Category Archives: Writing

The Reality TV Show Experience

Posted on November 9, 2022 | 11 comments

The Drive

The fall leaves were at their best stage of orange as I drove north through the misty sunrise. I knew I was supposed to eat a hearty breakfast before I came, so I tried to nibble a muffin, my stomach in knots.

Today was the day. I was going to be on America’s Next Great Author (ANGA), a new reality TV show about writers.

Well, sort of. Right now we were just filming the pilot. (I explained the format in my previous blog posts here and here, if you need to do a quick skim to refresh your memory.)

But I’d never done anything like this before, and as much as I tried to convince myself to calm down, my stomach didn’t listen.

I was wearing a new dress I’d made myself. Shoes I’d mutilated to remove the Adidas label because they’d told us not to wear brand names. A new headcovering I’d clipped from the corner of a thrift store scarf and carefully hemmed. A face cream that was supposed to reduce my rosacea.

I was ready.

Ready, yet inexplicably nervous. I’d been trying not to take the whole thing too seriously because I don’t do the best with stress. But getting up at 6 am for the long drive to Newark didn’t help matters.

Still, Sunday morning may be the only time it’s easy to drive to Newark, NJ. I navigated through the deserted streets until I found the nearly-empty parking lot, and then, with a bit of time to spare, I brushed my teeth and spat in the bushes.

Then, gathering my yellow coat, a very small purse, and the papers I needed, I walked down the street to the library where the filming was taking place.

And there they were—a long line of authors in their Best and Brightest outfits, excitedly chatting in the morning sunshine.

The Wait

I registered at the little table, handing over my appearance release and showing a photo of the negative Covid test I’d taken that morning. They handed me a name tag in a plastic sleeve. Then I walked to the back of the line and waited.

We really waited for quite a while. An hour, I think. Maybe they were still setting up inside, I don’t know.

But we were all writers, easily entertained by other human beings, so we gabbed contentedly. Sam told me about a book she was reading that explained how to understand and pursue your true desires. Jeremy told stories about people puking in his Uber.

“Do you know most of the people here already?” I asked Sam.

“Yeah, I met most of them at the meet-and-greet yesterday,” she said. All the people who flew in Saturday had a chance to hang out and meet each other, but I’d missed it. One of the drawbacks of driving up.

There were a lot of people involved with this operation, and I tried to figure out where everyone belonged. The people in line with me were all writers. Someone said there were 75 of us—apparently, out of the 100 semi-finalists, 25 were unable to make it, which makes sense considering we were responsible for our own transportation and lodging.

I think the other well-dressed people wandering about were all producers, though it was difficult to tell because their name tags looked exactly like contestant name tags. I recognized David and Arielle. They were our mentors leading up to the show, filming helpful YouTube videos and doing a live Q and A. David also did a one-on-one mentoring session with each of us to help us polish our pitches.

Actually, as I was registering, David greeted me and we took a selfie. The producers, especially David and Arielle, were just like that the whole time—acting like they knew us because they’d watched our submissions so many times they felt like they did. Which was really nice because it lent a bit of familiarity and comfort to a brand-new situation.

There was also an ASL interpreter, immaculately dressed in a chic black outfit. One of the writers was deaf.

And finally, there was a whole group in well-worn black t-shirts who held cameras and microphones and whom I assumed to be the film crew. It was so funny how you could easily tell who expected to be on camera and who didn’t. The latter, of course, was dressed far more comfortably.

Some filming happened that first hour, though the camera was barely on me. David went along the line asking people questions and hyping us up, and that part was filmed.

And then finally, things got moving, and we all gathered in front of the library like we were posing for a giant group picture. Kwame Alexander crossed the street and we all cheered.

Kwame, a Newbery-Medal-winning author, was the host of the show. He hyped us up too. “Repeat after me,” he yelled. “I am the greatest!”

“I am the greatest!” the crowd shouted back.

“Not because I am better than anyone else”

“Not because I am better than anyone else”

“But because no one else is better than me!”

“But because no one else is better than me!”

Well, it’s probably a good thing I was in the back of the crowd because my Mennonite modesty would never allow me to shout a phrase like “I am the greatest.” So I just stood there silently and slightly awkwardly like I do when people recite the pledge of allegiance or sing that song that goes “his blood atones for all our race.”

After that, properly hyped and ready to go, we trooped into the library.

The Library

Old libraries are so interesting; a mix of timeless beauty and utilitarian practicality.

The Newark Public Library is such a place. Worn marble steps and stone arches right next to a folding table and stackable chairs. Rows and rows of beautiful hardback books with call numbers taped to their spines. Gorgeous murals. Paper posters advertising current library events.

We went inside, up the stairs to the second floor, through a small-ish room, and into an area full of computers where the film crew hung out.

Then, turning left and walking past the film crew area, we found ourselves in a long room full of chairs. All the writers found seats, while the producers and film crew rushed about. I plonked myself down near the water cooler and watched a crew member hang an “America’s Next Great Author” banner over the fireplace.

“Hey,” said the writer next to me. “I’m Maz.”

“Maz?”

“Like Jazz, with an M.”

We talked about our backgrounds and writing projects. Maz told me that his book is a memoir about being a Muslim child in Chicago during the Iranian hostage crisis.

We were indoors instead of outdoors, yet still we waited and waited for things to begin. It was wonderful. I drank water and met writers. Inman, behind me, was a sci-fi writer. Nadia sat at the end of my row. Fascinatingly enough, she’d also attended Oregon State University.

My purse was full of beef jerky and crackers. I should have eaten them, because I was no longer nervous.

But I didn’t.

And Then It Began

Out of the 75 semi-finalists that showed up, only 20 of us were going to be able to pitch our book to the judges.

“Do you really think they’re going to pick the 20 finalists randomly?” Sam had asked me as we’d stood in line.

“I don’t know,” I’d said. “That’s what they said at the live Q and A, but if you’re trying to make this into a TV show, wouldn’t you hand-pick the most interesting people?”

And sure enough, once things got going, David and Arielle told us that they weren’t choosing the finalists randomly after all. They’d hand-picked 20 people to pitch.

I wasn’t upset about this at the time. But later when I told family and friends about it they were confused and indignant. You mean they made everyone else fly out there knowing full well they weren’t going to let them pitch?

I assumed there was an explanation but I didn’t know what it was, so last week I had an email exchange with the producers and they kindly explained the process to me.

Turns out that at the time of the live Q and A, they were planning to choose the finalists randomly. David and Arielle have held many Pitchapaloozas over the years at bookstores and writer’s conferences, and the process has always been the same: Out of a group of writers, 20 people are randomly selected to pitch.

Of course, this is the first time they’ve ever done a Pitchapalooza as part of a TV show.

Other contest-type TV shows, like American Idol, hold open auditions in cities—auditions which are so massive that most people don’t even get to meet producers or judges. Also, some people are selected just so they’ll humiliate themselves on camera.

Wanting to go a different, more wholesome and supportive route, the ANGA production team decided to choose 100 semi-finalists from online submissions. That way there’d be few enough people so they could meet them all, but enough people to ensure that at least 20 would be able to make it.

They assumed that most of the people who ended up coming would be within driving distance of Newark. But when they started getting RSVPs from all over the country, they decided to add things to the event to make it more like a writer’s conference, so that everyone would get help on their book-publishing journey even if they didn’t get to pitch.

So they arranged a number of networking events, added a writer’s conference component for after the Pitchapalooza was over, and gave us free copies of their books on how to write and publish.

But then, between the live Q and A and the filming, they started thinking about the limitations of randomly drawing people to pitch. What if they only drew romance novel writers? Then only romance novel writers would hear useful feedback from the judges, and sci-fi writers wouldn’t get as much out of the experience.

So they hand-picked 20 people to pitch, making sure a wide variety of genres were represented so that everyone could take away something useful even if they didn’t get to pitch. But since the list of who was coming and who wasn’t kept fluctuating, they didn’t finalize the list until everyone was checked in.

