I have broken the back of the book. In the year of our lord 2022, that feels like a somewhat dodgy turn of phrase, but I have – a little over two years after I launched on Unbound, I am almost ready to submit the manuscript and stop thinking about all the boys I've loved before.
I sent a (very early) draft of the book to a friend this week, hoping that she would say nice things but also hoping that she wouldn't lie. I just want it to be good, you know? She told me she loved it. "It's melancholic but funny and really relatable!" she said. She is my best friend now. All other friends must line up behind her.
The "melancholic" bit got me. The accuracy jumped OUT, as the TikTok generation might say. Writing this book has been a very melancholic experience.
In the fog of postpartum, sleeping three hours a night and not remembering a time when my back didn't hurt, opting in to this kind of melancholia has felt like a self-flagellation of sorts, and honestly, not one I've been in the mood for very often. It can feel punishing, to sit down and go over past regrets, to write them down on the page and think about letting other people read them. My friends; the boys in question; my parents.
I read a part out to my sister yesterday, and said, "I'm not sure I can put this in the book. Mum and Dad will read it!" She scoffed. "They'll be fine! It's your story!" But by the time I'd uttered the words, "After I had come and he had told me – and I wish I could forget – that I tasted delicious, we had sex in the missionary position until he achieved orgasm", she was re-evaluating. It turns out, it's easier to write these things down than it is to read them out – and even that is easier than hearing them, with little preparation.
Anyway: just like I did, on that fateful night, the book is coming. But just like I did, on that fateful night, it's gonna take a little more time. (But we're nearly there.)