The Making of Men, Myself, & I: A Timeline
If you aren’t wringing your hands, are you even doing it right?
Birth to August 2019—Get born. Go to a writer’s conference in first grade but promptly abandon any thought of writing that isn’t a script for my teddy bear play, fake commercials for my Barbies, or a note to my friend Steph or “boyfriend” Brian. Later: a journal entry, class assignment, or love note to my boyfriend Sam or Steve or Matt. Also, clandestine poems I was afraid to read back to myself, much less believe were anything but pathetic and embarrassing. Also, eventually, a manuscript called This is How You Know You’re Alive, about the stillbirth of my first son, which remains on my hard drive (it’s better this way).
August 2019—Notice Love and Trouble on my bookshelf and wonder to myself what its author is up to lately. Wander to her Facebook page to read something typically pithy or funny or wry and observe that her most recent post indicates she will be teaching a year-long manuscript revision class at Hugo House called Book Lab. Promptly apply for the program using the aforementioned (hopeless?) memoir because Claire is SMART (and pithy and funny and wry) and I have identified a fire in my belly that could be called the inspiration for my second memoir, but I haven’t even started yet and this is a class about revision, which means I’m supposed to have something to revise.
September 19, 2019—Receive the email indicating I am accepted to Book Lab. Sit in my car with my mouth hanging open for at least three minutes until tepid drool on my bare forearm snaps me from my reverie. Drive home and start writing like I have something really important to say, though I have no idea yet what that is or who might care, just that there is a tension inside me that is only relieved by sitting my ass in the chair and telling the pages all about the last few years of my life, during which time my husband and I opened our marriage, I had a sexual (re)awakening, and our marriage fell apart. Good times.
September 20, 2019—Wake up clearheaded and realize: I did not have a drop of alcohol last night. Decide this will be day 1 of 100 consecutive days of sobriety.
October 1, 2019, 5-7PM—Attend my first Book Lab meeting at Hugo House where there are six (soon to be five) other writers, plus Claire. Blurt out, when she asks what I’m working on, that I applied with one manuscript but the one I really want to work on isn’t written yet. Soar with inspiration when she tells me, “I think you should write about whatever you want to write about.”
October 1, 2019, 7:34PM-early January, 2020—Write (on my computer, or my phone) all the time and everywhere: at the kitchen table in my apartment, on the floor in front of the muted TV, in bed, at the coffee shop, at the other coffee shop, sitting in a camp chair at my son’s soccer practice, sitting in the bleachers at my son’s basketball practice, standing in the crowd at concerts, on a walk, at the gym, in my mom’s extra bedroom when I should celebrating the holidays with the family I’m writing about, sitting in my car waiting for the light to turn green. Complete more than 100 days of sobriety and realize it’s probably best I just stick with it because 1) life got better, and fast, and 2) I have so much work to do now that I am writing another book.
January 7, 2020—Send my first draft to Claire for her review. Spend the rest of the month stewing about what she’s going to say. Continue developing thoughts, drafting new chapters, and recalling events I would rather not.
February 3, 2020—Meet Claire for coffee at Le Pichet to discuss her notes. Nearly choke on my flaky pastry when she tells me she’s having something like déjà vu because I am sitting in the exact spot she sat years before while discussing her first memoir, Poser, with Dani Shapiro. Ponder seriously for the first time whether, like them, I am a Writer. Wonder what she means when she says, “There is a lot here.” Sit mystified when she tells me, “You have to decide if this is a story about sex, or marriage.” Thank her profusely and try not to sound as overwhelmed as I feel.
Earlyish February 2020—Forward my draft to an esteemed reader of my first memoir. Shrink when she tells me she will not have time to read it. Beam when she surprises me a week later to say she had an unexpected change in her calendar so she read it after all. Shrink…no, wither…when I read the remaining contents of her email, which says, basically: if you aren’t going to write about trauma, addiction, and grief, you might as well not bother. Also, if you’re going to write about sex, you should do it well.
Later in February 2020—Sulk for days. Suspect deep down she’s absolutely right. Cry. Protest. Stomp my feet. Thank her for her feedback in a vaguely defensive way and continue to stew because I have realized she is absolutely right: I am avoiding writing about the thing I hate the most…that is perhaps most germane to the narrative.
Still later in February 2020—Hear something on the Otherppl with Brad Listi podcast about slowing down where it hurts and writing what scares me. Stand convicted the moment I hear that, knowing I have to write about The Thing I Hate Most. Start writing The Thing I Hate Most plus trauma, addition, and grief while enduring a new thing I hate: a global pandemic.
May 2020—Sit outside more than six feet removed from editor Nicole Hardy, who read my second (or third?) draft and tells me I need to consider the Hero’s Journey. Study the book she lends me on the subject (The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler). Finally grasp what Claire has been saying in class (now via Zoom, natch) about narrative arc. Reorganize, revise, rewrite whole chapters.
