This fever

Photo by Sardar Faizan

Hi friends,

I’ve been obsessively rewriting the first novel I ever wrote—which was, as most first tries are, embarrassingly bad—so much so that I put it in a metaphorical drawer seven years ago, and didn’t look at it again.

Until August 19.

When my agents were like “We want to read it!” and a panic-fever burned through me and I rewrote 95% of it—95,000 word, in six weeks (!)

It’s better than it was but still… I don’t know.

I wrote the novel the first time after my mother had her fourth stroke—the one that debilitated her, that changed her in ways I’m still unraveling—and I was staying with her while she recovered.

(She didn’t recover.)

(But these are the words we use about health and hospitals and dementia, even though they are not the right ones.)

While I was helping my mother, my body refused to adjust to being on the east coast, so I was awake until 4am every night, and what else was I doing? Might as well take a stab at the great American novel!

The woman who was my lover at the time was also quiet-quitting me so I had plenty of angst with which to fuel this delusion of grandeur.

This is all to say, I’ve been neglecting this newsletter, and Substack in general. But I hope to be in a less obsessive place soon. I hope the end result is worth it.

The novel is influenced by Native mythology—a cozy, paranormal romance situation with ghosts and tricksters and gods and I hope to share more about it soon with you.

—

In the meantime, here’s a vignette:

I was in love with you before we met.

It was a time of getting drunk, of isolation, of wiping down groceries—of finding small ways to kill just enough of yourself so that you could go on living.

And then the love sprung, fully formed, like a sea god, like a crown from an unknown reign set atop my head.

I slipped it on, let the weight of it anchor and subdue me. I walked into the waves. I didn’t fight it in the slightest.

Because you held me as I came—your thighs pressed against my hips, your back curling like smoke in the blue light. You held me like I was something you planned to keep.

(And then, you did.)

Wrapped your arms around my brittle bark, your skin dense and burning, your hands on me soft as an unmade bed.

The wave of you collapsed and built and collapsed my griefs, my complaints, my frozen hands in that place of waiting, of trepidation, and relief.

I watched you on top of me, our bodies twisted in imperfect alignment, two war heroes limping home, your face buried in my neck, my lips resting on your clavicle, sweat and sigh and feral foaming there, in the hollow where I rested my lips.

The joy too swift for our bodies, too expansive to fit on our faces. But all we had were these teeth, these fingers slipping through the day.

Time will always be both punishment and balm, but oh how I love to impose myself meaninglessly on your motion.

Advice

Ask Anna: Balancing love and politics—when activism strains your relationship

My boyfriend has always been passionate about political activism, but lately, it feels like our relationship is getting lost in the shuffle…

Ask Anna: Should I tell a boyfriend about a past infidelity?

About five years ago, in a previous relationship, I cheated on my then-boyfriend. It was a rough time in my life; I was unhappy…

Ask Anna: We hardly ever go out

We’re introverts. Are we too isolated, or are we just fine the way we are?

Ask Anna: Is it normal to have less sex after moving in together?

Before moving in, we used to have sex several times a week, but now it’s once a week, or maybe twice if it’s, like, a special occasion.

Freebies

• Spice up your Fall

• Stolen Moments

• Erotic Reads

• LGBTQIA+ Romance and Fiction

• Fall In Love with Free Sapphic Romance

Linkspiration

A map of independent bookstores in the US

This website answers any “has anyone…” question

The 50 states ranked by happiness

Click the red button

The real (sobering) math of the 1,000 true fans model and what it takes to run a creative business (podcast, with transcript)

A website you can only visit once which lets you write and read advice people give to their past self

Learn how to identify wildflowers

Trapped in routine? Here’s how to “dishabituate” and rediscover joy (Big Think)

Hot Box

Yours,

Anna

P.S: I love love love Summer Brennan’s vignettes. (A Writer's Notebook)

I remember your room on campus in the late 90s, the one on the ground floor of that white clapboard house, with the ornamental cherry tree outside, or maybe a crabapple, something with useless fruit, something only for the birds. I remember one too-bright morning in autumn, and the light coming in, your long dark hair lain across my face for the last time, like a screen. There are rooms from our lives that we never leave, that we take with us, and for me this is one of them.