We just finished uploading The Lady of Souls to Amazon, the first stop on our trip for the day! I don’t know yet when the retailers will make the book available for purchase (some of them might take a few days), but I will make links live on the front page of my website as soon as I notice each retailer being active. Keep your eyes peeled! Not much longer now!

So if you’ve been following my Twitter feed at all, you’ll know that the paperback copy of my book is very close to being done. And if you haven’t, hey–the paperback copy of my book is very close to being done! We got the first proof copy last week, and after a few hours *cough*afullday*cough* admiring it and taking shameless photos, we made a few adjustments and sent the file back for a new proof.

Needless to say, I am super excited by this. No, that doesn’t capture it: I AM SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS!! Paper copies of my books are something that I did not want to skip on, despite the fact that a lot of indie authors go ebook-only. And I get that–the vast majority of sales are ebooks, so I am given to understand, and for some it kind of seems like a waste of time. But a paper copy of a book that I wrote is something that I’ve been dreaming of for, oh, only my whole life, and finally holding it in my hands is just… it’s insane.

Anyway, tomorrow starts my first Big! Splashy! Sale! event, so expect a Big! Splashy! Sale! post sometime tomorrow morning. I’ve also bought my first ever advertising to go along with it, so we’ll see how that goes–should be interesting, at the very least.

Since this is kind of a grab-bag blog post I’ll wrap this up by saying that progress on Book Two is going well. I should be done with the bulk of the work by January, and then it’s on to more production efforts. It’s offically slated for a Spring 2015 release, and has been titled Fixing Fate.

In celebration of Black Friday coming up and all things shopping, PLUS the fact that the paperbacks are almost ready to be released, I’m pleased to announce my very first Big! Splashy! Sale! extravaganza. (Is that enough buzzwords? No? Eh, I’m new to book marketing, what can you do?)

Starting TODAY, The Lady of Souls eBook is available for only $2.99! This price will only last through December 5th, so if you’ve been waiting for the right moment to pick up a copy, now’s the time. And what with the long holiday weekend coming up (for U.S. readers, anyway), what could be better than curling up with a new book?

As an extra bonus, I’m also going to be giving away free copies to reviewers. Do you have a book review blog? Are you a frequent reviewer on Amazon, GoodReads, or similar? Shoot me an email with a link to your website/reviews, and I’ll send along either an epub or mobi file for your reading pleasure.*

So what are you waiting for? Get out there, buy a copy, and most of all: enjoy the story.

 
*This offer is good for the length of the Introductory Sale, but please note that I reserve the right to close this offer early if I get TOO many requests–the point IS to sell books, after all, not give them ALL away for free.

I realize that it’s kind of an unusual thing to do after the book has already been released, but the truth is that I it was never supposed to be the final series title. It was a production name, created as an artistic choice that amused me, and NOT designed with marketing in mind. But by the time publication rolled around I had a zillion other things to worry about, and I thought that I could learn the live with it.

Turns out I can’t. And since I am still just getting started, I feel like now is kind of my last chance to do something about it.

Which means that The Lady of Souls is now Book One of The Beacon Campaigns.

I apologize in advance for any confusion that this midstream jump might cause, and I also apologize if the book is unavailable in any of the stores for a day or two as the changeover goes through. I didn’t do this lightly. But I really do think that this is ultimately the best thing for my books, and my series, and better reflects the tone that the stories are trying to convey. Thank you all for your understanding, and a double thank you to those that have already given the book I try–I hope that you’re loving it!

(As a bonus, now that this has been settled upon, the paperbacks should be out very soon. I need my final proof to arrive with the new title in place, but I loved everything else about the previous proof, and I anticipate being able to approve this one as soon as I get it. So if you’ve been waiting for the physical book, your wait is almost over!)

The final proof has been approved! You can already order it straight through CreateSpace if you like, and it will start showing up in the first other online retailers (like Amazon) in a few days.

Excuse me while I do some spontaneous dancing.

Let’s start with what you’ve really come here for:

Click to see a larger version

Am I allowed to take a second to squee about how much I love this cover? Because seriously, I LOVE this cover! The hat has a huge significance to the book, as anyone who has read even a little bit into the story will be able to attest to, and I adore how it matches the style of Book One.

Anyway! So we’re now offically into Spring 2015, the release window for Fixing Fate. It’s going to be a late-spring release, but we ARE still on target to have the book out before June and the start of summer. I wish that I could be a little more specific than that, but at this point I’m still not comfortable guessing on how long the rest of my edits will take. They’re going well, though! There’s not that much left.

Sorry, by the way, that I haven’t been posting to the blog on a regular basis, but crafting Fixing Fate consumed me entirely over the winter. This is by far the most delicate and complex book that I have ever written, but I am so proud of the end result and I think that you’ll all love it when it’s finally done. It’s an even stronger book than the first.

(Haven’t read the first one yet? Now’s the time! The Lady of Souls ebook is only $2.99, and you can read the entire first chapter for FREE right here.)

How far will they go to set things right?

Kaedrich Mannly always wanted to be a hero, and now that’s certainly happened. So the question is, what comes next? According to Praxis Fellows, the answer is obvious: get back to work. With a shift in Praxis’ approach to tackling the puzzle of Orange Rail Lines’ engine designs, and with Kaedrich’s steady help, things have been going better than ever and the two of them have settled into a comfortable routine.

But all of that changes when a woman appears, a woman who claims to be Praxis herself from twenty-two years in the future. Bringing a tale of tragedy and doom, she swears that the only way to prevent disaster is to kill the man that will ultimately be responsible for all of their suffering. It is, of course, unthinkable—but how do you argue with yourself? And how do you say no, if it means saving the person that you love?

Or has it? I suppose that would be telling. Nevertheless, Fixing Fate is DONE, and will be releasing this week in both ebook and paperback. I’ll be making an announcement post on the actual day that it drops, so watch this space. Thank you for your support and enthusiasm during the wait! I’m really proud of this book, and I hope that you all love it as much as I do.

And we’re off! Fixing Fate is uploaded to all major retailers, and the ebook has already popped up as available for purchase on most of them. Paperbacks usually take a little bit longer to show up, but don’t worry, they’re on their way just the same.

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• iBooks
• Google Play
• Kobo
• Smashwords

THANK YOU to everyone who has already bought Book One, for helping to support this process. If you’ve finished reading it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, GoodReads, or your favorite retailer! Every bit of support that Book One gets helps to fuel the production of the rest of the series, so don’t be shy about your enthusiasm.

Okay, enough talk. Go, go! You have a shiny new book to read!

Hey all! Just a quick post to let everyone know that I am totally still hard at work over here, and what to expect from me over the next several months.