July 2020—Send my fourth (?) draft to Steve Almond for review. Faint with gratitude when I receive the most useful and comprehensive notes I could have imagined.
August 2020—Query my first agent with my nowhere-near-ready manuscript. Cry when she passes on it, because I have no idea I have around two more years of work ahead of me and really hoped she was the One.
Two years that follow—Buoy myself amid the existential despair that surrounds me (global pandemic, parenting a kid that’s homeschooling on a screen, early sobriety, my impending divorce, more agent rejections of my manuscript that I still don’t realize is still a very long way from being ready…) by imagining the day I am finally done. Contemplate self-publishing, hybrid publishing, and no publishing. Fantasize about someone discovering my manuscript and handing me a great big bag of money for it. Cry when I wake from that dream to more unanswered queries or agent rejections. Decide again I’ll self-publish. Change my mind: hybrid for me. Send more queries.
November 2021—Attend a Writing By Writers workshop in Lake Tahoe with Sunil Yapa and Pam Houston, among others, and decide it’s official: I am a writer. Give my first reading—three minutes of perhaps the most provocative passage of my book that another writer dared me to read (“Like, I loved the way he fucked me—dirty and hard and without any eye contact, usually from behind, sometimes in the ass.”) Enjoy it more than I thought I would despite barely hearing my words over my pounding heart.
December 2021-May 2022—More revision. And angst. Tears. Rejection. Futility. Fatigue. Frustration. Snacks. Hope. Despair. Epiphany. Meaninglessness. Freedom. Idiocy. Cookies. Determination.
May 2022—Meet with Suzanne Morrison, (my fifth editor, if you’re keeping track), to review her feedback on what is beginning to read and feel like material I am truly proud of, that is, perhaps, finally nearing DONE. Delight to learn most of her notes are minor or cosmetic.
June 2022—Pick up a printed manuscript of what I have decided is IT and swoon. I am FINISHED.
July-October 2022—What book? Oh right. The one I’m going to self-publish. Or maybe I’ll query again. Yes, now that I’m actually done, maybe I’ll query some more. Or email She Writes—maybe hybrid is best? No, I definitely want to self-publish…
November-December 2022—Decide to record my book as a “podcast” without realizing I mean a serial audiobook. Gradually realize what I’m actually talking about, then realize that no one seems to have done what I’m talking about. Or if they have, I can’t find them. Wonder at this…could there be a very good reason more people aren’t doing this already? Realize when I receive the completed recordings that they’re awful. (Cheap, fast, and easy…but you can only have two. In this case, fast and easy is the only right answer.)
December 31, 2022—Meet with sound engineer and audiobook director Jeff Hoyt and tell him what I’m envisioning (and how my first attempt failed). Bask in his enthusiasm, which reawakens my own.
January-March 2023—Re-record my book with Jeff directing a *much* better product, which I have determined I will release on Substack.
February 15, 2023, 1:12PM—Decide with conviction: I’m never going to publish the book at all. Ever. There is a very good reason more people don’t self-publish and that’s because it’s awful and horrible and lonely and very, very scary.
February 15, 2023, 4:48PM—Have a spontaneous thought about Lidia Yuknavitch that makes me cry and realize I have come to the wrong conclusion. Decide I will use a pseudonym instead, even though that doesn’t feel right at all.
February 22, 2023—Talk to Amanda Knox about her experience, uh, being Amanda Knox, and decide on publishing my book under my own name—it can be no other way, despite the hives I feel under my skin when I imagine releasing lines like “dirty and hard and without any eye contact” to the wilds of extended family, ex-boyfriends, and the parents of my son’s friends.
Late February—Finally resolve my long running internal debate about the book’s title. Coming Apart: Revelations of an Opened Marriage becomes Men, Myself, and I: Revelations of an Opened Marriage (a Memoir and How Not To).
March 2023—Figure out if Substack does what I am hoping it does, and how.
March 30, 2023—Spontaneously decide after watching a Chani Nicolas reel that I am releasing my now complete and fully mastered serial audiobook on April 11, 2023.
The creative process is messy, and it may be long. All that matters is you keep going.
I also love seeing this history of your process. I've been thinking about writing a piece about writing classes and process and such -- maybe it's more like this, about my own journey. Or another piece. Regardless, I'm so glad you found yourself here to Substack. I think this is a great place for you and your book.
I am so pleased that you chronicled your journey - I love the voice in your words and it felt like a conversation I'd be happy having (mostly me listening with a couple of questions scattered through). Such as, have you picked what the "cover" of your work will be, if that's even relevant given the medium? This isn't particularily important compared to the story itself, but I was curious.