Hot Air Balloons! Skyscrapers! Magic!

This last post of the year has a little bit of everything...

Friends!

Those of you who have been reading for a long time may have noticed (and occasionally asked me about) subtle references to a post-book gift for myself. For those of you who just started reading in the last couple of weeks, welcome! This post might feel a little…personal. I promise I’ll be back in January with my wry thoughts about better living through scholarly writing.

Today though, on the (near) anniversary of my book’s six-month birthday, I finally have a fun story to tell you. You can join me as I meander a bit, or just scroll down to the bottom for the big reveal.

The background

When I start working with writers who are at the very beginning of their book writing process, I sometimes suggest that they find a metaphor for their book, print it out, and stick it somewhere they can look at it every day. Are we building a house? Climbing a mountain? Running a marathon? Someone printed out a picture of a vineyard, because both books and good wine take so damn long to ripen. It made me laugh, but it’s true. The point, of course, is to remind yourself that you’re working towards something that matters. And then to acknowledge at the end that you did it! You wrote a whole book!

My metaphor, part one

In my office, I have this guy hanging so I can stare at it while I’m writing:

I think Marc Johns is funny, and I also need an occasional reminder that I could be Jeffrey: I could write whatever book I wanted, on my own terms, or just give up and not write at all and try something else. Because I knew I had the choice, I kept writing.

My dad’s favorite book, which he read to me and my brothers when we were kids, and now likes to read to my kids, is Harold and the Purple Crayon. My favorite image in that book is also of a hot air balloon:

I thought a lot about this image of little Harold drawing the balloon mid-air as I finished the book and launched it into the world, and peeking over the side to see how it would all go. Hot air balloons are, all in all, a pretty great metaphor for how I write. They’re magical, they’re pretty, they’re terrifying, they can help you see cool stuff if you just trust enough.

But wait—there’s more metaphor!

My great-grandfather Leonard was a bricklayer in New York City. Most notably, he laid the bricks of the Chrysler Building, my favorite building in the city. If you look closely, the Chrysler Building is waiting for you over rivers and between buildings—one of the ways the city surprises you if you let it.

And I find the process of writing a book a lot like the building: the part that you need to get right, the parts that endure, are the foundations built by painstakingly laying brick after brick after brick, hoping it eventually becomes something that won’t topple (good job Grandpa Leonard!). And when you’re not paying attention, the spire of the book that wants to be written will pop out and surprise you—and it’s your job is to capture it before it fades away or disappears behind clouds.

Commemorating the fact I wrote this damn book

Writing this book is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. In the seven years it took me to write, I had two more babies! I got tenure and chaired a department! I survived a global pandemic! I moved with my family from Nebraska back to the East Coast! I quit my job and started editing full time! I edited some incredible books! And still, of all of that, writing the book was the hardest thing.

I don’t know why people do it, really. Except that books are wonderful, and when a book wants to exist in the world, it’s your job to get out of the way and let that happen.

This spring, I decided I wanted to somehow commemorate the end of the writing process. The book stands for itself and will have its own life (death of the author and all that) but I wanted something to acknowledge that I did it. The idea of getting a tattoo swirled around in my head for a long time, but nothing seemed quite right. Then I came across the work of an artist in Brooklyn who does fine line realism tattoos, (seriously, she’s so cool and talented) and she helped me bring the vision to life, just in time for my book’s six-month birthday:

And I love it so much. I wasn’t sure if I should write about this (is it weird to send you a picture of my arm? It might be weird). But I decided to write about it anyway because you all have been on writing retreats and in Zoom meetings and on Slack with me the whole time, nudging me on and supporting me. So here’s my thanks—a reminder that your writing struggles are also worth it, and cool things can happen at the end.

I’m going to be off of my computer and out of touch until January, so from Epilogue Editing to you, a very happy (and hopefully screen-free) holidays—we’re going to do great things together in 2025.

Kelly