FIRST:
Never fear, Heart’s Blood (the Beacon Campaigns #3) is coming right along. Ideally, I wanted it out at the end of this year, and it still MIGHT meet that goal, but a January release is also highly possible. I know, I know–I’m eager for it, too, and I wish I could give you a set-in-stone date, but the truth is that I publish these books the very MINUTE that they are 100% edited and formatted, and so I cannot say for certain exactly when that’s going to be. Also, I am not willing to rush this book–it’s a critical point in the series, and it needs to be right. But trust me: it’s worth the wait. I promise that you’ll love it.

The cover reveal and official blurb are coming soon, maybe as soon as next week. Still ironing out a few details.

SECOND:
After Heart’s Blood is out, my plan is to take the briefest of breaks from the series and publish a standalone novel. This new novel, as yet untitled, is completely unrelated to the world of Praxis and Kaedrich, but I think that you’ll like it just the same. The only details I am ready to give out at this point is that it’s a steampunk dystopia romance–and yes, I am aware how weird of a mashup that sounds like, but you’ll see.

THIRD:
The Lady of Souls has officially been out for a year now, and I completely forgot to notice its birthday! Oops! Thank you everyone for your early support. Telling stories is what I have always wanted to do with my life, and I am so grateful to my readers for helping me realize that dream, bit by bit. The first year has been great–but the second looks to be even better. I have so many fun things planned for my books, and I cannot wait to share it all with you in the coming year.

Revolution is in the air

It’s springtime in Monfort, and unrest is stirring everywhere. Shops are closing, trust in the Crown is faltering, and support for Pon Lanali’s anti-magic rhetoric is growing by the day. But for Kaedrich Mannly, it’s all background noise: between classes at the academy of arms, work, independent studies, and a new batch of friends, there’s little time for such concerns—or, mercifully, for thoughts of Praxis Fellows to creep back in. The last thing that Kaedrich needs is an extra complication.

So of course it’s now, with the Academy Trials coming up, that Praxis appears unexpectedly. Alongside her comes news of mysterious disappearances sweeping the city, and soon the two of them are once again caught up in a tangle of secrets and danger. It has to be Lanali’s doing, but can they prove that before it’s too late? And more importantly, will it ever be the right time for the truth of Kaedrich’s feelings to come out?

GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! “Heart’s Blood” is finally done, and is appearing NOW in all of the usual online retailers. Ebook and paperback are both out, and if they’re not up on your favorite bookstore yet, they will be soon.

I’m sorry that it took longer than I anticipated, and doubly sorry that I left you all in such a spot at the end of Fixing Fate–but what I am NOT sorry about is that I took the time to make this book the best that it can be. Believe me, if I had rushed it to meet my arbitrary deadline, you would not have gotten the book that you deserve. Heart’s Blood is far and away my favorite of the first half of the series. (In other news, yikes, I cannot believe that my series is HALF done already!)

So yes: thank you all for your patience and enthusiasm. Now go forth, and enjoy!

I need to acknowledge, both publicly and to myself, that I really am not good at blogging.

I know: obvious statement of the year, right? I should know this by now. I have, after all, been maintaining on-and-off web presences in various forms and on various places around the internet since the dinosaur era, when blogs were called “online journals,” and we uploaded individual entries through FTP and linked together each page by hand. Never have I been good at it.

And yet, every time I try again, I swear that I will completely revamp all of my habits, that this time I will maintain a steady schedule, that this will be the moment that I finally step into my own. Only to fail and fail again, like New-Year’s dieters who try to change their entire eating and exercise habits all at once. Instead of being reasonable with myself, and acknowledging that the only way that I have ever managed to build or change habits long-term is by taking the tiniest, most gradual steps in the right direction. Eat fewer pizza rolls in a sitting, not none. Exercise for ten minutes, not an hour. We are, by nature, fundamentally lazy creatures who do not like change—so why is it, really, that we insist that the only meaningful changes we will accept are the ones that happen overnight?

With that in mind, I am going to try to publish one blog post a month, although I will happily accept it if I manage to make one every other month. There—surely that is not so lofty a goal that I will crash into the bar I have set for myself, right? And I know that I have a history of having publicly-stated goals backfire on me, so I know that I am taking a bit of a chance here, but I also know that I hate being one of those authors that just goes completely silent on all forms of social media for months and months and months on end with no discernible reason to explain it. This post, then, is for the readers like me: I am here. I am always still here, I am always still working, even when I am neurotic and shy and my introverted need for solitude and silence stifles my public responsibility to keep my own readers informed. Also, I’m sorry about that, I know how it sucks.

So. It’s a fresh year, a fresh start. Or so they say—I approach 2017 relieved to have the past behind me, but wary for the future. Both the fourth book of the Beacon Campaigns and the promised YA-standalone are still in active production, although (I’ll be honest), calling them “active” has been a bit of a stretch lately. I’ve been struggling to be creative at all ever since the election, something that I hesitate to admit here because, as a general rule, I try to keep politics out of this space. But the impact that this has had, even just on a personal level, is very real and it’s been very difficult to work forward from there. Not to mention that my part-time job swallowed me whole throughout the holiday season, and this year I was glad to let it. I’ve wrapped myself in a protective layer just to get through the last two months, but now I am standing on the edge of a brand new year—a terrifying, sprawling, twelve-month sea of uncertainty churning before me—and I know that I need to get back to work, but I am not sure how.

I will figure it out. Eventually. But for now… I don’t know. Just keep trying, I suppose, until something works, or until the sheer amount of effort creates its own kind of momentum. In the meantime, like I said, I’m still here. And onward we go, I suppose.

Recently I downloaded a new game to my phone: Choices, by a company called Pixelberry.

I did this in part because I skimmed an interview with one of the Pixelberry team members, and it caught my attention, but mostly I downloaded it because I am a sucker for choose-your-owns. I cannot even count how many I’ve played through. Fantasy games, mostly, because that’s obviously where the storytelling method really became popularized, so I guess another thing that drew me to Choices was that a lot of their stories WEREN’T. They had one fantasy “book” (and it’s accompanying sequel) in their app, yes, but there were also several mysteries, and a number of romances. And hey, I like seeing how storytelling methods apply to genres they aren’t usually used for, you know? And it was nice to see a normally male-centric game type being marketed toward a distinctly female audience. Overall, I was really predisposed to like this app.

I’m not even going to use this space to get into my game-level disappointments with it. Things like the micropayment system it uses and how it uses it, or the fact that these really aren’t so much choose-your-own stories as… slightly tailor a predefined narrative arc to your preference. Instead, I’m going to talk about the one “book” that I played all of the way through, all 17 game “chapters” worth, a romance called The Freshman. Because, um. Wow. Buckle up, folks, this is going to get feminist-ranty.

