some honest and chaotic thoughts about creativity and book launch week (with A LOT of pictures)

So I did a reading at historic Powell's Books on Tuesday — the day of my book launch (BUY MY DAMN BOOK HERE!). But I also decided to use the days leading up to the book launch to push out all kinds of crazy creative things. I’m not positive that I can come to a grand conclusion about what this all means. But I’ll try, and at the very least, I can meander us through a picture-filled story that involves books and apps and social media and videos and music and essays and podcasts, and then I can land us (in the final postscript) inside a messy gazpacho filled with guilt and passion and triumph. Who wouldn’t want to go on that kind of adventure!?!?!? 🎢🛼🚌

First, the book launch event. Even though I was nervous 😬 about the event for months (and I had a brutal migraine 🤕 the week before the event), the moment I got to Powell's (well, let's say the moment AFTER I verified that all the A/V stuff was good to go), I became relaxed. I was excited. I was happy. I felt like I could handle this situation. (This is partly because of how much I prepared for it, as you’ll hear about in a sec.)

I knew I wanted to shake up the stuffy standard format of a pre-pandemic book event, and so I created an animated stick figure version of me in a 7-minute video that I used for the introduction. (I'll publish this video on my YouTube channel after a few more events.)

This was seven blissful minutes where I didn't have to perform, because I was just playing something that I'd already done in advance. But I don't want to sell this video short, because it took a shitload of hours to create. More than 2400 hand-drawn frames for the animation (iPad + stylus).

And it also took a chunk of time to nail down the script so that it could convey my authentic state (part excitement, part terror, part pride, part shame) and connect those themes to my book, while keeping the right mood that I wanted for this night (humility + humor).

All told, it took around 10 hours of work per minute of footage, even for this video with stick figure drawings! But still, it felt like a real coup (wait, is it too soon to use that word again?) to give myself this chance to relax and take in the moment while the audience enjoyed this video.

And then I read from my book, alongside some more animations. These images were more subtle (and without audio), so as not to distract too much from my reading.

I had a few spots during the reading where I stopped to thank various people and add more context about how I wrote this book.

I used some techniques that I learned from Ultraspeaking (❤️️) during these interludes, which meant that they were not scripted. I could be present in the moment and it was really fun to have that kind of freedom with the storytelling. (Don't get me wrong, I still practiced plenty. I just didn't follow a set script. See the Ultraspeaking site for more details.)

After the reading, I had a conversation with my dear friend, Joanna Rose. It was so nice (and comforting) to have her on stage with me. She’s a friend, a fellow writer, a mentor, an inspiration.

I ended with a Q&A. It was fun to hear all kinds of questions from the audience, some very personal, some very writerly.

I donated a chunk of money based on the number of books sold (basically much more $$$ than I'd make off any book sales at the event) to the Transgender Law Center. They're doing amazing work for the trans community and for trans advocacy. They are very policy/law/outcome oriented. If you'd like to join me, here is my special donation page.

OK. So aside from the book launch, how did my week go? (Pretend like YOU'RE asking me this question, OK? I’d look stupid if I asked this question to myself…)

Well, in addition to a few interviews and various other launch activities, I made the choice to release A LOT of different things in A LOT of different formats in the week leading up to book launch. Why?... Well, because… Umm… You know, I’m just not totally sure. Maybe partly for publicity purposes (though that truth is fuzzy). Partly because I was so antsy and excited and nervous about the book and just couldn’t stop fiddling with things. I think this is the main reason: I wanted to celebrate this multi-creative existence I lead. I often have to say NO to a lot of creative activities because of my day-to-day responsibilities. And for a few weeks I just said, YES YES YES!!! to all the creative things.

To get specific about it, here is what I released in the past few weeks:

1. This part should be obvious by now, but my novel (I ONLY CRY WITH EMOTICONS) came out!!! (BUY THE DAMN BOOK ALREADY! You can get it in hardback, digital, or audiobook.)

