Army of me
Thank you for also being our photoblog.
(And for your changes of address. As we unload boxes and match book-to-you, we’ll make sure we get everyone’s current info before anything goes out in the mail. You can message us w/ updates and clarifications and we’ll let you know if we need to know more.)
No sleep ‘til,
x
mgg
ps: the white splotches are not jism, just a little privacy screen re: me.
It has been awhile, hasn’t it?
Well the book is written. It has been edited many times over in parks and coffee shops and bedrooms all over New York. We have learned a lifetime’s worth about publishing, and reinvented half of it.
I just finished sending all of my writers the final drafts of their stories so we could get approval and send them to “design” (I like to say it like it’s a department and not an amazing human being we are so humbled to be working with).
We are definitely to The Fun Part now— dreaming up infographics, a mini book tour, a ‘ZINE, and The Best Book Party Ever™.
I’m not gonna lie to you guys, because you are my safe space: writing a story that is in a BOOK with your name on it, while managing the production of a book, while working fulltime and trying to find a place to live is A RECIPE FOR CRYING TO YOUR MOTHER.
There was a weekend where my prospective landlord was all, “You have bad credit,” and I still hadn’t found the time/mental space to sit down and finish my story, and we had a meeting with these totally amazing letterpress people (eeee!) and I was crashing at my friend’s apartment and- well, I kind of almost crapped my pants on the street. LITERALLY. Okay!
Then I found the nearest bathroom and stopped crying and got in a cab because I was late to this meeting and met Melissa then we walked in to this huge warehouse filled with ancient printing presses and the guy sat us down and gave us fizzy water and put Nina Simone on the record player and got so excited hearing about our project that i cried happy non-Mom-breakdown tears while “Ooh Child,” played in the background.
(Please don’t tell anyone about the near-pants shitting).
(Okay whatever, you can).
Then the next week we recorded our stories in this little recording studio for our first private event (and first debut of our stories!) that Melissa and Nikola Tamindzic dreamed up. Called C&C:ip (ip stands for in person) (guess IRL was too cheezy? :D), it was held in New York at Cindy Gallop’s otherworldly apartment, where 5 of us writers stood before an audience as our stories played and Nikola took our portaits. The media from the event should be, overwhelming.
The night of the recording I had finished about the 37th draft of my story the night before and had just run from another reading and ran into this random Williamsburg sort of communal loft thing to see Tao Lin coming out of the back room and to meet one of our dear writers, William Ball, for the very first time. When my turn came and I finished giggling and drank some water and read it aloud, all the way through, I realized it was finished. And I LIKED it. I liked it even more when the sound engineer walked us to the train and told us all about his screwy relationship— this practical stranger whose name I did not even know— opening up and relating it back to what I had just read, saying that if his ex-girlfriend read my story she would ‘bawl crying.’ That’s that thing that happens sometimes that reminds us that ‘the sex book is working.’
The event, C&C:ip (in person), was…the scariest thing I have ever done? New? Indescribable? We stood in front of 30 or so people who supported us— financially, emotionally, creatively (most all 3)- in no makeup, in some crazy muslin thing Melissa made us wear (ha!), under bright white light, while our stories rang out in a dark room in our own voices. What was so amazing- and challenging- was that we had recorded them beforehand, alone, just like how we wrote them. It wasn’t performing, it was listening, with the audience. There were no chances for little jokes and asides and self-deprecations. You just stood there and couldn’t take any of it back. I cried. Running theme, see. Afterward someone asked me if I could feel all the compassion everyone in the audience was sending us. I don’t think we could have ever done this if we didn’t know that was there.
One of our writers, Will, brought me his copy of The Wonder Boys to borrow. I am reading it now. I want to hang out with everyone and trade books and stories and be people together.
What will we do when this is over? (Do it again, most likely).
Last weekend we got the entire manuscript (That’s industryspeak for Word Doc That Crashes Your Computer) back from our copyeditor. Yes, we have a real live, professional copyeditor, and she is amazing. She edited out many of my commas- if you can believe it!!!- and just generally turned the book into something we know has all the right spacing and consistency. We established some house rules: for instance, blowjob and website are now one word across the board!
Having the book back meant one very specific, wonderful thing, and that is that while I was moving (I strongly advise anyone who is considering making a book and moving into an apartment at the same time to RECONSIDER), Melissa printed the whole thing out in a fancy Kinko’s way that costs more than an actual book. Which means that for the past 10 days or so I have been walking around town, hugging an actual physical object to my body, flipping through it, reading little pieces of it, and realizing just how goddamn good this thing we all decided to fucking go for really is.