You play the game as a young woman, who is (duh) a freshman, newly arrived at Hartfeld University. It is, like I said, a romance, so the story presents you with three love interests out of a cast of at least… I don’t know, a dozen? Rough count from memory put me at 9, and I know there are several more people I could only vaguely remember. And okay, I get it, there are only so many possible storylines that you want to write, so fine, limit me to three. We are presented with the option of romancing these characters in a neat order of progression, so that you kind of really HAVE to either pick or reject one before being presented with the option to pick or reject the next, and then the next. Or at least, that’s how it feels when you start playing the game, although you’ll soon discover that, HAHAHAH, oh, dear player, you needn’t worry about making up your mind too soon, oh no. The Game will make sure that you have PLENTY of opportunity to backpedal on your rejections. PLENTY. More than enough. So many, in fact, that by the time you finish the first “book,” you may (like me) end up screaming at your phone, “ENOUGH WITH THE MOONY EYES ALREADY, I HAVE REJECTED YOU TWENTY TIMES, HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT NO MEANS NO?”

Okay, so I suppose that it’s arguable that a “normal” player will toy around with her romantic options more, as opposed to making up her mind in a split second upon first meeting said character—and may, perhaps, be holding out because she’s read about the possibility of allowing your character a same-sex relationship, and totally wants to see how they handle THAT, rather than conforming to predefined heteronormative (more like heteroSNOREative, am I right? No? Wait, come back!) storylines.

The first Potential Love Interest (PLI) that we encounter is Chris. And Chris is… I am sorry, there is no other way to say this: Chris is the epitome of every boring romantic lead EVER. He is white, he is athletic, he has zero personality, and while he appears to be a BIT of a sweetheart at first, we will soon discover that he DOES NOT TAKE REJECTION. Like, at all.

The other romantic interests are as follows: James, a black man who comes from a wealthy family and whose strict parents expect him to follow The Family Business, but who would rather be a playwright; and Kaitlyn, a nice girl who likes to PARTY!, and Have Fun(tm).

I will give brief props here. James has a storyline and background that has all of the hallmarks of a Typical White Dude, but gives it instead to a black man, who is sensitive and kind and brave about his emotions in a way that you really do not normally see portrayed in the media. And Kaitlyn… I don’t know. It’s nice to be given a lesbian storyline, and nicer still that you can play the protagonist as bisexual without it being an issue EITHER WAY, though I cannot really figure out how I feel about Kaitlyn as a character/person, because although likable, I cannot really come up with a single thing to say about HER.

But my beef with the game really isn’t about either of them. Instead… oh, Chris. Where do I even BEGIN with Chris?

Like I said, you meet Chris early on. Like, IMMEDIATELY-early. Like, he is the first person that you (literally) bump into as the story opens, on your first day as a freshman at Hartfeld U. The intro is… fine, okay, could be cute, could be whatever. And right away, we are presented with a Jealous Rival for you to hate, in the form of Becca. Becca informs you of her intention to have Chris all to herself, which… okay? Have him, if you want him that badly, as far as I’m concerned, I mean, it’s not like I even know the character yet. Anyway, it quickly turns out that you are staying in a way-nicer-than-real-life apartment/dorm combo thing, coed, with five other roommates, one of whom (surprise surprise!) is Chris. The story gives you all the first day/evening to get to know each other, and you and Chris end up staying late talking at the end of the party. And here, on the rooftop, we have the first real potential for whether or not to accept his romantic advances, because of course he (and the story) feel that the two of you are having A Moment, and so he like, goes to hold your hand or something.

My character rejected him. Just, flat-out. Pulled back, said that she wasn’t interested, and to my surprise, Chris actually was okay with this! In fact, he agreed that, since he was recently out of his long-term high-school romance, another romance really wasn’t the best idea for him right now anyway. Which, yay!, for respecting boundaries, and yay!, for accepting a rejection as just a normal decision and not some personal slight of you and everything that you stand for.

Sigh. If only it had stayed that way. If only…

The story progresses. The next morning, you get a phone call from your parents saying that your dad has lost his job, and therefore they will not be able to pay for your college tuition. Um, yikes? But, this being a College Story, you as the player know that this is not the end it appears to be. And so it is not! Your protagonist seeks out financial aid, and ends up being assigned as an assistant to this obnoxious literature professor, and I guess somehow that’s like a scholarship? It’s never made entirely clear—or maybe I just don’t know how collage works, IDK, but it’s weird. The point is: in order to keep your enrollment at your ~dream school~ which you love, you need to make sure that you do not get fired by this notoriously obnoxious jackass professor who has already fired so many assistants that it’s just not even funny. I’ll get back to the problems with THIS arrangement in a bit, but for now, let’s move back to the main focus of the story: relationship drama. Because Oy.

Okay, here’s the thing. By this point, I have already met (and rejected) Chris as a PLI. I’ve met (and rejected) James as a PLI. I’ve met, but have not yet been presented with the option of Kaitlyn as a PLI, just as a Gal Pal. With the quick succession of Chris and James as romance options, you might be thinking that Kaitlyn’s romance options are due soon, right?

Oh, you poor, naive soul. Sit in and get comfy, darlin’, because if you’re here for some lady love, it’s going to be awhiiiiile. Because first, we need to get through thirteen more rounds of Are You Sure You Don’t Want Either of These Really Hot Guys That Are Obviously Into You? Are you SURE? Are you SO SURE? Are you SUUUUUUUUURE that you’re sure? Really? How about now? No? Still no? Reeeaallllly? No? Hmm. Okay, well… I GUESS you can have a girl?

And yes, fine: there is something to be said for a narrative that allows players to change their minds, especially as you get to know the characters better, and especially to allow them to change their minds from a “no” (which closes down narrative/gameplay doors) to a “yes” (which opens them back up). I get it! I really, really do!

But for those of us that ARE certain, can we PLEASE, for the love of Ada, NOT have these men constantly getting in our face, trying to put the moves on us, only to be rejected AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, and yet the game STILL insists that there’s “something there” between us, and that our protagonist “just isn’t sure!” about what she feels, and that everything is “so complicated!”? Like maybe, I don’t know, allow for a game path wherein the PROTAGONIST is the one with the agency and ability to set out to pursue the romantic option, instead of constantly having them circle back around like vultures, pecking and pecking at the dead corpse of their chances with the protagonist on the off chance that MAYBE she’s changed her mind? Maybe?

This is not even getting INTO the fact that these rejections are ALWAYS framed like this is somehow the protagonist’s FAULT. Like she needs to APOLOGIZE for not wanting to be with Chris and James, despite her NEVER giving them any reason to feel that she might WANT to in the first place, despite REPEATED (very kind! very polite!) rejections wherein she has ALREADY APOLOGIZED for hurting their ~feelings~. Despite the fact that she has never been rude to them, never cussed them out, never told them to go fuck themselves for trying to lean in to kiss her AGAIN, when she has rejected them FLAT-OUT, every time.

