I wrote a book. I mean, I’ve actually written a few but only one gained a little traction in the publishing world- as of yet. It’s been a little over two years now. It generated a little interest, and then, it didn’t. I have been staring at the blinking folder on my Google Drive for months, wondering if I should just hit the delete button on the whole thing and let it go.
Maybe it wasn’t sure what it was, so it could never find its audience. Maybe I didn’t wait until the hurt healed and I wrote straight from the pain, which was a little too much. Or, maybe it just wasn’t it’s time.
We’re in an interesting time, those of us who write for a living. Publishing is changing, which means how we deliver our work to the world is also changing. I have been reframing how I have always thought my words would get out into the world and have a strange pull to release some I’ve been holding on to, on my own terms. On my own platform. With my own friends and community.
Thus, the Eat My Words Series was born.
In the next few months, I’ll be releasing excerpts from the book that actually changed my life to write, right here, for paid subscribers.
Why Am I Doing it This Way?
Well, for one, I started writing in part because I hoped that my words and my stories would help others. They simply can't do that if they stay in a file on my computer. I’ve also been doing a lot of work on worth lately, and have come to recognize the value in what I get to do. I want to continue to show up in a way that resonates with my purpose- and I also want to be able to pay for my kid’s gymnastic classes, you know?
Every installment will have available segments for free subscribers before a paywall, so don’t feel like you’re not included in this series if you happen to not be a paid subscriber. And, if you really want to read along but can’t afford a subscription- just let me know! I want you here. The paid subscription is NOT a barrier for you, but an opportunity for ME to really walk into this with my full heart.
What Will It Look Like?
Once a week on a Thursday, you’ll get the newsletter like usual. Each installment has a unique take on a topic I’ve eaten my words about accompanied by a recipe that I’ve held near and dear, an occasional playlist, and some reading recommendations. If you’re unpaid or haven’t reached out to me for access, your ability to view the full post will be blocked after a certain point for most posts (So you’re going to want to get on that, because the juicy stuff comes later). SOME posts are too important, and those will be viewable to all- so share away:).
That’s it!
I’m over the moon to be able to release pieces of this work out into a world that desperately needs to know that it’s okay to be wrong and admit it. I couldn’t think of a better way to introduce the series than simply, giving you the introduction.
Thank you for joining me here.
It’s a balmy 42 degrees today in Northern New Jersey. After the last few weeks of temperatures ranging in the high 7’s- single digits- the “ping, ping, ping” sound reverberating across my upstairs window as the icicles melt down the pane isn’t quite as annoying as it would have been, had I not had to wear two sweatshirts to bed for a solid two weeks. We hadn’t realized when we purchased this 200-year-old, former Lutheran parsonage that the bedroom we selected to be ours because of the beautiful, front-facing windows and the yellow built-in bookshelves didn’t actually have a radiator at all. We’ve resorted to a very high-tech electric heater, and extra clothing in February rather than give up the view, the walk-in closet, and a pesky woodpecker who routinely taps on the glass at 6 a.m.
This week didn’t go as planned at all, as things often don’t when you have a young family and jobs that require you to set foot outside of your backdoor and put on actual pants with buttons and shoes that aren’t fur-lined. Our oldest was ill and relegated to her room for several days while we slid bowls of soup and smoothies across the floor to her pale face, glowing with Harry Potter parodies on YouTube. I was supposed to have an uninterrupted streak of hours to write and finish this book that has been haunting me for the last five years of my life but instead, I found myself eating pieces of buttered toast on the kitchen floor, scrolling through social media and wondering if what I have to say really matters that much, anyway.
As I held my hand tonight over the keyboard as a human splash guard during my littlest’s bathtime in which she is never something as gentle as a mermaid but always something ridiculously funny like an elephant afraid of ants who has somehow found itself in the tub, I recognized that it was probably appropriate that I write the introduction in the most, “wrong way” possible; considering this is a memoir all about how much I thought I had it all right- and then was proven wrong over and over and over again in the most disparaging and brutal and beautiful of ways.
I’ve heard people use the phrase, “eat my words,” often enough for it to insite images of someone with a fork-full of Arial fonted proclamations they made in their teens and twenties. Still, it never fully landed as a pivotal event that could also be nourishing until the last few years. When one eats their words, they are admitting that the things they were so certain of at one time, were, in fact, wrong. Or that they had changed and evolved into something else that others might not necessarily agree with. Or, (scandal) , that they may even regret it now, and not believe it at all. It has shameful connotations; as society often does when eating is involved.
But, what if it didn’t?
What if the act of eating one’s words was celebrated because it indicated that, you grew? What if we approached it as if it were an indication of maturity? What if the phrase could turn into something else entirely, in which we set an elaborate dinner party to toast to all of the shit we got wrong and then went dancing in the new freedom we found, instead of shamefully hiding in corners because we evolved?
I’m not a dancer. And I’m not good at admitting that I’m wrong.
What I am is a recovering evangelical who has, through a series of circumstances, become convinced that there is so much healing in the act of eating your words about all the things I was once so certain about; faith, marriage, money, women’s roles, sex, bodies, family, career, food. You know, all the things that make a life. I want there to be no shame in admitting you were wrong; so much so, that I want to reclaim the term as something you share around the table with friends, preferably over a good bottle of Sancerre.
It’s my hope you do the same.
NEXT WEEK’S INSTALLMENT: Eating My Words on Restoration (And my favorite latte recipe)