Unearthing a time capsule

Promoting a book is looking into the past and facing an unknown future

I saw these trunks at an antique store while doing research for The Other Side of Starting Over and became obsessed with them. What secrets did they hold?

Publishing operates on a different timeline than the rest of the world. It’s slower, almost stubbornly so. While social media creates an ephemeral world: thought → post → reaction → repeat. Books are written, edited, and polished over time—with layers of brush strokes and second-guessing—before they’re shared with the world.

Fiction is just that, but it’s impossible not to hide some pieces of ourselves in it as we write, and those fragments of our souls don’t always become clear until months or years later. I’ve often said that I write not to share what I know, but to learn what I don’t. Embedded in each book is a question I’m struggling with, wisdom I’m seeking.

The Other Side of Starting Over was written in the spring and summer of 2024. I drafted it two years ago, and it will come out five months from now. It’s a time capsule, and each time I re-read it (you have to pore over your books a few hundred times before publication), I learn something new about my past self, even though I’m still searching for the same answers I was then.

I wrote a third of the book while on my first (and only) self-organized writing retreat. My former employer had given me a generous gift when I resigned after fifteen years: a week at a spa retreat in Mexico. I left the job during the pandemic, which is a story for another day. So, I couldn’t take the trip for a while. In the spring of 2023, I signed my contract for The Truth Is in the Detours and The Epicenter of Forever, both of which had already been written. So once I knew I was officially going to be a published author, I did what I had been doing for years: I started writing. But suddenly, the process felt different. Pressurized, high stakes. I had always drafted in a vacuum—I had written for me and this long-held dream of becoming a published author. But then I’d achieved it, and I couldn’t write anymore. I started—and abandoned—three manuscripts. I’d get past the catalyst and…nothing. It was terrifying.

So I booked the trip. Over the course of that week, I wrote almost 30,000 words, which is a ton for me. I’m not a fast drafter. I’m a persistent drafter. I write most—if not all—days. I keep my laptop open whenever inspiration strikes. I whittle away at word count in carpool lines, on road trips, while dinner is in the oven. But this was different. My typing speed couldn’t keep up with my idea generation. I came home with the beginnings of a book—one I knew I could and would finish.

Postcard from my writing retreat, May 2024

Two years later, I don’t have all the answers to the ones that plagued me then—the ones that became the themes of The Other Side of Starting Over. I don’t know how to live in uncertainty. Or how to start over after loss. I don’t know whether it’s best to put on a brave face as a mother—or show my kids my humanity, flaws, and fears. I don’t know how to trust that a happily ever after is around the corner in a world that breaks so many of us with impunity.

Well, that got a bit dark.

Forgive me, I’m feeling a tad emotional. In a few hours, I’m going to watch Dear Daughter walk across the stage at her high school graduation. The truth is, I actually kinda hate graduations. I think they are most often a missed opportunity to commemorate a milestone. The airhorns, unruly crowds, static-filled sound systems, cliché speeches… it all contributes to an underwhelming experience for a momentous occasion. Transitions are important. Closure is critical. But high school graduations? Disappointing.

But that won’t stop me from crying.

Dear Daughter had to write a graduation speech for her English final, and she’s a contrarian, so her hypothesis was, “If you ask someone what their greatest accomplishment was, they never say, ‘graduating from high school.’” And she’s right. But also, it symbolizes the end of formal childhood. It marks the beginning of something new and sometimes scary. In a couple of months, I have to let her move across the country. I get to watch her start a new adventure. I’ll receive updates over FaceTime and text and will be at the mercy of her availability, instead of having the constant chatter and monologues at midnight, while she’s perched on the end of my bed, and I struggle to keep my eyes open to avoid missing a moment. The bonus is, though, she’ll be on East Coast time, so perhaps I’ll get her stories at a more reasonable hour in my time zone.

The Other Side of Starting Over is about a lot of things: grief, betrayal, second chances, love. But at its heart is a story about a mother who just wants to make sure her kids are going to be okay.

The answer to that question stretches so far into the future that it’s unknowable. Having a child is intensely vulnerable. You’ve heard me make the metaphor about writing and motherhood many times before, so I will spare you. But both require so much blind faith and hope. With both, there are moments when you ask yourself, “Why the hell did I decide to do this?” and say, “Never mind. Never mind. I take it all back. This is too much vulnerability. Too much me in the world, walking around unprotected.”

Doing both at once? Launching a kid and launching a book? It feels like a little bit too much of everything for me right now.

On my screen

Like every romance fan, I’ve been watching Off Campus. I’m so grateful for the escapism and positive depiction of young masculinity. For the dose of everything-will-be-all-right-even-though-it’s-not-all-right-yet.

There’s a scene near the end (no spoilers, promise) between the main character and her mother, and I bawled because that’s the type of mom I’m always aiming to be. Not that I always succeed, but it’s so affirming to see that type of modeling of modern motherhood. Of trust. Of acceptance. Of kindness when it’s most needed.

I loved the show, but I am afraid Dear Daughter thinks that’s what college will be like. Lord help me.

I hope, if you have a graduate in your life, that this season is filled with celebration and hope, that your fledgling adult stays safe in this transitional time, and that you can take it all in and enjoy the milestone—without an airhorn in your ear.

xo,
Mara

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