this newsletter is full of rats

sorry, pals, but that's where my head is these days (+ small group coaching!)

The other night, I went to take the recycling to the curb and, just as I put my hand on the bin, a huge, furry rat virtually *FLEW* out of it. Now, I’ve lived in urban areas all my adult life and generally am not fazed by rodents, but again, this one LEAPT PAST ME AT WAIST HEIGHT IN THE DARK. I started screaming, which made my daughter, who had followed me outside, burst into tears, and my son, who was standing beside her, scold me for making his sister cry.

Meanwhile, there was … activity in the recycle bin.

There was this frantic rustling inside, which, let me tell you, is not a sound that you ever, ever want to hear coming from your bin. I was frozen with indecision. Should I drag the bin to the curb, rats and all? Or just accept that it now belongs to the rodents? Meanwhile, my kids are screaming and sobbing behind me, people on the street are stopping to stare, and I’m wondering whether I need to text the downstairs neighbors to let them know it’s just a rat and there’s no need to call 911.

And that was when the rest of the rats burst free. Thankfully, they didn’t launch themselves at me like the first one, but they did stream out of the bin like it was a clown car. 😫😫😱

And you know what? That’s not even my worst story about rats. There was the rat in my kitchen (which inspired a scene in my forthcoming book, Both Things Are True) and the rat that darted out of some bushes to bite me on the foot as I walked my kid home from camp one sunny afternoon. (To this day, whenever we walk past that particular bush, my son likes to say, “Remember when that rat bit you, Mommy?” Like I could forget.)

There was also the Mekele hotel rat. Back in 2014, when Marc and I were backpacking around Africa, we joined a tour to the Danakil Depression, which is one of the hottest places on Earth. (Sounds fun, right?) Our tour left from Mekele, Ethiopia, and through a confluence of travel delays, we arrived later than expected and barely had time to drop our bags in our room before rushing out to dinner. Later that night, we’d only just inside the room when I heard a rustling noise.

“Do you hear that?” I asked Marc.

“Hear what?”

“That noise. I think … I think it’s coming from the bed.”

You, gentle reader, already know where this story is going, but in the moment, we were blissfully, horribly unaware. Marc first checked underneath the bed, and then pulled the pillows off the bed and … yep, it was rat. An impressively fat one, too.

I hurried to the front desk to request a new room, but ran up against a language barrier. The (very nice) desk attendant’s English clearly didn’t include the phrase “there’s a rat in our bed,” but he offered to come back to the room with me to see the problem. The rat, obviously, had made tracks by then, and the attendant kept showing us how to operate the water heater and open the blinds, while we gestured to the bed and tried to show him how large the rat was with our hands. Finally, I grabbed a piece of paper and drew him an approximation of a rat:

I gestured to the bed again, and a mixture of horror and understanding washed over him. He quickly relocated us to a rat-free room. But the next night, when we were literally sleeping on the ground beside an active volcano, the idea of being disturbed by the proximity of a rat seemed almost quaint. (That’s a story for another day, though!)

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Why did I just tell you a bunch of stories about rats? I don’t know! Maybe because Erica Wright just wrote a newsletter about rats that drive cars? Maybe because I want you to preorder my book, which also has a rat story in it? Maybe because the rats pouring out of my recycle bin felt like a metaphor for the parade of horribles we’ve had this January and reducing it to a funny anecdote feels therapeutic?

Why is this so accurate? source

I don’t think I have to tell you that it’s a weird time to be writing fiction. There are disasters (natural and man-made) all around, and it feels self-indulgent to be over here just making things up while people all over this country are losing things (physical and intangible). But fiction (aside from being how I personally keep my children in string cheese and LEGO bricks) can be a (partial) antidote when things are bleak. Fiction fosters hope and empathy (something that is desperately needed in this moment, when it seems like the cruelty is the point), and can provide momentary—and desperately needed—escape. A steady diet of doomscrolling will turn you into a goblin, you know? You need some glimmer of light in there.

There are people who take their anger and turn it into something beautiful. For example, Miranda July’s All Fours started with fury in 2017. Somehow I doubt being longlisted for the National Book Award is in my future, but I love the idea of harnessing the emotion and transforming it. It feels like a way not to cede to the darkness.

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On a lighter note, I’m currently coaching a small group of writers on their first 500 words through the Women Fiction Writers’ Association. Every writer knows how important the first page of work is — it may be their only chance to hook an agent, editor, or reader and convince them to read more — but preparing for this group forced me to really consider the various components that make a great first page. I’d like to offer a version of this small group coaching session again — I’m thinking early March. If that’s something you’d be interested in learning more about, drop me a line!

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Currently …

📖 Reading: What It’s Like In Words by Eliza Moss

🎧 Listening: Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson

📺 Watching: Bad Sisters