2. In addition to publishing a few blog posts on my site, I published an essay about my messy relationship with social media (Disengaged: a story about my relationship to computers and the internet and social media, and also about my own insecurities with who I am). This is something I’ve been working on for several months, and it’s been on my mind throughout the writing of the book. You could say that it’s the slightly-more-serious underbelly to one major theme in my book.

3. I released two podcast episodes (for my Neurotic Tornado 😫🌪 podcast). One about depression and anxiety and one about stage fright (with special guest Jackie Shannon Hollis).

4. I released a YouTube video (8 musical shorts from an insecure writer) that compiles the eight short animated music videos that I shared in the past few weeks on social media channels. These are short songs/videos that I predominately worked on in 2021 when I was a bit stuck creatively. But I didn’t share them at the time. And then a few weeks ago, I re-discovered these projects sitting in a folder in my laptop, and decided that they’re amusing enough to share with the world.

5. I also posted an update to my neurotic mobile app (Neurotic Stix Pro). It even includes a special Emoticons achievement in honor of my book. And it contains an important feature update that lets you add glasses 😎 to some stick figure characters!… I do this kind of coding when I’m a little too burned out to write or make videos. Somehow, programming is what I can do as a break from writing.

6. Also, a little bit more embarrassingly, I released a goofy album with ten songs even though I barely understand how to… music. These are songs I’ve been fiddling with over the past year and decided to push them all out in this one inconsistent album, sort of like a catalog of all my weird moods this year.

OK! I think that’s it!!

Keep in mind that, even though all this came out this month, these are things that I’ve been fiddling with across the year(s), and just thought it would be fun (or: dumb!) to pump them out at once. I’m not actually this productive in a month. 😜

And I sure don't mean to suggest that this is brilliant publicity 📣📣. I honestly don't think I sold many books because of all these zany things I did. I mean, I tried to relate most of these activities to my book, but I'm sure that I'm supposed to do more to specifically sell my book. It’s hard to find the right balance with publicity that feels comfortable, you know? Luckily, I don't feel gross about anything I've done. It has all felt like me being me across various venues. And I had fun with every one of these (almost entirely unprofitable) activities.

But I admit that I still feel this guilt, like I'm doing things wrong, like I should be doing more for the book that I put so much of me into to write. Sometimes, I just feel like I'm failing at this thing.

But with all these funny and mixed up feelings, I still feel lucky that I get to create and share these things, things big and small, difficult and easy, some things presented confidently and some sheepishly. It’s fascinating and fulfilling to do all these creative things. And I'm proud of this novel. I'm glad to have it out in the world. And I'm honored that some of y’all will buy it and read it.

📚📚📚📕📗📘📙📖📇📇📖📙📘📗📕📚📚📚

p.s. BUY AND READ THE BOOK ALREADY! I mean, just consider all the effort it took me to take the damn book cover (beautifully designed by Margot Heron) and then turn it into this zany animated gif (below) so that the letters are all wiggly!… I mean THAT should really count as the most creative thing I’ve done all year and yet no one has said to me, HOLY SHIT THE LETTERS ON YOUR DAMN NOVEL ARE MOVING!!!! ❤️️

p.p.s. I know I was just pretending to be offended that no one complimented me about my wiggly letters, but I want to dwell on that for a second (and maybe, very sneakily—so you don’t even realize what hit you—let me get to the whole point of this INCREDIBLY LONG BLOG POST). It’s true that (at the time of publishing this blog post) no one has mentioned this silly thing to me. But here’s another truth: even though it’s nice to get complimented on things I create (big and small), these creative pursuits don’t require compliments. I do these things with blood and sweat and passion and obsession and back aches and headaches and hope and desperation and tenacity for a different reason. I mean, I want them to affect people, I want to leave an impression. But more fundamentally: the act of creating a thing is enough.

The rest is just icing on top of the… messy gazpacho. 🥣❤️️