It was somewhere around the fourth or fifth rejection that I started to really get pissed, and around this same that I began to wonder exactly what kind of message is this SENDING to the younger players who pick up this game. I mean, okay, I KNOW what kind of message it’s sending, but do the developers? Did they never even BETA TEST this scenario? Did NO ONE, at any stage of the development, stop and go, wait a second guys. This is getting even beyond pushy, and into vaguely-threatening, bordering-on-stalker behavior. At one point, I shit you not, it looked as if Chris had finally moved on and gotten together with Becca, only to show up in front of you late one night, saying that he’s realized what he REALLY wants, and what he REALLY wants is another chance with you—for real, this time!

PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC. I repeat: THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC. This is a man that your character has rejected AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY, and after rejecting him YET AGAIN that night, he insists that he is going to STICK AROUND in the hopes that you CHANGE YOUR MIND. If this scenario doesn’t make you want to run screaming into the night, or at the very least put a restraining order on his ass, then… I’m sorry, I don’t even know how to talk to you.

AND YET. Does the game acknowledge this state of affairs AT ALL? Does it take this as the opportunity to examine how horribly toxic it is, that men so often feel ENTITLED to the romantic attentions of a young, attractive woman? Does it let your protagonist stand up for herself AT ALL?

If you’ve been paying attention, you can likely guess that the answer is no. No, it does not.

INSTEAD, what it does is continue to tease the idea that your protagonist is caught up in some sort of love… square? That, as the university’s ultra-important Formal Dance approaches, your character LITERALLY has to sit on the roof and discuss with her friends her MIXED FEELINGS about who she should ask to accompany her, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NEVER PLAYED THE GAME THAT WAY AT ALL. Even if you have ONLY engaged in romantic action with Kaitlyn, YOU STILL HAVE TO MUSE ABOUT THE MERITS OF THESE TWO MEN WHO THINK THAT YOU’RE HOT, as if you actually consider either of them as a choice at this point. At one point (oh, don’t even get me started about this), you are playacting as a fake-fiance for James as you meet his parents, and when Kaitlyn calls you outside the restaurant (Kaitlyn, who you have already begun romancing by this point, FINALLY), you do not tell her about the weird-ass situation that you are FORCED into participating in by your Obnoxious Professor (yeah, I’m still getting to him), but instead just kind of act vague about being “out for dinner.” I mean, you don’t get CAUGHT by her with him, thankfully, which was my fear. But neither do you treat her as if you’re actually involved, either, thus laying a foundation of… not exactly the greatest honesty between you, you know?

Which brings me, at long last, to the Obnoxious Professor.

Like I said earlier, the game presents your character with the no-choice “choice” of: work for the Professor, or quit school. This, it should be noted, isn’t even presented as a choice in game, I don’t think. It is merely the way that the plot unfolds, and you, dear player, have to go along with it. So allow me, at last, to present Professor Vasquez.

Professor Vasquez is a novelist who is now teaching at your university, and like I said, he is a known jackass. Your character does not get along with him, pretty much right from the get-go. He is demeaning, insulting, demanding, and dismissive. He does not consider you or anyone else that he encounters in the game to have any worth. And yet, hearing about your petty romantic melodramas playing out, he decides that lo and behold, you DO have some value: as a monkey, to dance for his amusement. Because, you see, your life is full of the kind of dramatic study that he needs in order to make his next book SING with realism! Which means that, every few chapters of the game, he presents you with a new assignment, each one putting you into an uncomfortable and overly-dramatic situation, one that you would never have chosen for yourself, which you then have to live out like some kind of reality-TV star, and then write a detailed report for him to deem whether or not your life is still sufficiently entertaining that you are worthy of keeping on.

Do I really need to explain the deeply, DEEPLY problematic aspect of this? How your character—a young woman, fresh out of her parents’ house, navigating the world on her own for the first time—is now FORCED to either give up on the education/future that she’s planned for herself, or allow her entire life to be manipulated and shaped and molded by a MUCH OLDER MAN, all for his own edification/amusement? I really hope that I don’t, because… wow. Just—just WOW.

It’s enough to make me wonder if there were ANY women involved in the production of this game at all, because I honestly cannot see how anyone who self-identifies as female could have been OKAY with these obviously toxic situations.

The fact that the character does not seem at all bothered by the circumstances of her life just makes it all worse. She DOESN’T resent the Professor, she DOESN’T feel degraded and used by his demands, she DOESN’T object to or even question the idea that these men will keep trying to pursue her again and again and AGAIN, she DOESN’T consider that maybe she has NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR as she rejects them, she DOESN’T worry about the idea of now being shackled for life with a crippling student loan debt that she apparently wasn’t planning to HAVE because of her parents. Indeed, instead: she agrees that there is romantic chemistry between herself and all of her PLIs; she throws herself into each of her assignments with a cheery, “well, it may not be my first choice, but it’s what I have to do!” attitude; she continues to feel bad each time she shoots down either Chris or James (who, I should also note, always and forever act SURPRISED at each new rejection, like UGH, ENOUGH ALREADY); and she somehow, somewhere, I guess, continues her college education without the slightest further thought as to how she’s going to pay for it, short of keeping Professor Vasquez happy.

Look, there’s the degree of unrealism that all stories kind of HAVE to have in order to make a compelling narrative without needing to worry about fiddly details like how they deal with their periods on their 900-mile journey through scorching deserts and toxic swamps, but COME ON. What we have here is just… it’s beyond wish fulfillment. It’s an active display of thoroughly problematic situations presented as PERFECTLY FINE and normal and even in some cases DESIRABLE, to a target audience that has probably not yet gone THROUGH these types of situations, and thus, might not have the necessary life skills to realize how terrifying these warning signs actually ARE. Which, yeah, is not exactly new or limited to this game and its sequels by any means (I’m looking at you, Nearly Every Love Song Ever), but… it’s disappointing, to find it again. Especially in a place where I really didn’t expect it, because I’ve read a little bit about the company behind these games, and they SEEMED like they were more socially aware and responsible than that.

I can only hope that the rest of their books aren’t as fraught with toxic archetypes and abusive masculinity as this one, but to be honest, I don’t know if I am going to bother playing them to find out. I had started their ONE fantasy book before I got into The Freshman, and… while there’s nothing as overtly objectionable as THAT, a few of the bits at the beginning do give me pause about continuing. Because unlike my Freshman protagonist, Hailey, I have a wide plethora of choices in my life.

So, no, Pixelberry. This is where we break up. I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s—actually, never mind. It totally is you.

