I didn’t forget! I was busy!

Last night I finished the draft of my next book.

CONFETTI!

Right? It should be confetti, except—oh man, this draft took it out of me, in a year that took it out of us. It’s a pile of words right now, a pile of words with a story peeking out from underneath. It will get there, but “there” is not where it is, not yet.

So let’s talk about creating stuff.

We got into creating stuff because it was fun. And then we decided to turn out creations into things people can buy. Nice! But then that made making things a business. And business is none of my business.

I’m kidding.

Today what I really want to talk about Ethan Hawke.

 

These screengrabs are just a few of the images I keep near me at all times, not because it’s Ethan Hawke (though as a girl from the 1990s, he was very important to me), but because how succinctly he gets at the problem of art.

Art (tough word to use) is something most people don’t have time for. Most Americans won’t read a book this year, and the outlook on 2026 is probably worse. The machine of life keeps us too busy for enjoyment, for leisure, for the kind of sustenance he’s talking about. But even TV, all those movies you have easy streaming access to, music you choose, music you get fed in the grocery store, podcasts… have you ever tried to live a day without someone’s art? What a bleak existence that would be.

A lot of people want to say, lately, that art doesn’t matter. The machine of AI can do it, so what? That’s the fascism talking.

Nice try, plagiarism machines.

I love what Ethan is saying here, reminding us that the beauty we create can really, honestly help someone else get through this life.

From the person making the art, it’s the doing that matters. The struggle to write a pile of words to say something you want to say is actually where the value is, how you find out what you wanted to say in the first place.

The origin of these screengrabs is Ethan Hawke’s TED talk which you can watch in full here.

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Tomorrow is the official launch day for Wreck Your Heart. Tonight (January 5, 2026) is my first event at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville with Mary Kubica. I’m excited to have finally reached the moment where I get to talk to readers about Dahlia.

And then I’ll see about kicking this pile of words into something better.