The Pitchapalooza

The panel of judges sat up front. Some of them were bestselling authors and in general they seemed like Very Important People but since I couldn’t see or hear super well from my position near the back of the room, the only judge I can identify, besides David, was author Jason Reynolds.

Kwame Alexander hosted the show. He would come to the front of the room and say something like, “she’s a small-town mayor who loves to knit and wrestle alligators in her spare time. Give it up for Jessica Whitlock! And we’d all cheer as Jessica Whitlock came forward.

(This is just an example. There was no Jessica Whitlock. I remember very few details about the people he called up, except that he made them all sound like they had Main Character Energy.)

Then “Jessica Whitlock” would stand at the podium and, in one minute, pitch her book.

And when she was done, the judges would offer feedback on what was working and what could be improved.

Then she’d go into a different room to get personally interviewed, and Kwame would call up the next finalist.

I wanted to pitch. I’ve always wanted to pitch, although I’ve tried to be realistic about my chances. You all know how theatrical I can be. I love public speaking. I didn’t expect to win, but I wanted to stand up there and say things.

But one by one, they called people up, and it was never me.

It’s hard to describe how horrible I felt.

Part of this was just Emily Disease. I’d gotten up too early, I hadn’t eaten enough, and I was peopled out. There were crackers and beef jerky in my purse but I didn’t want to start merrily munching on camera. I had to pee, but I didn’t want to be in the bathroom if they called my name. I was thirsty, but there was a camera between me and the water cooler, and I felt weird walking in front of it.

This makes it sound like I was stuck in the Pitchapalooza for ages, but it really wasn’t that long. Maybe an hour and a half or two hours.

But during those two hours I slowly descended into deeper and deeper misery.

There was something really horrible about not getting chosen. Like being a kid when the athletic kids are picking teams, and every time thinking “maybe I’ll get picked next” but you never are.

I thought about Sam’s book. The one about understanding your true desires. At the time it had seemed a bit silly, yet here I was, getting in touch with my true desires after all.

I’d tried not to take it too seriously, but right now, it mattered so much to me. I didn’t want to pitch for the fun of it, I wanted to be chosen. I wanted non-Mennonite people to care about Mennonite stories. I wanted recognition outside the Mennonite world.

But they called number 18, number 19, number 20…and then it was all over.

And I was not picked.

Reflections on Rejection

It took me a while to process all of this. Why I cared so much. Why it hurt so much.

I drove down to Texas in the days after the show, and when I stopped at my cousin Jason’s house in Tennessee, we talked for hours about our lives and our writing projects. Jason is also a writer but, unlike me, he’s been to writer’s conferences.

“It’s the same way at writer’s conferences,” he said. “At home you can be realistic, and tell yourself it doesn’t matter that much…no matter what happens you’ll gain feedback that will make you a better writer. But then you get to the conference and it feels like the only thing that matters is being accepted by an agent. I’ve heard grown men crying in the bathroom.”

Then he pulled out the best analogy: it’s like asking someone out.

You can tell yourself that it’s okay if they say no…the world won’t end. Other romantic prospects exist. But when you’re rejected, in that moment it feels like the only thing that matters.

Crowning a Winner

The one bright spot in my misery was hearing some of my new friends get called up to pitch. Especially when Maz got chosen. I cheered like crazy.

Also, the people who did pitch had amazing, fascinating stories. It was fun to imagine reading their books in the future, and very interesting to hear the professional judges offer feedback.

But when all 20 finalists had pitched, the atmosphere in the room was heavy, somber, sad. 55 of us were utterly dejected. Kwame and the judges started telling stories about how many times they’d been rejected before they’d found success, trying to cheer us up and encourage us to keep on with our writing.

“I didn’t even realize I cared about pitching that much,” Inman told me later.

“Me neither,” I confessed.

The judges bipped off through the stacks to confer with each other and choose a winner, and the film crew started filming some audience shots. Then there was a bit more waiting and chatting time, before the judges came back and Kwame announced that the winner was…Joi Miner!

I hadn’t met Joi yet but I rooted for her anyway. She was exuberant and kind and she radiated, well, pure joy. I went and talked to her after everything was over, and she was lovely.

The Aftermath

It was now about 1 pm. The Pitchapalooza was over. “There’s lunch across the hall, and then come back in here for a special surprise!” the producers told us.

“Actually, we’ll just tell you the surprise now. We’re holding a mini writer’s conference.”

Then we were dismissed. I didn’t know what to do first. Eat? Use the bathroom? I sat down at a lunch table with a bunch of finalists and a producer, and they had interesting things to say about the interviews and such but I was mostly focused on my own misery.

I mean, physical misery. I was so hungry it hurt, and the pain didn’t immediately dissipate as I stuffed my face and tried to talk to Autumn through an exhausted brain fog.

9 times out of 10 I can eat a small breakfast and be perfectly fine until mid-afternoon, although I don’t normally do it. But every once in a while I get inexplicably ravenous, and today was one of those days.

I needed some air and space. After eating and using the bathroom I took a walk to my car. And I tried to sort things out in my brain.

I could just leave, except I wasn’t fit to drive. Should I take a nap in my car? Maybe I just needed some tea.

Yes, that was it. I had food in my system and a bit of alone time, now. I’d be fine if I could only get some tea.

So I stuck a tea bag in my purse and went back to the library.

And then, something odd and beautiful happened.

As I walked back into the main room, a woman said to me, “I really liked your pitch.”

I looked at her with the most what the bunnyslipper expression. “But…I didn’t get to pitch,” I said…although I don’t remember if I said it out loud or just with the confused wrinkle between my eyebrows.

“Oh, sorry, I’m one of the producers,” she said. She explained that she and the other producers had watched our submission videos so many times they felt like they knew us. She said that she’d spent a lot of time on a farm growing up, and she really thought I should do something with my story.

A Quick Explanetory Interjection

I’m realizing, as I’m writing this, that I ought to include my pitch in this blog post. Because you guys have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention my pitch/book/project.

But I did something embarrassing and maybe unethical that’s keeping me from sharing it.

See, on the combine last summer I got a random book idea: What if there was a teenage Mennonite combine driver who had to figure out how to bring the harvest in alone when her uncle/boss had an accident similar my dad’s that puts him out of commission?

This was around the time I heard about America’s Next Great Author, so I decided to pitch this book idea.

Unfortunately, I only had a few days to write the pitch, because I wanted to film it in front of my combine and I was about to fly east. I needed a main character name. It had to be Mennonite. It had to be memorable.

So I stole a real person’s name.

I intended to ask her for permission, and I’m going to as soon as I can psyche myself up. If she doesn’t want me to use it I’ll pick something else. But I barely know her and it just feels weird and awkward.

But in the meantime, I don’t want to post my pitch here because I’m sure some of you will recognize the name.

Tea Desperation

By the time I made my way into the room for the writer’s conference portion, I was so tired the world seemed vague and hazy.

I needed tea.

There was a coffee cart in the little in-between room, but no hot water. So I took a cup and my own tea bag over to the water cooler, but the tab for hot water was broken off.

I tried to fix it with a bobby pin, but it didn’t work.

Welp, so much for that. I sat down. I tried to focus on the speaker’s advice. I began to doze.

This is crazy. I need tea. I will acquire tea by any means necessary.

Thus, I went wandering around the library in search of hot water. And for a while, I found only disappointment. One water cooler was empty. There was a room in the library labeled “cafe,” but it was just vending machines. One of them was a coffee-dispensing machine, and I thought it might give me hot water, but I couldn’t get it to turn on.

But finally, I found a water cooler with functional hot water in a back room in a dark corner where I’m not sure I was supposed to be but there were no “keep out” signs and I promise I just got water and left.

Anyway. I suppose I could have choked down some coffee and acquired caffeine that way. But tea has a psychological effect on me as well as a caffeination effect. When I have tea, I feel like everything is going to be okay now.

And things were much better after that. Revived by tea, I fully enjoyed listening to the Q and A with some of the producers who had lots of writing and publishing experience to dispense.