So here’s the thing: March was a disaster of a month for me. Between a family member being in the hospital and the crappiest weather possible and car repairs and a thousand little headaches, these past 31 days have taken 31 years. Which sucks even more than it should have, because JUST before this all hit the fan, I had an unexpected three-day writing binge and finished the manuscript of a new book.

I know! I hadn’t planned to finish this book for MONTHS, I’ll be honest. So the enthusiasm that I carried with me into the beginning of March was unbelievable. I was pumped up, I was in “the zone”, and I was tentatively hopeful that I could get the vast bulk of the editing done by the time April rolled around.

Oh, my naive younger self! I weep for your optimism.

But! My time under the pipe feels as if it’s waning, finally. And although I had to struggle and scrape for every last word, my book is still taking shape. And guys, it is… it’s one of my favorite things that I’ve ever written. I’ll be making it’s own proper announcement post soon, full of excitement and cover reveals and details. For now, I’m just going to say that it’s a new work for me, a (temporary!) creative break from The Beacon Campaigns, and that it’s about superheroes. And comics. And superheroes about comics, and—

And, okay, fine. Here’s a small teaser:

Jane approached the window with caution. Night had blanketed the city. A thousand lights winked through a shifting haze of smog, muddying the familiar landscape, but it was still enough. The park, City Hall, the skyline that she’d committed to both memory and paper so many times over.

Except for one piece: a gap, like a missing tooth, in the heart of downtown. Several key buildings were just gone, leaving nothing but twisted, blackened metal that rose like skeletal trees after a wildfire. Jane touched the window, the glass chilled beneath her fingers, as she traced their lines.

“What happened?”

“Doctor Demolition happened,” Cal said. He’d come to stand just behind her, his reflection hovering beyond her shoulder. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Jane, but… you’re on a parallel world. Six months ago, Doctor Demolition developed a deadly weapon, one with the power to destroy a whole city block. We tried to stop him. We finally discovered where he was keeping it, but when we got there—”

“He’d already moved it,” Jane said. She was still staring out at the cityscape, her eyes instinctively seeking out the major landmarks. Along the edge of the gap, she spotted it. She pointed, her finger pressed against the glass. “To there: the top of Mercury Tower.”

It wasn’t much of a tower anymore—half melted, nothing but a handful of twisted girders.

Jane sought out Cal’s eyes in the reflection. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Cal nodded. Shock was written plain on his face. “You’re right. How did you—?”

“Because I wrote it.”

I’ve been thinking recently about all of the things that can influence a person.

Because none of us becomes a writer in isolation, and every book that we read adds something to our experiences—but some of them do a little bit more than that. Some of them speak to us so deeply that they add a whole new paint color to our palette, opening our eyes to brand new ways of looking at books, language, storytelling. These books become turning points in our development, and without them we would not be the writers that we are today.

Four authors have done this for me.

Roald Dahl

When I was in third grade, the school librarian started to read us a book that I had never heard of, by an author I had never heard of. That book was Matilda. It was a yellow hardback, with a picture on the cover of a girl surrounded by books.

I was immediately drawn into it. She read the first one or two chapters to us, the story of a girl who loved books but whose parents disapproved. Sometime soon after, I found myself in a bookstore with my mother, begging her for my own copy. I remember feeling as if I would burst, if I did not find out the rest of the story.

By the time our class went back to the library, I’d read my copy three times. I clutched it to my chest, silently reading along as she continued the story for the rest of the group.

I quickly worked my way through as many of Roald Dahl’s books as I could. The Witches, Esio Trot, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, The Vicar of Nibbleswicke. I easily gravitated toward the books that were macabre or crass. His was probably my first taste of dark humor, and I found myself eating it up as if it was candy. And yet, at the time I wouldn’t have described it as dark. Roald Dahl’s books felt happy to me, in a way that I couldn’t understand as a child. Matilda remained my favorite by far, though The Witches and Revolting Rhymes were read often as well.

I am not exaggerating when I say that he changed my life. He was the first author that I’d read that broke out of the mold of what was safe and normal and acceptable for children’s books, and this showed me that stories were capable of so much more than I had previously thought. Roald Dahl taught me that it was okay to break out and write something that was oddball, that the only limits placed upon me were the ever-expanding edges of my imagination. He taught me that it was okay to lift up the rocks and write about the worms that slither away from the light.

Sarah Dessen

If any one author is responsible for shaping the way I construct a story, it’s Sarah Dessen. The funny thing is that I did not even realize this until years later.

My first Sarah Dessen novel was Someone Like You. I was maybe 14? It was the middle of the summer, and there was nothing in Waldenbooks that really appealed to me that day. And then I picked up this book, a brand-new hardcover by an author I didn’t know. I admit: I didn’t really like the cover (this was the original), and I’ve put books back for pettier reasons than that. But I read the blurb, and then I read the first few pages, and then I took the book to the register and continued to read it in the car on the way home—something I had never really done before, as I get carsick if I don’t stare directly out of a window. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I reached the end and discovered that this author had only written one other book! I dutifully bought it as soon as I could, and reread both of them obsessively until I heard the glorious news: a third was on its way! This was my very first preorder ever, and I stalked the mailbox waiting impatiently for it to arrive from Amazon.

Sarah Dessen became an immediate preorder author for me. For a few years. Eventually, I decided that I was too “mature” to be enjoying YA novels, and let her work fall by the wayside. Oh, I still reread the ones I owned, when I was feeling down and needed a comfort read. But it remained a guilty pleasure, not something that I would admit to.

Then two years ago, more or less, I picked up her books again for the first time in forever. At the bottom of the very first page, of the very first book, I stopped what I was doing, got up, walked into the kitchen, and passed the book over to my husband. “This is where I learned to write,” I told him, and made him read the first page for himself. He barely got into it before he started nodding. “Yup,” he said, as he passed it back. Yup.

Sarah Dessen taught me about how to construct a scene. She taught me about jumping the narrative around in time, starting one place and then backing up a day, a week, a year, to shade in the details that are impacting the character’s emotional reaction to what’s going on around them. She taught me about pacing, and narrative arcs. Her early books, read over and over and over again, until the pages turned soft and I could mouth the words along, imprinted themselves deep in my subconscious. I thought I was reading purely for fun, but it turns out that I was getting a crash course in how to write a novel without ever realizing that’s what was happening.

I’ve always wanted to be a novelist, but without Dessen I’m not sure if I would have ever figured out how. At the very least, it would have taken me a lot longer, and been a lot less fun.

Ann Patchett

In the years after Sarah Dessen, I was trying to take myself Very Seriously as a writer. When I was 20, I came across a book recommendation by a blogger I admired, someone a few years older, who was also trying to become an author. The book was Bel Canto.

