Your Book Writing Questions Answered!

"writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right."

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Ok, I’m not writing a romance novel or erotica, but this point still stands (and I use “ladies” gender neutrally, of course.

I am used to people thinking the absolute worst of me or the absolute best of me. Obviously, I exist somewhere in the in-between. It seems only close friends and family allow me multidimensionality.

I haven’t felt like I belonged in many spaces—online and offline—so I’m writing a book about it (and some other things, too, but that’s the overarching theme).

I asked my Instagram followers if they had any book writing questions for me, and I’m going to answer a few of them in this week’s newsletter!

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What is your book about?

As someone chronically online for a long time, but especially starting in 2011 when I created “Guerrilla Feminism,” the book, The Guerrilla Feminist: A Search For Belonging (Online & Off), is about my life’s search for belonging in online spaces (and off) while navigating various traumas, disabilities, and mental illness. It’s about finding belonging in online communities, becoming ostracized by those same communities, taking the work offline, and having hope for a better world.

Do you have an agent? What do they do? How did you find one?

Nope! I did have an agent from 2015-2023, but she coincidentally dropped me after I began posting more fervently about Palestine on and after Oct. 7. In the amount of time I “worked” with her, she wasn’t all that helpful and wanted me to write a very different book—a book I knew nobody (including publishers) would want. The only reason I even got an agent is because of my Instagram following.

Do you work with an editor? If so, how did you find them?

Iskra Books, who is publishing my book, has an editor for me (who seems rather cool, by that way—a fellow librarian!). She won’t be editing anything until all chapters and the book in total is complete. In the meantime, I’ve enlisted the services of the badass

Raechel Anne Jolie

, who writes

radical love letters

(and has written her own fab memoir), who will be doing some editing and general memoir help.

How do you transition from writing essay pieces like your newsletter to a full book?

Great question! This particular book project is something I started way back in 2015, before I started my newsletter. I have been working on it in some capacity since then. The book will definitely have a similar feel to the newsletter and I will be using bits and pieces from things I wrote in this space. I will also be using some different theoretical frameworks, something I don’t do a ton of in this space—at least, not explicitly. I guess the transition is not so much a transition as it is an evolution of the writing I’ve already been doing.

How many chapters do you have finished right now? How many chapters are there?

I’m aiming for 10 chapters. I currently have about 5 roughly done. I’m struggling with the latter 5. I’m aiming for a book that is around 200 pages.

Does writing relax you?

Sometimes! For this book, though, I’m writing about a lot of traumatic experiences and that has been far from relaxing. I’m taking breaks to read various memoirs and other books. I appreciate what Mary Karr says about memoir writing: “In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right.” Also this quote from her: “I’ve said it’s hard. Here’s how hard: everybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little.” It does feel a bit like I’m drowning, so breaks and pacing are very much needed!

If you, dear reader of this newsletter, have any book writing questions, please comment below or email me!

1. Why Trump’s Conviction Does Not Complicate My Abolitionist Politics - Kelly Hayes

2. Sex Workers Were the First Beauty Influencers - You’ve Got Lipstick on Your Chin

3. ‘They bungled it:’ NIH documents reveal how $1.6 billion Long Covid initiative has failed so far to meet its goals - Betsy Ladyzhets

4. Laws About Deepfakes Can’t Leave Sex Workers Behind - Samantha Cole

5. The medical culture uses diagnoses like IBS to shuttle away patients rather than assist them in finding an answer - Xi Chen

6. America’s Campus Witch Hunts Are Only the Second Worst Thing Happening to Professors Right Now - Steven W. Thrasher

7. Hundreds of Doctors Demand Biden End Solitary Confinement in Immigration Prisons - Mike Ludwig

8. “Men and women removed body hair and pubic hair [with tweezers] to mitigate infestations of lice, while wealthy people in old times could afford things like soap and hot baths, so they had the luxury of shaving.” -

   The Review of Beauty by Jessica DeFino
   (interesting read as someone who hates having body hair for sensory reasons, but also hates removing it due to laziness/low pain tolerance)

9. Between Grief & Gore: Writing Through Femicide in Mexico - Madeleine Wattenbarger

10. this song ❤️