The End Is Near

That was the end of the planned events at the library, but the producers arranged another networking meetup where everyone who didn’t get to pitch could get together that evening and pitch to each other.

But like the networking events on Saturday, I wasn’t able to go as I had a long drive ahead of me.

So I made the most of the library time. I talked to Inman for a while, and then I introduced myself to Joi and we talked for a bit. But people were leaving, and I saw Kwame coming toward us, looking like he was trying to clear the room.

Now I hadn’t talked to Kwame yet, partly because I always thought he’d be too busy, and partly because I was a little star-struck. Growing up I didn’t know what an Oscar or a Grammy was, but I knew exactly what the Newbery metal was because we always bought books with the gold Newbery winning or silver Newbery honor stickers on the front. That’s how I found all my favorite authors. That’s the award I wanted to win someday.

In some ways, it’s the only award that really impresses me.

So when I saw Kwame coming towards me, and I knew I was going to leave soon, my better sense took over and I decided to talk to him.

I introduced myself and said that it was awesome to meet a Newbery award winner. That it had always been my dream to win that award. And he said it was never his dream, but it changed his life.

And then he started saying nice things about my writing, which completely took me off guard. I did not expect him to know who I was.

I don’t know why…I mean he was a producer as well as the host and had looked over the materials quite a bit in order to choose semi-finalists and finalists. So I guess it makes sense.

But in my head, Newbery Winner=Important Person, and Important Person=Not Knowing Who I Am. This math always adds up to Kwame not knowing me from Adam, and so I was quite startled to realize this was not the case.

So ultimately, while I left the event with the heaviness of not being chosen, I also felt the surreal joy of my work being recognized and appreciated by someone I percive as Very Important.

At the beginning of the day Kwame had told us to yell that “no one else is better than me,” but I don’t think that’s true. The ones who were finalists over me were better than me. But after talking to Kwame I felt like I was close…like I could achieve something if I just kept at it, tried a little harder, put in more effort. Really went for it.

Going Home

The drive back from Newark took over 4 hours along narrow roads through random small towns. Nothing like the easy breezy drive up. But I didn’t mind so much. I wanted time to think.

Well, I had plenty of time to think. Because after resting on Monday, I spent the next three days driving to Texas to move in with my brother Matt and SIL Phoebe.

That’ of course, is another story for another day.

But after spending so much time thinking, and now writing, about my day, I am left deeply grateful for it, as well as rejuvenated and motivated to keep writing. And that maybe I have a chance to be successful at fiction.

Thank you all for following along on my journey. When I posted on Instagram about not being able to pitch, so many of you sent me messages and reactions of disappointment. And it just made me realize how many people I have supporting me and cheering for me, and I don’t want to take that for granted.

Thank you so much.

***

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Posted in Stories, Thoughts About Life, Travel, Writing

A Wild Week in Lancaster City: Car Accident, Locking Myself Out of the House, and More TV Show Info

Posted on October 18, 2022 | 2 comments

So far I’ve been having a beautiful time in Lancaster city. The wild Autumn breezes whip the leaves along the sidewalk as I walk to the nearest coffee shop. I admire the houses I pass—cozy brick structures, but instead of identical row houses, they all have interesting unique designs.

But I’ve had my stressful moments too.

The (Very Minor but Very Weird) Car Accident

Last week as I was driving right through the heart of the city, some crazy lady hit my car.

I was stopped at a stoplight, in the middle lane, when whomp! Someone merged right into me from the left turn lane. I don’t know how she didn’t see me. I wasn’t even in her blind spot—I was in front of her.

The light turned green but I couldn’t move because her car was stuck on my mirror. And when she finally dislodged herself I still wasn’t sure what to do because there was no place to pull over. But I didn’t want to block the street, so I pulled forward to the stoplight, which was red again.

She drove behind me and pulled up beside me in the right lane. We rolled our windows down. “Get out and see if there’s any damage,” said the woman behind the wheel.

So I got out to check, but I didn’t look too closely. I didn’t want to hold up traffic again. “It looks fine,” I told her. “Are you okay?” I added, just to be nice.

“I’ll check,” said the woman. But I didn’t care about her car, so I drove off when the light turned green again and decided that that was the end of that.

Well what do you know, a few blocks later she pulled up next to me again, motioning me to stop. I pulled off on a side street. She pulled up next to me, double parked, and got out. “My car is damaged,” she said, pointing to the long black scrape where her car had gotten stuck on my mirror.

“I mean, you hit me,” I said.

“Do you have good insurance?”

“Sure, we can exchange insurance information if you want to,” I said. As I got out of my car I noticed that my door scraped a bit from a small dent. “I guess it would be good to have your insurance information just in case this dent ends up being costly to fix.”

But as soon as I started asking for her insurance information, she said “no, it’s okay, it’s okay,” and refused to give it to me.

So yeah…very sketchy.

I don’t mind about the dent—my car is already dented—but it certainly doesn’t help my driving anxiety. I flinch now when I see people merging. It feels like anyone could just plow into me for no reason.

The Onions that Locked Me Out of the House

Later that day I went grocery shopping at Strasburg Marketplace, where I found pre-chopped onions. I like onions but I don’t like chopping them, so I thought this was wonderful and bought some.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t wonderful.

These onions had the strongest onion smell I’ve ever smelled. Every time I cooked with them, the smell pervaded the whole house. I opened doors. I ran the stove fan. But onion smells still dominated.

Not wanting to throw them out completely, I decided to make a rice and bean bowl and toss some raw onions on top. But I ate on the back porch, and I didn’t even open the container of onions until I was completely outside with the door shut.

Now the onion smell would never get into the house.

And, as it unfortunately turned out, neither would I.

Yes, the doorknob was locked, able to be twisted from the inside but not the outside, and I hadn’t realized it.

I had no keys and no shoes—just my cellphone, a pair of socks, dirty dishes, and a container of onions.

My roommate was at work and not answering her phone. I had a vague memory of her telling me how to find the spare key, but I searched through the yard and didn’t find it.

And then I was attacked by mosquitos. In half a minute I had eight giant, dime-sized bites up and down my arms and legs. I fled the yard, out onto the front sidewalk where there were no more mosquitos, and there called my friend Esta asking if I could come hang out at her place.

She picked me up, and there I hung out until my roommate came home.

More About the TV Show

In my last post, I talked about being a semi-finalist for the pilot of a potential new reality TV show called America’s Next Great Author.

Well, on Tuesday, all the semi-finalists were invited to a live Q and A. Now that that’s happened, I have a bit more information to share.

The difference between the pilot and the TV show

If America’s Next Great Author ever gets picked up as a reality TV show, this is how it will go:

In cities across America, writers will be invited to participate in “pitchapaloozas,” where they stand onstage and “pitch” their book idea to a live audience. Similar to something like American Idol, only instead of singing, writers have one minute to make you care about their book.

Each “pitchapalooza” will have a winner, and six winners will then live together in a house for a month. Most of the show will be about the winners as they each try to write a book during that month, and also do various interesting/creative writing exercises. If they successfully write a book in a month, they will get their book published!

They’re aiming for a fun/kind/creative/supportive vibe, like The Great British Baking Show.

For the pilot, they’re doing a mini version of this. 100 semifinalists (including me) are participating in a pitchapalooza. The winner will receive $2,500 and stay for a second day of shooting. I’m not exactly sure what will happen that second day, but they’re trying to do some things to replicate how things might be in the TV show when the winners are all in a house together.

With this footage, they’ll make a pilot, which will give networks an idea of what a full TV show could look like.

HOWEVER

We found out that being in the pilot offers no guarantee that we’ll be in the TV show. If the show gets picked up, we’ll all have to completely re-apply and re-pitch our books if we want to be on it.

They initially told us that whoever wins this pilot pitchapalooza would be “featured” in the TV show if it gets picked up. A lot of us thought “featured” meant “be one of the six writers in the house.” But no…turns out it just means…some of your footage will be in the show? I’m not sure.

I could tell a number of people were disappointed about that.

How the Pitchapalooza will work

Even though there are 100 semi-finalists, only 20 people will get to pitch their book.