I can’t say that I fully understood what I was reading, at the time—I didn’t have to. Bel Canto led way to the rest of her back catalog, and from there to Margaret Atwood and John Updike, to Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I read poetry, and essays, and short stories from the New Yorker. I read memoirs. I read Nicole Karuss, and Johnathan Franzen. I read Virginia Woolf. I read Shakespeare.

These authors, Ann Patchett in particular, peeled back a layer that I had never noticed before. She showed me the glory of prose as an art form all its own. I read her sentences over and over again, reveling in the sound of them. They had texture and form, beauty and grace. They made me ache, sad in a way that was also deeply happy. They made me feel inferior. They inspired me to reach for something better.

This isn’t to say that the prose of every other book that I had read before was bad—it wasn’t. Sarah Dessen and Roald Dahl alone can both turn a phrase quite well. But there’s a difference, between writing that serves a primary purpose of telling a story, and writing that serves a primary purpose of being art. This is something that I had never understood before. This is something that I learned to crave. This is something that I had to figure out how to do in my own work.

Whether I’ve achieved that yet is up for readers to decide for themselves. Ann Patchett, however, put the goalpost up.

Terry Pratchett

At the same time, though, something funny was happening. No sooner had I finished reading Ann Patchett’s back catalog than I picked up my first Discworld novel.

There is no excuse for me not to have read his work earlier. I met my husband when we were teenagers, and Terry Pratchett was his favorite author from day one. He had a steadily growing collection of Discworld novels by the time I read Witches Abroad, and several times before this, I had picked them up and read the jacket copy, the first few pages. I was held up, I know, by vanity. Remember, this was a time that I was trying to take myself Very Seriously, and so I was not interested in science fiction and fantasy. Never mind that I had grown up watching every Star Trek episode ever. Never mind that my childhood reading was stuffed with equal parts unicorns and orphans. Never mind that I bought an omnibus edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when I was 15, even if I only ever got around to reading the first book. Never mind that I was reading Harry Potter just like everyone else in the world.

At the same time as Ann Patchett was showing me the beauty of words for words’ sake, Terry Pratchett was showing me the beauty of genre. The way that an imagined world can reflect truths back at us. How humor can skewer as well as entertain. He refreshed my belief in the power of imagination, in weird. He taught me dry wit.

And of course, he brought me back to science fiction and fantasy, sparking an obsession that would eventually consume my reading habits for years. The obsession that led to my current career path. Literally everything that I am as a genre author is thanks to Terry Pratchett’s influence.

Some people worry about sounding too much like their favorite authors. It even has a name: “anxiety of influence”. This is something that I have never worried about. The thing is, you will always be influenced by what you read. You will always be influenced by what you watch. You will always be influenced by what you listen to.

You will always be influenced by life.

The way to avoid being pegged as a cheap knockoff, then, is simply this: read widely. Love broadly. If your influence is constantly changing, if you’re constantly trying something new, if you’re exposed to genres that you’ve never tried, voices that you’ve never heard, then each of these will blend into your own authorial voice, and combine into something entirely different. I am not Roald Dahl. I am not Sarah Dessen. I am not Ann Patchett, or Terry Pratchett. Each of these authors is distinct from the others—it is only once you mix them together, and steep them in years of so many others, that you end up with Jenn Gott.

Your influences will blend into something different, too. If you let them. Don’t try to stifle the parts of other authors that sing to you. If you do, all that you’ll end up with is a voice that is defined by the lack of those sounds. And what good does that do? Do you really want your stories to contain nothing of what brings you joy?

So thank you, all of my literary forebears. Thank you for shaping me, thank you for sharing your secrets. Thank you for the colors.

I’ll try to make you proud.

What I’m Writing: The Private Life of Jane Maxwell
What I’m Reading: The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore / The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
What I’m Loving: NBC’s Powerless, which is vastly underappreciated.

WIP Excerpt

“Hey, but on the plus side,” Cal said, with entirely too much cheer, “you’re in for some great eats! Juanita makes a mean lobster bisque.”

Devin snorted. “You know that’s not really her name, don’t you?”

“What?” Cal said. For a terrifying moment, Jane thought that he was going to turn around to boggle at Devin—but just then a gray sedan with a pile of kayaks strapped to its roof swerved, cutting them off. Jane braced herself, but Cal had the situation well in hand.

“Yeah. That’s just what she lets you call her.”

Cal frowned. “Nah, man. I visit her all the time when we’re up there.”

“For the free food.”

“No! Well—yeah, sure. It’s damn good. But me and ’Nita, dude, we’re tight.” He took his hand off the wheel, crossing his fingers as he waved them in Devin’s direction.

“Uh-huh. Tell me, how many kids does she have?”

“Shit, you can’t expect me to remember something like that,” Cal said. He glanced over his shoulder at the approaching traffic, hopping lanes as he attempted to get back ahead of the kayak-happy sedan, which had greatly reduced its speed now that it was in the lane it wanted.

“Cal!” Amy shouted. “The exit!”

Research pile

I’m at the point in my book where I am doing a million things all at once. Researching the climatic sequences of superhero movies, and pouring over history books about comic franchises for Easter Egg names; trying to finalize the last two superhero names and one more villain’s name; reading my book out loud to get a feel for how the pacing and plot arcs progress; editing, editing, editing, as a result of my read-through; trying to figure out which ’90s girl-movie was Jane Maxwell’s favorite when she was a teenager. Some of these things are large-scale work, and some of them are the last tiny details; it’s funny how often those two get jumbled up right at the end. But this is a familiar feeling—it means that my book will be published soon. I already sent out the first cover reveal to my mailing list, and the public reveal on the blog is coming May 1st(!), so be sure to check back! Graeme is starting to work out details of the interior layout, though the bulk of that work is still waiting on near-finalized text.

I hope that this feeling never gets old. I hope that I am still publishing books in 10, 15, 20 years, the process as familiar as worn leather, and that it still brings me joy every time. Because 4 books in, it is still bringing me joy. So, so much joy. I hear all of the time how stressful publishing is, and I guess I can understand it, I mean, there’s a lot to keep track of. There’s a lot of work involved, especially when you’re doing it yourself instead of going to a publishing house. But, oh! It does not feel like work. At this stage I want nothing more than to work all day, stopping only long enough to eat. This is play. This is creativity and collaboration and expression. This is, quite possibly, my very favorite stage of the process.

Oh, who am I kidding? They’re all my favorite. Being an author is honestly the best job in the entire world.

It is with very great pride that I introduce to you my next book. Ladies and gentlemen and otherwise specified… The Private Life of Jane Maxwell!

Some people are born to greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them… and some are just drawn like that.

As the creator of a popular new comics franchise, Jane Maxwell knows a thing or two about heroes, but has no illusions of being one herself. All of that is shattered, however, when she finds herself swept into a parallel world—one where her characters are real, and her parallel self is their leader.

