I Will Be OK.

My first novel is being published in June of 2020 which is a scant 7 months away, seems like forever maybe but it also seems too soon, as I've spent the intervening year since the announcement of publication (book publishing takes 18 months on average) working on my next novel, which is a horror-based YA story that has some of the same themes of "I Will Be OK" but also has a monster.  So that's been kind of cool but also quite challenging, as I've been blending genres in the story, something that hasn't fully worked for my beta readers.  But I'm working on it.  I'm on rewrite 5.4.1.108 as I keep plugging away during every free second between a 50 hour workweek, a social life, a boyfriend who likes to see me not hunched over my laptop, and a bit of concert time.  I try to get in 15 hours a week on writing and I usually get there but even then it's not quite enough (I would love to do 20!) but it's getting there and I'm close to finishing the final draft, just in time to kick into edit mode for "I Will Be OK" in January.

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I finished writing early last Friday night and snuck away to a show at Rough Trade in Williamsburg, where a band was playin that was the soundtrack for the characters in the novel.  In fact, the title of the novel is taken from a song title of the band, and the boys in the story are obsessive fans and go to one of their shows in a climactic scene.  The novel is loosely based on an earlier novel I wrote, back in grad school at Rowan, called "Us Kids Know" and that featured two teen boys attempting to attend a sold-out Arcade Fire show at the Bowery Ballroom in 2004 (their first sold-out US date, weeks after releasing "Funeral").  That novel had its weaknesses and ultimately, the characters were replaced, the storyline/plot was replaced, and the novel was completely rewritten.  The only things that remained were some elements of setting, some semblances of scenes (the opening "Fireworks" scene in "I Will Be OK" comes from a short story written AFTER Us Kids Know was completed, based on the characters in UKK) and of course, the presence of a band as a central connection between the two teenage boys, with a concert scene (The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park substituting for the Bowery) as the climax in both stories.  By the time I was re-writing UKK as "I Will Be OK", though, I'd lost interest in Arcade Fire (sorry, but their last two albums weren't just bad, they were monumentally bad in my opinion) and I'd become obsessed with this indie band from CT with a weird name and their swirling, earnest arrangements, and listened to their debut album "Whenever, If Ever" over and over again while writing the story.  Unfortunately they also had a change in sounds that has led me to like their last album way less than their early stuff, but fortunately, late this year they re-released some "early stuff" with an album titled "Assorted Works", and the opener to that album, a collection of EPs and singles, is the song that titles my novel, "I Will Be OK. Everything".  And at their show at Rough Trade last Friday, they played that song along with the 2011 track that closes the "Are Here to Help You" EP, the song from which the title of my novel and my obsession with the band began, and I happened to record it on my iPhone.  It was the final song of the encore, a fitting end to a wonderful, magical performance, and I can't wait to be in full-on novel release mode in 2020...

The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die.  "Wait... What?"

So if you ever change your mind.  Decide that it might be worth the drive.  Then just drive.  Just drive.

So we just drive, careless and full of smiles, while the radio plays on the way to some basement.  Yeah we do it for the sentiment.  It started as a self-asserted promise, now the moon hangs low over us as we travel to some new destination.

I will be OK.
I will be OK.
​EVERYTHING.