They invited more people than they needed, just in case some people wouldn’t be able to show up. Also, part of the tension that will make the show interesting is the way that all of us semi-finalists in the audience will be on the edge of our seats, wondering if we’ll get called to pitch next.

At this point no one, not even the show producers, knows who will be pitching. The names will be chosen randomly while we all sit in the audience hoping to hear our name.

The judges will choose a winner from the 20 pitches, based entirely on the strength of the pitch.

What Not to Wear

We also went over what we should and shouldn’t wear. Basically, we can’t wear logos or mascots because of licensing issues. And some prints, like polka dots and stripes, show up weirdly on camera, so we were advised to avoid them.

Which is cool except I was 100% planning to wear my favorite blue dress, and it has polka dots.

This blue dress has been my go-to dress for over 10 years. It’s comfortable—no tags, buttons, or zippers. It’s also “my color” and looks good on me. Perfect. Case closed.

But it has polka dots!

And I really didn’t have a plan B. Most of my interesting clothes are skirts that I pair with black shirts, and black just seems so boring if I’m gonna be on camera. I also have limited options since I left some of my clothes in Oregon.

I’m nervous about buying something new because I’m so picky about how clothes feel. Being on camera, and the pressure of pitching my book, is just too stressful of a thing to do in uncomfortable clothes.

But then I had an idea:

My poor blue dress is struggling these days. It still looks great from a distance, but up close it’s covered in snags, some of the dots are wearing off, the interfacing has dissolved, and the facing tends to flop out the back.

I’d already been thinking of trying to clone it—I just didn’t have the “push” to get it done.

Well, now I did.

Making My Dress for the Big City

My friends Esta and Janessa are really into color analysis right now. You know how back in the day that book Color Me Beautiful was all the rage, and people would talk about how they can’t wear this particular shirt because they’re an Autumn, not a Spring?

Well apparently color analysis is coming back in style, and I’m not mad about it.

So I asked the two of them if they could help me find fabric that’s my color, and they agreed! Saturday morning we set out for Zinck’s Fabric Outlet.

Essentially they draped me in lots of fabrics, and we set aside the ones that looked especially nice. The lighting was not ideal—harsh and florescent—but they were still able to pinpoint a selection of colors that looked nice on me.

Here are some of the best ones:

Janessa mostly took reference photos of the colors that looked nice, not the ones that looked bad, but here’s one photo where you can see the contrast. The green below was not my color.

Ultimately my favorites were the royal blue, the royal purple, the mint green/light aqua, and the deeper green. After that I narrowed it down by fabric type. The royal blue had the most similar weight and stretch to the original dress, so that’s what I bought, as well as thread and elastic.

You can’t see it in the picture because I’m showing the wrong side, but the deeper green is actually covered in sequins. Not only would a full dress of that fabric be quite “extra,” but I’m afraid I’d find it uncomfortable.

However, I was fascinated by it and decided to get a couple yards as backup. My plan is to make a t-shirt-like blouse and pair it with my pleated black skirt. If it is comfortable and looks better than the blue dress, or if I don’t get the blue dress done, I’ll wear the green shirt instead. Otherwise, I’ll take it along in the off chance that I win the whole thing and need an outfit for Day 2.

Here’s what the sparkly side looks like.

Doing It for the Plot and Content

The other day Jenny was telling me about her life, and said she was doing something “for the plot and content.”

“I don’t know what that means!” I said. “Is that Gen Z slang?”

“It’s part Gen Z slang, part inside joke with Kathrine and I,” said Jenny. She explained that if you “do something for the plot” it’s something you do because you imagine your life as a story that needs a better plot, and “doing something for the content” means you’re doing it to have interesting things to tell your long-distance friends when they call.

I kinda feel like I’m doing this TV pilot for the plot and content.

It’s marketed with a “we can make your dreams come true!” energy similar to, say, American Idol, like you’re supposed to come on the show desperate for the publishing deal that could change your life.

And I love that for people who thrive on that sort of thing, but that’s way too much stress and pressure for me. I want to have fun and make connections, but most of all I think I just want to know what it’s like to film a TV pilot.

I still really want to be one of the twenty people who gets to pitch. What an incredible experience! I really enjoy performance and public speaking so the thought of pitching makes me really excited, as well as nervous of course.

Unless I have to sign some funky nondisclosure agreement or something, I’ll tell you all about it later.

Meanwhile, I’ll plan to post about it on Instagram while I’m there, and also provide updates on clothing preparation and such. I’ve never cloned a dress before so…yeah who knows how this will go.

***

Order my book:
Print Version
Kindle Version

Follow me on:
Instagram: @emilytheduchess
Twitter: @emilysmucker
Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog
YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker
TikTok: @emilytheduchess
Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month [or more if you’re feeling generous]. I try to post twice a month.)

2 Comments

Posted in Fashion, Life Update, Writing

January 2022 Life Update

Posted on January 25, 2022 | 11 comments

Still Living in Blacksburg VA

It’s been a snowy, cozy January. I love looking at the snow. I put a desk in the corner window and feel piles of inspiration as I watch the interesting people in the street.

Like the guy who rides his bicycle wearing a pink tracksuit and a hat with bunny ears.

But I’ve found that I’m not a big fan of the cold. I don’t think my Oregon clothes are really warm enough, and just like the year when I traveled, I’m pretty much wearing the same wool sweater every day because it’s the warmest thing I own.

It makes me feel like a cartoon character.

Also, my cousin Derek and his wife Grace recently moved to town, so that’s been fun! It’s nice to have family around.

Started a New Job

I started a new job as a copywriter for LifeXMarketing, which is the main reason I haven’t been blogging much. I mean, it’s very part-time, so I still have time for other writing projects.

But man, there are so many things I want to write. The ideas never stop. Fiction, nonfiction, blog posts, Patron posts. Other things too, like plays. And speeches. Podcasts. Youtube videos.

Unfortunately, my idea-generator is set to 100 and my energy is set to like, 3.

So having a “real job” of sorts does cut into the amount of time I can spend on other writing projects.

Edited my Novella

I talked about this some last November, but I recently wrote a novella. I basically concluded that this was not something marketable, and just wrote it for fun.

The novella is about a girl who climbs into a mysterious taxi one night because she is so lonely and fed up with her life. Since she doesn’t have any money on her at the moment, she pays by handing over some strawberries and agreeing to tell the curious taxi driver the story of her doom.

The first part of the novella is the story she tells the taxi driver, which ends up being about five people in particular who contributed to her current state of distress and loneliness. In the second part, the taxi driver takes her to a mysterious conference where she runs into all five of them again and discovers what was really going on.

I wrote the story to work through the loneliness and isolation I felt during the pandemic. But I used fantasy to convey it, and I did dumb stuff like naming all the major characters after the characters of whatever book or movie I happened to be consuming at the moment. Also, I threw some real people in as side characters, just for funsies.

I finished the first draft in November and let it rest through December, but this month I edited and revised enough to send it to my editor. Also, I let Jenny read it as a beta-reader. Their reactions were enthusiastic enough that I’m considering publishing it as an e-book.

However, that won’t be for a bit yet. I want to do another round or two of revisions first.

New Projects

I made a new years resolution to write another book. By “another book” I meant non-fiction book, and I know what book it is. It’s the book I was working on with such enthusiasm all autumn before I got discouraged with how vulnerable it was and took a break.

It’s essentially a book of essays about trying to figure out life, love, career, purpose, and community as an older single person.

I’m determined to finish at least a draft of it this year.

But the new fiction ideas burrow into my mind and won’t let go.

And it’s even worse this time, because now that I’ve written a novella I’m convinced that I have what it takes to write a real fiction book.

So yeah…currently I’m spending too much time dreaming up a book that involves completing a bucket list. I only mention that because I could use your help:

What is on your bucket list?

Please let me know in the comments.