There are 24 stories, and so it is about 24x more powerful than regular books (or so I like to think). 24 human beings pretty much spilled their guts (or various other bodily fluids) out onto the page for you and Jesus, I am in awe of it, as a reader. That is so wonderful to me.
I’ll never forget my first day with the thing— this Kinko’s thing!- getting out of the train, walking up the stairs to go home and realizing it was OUR BOOK that I was holding under my arm. I did not come, but I certainly cried (this joke will indubitably haunt us forever. “How’s it COMING along?” etc. To be honest, it never really gets old).
Right now our DESIGNER is working on it. I can’t wait to tell you guys who is doing it. I have been a major #1 fan of his for awhile now. Also, Peter, my coworker, is making our website, where we can keep up with all of you very soon. You can see all (most?) of this content over there now: comingandcrying.tumblr.com, but it will look really different soon.
We have really missed updating you guys— I know we have said little things on our own Tumblr and Twitter accounts— and we are looking forward to doing this more often again. We, and maybe you too, originally thought the book would have been in your hands by now, but early on we had this moment, I think it was over a shared beer with Tao Lin, where he looked at me and said, Make it good. Don’t rush it.” As antsy as we have been to get it to you, I think we did the right thing. It’s a fucking book. It takes a couple months.
SOON, THOUGH. SOON. Someone asked me what the “pub date” was last night at an Internet party. I was like, “Um? As soon as we finish it and get it back from the printer?” We should know soon, though. And you guys will be the first to know and the first to have it.
I can’t wait for you to hold it in your hands!
A quick bit of housekeeping:
- You keep writing us asking to pledge! This is ridiculously generous. Please know that we want to do this again, and it looks like you do, too? Meaghan and I are putting our (spinning) heads together on how to do this. One option worth revealing a little bit of now — if everyone who has told us they’ll get a story in by deadline actually does, we will have more stories than we could print in one book.
- Some textual snapshots of our party: Sasha Frere-Jones is not on Tumblr, Nic Rad posits that James Franco IS America, Chelsea Summers rocks a mean faux fur, two Katie West fans who met on an anti-XKCD (!) IRC channel met IRL for the first time in front of all of us, even in near pitch dark I sort of show up in Nikola’s Fauxlaroids, Halle Kiefer offered to stand in front of the first venue and usher folks on but we refused because we needed her HERE (hey-yo), Stephen Elliott came out in a puffy jacket and told a story about nosebleeds and also book tours, and I went home with Meaghan’s phone so when I checked into Foursquare this morning I Foursquared myself, and when Meaghan emailed to make a date to get the phone back she forwarded an email from one of our backers who told Dave Eggers about the book a few days ago, and god I should get back to work, and at this rate, Hendricks gin should be a project sponsor, too.
- Some of you seeking us out left voicemail for us on our secret party line, which I haven’t even listened to. But I have mp3s of them and I sort of want to post them. Speak now if that’s a terrible idea, you.
That’s more or less it. We’re delirious (this is Melissa) and still listening to George Michael and Patti Smith and other artists with two names that you might like so come into this chatroom and have a dance party with us. In just words.
http://tinychat.com/comingandcrying
edited to add: “No dicks.” (meaghan)
Sometimes, the internet can be amazing.
Good job, girls.
There isn’t much time left to our fundraising, although there is still lots of book left to make and always more coming and crying to do, right everybody? Ha!
My chest is tight; I’m thanking people and answering questions and it’s all becoming very real suddenly. I’ve said that a lot but I guess with any big project, the reality hits us in waves.
This week has been a big week for us in lots of ways, not the least of which is that we’ve gotten almost all of the stories now. Each one is a little revelation unto itself, and I am so BOWLED OVER and in awe of each of them. They are all almost too much. Once we put them together in a book— this thing will hit you like a punch in the gut. And a hug! A punch and a hug (not that I advocate that).
It’s an amazing thing, this Kickstarter deal. My friend Emily was just saying how, Wow, we completely sidestepped so many things in publishing, that we didn’t wait for anyone to give us permission, to knight us as Authors or Editors or Publishers or any of that. Which is true, there is no Man or Middle Man or any of that.
But our permission— which isn’t really permission at all, but support, and encouragement; our very ability to do this, all comes from you guys.
And that is really cool.
I’m flying back to New York (this is mgg) and Meaghan and I just made this spreadsheet, like the ones we’ve got all the C&C contributions sorted in, that one day we realized we could use to chat in (I think we were giving each other a hard time about the fact that we were chatting in both gchat, which is bad enough, and a spreadsheet).
