Best gift I ever got
My Nora Ephron origin story.
I am not a great gift giver. I usually have big ideas, and then I choke. For my kids, I’m always looking for that perfect gift - the one item that will change their lives that they didn’t even know existed. After exhaustive mental calisthenics, I get them sweaters.
Lucky for me, this week I received exactly that aspirational kind of gift. My agent sent me her 1983 galley copy of Nora Ephron’s first novel, Heartburn. Talk about a life-changing thing that I didn’t even know existed - an ARC of Heartburn. I was thirteen when this book came out, an avid reader of the classics - Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins, Sidney Sheldon. I already wanted to be a writer and wanted to unravel the mystery of how a story could completely bend time and space and make an entire day evaporate. But until I read Heartburn, I never really thought about the craft of writing, what voice and word choice could do.
This was a book that I scribbled in and hi-lighted. It’s the book that taught me that something as simple as capitalizing a letter could make a word funny. It was the first time I’d seen the rules of writing broken in a way that improved the entire novel. The way she interrupted her own heartbreaking story again and again to give us a recipe. It told us that she was going to be the one setting the pace. There was a lightness and a heaviness that made me feel like I was sitting in Nora’s lap, feeling her feelings. This, I thought on every page. This is for me.
I have always paid attention to that feeling when it comes, the one where I see something that seems like it’s precisely shaped to fit into a specific crack in my heart. I feel tight in the chest and then loose, like I’ve been ripped open and made whole. And when I feel that way I know that it holds something of great importance for me. The first time I heard the song If I Had $1,000,000 by the Barenaked Ladies, I thought Yes, this. The poem If by Rudyard Kippling. Nearly every painting by Rana Rochat. Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman. That time I sat across the table from Tom at a recruiting dinner and he didn’t say a word the whole time. When he finally chimed in over dessert, it was funny. So so funny. And I thought, Yes, him.
My agent had no way of knowing how deeply this book is etched in my heart or how it shaped my villain origin story. But in her note she said, “I’ve been carrying this around for forty years waiting for someone to give it to.” I’ll carry it around for forty more.
Writing update
I’m closing in on completing the second draft of a new book. My heart lives in my throat now, full time - I really hope it works out for these two. I’m at the stage where I’m checking my timeline (some would do this at the beginning, but I am a different kind of crazy).
I offer you the only writing hack that works for me: printing out calendar pages and writing my character’s plans in the little squares - just like I’d do for myself. First date, hair appointment, meeting with the contractor… It helps me see the story and it also helps me see the passage of time. I’ll notice that she hasn’t seen him in five days. Are they texting? Does she miss him? Is she worried? The act of completing the calendar brings the timeline to life.
(I think I got this tip from author Deborah Goodrich Royce. If you’ve read Reef Road, you know she knows what she’s doing).
It’s A Love Story news
IT’S A LOVE STORY is coming out in 53 days. It’s getting wonderful reviews and actually has the highest star rating of any of my books on Goodreads. So if you liked any of my books, maybe you’ll like this one?
Hillary Huber award winning audiobook narrator of Nora Goes Off Script has just finished recording It’s A Love Story!! I was so excited when PRH suggested her for these two books. Fun fact: I’ve known Hillary since I was 21 years old and had long hair and bushy eyebrows. She looked exactly like she does now, but she wasn’t an audiobook narrator yet.
Please preorder. If you like falling in love and jokes and debunking the stories we tell ourselves about our own unworthiness, this one’s for you.
Thank you for being here. If you have a second, please tell me in the comments - what’s the last thing that made you say, Yes, this?
lots of love,
Annabel
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Hi Annabel, enjoyed reading your Nora Ephron origin story. It reminded me of a great book gift I received this past Christmas. Knowing that Bel Canto is one of my favorite novels, my daughter bought me Bel Canto: The Annotated Version. Oh my goodness, what a wonderful book. Twenty years after its publication, Ann Patchett went through BC line by line, noting in the margins passages she still likes, sentences she would remove, what she was thinking, and why she made the choices she did. I am a better writer for having read this version. And it was a great reason (as if I needed one) to re-read Bel Canto.
You really have such a good energy that you make my day. I said yes to my partner and husband of forty years when he kissed me unexpectedly. I said yes to a tiny red corduroy jacket at a street sale and before long I had a tiny baby to put in it. These days I am saying yes to the spirits and guides who are there to help me.