11 Comments

Posted in Life Update, Writing

Sending My Book Into the Wide Wide World

Posted on December 7, 2020 | 6 comments

On Tuesday, November 17, I woke up feeling grumpy. All these little things were going wrong in my life. My books still had not arrived, even though I’d told everyone that November 16 was my official release date. I’d been heavily exposed to Covid, and still didn’t have my test results back, so I was wearing a mask whenever I wasn’t in my bedroom. That got old really fast. And finally, Oregon was going into another lockdown. It made sense, with Thanksgiving coming up, but it also made life complicated.

I guess today is technically our Thanksgiving, I thought to myself. We were celebrating early, both because of the impending lockdown and because Steven had to work Thanksgiving day.

Then the verse “give thanks in all circumstances” popped into my head, and I felt a wave of guilt. I’d been grumpy and grouchy for days, not feeling very thankful at all.

Today I’ll choose to be thankful in all circumstances, I thought. And then, it turned out just like a Sunday School story. Once I decided to be thankful, everything started going right for once.

First, I got the news that I was Covid-free. Yay!

Then, I got the news that my books had arrived! I pulled on some clothes, and mom and I drove down to the warehouse in our terrible minivan. They had just been unloaded, all those boxes and boxes of books, sitting on a pallet and shrink-wrapped together.

Seeing my books for the first time was such an amazing feeling. I’d worked so hard for this. And here it was. A book. Tangible evidence that I’d created something, in all those hours I spent at my computer.

Then I went home and started packing up orders. I’d allowed people to pre-order the book, because I thought that would be more efficient. And it would have been if my books had arrived, say, even four or five days before my release date, as I thought they would. But since they arrived after the release date, I had a bit of a scramble, getting them all out.

I finally had to take a break so that I could help make Thanksgiving dinner.

Wednesday was pretty magical. I went to the post office and mailed about 1/3 of the pre-orders, as well as several full boxes to bookstores and distributers. “You have so many packages. You must own a small business,” said a woman in line behind me.

I explained that I’d published a book, and she, as well as the other gentleman in line behind me, were so excited for me. They told me all about the Mennonites they knew. And she ended up, several weeks later, buying two of my books and writing me a really sweet letter.

Now, 2020 has been a really hard year for me. I know this isn’t remotely unique in these times, but between Covid stuff, Dad’s accident, and other tragic events in the community, I just feel so fragile and worn down this fall. I clung to my book as the one good thing that was going to come out of 2020. And it has been really good and really happy. Still, it has also been a bit more than I could handle sometimes. And by Thursday, I’d overworked myself so thoroughly that I got sick.

This added a whole new layer of complication, because it was only 11 days since my Covid exposure. I didn’t think it was Covid, and yet I felt like I should quarantine just in case, so I had to try to trade favors with my family members to get them to take my books to the post office for me. And then Mom went to the warehouse again to fetch more books, and the terrible van died. It really was a dramatic day.

Still, with the help of my family, I managed to get caught up on orders by Saturday. I never got re-tested for Covid. I guess the testing system was overloaded that Friday, because I couldn’t get through to urgent care. But it really didn’t seem like Covid, and getting Covid 11 days after exposure is pretty rare. Besides, I’d just gotten a negative test. I concluded that I’d gotten sick by overworking myself, because that’s fairly typical for how my body works, unfortunately.

In the days since then, I’ve mostly felt grateful and overwhelmed. Somehow with website stuff, sending out orders, trying to figure out international shipping, giving up on international shipping and deciding that I need to figure out how to make a Kindle book instead, etc etc etc, I’ve felt like I just can’t keep up with the marketing things I intended to do. I’ve hardly done blog posts and Instagram posts. I haven’t done any giveaways yet. I haven’t done promotional livestreams or blog tours or anything like that.

However–and I’m so deeply grateful for this–so many people have stepped up and done all these little promotional things for me. Posting about my book on their Instagram stories and Facebook, so all I have to do is click “share” and I’ve done a little promotion right there. Chris Miller made me a book trailer. But mostly, people have been buying the book, and that means a lot. I mean, I know it’s pandemic times and a lot of people can’t afford to buy books right now and that’s totally understandable and fine.

But a lot of people have bought my book, and the idea that people care about my words enough to purchase them…well, wow. It’s just incredible, really.

So, thank you.

P.S. I called my book the One Good Thing of 2020, but that was kind-of a brain fart because, hello. Matt and Phoebe’s wedding. That was also a Good Thing of 2020. So I guess there were two good things, haha.

…

You can order my book here.

You can find me on

Instagram: @emilytheduchess

Twitter: @emilysmucker

Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog

YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker

Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month [or more if you’re feeling generous]. I try to post twice a month. My latest two posts were titled My Thoughts on the Election and With Honor)

6 Comments

Posted in Stories, Thoughts About Books, Writing

The Story Behind the Book Trailer

Posted on November 10, 2020 | 4 comments

With all the ill health, tragedies, and general unpleasantness of 2020, I didn’t have the energy to make the Big Splash with my book release that I’d hoped to make. There was no launch party, not even a virtual one. Currently there are no book signings planned. When I finally had a release date and a pre-order link, all I did to launch it was post a picture to my Instagram and a picture to my Facebook.

That’s all.

But I was so amazed and blessed by all the ways people stepped up and supported me; they shared pre-order links, and commented their congrats, and seemed happy and willing to help promote my new book.

That very day I got a text from my friend Chris Miller, offering to make me a book trailer. (Chris is married to my cousin/BFF Stephy, and is a very creative person. We’ve collaborated on projects before, most notably the Christmas play last year.)

Chris came over the next morning and we sat on the porch and discussed themes and camera angles. He wanted to go for a golden hour autumn look, so the plan was to shoot an interview the next day, and then get together on Saturday to film some b-roll footage.

Unfortunately the next day was foggy. Not the golden sunlight look we were going for. That’s fine, we’ll just cram it all into the Saturday photo shoot. That will work, right?

Saturday morning found me frantically washing the bird poop off my car and the mud off my red rubber boots, and cramming all my stray car junk (including a beard and cane from that previously mentioned Christmas play) into some brightly-colored suitcases I found in the attic. Chris showed up around 11 am with everything…camera, microphones, lighting, a script-ish thing (shot list? I forget the official name), etc. He had this whole vision for the video. It was so much fun.

First there were shots of me walking out the door with my luggage, which was harder than you’d think because they were heavy with all the junk from my car. Also, I was trying to juggle a suitcase, a duffle bag, a mug of tea, and my red rubber boots. I was supposed to heave an excited sigh at the top of the steps, which sounds easy enough, but just try it once. Try heaving an exciting sigh that doesn’t sound silly. Are you trying it right now? It sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Yeah. We decided I should take a sip of tea instead.

Then there were shots of me packing up my car, which was when I noticed that I’d done a pretty bad job of washing it. Oops. But Chris said no one would notice, and truly, when I watched the video, I didn’t.

After that it was the drone shots, first of me driving down our road, and then of me crossing the Harrisburg bridge.

By this time it was long past lunch, and when we stopped to pick Stephy up I begged her for some snacks. Ha. She obligingly fixed me some sausage and crackers, and we were off, this time with Stephy in tow to hold the clipboard and cross off the shots as we did them. We were headed to Finley Wildlife Refuge to get some hiking shots.

Well, before that there was this treacherous GoPro shot. It was suctioned to the outside of my driver’s-side window, and Chris wanted me to roll down my window while driving. This was all well and good except I wasn’t supposed to look at the camera. I was terrified of rolling it down too far, so that the GoPro would become un-suctioned, snap off my window, and go bouncing and rolling down the road.

But everything was fine, and the GoPro stayed firmly in place, even though I did roll it down a little too far once.

At Finley, a few casual wildlife-refuge-goers watched us with increasing interest. After we’d filmed for a bit, they approached us. “Can we ask what you’re doing?”

“I wrote a book called The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea, about a trip I took around the USA living in a different Mennonite community every month,” I said. “It’s coming out on November 16, and Chris here is filming a book trailer for me.”

The older of the two pulled out his phone. “What was the name of it again?” he asked.