And for the next three hours or so, while I’m still airborne, we’re going to hang on this spreadsheet (insofar as one can) and write with you, our backers.
We made a prompt to make it easier:
“What thought — that you can put into words — crossed your mind the last time you came, or cried, or both? (Don’t tell us which it was.)”
You can answer completely anonymously. And if you choose a name we can call you (which can be the anonymous number Google assigns you) we can talk to you over on the chat window.
If you want to tell folks to join us, they can give us a buck and do so. (Hi, new backers.)
One rule: Like the book, and the spirit of the book, you can be as ridiculous or awkward as you want, as long as you are honest.
We know that we’d like to share this document outside this backers-only circle after we’re done with it tonight — possibly at our secret-ish post-project get together in New York this week. (Which a $1 pledge will also get you an invite to. Because we kind of want “people everywhere who have sex and have feelings” to take part in this.)
Here’s to the final 24 — !
are my favorite part of all this.
Maybe because I do the same thing, maybe because, when it’s not a boy caught in a recursive loop and asking me out for coffee without really saying anything constructive, they are so often spilling over with affection or mania or just, humanity.
I joked about sex on my (main) blog before all this, sort of alluded to it, sometimes with a wink, sometimes in all caps, sometimes through the lens of a song or nostalgia or the distancing of existential drama. But I have never, at least I don’t think, really dealt with it head on. I was always a little hesitant, worried about creepy old men or held up by the thought of misleading young women.
With this project I really had to look into myself and consider whether sex was worth interrogating honestly, not just in that literary safe place, but next to my face, in my voice, all over my name in The Google :)
There is no going back now, and although terrible things could still happen (although I’m not sure what, really), I am so struck by how positive the response has been, how much people seem to need this as much as Melissa and I do. I’m amazed by the people who have said they are willing to write about it, amazed by the type of people who bring it up to me, and most profoundly, amazed by all these damn young ones who seem to be exploding with pathos and generosity and internet connections (get it?!):
Most start off like this,
ANYHOW, i had a thought last night that i thought was more than appropriate for your book….(which WHY i was thinking about your book during sex is besides me) but, i had a thought and often wondered if this was something that ALL girls go through, or is it just me. but then i realized the title of your book and thought (how it fits), maybe it’s not just me, or maybe i’m reading into it too much (or maybe i’m just rambling, now)….
Some like this,
The concept for the book is interesting, but the bigger concept of a piece of media that you just put out there (share) and say “Hey, who’s interested?” and we say “Sure, I like that this much,” and that’s the WHOLE exchange, is fucking rad. So I’d probably have pledged even if you’d promised a book about goats (maybe next time?). Getting a book about sex is just icing on the cake.
And then some mean everything, everything, everything:
Dear Meaghan,
This is why I contributed to your book project:
“Sometimes I wonder, what would someone who had someone that loved them do? Do people in love wash their sheets a lot? Is that a way I can be better? Should I fold my laundry at the laundromat and then I will be better? If I was a Real Person would I have some backup toothbrushes in a drawer somewhere? Do Good People never have crappy underwear they only wear when they haven’t done laundry, and oh, jesus, how do you hide all these things from people if you want them to love you?”
This paragraph destroyed me. What you describe has been for years my deepest, darkest shame. This is a loop that plays in my head on a regular basis, wearing me out. I even used the term Real Person! As if I’m somehow half-formed because I can’t keep my house from getting messy, or shave my legs all the time, or not run out of toilet paper, or keep up with my checkbook, or the literally thousands of other ways in which I feel like I’m failing as a human being. And yes, I do my best to hide these failings, these obvious missing pieces, because why would anyone love someone who comes up so short of Good?
I am surprised (more often recently b/c of tumblr) by coming across my own thoughts in the writing of people trying to be honest, but reading this went beyond surprise into shock. It was such a jolt that I had to turn away from the computer and sob into my hands for a little while. When it was over, when I got my breath back, I realized knowing that I don’t have a monopoly on this little pocket of crazy is a giant [there should be another word here that is bigger than giant — like gargantuan! — but they all sound ridiculous and flowery] relief.
You probably get dozens of emails every day from women (and men! but I’d bet mostly women) saying thank you for writing and being honest and admitting that you’re afraid and being afraid but doing it anyway, so I will just add mine: Thank you.
One more thing: I make $300 a week. So why am I giving you 10% of that? One, I don’t get to help make someone’s dream a reality every day. And two, not feeling alone is worth every cent I’ll ever have.