There’s just one problem: that Jane is missing.

Under a growing threat from a deadly new villain named UltraViolet, the team has no choice but to ask Jane to do the impossible: step into the suit left behind by her double, become the hero that they need her to be. But with familiar-yet-different faces all around her, budding powers that she doesn’t know how to use, and secrets ready to blow up in her face, navigating her parallel life proves harder than she ever imagined…

F.A.Q.

Is this part of a new series, or a standalone?

It’s going to be a series! Originally it wasn’t, but the truth is that the characters and setting are way too much fun to put aside. And frankly, whenever I tell people that I am now writing about superheroes, their whole face lights up—so, yeah, the people have already spoken.

When is it coming out?

This summer! If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know that I don’t like to get more specific than that, what with potential delays and Life Happens and yadda yadda, but this summer for sure. I imagine that it will be earlier, rather than later. Production is going really, really well.

How many of these books are there going to be?

As many as I can write! Unlike The Beacon Campaigns, this is designed to be an open-ended series that I can keep coming back to over and over again. I’ve already started on the next book, and I have loose outlines for at least two others.

Speaking of, this doesn’t mean the end of The Beacon Campaigns, does it?

Absolutely not! Praxis and Kaedrich are way too near and dear to me to ever abandon them, and I know that I have fans awaiting the next installment (love you guys!). But those books are big and complicated, and Book Four is a little bit different and a little bit more of a creative challenge for me, so I needed something else to keep my mind fresh. But don’t worry, I should have news on Whispers of the Ice in the next few months.

That’s it! I hope that you all enjoy this book as much as I have. It’s been an absolute blast to write, and I am so looking forward to finally sharing it with you. Remember, if you want release news as soon as it happens, be sure to sign up for my mailing list!

What I’m Writing: The Private Life of Jane Maxwell, super-detailed line edits.
What I’m Reading: The Twenty-Sided Sorceress by Annie Bellet
What I’m Loving: Loop Habit Tracker (see below)

WIP Excerpt

When Jane was fifteen, she almost died.

This isn’t an exaggeration. It wasn’t that she was caught doing something and that her mom was going to, like, literally, kill her for it—no, this was actual, life-and-death death, and it had come so close that Jane had felt the coldness of its jaws against her skin.

Only six other people on earth ever knew this story, and those only because they were right alongside her when it happened.

It wasn’t as exciting as it should have been. Jane was out with her friends: Cal and Devin and Keisha and Marie and Tony… and Clair. Always Clair. This was the night of Tony’s sixteenth birthday, and he was pissed because his parents hadn’t let him schedule his driving test yet. Everyone agreed that this was vastly unfair. He was the oldest, and they’d been counting on him to be their ride. Now they’d have to wait who knows how long—God, maybe all of the way until summer, when Keisha would be next.

For seven teenagers stuck in the outermost stretches of the suburbs, this was as good as death.

They rode their bikes out, then, since fine, they didn’t have a car. Like a bunch of dumb kids. Tony wanted to do something different, so they were out hunting new hotspots to meet up. That’s what they called it, “hotspots,” like if they started hanging out there, then obviously all of the cool kids would follow. Never mind that it had never worked before. Tony had heard of an abandoned building on the far edge of town, a chemical factory that had been empty since the eighties. This seemed the ultimate height of cool, so they’d peddled out farther than they’d ever gone, the night sky stretching out endlessly above them. They roved as a pack, whooping it up and riding down the middle line of the road or in the oncoming traffic lane—feeling like total badasses—until they’d see headlights in the far, far distance, and then they’d all scramble not to collide as they jerked out of the way.

Years later, when Jane drew the version of this that didn’t happen, the infinitely cooler one that needed to appeal to the all-important 18–25 demographic, she’d crammed them all into a bumblebee yellow-and-black Camaro from 1973. There was beer in the backseat, and the hint that maybe someone had a joint hidden away for later. But in real life, they were on Schwinns and Walmart specials, helmets safely strapped to their heads, Pepsi and Snickers bars crammed into Cal’s backpack.

Oh, the mad month of May! Where do I even start? Where did it go?

Actually, I can see exactly where it went, because I started making heavier use of an app called Loop Habit Tracker this month. Basically, it’s just a chart of everything that you want to make a habit of, and each day that you complete that habit, you check it off. There are charts and percentages, too, which are addictively fun to watch grow in strength. The app sounds simple, and it is—that’s the beauty of it. I’ve tried various other productivity trackers and such before, including Habitica, which tries to turn your daily chores into an game, and none of them have really stuck because they all offer some form of punishment if you fail to make your goals. Listen, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need that kind of stress in my life, okay? Failing to raise my stats up, breaking my habit streaks—these are “punishment” enough to get my butt off of the couch when I’m feeling lazy. I get a thrill out of watching Loop’s charts go up, out of seeing a screen full of colorful checkmarks. So that’s working really well for me, and you should totally try it out if there’s a routine that you’d like to integrate into your life.

If you talk to me these days, I’ll probably make it sound like I am omg swamped with work, and on the one hand that’s true, and I am. The fun thing about The Private Life of Jane Maxwell, though, is that it’s teaching me a lot about editing that I never knew before, because it’s different than the other books I’ve released. Which isn’t to say that I don’t challenge myself with every book—I absolutely do, and if the book I am writing is too much the same as the books I’ve already written, I change it. And it’s not that I don’t learn something new from every book. But the others are all part of the same series, and as such, they need consistency in tone, in styling, in mood. The editing process is pretty much the same thing over and over again, because the problems are pretty much the same things over and over again, and the way to go about fixing them is kind of the same thing over and over again. I flip to editing, and I can basically do it on autopilot.

This book is different. This book, I have to use a whole different part of my brain to look at it. It’s absolutely delightful, and frustrating, and weird, to know how to edit one thing, and then throw most of what I think I know about the process away, and start fresh.

Such is the value of working on new things.

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As an author with a brand new superhero book coming out, I’m finding myself acutely aware of any and all references to superheroes and comics. Which, let’s be honest, is so many—and I love it. I love the obsession with larger-than-life heroes, I love the spectacle, I love the hype. I am so annoyed that my schedule doesn’t work out for me to see Wonder Woman until Wednesday.

But anyway: most of the references are what you’d expect. News of another movie or TV show, or the latest update to the train wreck of what they’re doing with Steve Rogers in the comics (do NOT even get me started), or things of that nature. So I was surprised a few weeks ago, when I heard a new song that was sort of about superheroes. That’s… not really the medium I expect to encounter them in, and I was immediately charmed by the idea of songwriters getting into the game too.