I told him, and he tapped it in. Either that or he was just pretending to, so as not to be awkward. I don’t really know. In either case, he then asked, “will it be on Kindle? I kind-of like just reading books on my phone.”

I told him that for now it’s not, but in the future, who knows? I guess I’ll ask you readers…do you have interest in a Kindle version of my book?

Anyway, after that it was a lot of hiking shots. These were mostly fairly straightforward, although there was one where he balanced precariously on a sign, held the camera out over the path, and filmed me as I walked underneath it.

Through all of this, Stephy was there with the clip board. “Does this remind you of all the times I used to coerce you into making weird little films with me?” I asked her.

She laughed. “Kinda, yeah.”

It was getting late, and we still needed to film the interview. “What do you think?” Chris asked. “Should we film here in the woods, or on your front porch? Which would fit the vibe of your book better?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Then, for some reason I started describing the photoshoot Janane had taken for my book cover and promotional photos. She’d done some photos of me in nature, some with my car, some in the city, and some in a coffee shop. “That’s it!” said Chris. “We need a coffee shop. Should we drive into Junction City and film at Starbucks?”

“I feel like we don’t have the time,” I said. “What if we stopped somewhere in Monroe?” Monroe was the next town we’d pass through on our way home.

“Yes, let’s do that,” said Chris, making a snappy decision. We went to our cars and drove out of there, me following Chris, Stephy in Chris’ passenger seat googling for coffee shops in Monroe.

I guess there are no coffee shops in Monroe, though, because all we really found was the library.

It would have given a similar vibe, I think. After all, I did just as much writing in libraries on this trip as I did in coffee shops. Maybe more. But as Chris set up his multiple cameras, fancy lights, and three types of microphones, the sun slowly slid behind the Coast Range. I shivered in the cold October twilight.

Photo by Stephanie Miller for Brantbury Studio

The interview went fairly well. I enjoy talking to a camera, and Chris had emailed me, several days previously, with the questions that he wanted me to answer. The only problem was that Chris kept asking me new questions, or questions worded slightly differently.

“So, why should people read your book?”

“Um…because…I think they’ll like it? This wasn’t on your list of questions!”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, you asked…” I flipped through my notebook. “You asked what I hoped people would get from this book.”

“Oh, well what do you hope people will get from this book?”

“I hope reading this book will inspire people to try new things, to reach out to strangers, to reach out to their family, and overall, to pursue what really matters in life,” I said. But see, I couldn’t have thought of those things on the fly. Goodness.

By the time we wrapped up it was really quite dark. “If the lack of lighting becomes an issue with this footage, would you have time to re-shoot next week?” Chris asked.

“Sure,” I said. Privately I also wanted more practice on what I was going to say.

We shot the interview again on Monday, at Max Porter’s in Junction City. Well, we were planning to shoot at Max Porter’s, but then a couple sat down in our shot and we moved to the outdoor seating area of the bar next door. “No one will know,” said Chris. “I’ll blur out the words on the door.”

Chris had arrived at Max Porter’s, hurried and dusty from a different video shoot at my Uncle’s pellet mill. “The lighting is just right!” he’d exclaimed, and he’d pulled out one camera and one microphone. No tripods, no extra lighting, and no cables needed. He wasn’t going to let the sun disappear before he got his shot.

This time it was such a simple, smooth process. I’d taken notes on the previous interview and just written down everything I wanted to say. So Chris didn’t ask questions at all, just turned on the camera and sat there while I rattled off my entire monologue several times.

And that was it! By Wednesday he had the first draft to me, and after I made some suggestions, he sent the second draft to me on Friday. Or was it Thursday? It was super fast. I had to watch it quickly, before I went out of service, because I spent last weekend in the Colorado mountains.

Anyway. Please, if you want a promotional video for your business, check out Chris’ company, Brantbury Studio. It was a fun, collaborative experience with great results.

And of course, if you want to pre-order my book, you can do so here.

…

Find Me On

Instagram: @emilytheduchess

Twitter: @emilysmucker

Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog

YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker

Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month [or more if you’re feeling generous]. I try to post twice a month. My latest two posts were titled Thank You, and Chapter 1 of The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea. I’m currently working on a post about the election.)

4 Comments

Posted in Video, Writing

The Story Behind The Story

Posted on November 4, 2020 | 1 comment
Photo by Janane Nguyen Photography

Yesterday I got the news that my books have been printed. Soon they’ll be shipped to me, and then I’ll start packaging up and sending out the pre-orders. Yay!!!

Today, I thought I’d share the story behind the story. How did I come to write this book?

According to my Google Docs archives, I started it on March 8, 2019. At 1:01 pm EST, I opened a new document and typed:

“I’ll drive if you’ll give me this coffee,” I said.

There were about two inches left in my sister Amy’s paper cup of gas station coffee. It was cold. But I wasn’t drinking it for the coffee, I was drinking it for the caffeine. 

“Okay,” said Amy.

From The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea

But in my memory, I started the book six days before that, on a cold dark evening, as I was driving north on that long road that stretches between Lancaster City and Myerstown. I was thinking about death, and life, and love. I’d spent the last four days with some of my dearest friends as they grieved the loss of their cousin Ian, and I’d seen grief so up close, so raw.

And then, a song came on the radio. “Love Alone is Worth the Fight,” by Switchfoot.

I listened, and in my mind a movie played, of all the pain and heartache I’d witnessed in the past four days. They were hurt so deeply only because they’d loved Ian so much, and yet, it was all worth it to them. They never regretted loving him so much.

Because love alone is worth the fight.

I’d been traveling for six months at this point, and the whole time I’d had a vague idea that I would probably write a book about this experience. But up until now, the trip seemed like a random assortment of haphazard events, the most interesting of which I could never write about. (Yes, I did have some romantic drama. No, I didn’t write about any of it.)

But now, I had something. A vague ghost of a theme. Something that went a little deeper than “I did this crazy thing, and then I did that thing, and then I locked my keys in my car again.”

I’m going to start this book, I decided. And six days later, I did just that. Those exact words are in my book now, only on page 5 instead of page 1. (Also, with a couple of light edits. “My sister” was deleted, and the last “said” was changed to “agreed.”)

Despite the fact that my first words made it into the final draft relatively unscathed, most of that first draft wasn’t so lucky. I began it with only a vague idea that I had something deeper to say about my trip, but I didn’t have a firm grasp on the themes.

Partly just because I wasn’t even finished with the trip yet.

It’s kind-of funny, actually. When I returned to Oregon on June 8, 2019, I thought the trip was over. It hadn’t been a calendar year, but it had been a school year. By August I was starting on my second draft.

But then at the end of August, Grandpa had a stroke, and I flew to Minnesota to help care for him in his last days.

By this point I’d found the real opening line of my book: “When Justin shoveled dirt onto his son’s grave, it rattled like thunder.” (It was actually a line from my diary, originally.)

Because that’s how my story really began: not with asking my sister for her coffee, but with me, at a funeral, on the day I’d planned to leave Oregon. My cousin Justin’s son, little Asher Kai, was stillborn a week before his due date. He passed away on September 11, 2018, and his funeral was on September 15. I left for my trip on September 16.

A year later, on September 11, 2019, my 102-year-old grandpa passed away. His funeral was on September 15, and I left Minnesota and came back to Oregon on September 16.

This, I decided, was the real end of my trip, and I added two chapters accordingly.

Still, figuring out the themes didn’t come naturally to me. For that, I have to deeply thank my friend/editor Janessa Miller. I know that there can be all sorts of issues with hiring your friends, but I so needed my editor to also be my friend. Someone I could honestly and openly talk about my feelings with.

It was she who forced me to really look deeper into my story, not just as a series of disconnected events, but as events that I had feelings about. Events that shaped me, and changed me. (I’m an enneagram 5 and feelings are hard. Not because I don’t have them, but because it feels weird to talk about them. And also, I don’t always know I’m having feelings while I’m having them. I have to think about it for a while first.)

(Example: during my whole trip, I never realized that I was lonely. I didn’t discover it until I started writing about it, and sending drafts to Janessa, and hearing her say, “but how did that make you feel?”)

