at the bottom of this email: Book Two is not a Prospects sequel (or prequel, or companion novel, or anything in that general vein). I suppose they arguably exist in the same universe? Like, Book Two’s very Pacific Northwest love interest could have a Gene Ionescu baseball card, in theory.

2. When I sent my best friend the first few chapters of Book Two this past week, I did genuinely title the document “Chapters 1-5 – draft three for Sarah please be nice to me.”

3. Is there any higher honor or greater joy than knitting a baby sweater? I really am not sure that there is.