The song is “Something Just Like This”, a collaborative effort between The Chainsmokers and Coldplay. For a long time, I didn’t really listen to it that closely. The cover of the single had a little kid dressed up as a superhero, and it referenced both Batman and Superman, and when it came on, I would just bob my head and keep writing. I learned the chorus pretty quickly, just through sheer repetition—but didn’t give it much thought. Something kind of comforting, I guess, typical love song lyrics where it’s like, hey, you don’t need to be a superhero to be important to me? Okay.

Not sure what made me stop and listen to the lyrics more closely. But here’s how the song starts:

I’ve been reading books of old
The legends and the myths
Achilles and his gold
Hercules and his gifts
Spider-man’s control
And Batman with his fists
And clearly I don’t see myself upon that list

The nerd in me wants to ask exactly what, exactly, Spider-man’s “control” is supposed to be about (I mean… his powers don’t exactly control things, the way that, say, Magneto does), but moreover, I was completely dumbstruck the first time that I heard this. Because the whole point of these epic stories, throughout all of human history, is that you’re supposed to see yourself in them, and this person… doesn’t? Which makes me wonder if that’s a common thing, to not identify with mythic heroes.

Listen, I’m not saying that you’re supposed to identify with the trappings of a superhero. Obviously not. Very few of us run around punching out bad guys, and nobody shoots webbing or flies faster than a speeding bullet. That’s not the point. Superpowers are not about the powers. That’s not why we like those stories. That’s not why we keep telling those stories, over and over, from Greek myths up to the latest summer blockbuster. What superheroes are supposed to do, is remind us of our own ability to stand up to injustice. To show us our inner strength. To inspire us to do better, be better, dig deeper. Keep going, even when all hope seems lost. They’re supposed to represent the best in us.

And for a song to just completely dismiss any connection with that message, especially in today’s sociopolitical climate, is kind of disheartening, to say the least. It also guts the later part of the lyrics: “[I just want] something I can turn to / Somebody I can kiss”. Really? So not only are we not identifying with the best of ourselves, we’re not holding our dearest loved ones to a higher standard either? Fine, so you’re not looking for “somebody with some superhuman gifts”—great, good, because you’re not getting that—but literally all you’re seeking is a warm body? I don’t know about you, but I’m a better person because my husband expects me to be. We hold each other up. Inspire each other to keep going, to do good even when it’s easier not to. Relationships (not just romantic) can easily serve the same role as heroic fiction, in that regard. This is another lesson that superheroes try to teach us: that love is important, that human connection helps us keep our humanity.

If it was just another love song, I wouldn’t be disappointed in it. I’ve come to expect terrible messages from love songs, once you stop and break down their meaning on a deeper level. But superheroes are supposed to be held to a higher standard, so that we in turn hold ourselves to a higher standard. And for me, that bleeds over into media about superheroes.

I do really hope that other songwriters pick up the idea, though. Even if some of them stumble and fall, I’d love a new subgenre in music to emerge. Because seriously, how wicked cool would that be?

Turns out that I was not, in fact, prepared to watch a solid, female-led superhero movie as a woman.

When I was growing up, I didn’t give much (if any) thought to sexism.

This was my privilege, as a child of the 1980s. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the women who came before, all of the battles appeared to already be fought. Look: there was nothing, as a child, that my brother could do that I couldn’t. Look: my parents were both dual computer science/math majors in college. (Look: both of my parents had gone to college.) Look: I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, and none of the answers felt like they were off-limits to me. Look: I played with both Legos and Barbies, and so did my brother. Look: I was not raised to feel like I had to be a baby-maker when I grew up.

What was this “sexism”, I wondered, from my idyllic life? What were people complaining about? Surely that was a thing of the past.

When I was growing up, I didn’t notice the lack of female representation in popular media.

Was it just the books and movies that I consumed as a child? I still haven’t figured it entirely out. I hear other women my age complaining about it bitterly, the deep lack of admirable women and girls in the media of our youth. They aren’t wrong, but this is only something that I notice in hindsight. At the time, I was too busy inventing my own girl characters, and putting them in my head-canons without stopping to think about why.

As a woman, and a nerd, I’m acclimated to movies where my gender is reduced. Though I notice it now, though it bothers me now, I still can’t let it bother me too much, if I have any hope of enjoying the kind of movies that I enjoy. I give rave reviews to blockbusters that have one female character, and her primary role is to inspire the male heroes. I deconstruct them later, I discuss their problems later, but I put all of that aside while I am watching it. I get swept up in the powerful storylines, the epic music, the explosive fight scenes. I leave the theater feeling pumped.

You have to. You don’t even think about it.

Enter Rey from Star Wars. Enter the female Ghostbusters. Enter Supergirl on the CW.

And I thought, okay, so I am finally getting some representation, and it’s (mostly) awesome. I’m used to this, by now, this is a good trend. My life is still privileged enough that everyday sexism doesn’t really do more than brush the edges. I was fully prepared to love a summer blockbuster about a female superhero, directed by a woman.

I did not know that I needed it.

And then I saw Wonder Woman.

And then I was sitting in the theater, and a young Diana was running through the sunny haven of Paradise Island, watching the grown-up Amazonians. And then I realized that this whole movie was made for me, that this larger-than-life hero was made for me, that I was not going to be asked to take a backseat in my enjoyment, and that’s when I started crying.

I cried my way through every important scene, and grinned through the rest. And when the movie was over and I stepped from the darkened theater into the bright light of day, I did not have the same giddy euphoria that superheroes usually give me. I was not pounding my fist in the air and skipping across the parking lot. I got into my car, and I fought not to cry some more.

I’m still crying, when I think about it too much.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave the name of my books to a man I know at work. The Private Life of Jane Maxwell, he read. He knew my newest was about superheroes. “So it’s about a woman?” “Yes.”

All of my books are about women. I’ve never considered anything else.

This is why.

I’m still too raw from the movie to fully process what I’ve watched. I do know that I love it beyond words, though I also know that I cannot, in good conscience, rave about it without also leveling one major criticism. Can we set aside the joy for just one moment, to discuss the horrible implications of having someone with a physical disfigurement represent all that is bad and unworthy about humanity? It’s a problematic theme throughout the whole movie, and it comes to a head in the climax with a truly unforgivable moment. I am not going to spoil it, but I will say this: Patty Jenkins, you made a better movie than this. Such a message has no place inside of an otherwise exceptional blockbuster. Especially for the story of a character like Wonder Woman, who is supposed to be about love and a better way of living.

I’m lucky, that I am able-bodied and have the privilege of setting that aside to enjoy the rest of the movie. Because I can only imagine a disabled woman, crying at the sight of young Diana on Paradise Island, only to be slapped in the face a handful of scenes later.

You can do better. We can do better.

Diana, Princess of Themyscira, Daughter of Hippolyta, would want us to do better.