By the third draft, with the help of Janessa, I’d finally ironed out the themes.

The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea is a story of adventure, exploration, identity, heritage, community, faith, and loss. Follow Emily’s story as she embarks on the road trip of a lifetime, haphazardly finding her way through community after community in an attempt to figure out where she truly belongs.

From The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea

In total, I wrote five drafts of the book, although I’m not sure if the last two “count” as drafts.

The first draft was just a brain dump of events. It was also incomplete, since I “finished” it before my trip had technically “ended.” It took me five months to write, but I took it pretty slow.

The second draft was the hardest. It took me six months, and then I sent it to Janessa for her first round of edits.

The third draft took 2 1/2 months, and then I sent it to Janessa for a second round of edits.

The fourth draft took 22 days. It was just polishing up a lot of little things. Then I sent it to the proofreader, and I also sent bits of the book to all the people I’d written about, just in case they were uncomfortable with anything I’d said about them.

The fifth draft, which was just correcting all the little things the proofreader had found and adjusting a few things people had asked me to change, took 15 days.

And then, on August 8, 2020, it was done!

That is the story behind the story of my book, The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea. Sometime soon I’d like to tell the story behind the cover. And also, I’d like to tell my self-publishing story. So there are two future blog posts you can look forward to.

***

Pre-order My Book Here

Find Me On

Instagram: @emilytheduchess

Twitter: @emilysmucker

Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog

YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker

Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month [or more if you’re feeling generous]. I try to post twice a month. My latest two posts were titled Thank You, and Chapter 1 of The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea. I think I’ll write about the election next, if I’m brave enough!)

1 Comment

Posted in Thoughts About Books, Writing

The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea

Posted on October 28, 2020 | 6 comments

Yes. It’s true.

After months of delays, I finally have a release date for my book: November 16, 2020. You can pre-order it now on our brand new website.

It’s been a journey, but honestly, this book is one of the greatest achievements of my life. I’ve never, ever done a project like this. (It was completely different from writing my first book, which I might elaborate on in a future blog post).

Anyway, here is the back cover summary:

When Emily Smucker decided to spend a year traveling around the United States, living in a different Mennonite community every month, the world seemed exciting and limitless. She was ready to find her place in the world and begin her career as a freelance writer and editor.

Emily’s trip took many surprising twists and turns: visiting an Amish church in Ohio, swapping travel stories with homeless people in Delaware, and attending far more funerals than she expected. But through the adventure and excitement as well as loss and loneliness, Emily clung to her faith, experiencing a deep connection with her Heavenly Father.

The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea is a story of adventure, exploration, identity, heritage, community, faith, and loss. Follow Emily’s story as she embarks on the road trip of a lifetime, haphazardly finding her way through community after community in an attempt to figure out where she truly belongs.

***

Thank you guys for following along with me on my journey. I appreciate you endlessly.

6 Comments

Posted in Thoughts About Books, Writing

Fire, Book Problems, and Other Things that Stress Me Out

Posted on September 11, 2020 | 7 comments

If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted in a month, there are two very specific reasons:

  1. I’ve been stressed out
  2. I’ve been waiting to post until I could give an actual release date and pre-order link for my book.

When I last posted, I thought I’d be able to give this information within a week or so. But self-publishing is a journey, especially when you’re doing it for the first time. And one leg of the journey, which I expected to take less than a week, has now taken over a month.

So. I’m not releasing my book on September 16 after all. Maybe…October sometime?

If nothing else goes wrong, I’ll be able to make an official release date within a week or so. But it’s 2020, so WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT.

…

August in Oregon is a hot, dry, dead sort of month. Burn bans become even more severe than usual. Some years we have wildfires, and some years, when the wind is right, a haze of smoke drifts in from a distant fire, making the whole world look like an Instagram filter.

For some reason, I expected we’d have an Instagram filter August this year. Maybe because of how hot and dry it was. Maybe because I heard there were fires in California. Or maybe just because it’s 2020. I expected it, but we had clear, non-smoky skies instead.

But then on Monday, September 7, I looked at the sky at suppertime and said, “does it look a bit smoky out there to you?”

“Maybe a little,” said my sisters.

We cleaned the dishes, and Mom and Dad went out onto the porch to talk to some guests. Jenny took a walk. I went into my room and got on my computer.

Perhaps 20 minutes later, I started smelling smoke. That’s odd. Then Jenny came rushing in. “Emily! Look out your window!”

I looked, and the smoke was coming in, whirling in whitish-gray swirls over the fields. I couldn’t believe it. Never had I seen smoke descend upon us in so hasty a manner.

I grabbed my camera and went outside. The east wind blew, weirdly and warmly and furiously. The guests, choked by the sudden smoke, had to come inside despite it still being Covid times. And then, not long after they eventually left, the electricity went off. I spent the evening trying to sort out book problems using Dad’s hotspot and whatever was left of my laptop battery.

…

I woke up the next morning with an odd uncertainty about what time it was. Confused, I looked out my window.

It was 9:00 am, and the world was orange.

…

The funny thing is, you might know more about the Oregon fires than I do. I try to keep up, and then I stop, too overwhelmed to try and make sense of them all. Little towns I’ve visited here and there, up in smoke. Beloved hiking spots on fire. Friends and acquaintances evacuating. So many people evacuating.

My house, surrounded by ploughed fields and farmers who own water trucks, isn’t really in danger. We stay inside, for the most part, charging our phones in case the electricity goes off again.

Tuesday was orange. Wednesday was gray. Thursday and Friday were thicker gray. Today I took Dad in for physical therapy, and the air in Eugene was even thicker than the air in Harrisburg, borderline yellow.

And it was frigid. This week was supposed to be sunny and hot, in the 80s, 90s, even 100s, but I suppose if you block the sun long enough, the air cools down.

…

On a semi-related note, this spring I bought a camera with my Patreon money, because I wanted to make YouTube videos. Sometimes I take pictures with it too, whenever I need something nice for my blog or Instagram. (Turns out it’s much easier to take passable photographs with a nice camera than with a cell phone.)

When the sky turned orange, I grabbed my real camera. My cell phone was not capturing the true color. I went downstairs, intending to go outside and snap away. But then I saw Dad, sitting between the window and the patio doors, working on his computer. It was dark, because the electricity was out, and the blue of the screen light on his face contrasted with the fiery orange out the windows.

I snapped a picture.

When I looked at it, I thought it was quite a nice picture. It seemed to sum up the trauma and drama of 2020, since Dad’s arm was in a sling. “It’s only missing a mask,” I told Mom, showing her the picture.

“Hey, I should put mine on him!” she said. She’d been wearing her mask around the house. Since the electricity was off, the air wasn’t being filtered, and it was getting rather smoky inside as well.

Mom put her mask on Dad. “Your ears!” she said, trying to work the mask loops over them. “I never realized how floppy they are!”

Longsuffering as ever, Dad went on with his computer work, now masked. I snapped one more picture, and put it on Facebook and Instagram. Mom shared it.

And people have said extremely kind things about it. One person even asked if I ever considered a career in photojournalism. Which I found funny, because photography has always been my least favorite part of blogging. I’m a words girl.

But maybe I should have more of a growth mindset about it. It was fun, after all, to see something cool, take a picture of it, and have the picture look cool too. So if you know of any photography-learning-for-beginners resources, sent them my way. I don’t think I’ll ever be a photographer, but I might become a blogger with better pictures.

…

Anyway. Life is stressful, but I will publish this book. I am determined. It will be a good thing to happen in 2020, after so many bad things, and I am here for it.

…

Find Me On

Instagram: @emilytheduchess

Twitter: @emilysmucker

Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog

YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker

Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker (This is where I post bonus blog posts, about more personal/controversial subjects, for a subscription fee of $1 a month. My latest two posts were titled Crisis to Crisis and The Power of “Sorry.”)

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Posted in News, Writing

Update on Everything

Posted on August 12, 2020 | 3 comments

Part 1: Update On My Book

Self-publishing is a process, I’ll tell you that.

Throughout the past couple months, I’ve been finished with the writing part of my book, and just trying to figure out everything else: Hiring a photographer, having a photo shoot, hiring a cover designer, hiring a copy editor/proofreader, sending out portions of my book to 26 people I’d written about (just in case they had any objections/corrections), choosing a printer, and hiring someone to format the interior. Whew!

Finally, over the weekend I made ALL the final corrections. Most of these were from my copy editor/proofreader, so I just had to click “accept, accept, accept” a lot. Although there were a few larger issues I had to think through, like giving a bit of explanation about words like “Beachy” and “Anabaptist.”

Then, I had to make all the corrections from the 26 people I’d written about. Well, maybe only about 10 of them issued corrections, and most of those corrections were pretty small, but sometimes it took a bit of brain power to make the narrative still flow well.

But finally it was done. Done! Hands shaking, I sent it off to the printer.

I still have a few hurdles to jump through, and I don’t know when I’ll have books in hand. But hopefully before too long I’ll be able to announce the cover, official release date, and pre-order link.

Part 2: Update On My Dad

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I feel like a lot of my life is still oriented around caring for Dad, but there aren’t really a lot of updates to give.

His right hand is healing very well, and his legs and feet are great, so he could really do almost everything for himself if it wasn’t for his left arm and his neck. He still can’t lift his left arm. And his neck brace prevents him from fully watching his feet as he walks. So he can walk around the house with his arm in a sling, but on the road, where it’s more uneven, he needs to use his walker still.

Part 3: Update On My Family

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My family is in this very interesting stage of life right now. I never thought we’d be a family that all lived in the same area, and yet, here we are.

Jenny, Amy, and I live in the upstairs rooms of our house, while Mom and Dad inhabit the downstairs. Steven was downstairs too for a while, but he moved to Corvallis to live with Ben so that we could have a guest room again. One or the other of them often comes down and spends a night in the guest room.

And Matt and Phoebe are in an Airstream in the yard. I love having them so close.

Part 4: Update On My Life

At the end of my year of travel, I decided to stay in Oregon at least until I could get my health and finances somewhat sorted out. I had basically no travel scheduled between September and February, but after that I had a lot of random stuff I was going to do, like take a trip to India, and take a trip to Italy, and maybe live in Houston for a while.

Of course Covid canceled all my plans, but on the other hand, the health and money angles of my life are much more optimistic. I have all kinds of ideas about what fun stuff I want to do as soon as I can get myself properly vaccinated.

For now, I find myself deeply content despite my circumstances. I miss adventures, but I know this lifestyle is temporary. Between Covid and Dad’s accident, I’m in a unique stage of life. The adventures can wait.

I enjoy having family so near. I enjoy all the visitors who come sit on our porch and chat. And besides that, publishing a book makes me feel so creatively fulfilled. Which brings a deeper, more lasting contentment than adventures do.

*****

Find Me On

Instagram: @emilytheduchess

Twitter: @emilysmucker

Facebook: facebook.com/emilysmuckerblog

YouTube: youtube.com/emilysmucker

Patreon: patreon.com/emilysmucker

 

3 Comments

Posted in News, Thoughts About Life, Writing

Update on My Book: Title, Release Date, Etc

Posted on April 29, 2020 | 12 comments

pile of books

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Well well well. I filmed and edited a video to post today, but sometimes it takes ages to upload YouTube videos. And today is one of those days. It’s been uploading all afternoon and evening, and it’s only at 23%.

So for my last April Blogging Challenge post, I’ll cover another topic.

On my last post, Norlene asked for an update on my book. Honestly, I love it when people ask me that question. It’s such a huge part of my life, but I never know how much people really want to hear about the topic.

For those who haven’t been following my book-writing/publishing journey, here’s the deal: Last year I went on a trip where I drove around the USA, living in a different Mennonite community every month. This year, I’ve been working on a book about that journey.

The two questions I get asked most often are, “what is the title of your book?” and “when will it be released?” I’ve kinda avoided answering those questions, because I’ve been afraid that I’ll change my mind. But my mind has been pretty consistent for several months now, so I think I can go ahead with them.

Title of my book: The Highway and Me and my Earl Grey Tea

Most likely release date: September 16, 2020

September 16 is a significant date, because I began the trip on September 16, 2018, and ended it on September 16, 2019. Since I have the bulk of the memoir completed, I think I should reasonably be able to have copies in hand ready to ship by that date.

However, I don’t want to PROMISE promise that it will be released on September 16, because I’ve never done this before. Self-publishing, I mean. For my first book I had a “traditional” publisher who took care of all that. Between getting the cover done and getting it printed and getting it formatted and making sure everyone is okay with me saying what I have to say about them, I’m afraid that something random will take way longer than I expect it to.

As far as the writing goes, I have the bulk of it done, but there are still things to do. I worked like crazy during January and February to finish my second draft, and my editor, Janessa Miller, finished her first round of edits on March 7. And then on March 9 she had a baby. The plan was for me to take the next six weeks and finish the third draft.

That shouldn’t have been hard. The third draft wasn’t nearly as intense as the second draft. But somehow I really was thrown for a loop with COVID-19. I took on all kinds of projects, and I had emotional breakdowns, and honestly I really wasn’t doing very well.

Part of the dynamic was that writing my book was much more emotional than I’d thought it would be. Initially, I wrote it much like an extended blog post, listing all the fun and wacky adventures I had. But Janessa pushed me further. “What did you feel about this?” she kept asking.

It was so strange for me, combing through my memories and feeling my feelings. Actually very intense and emotionally exhausting. Turns out I was much lonelier than I’d ever realized.

At the same time, due to a series of events that are still too personal to post about in this public space, I ended up leaving the church I’d grown up in. This made my feelings of loneliness even more intense, especially because I didn’t have time to fully plug into another church before the lockdown hit.

All that to say, even though draft 3 shouldn’t have been nearly as intense to create as draft 2, I ended up taking a break to fully work though all my emotions and feelings.

Once I’m done with draft 3, Janessa will do a line edit, and then after I fix all those mistakes it will be copy-edited/proofread, and then once those problems are fixed it will be ready to print. I think. Only I also have to get cover photos taken, get a cover designed, hire a printer, get someone to format it, figure out my marketing strategy, and probably ten more things I’m currently forgetting.

(Which, btw, if you happen to be good at copy editing or cover design, or know someone who is, feel free to drop me an email at Jemilys@gmail.com. I’m planning to pay a fair wage for these tasks, obviously. But I feel like I have to make that clear because we are Mennonites after all, LOL.)

Let’s see, anything else? I did start on a novel while I was waiting to get my edits back from Janessa. I thought that I could be a Real Book Writer and start in on another book while in the process of publishing the first. Which was a nice idea in theory, but then I decided to do All The Other Projects and the novel was the easiest one to put aside for now. So currently I’m only working on one book, and that is The Highway and Me and my Earl Grey Tea.

And oh, I almost forgot! Mom is also publishing some books this year, and we’d talked about doing a book tour this fall, hitting most of the places I went to on my trip, as well as some other Mennonite communities. And maybe that will still happen, but at this point I highly doubt it. I mean anything is possible I guess. I’m sure things won’t be nearly as locked down this fall as they are today, but I have a hard time imagining that anything like a book tour, with all its travel and gatherings of people, will be safe before we get a vaccine.

But again, who knows anything about the future at this point.

…

This has been my last post in the April Blogging Challenge 2020. It’s been a fun ride, but now I have to get back to my edits, haha. Be sure to check out Mom’s blog for her latest post, which is an interview with my Aunt Rebecca, who’s a hospice nurse working with COVID-19 patients in Chicago. Mom will post again tomorrow to close out the challenge.

Thanks for reading. Maybe we’ll do this again next year, and maybe we won’t. Maybe by next April the world will be vaccinated enough to provide adequate herd immunity, and we’ll be doing an April Book Tour instead. Who knows what the future holds!

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Posted in April Blogging Challenge, Writing