Whew.

I’m writing this newsletter just after finishing the edits on my novel, Brilliant Charming Bastard. It’s been quite a journey. I’ve been working on this story in one form or another since the pandemic began last year.

This is my fourth book but first novel, and I’ve learned that a novel is a completely different animal than a memoir, a how-to-write book, or a collection of stories. Writing a novel is like solving a Rubik’s Cube: Every time you change one thing in the plot, things shift, even hundreds of pages away. I would never have guessed how many iterations of editing it would take—and even now, I’m holding my breath wondering if the publisher will come back like Columbo in the old detective series and say, “Um, there’s just one more thing…”

If all goes as planned, this book will publish at the end of October. And as it turns out, the story connects in unexpected ways with two stories in the news currently.

• In the Spring of 2021, three young women discovered on Instagram that they were dating the same Boise college student. The three became friends, broke up with the young man, and spent this summer touring in an old bus they renovated together. Their story was considered so newsworthy that articles appeared in the Washington Post and elsewhere. Maybe truth is less strange than fiction, because in my new novel, three women characters discover they are dating the same lying dilettante and collaborate on something much bigger than a bus.
• On the last day of August, the trial of Elizabeth Holmes on charges of criminal fraud will begin. You may recall that Holmes was president of a diagnostics company called Theranos, once the darling of Silicon Valley investors. The New York Times reports that these days, legitimate female entrepreneurs who approach Silicon Valley venture capital firms must defend themselves against sexist comparisons with the Theranos con. One columnist even wrote an article comparing a woman president of a new startup with Holmes. In my novel, the lead women characters face the same kind of onslaught from the gossip press in Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile the publicity machine for Bastard  is gearing up. As is typical for publicity these days, much of that effort will be mine, once I take a day to recover from editing. And I’ll have the able help of my marvelous partner and publisher, who has my back in these outrageous endeavors. I look forward to sharing the story with all of you, and hope that you’ll be inspired to help get the word out to your own circles.

The cover for the Advance Review Copies is already complete, and I’m loving its playful style. I do wonder, though, whether the tagline is better as is (“Getting Rich is the Best Revenge”) or reversed (“The Best Revenge is Getting Rich”). What do you think? I seriously would appreciate your thoughts. 

Please take a look at the cover and let me know.  I'd also love it if you could get your own review copy (link available below) and write an honest review, recommend it to your bookclub, friends and family.  Seriously, the BEST advertising is a personal recommendation from YOU.

Earlier this month I traveled to California to see Grandchild #4, a child of the pandemic whom I had not yet met. It was also the first time I laid eyes on my California children since before this mess began. The trip was wonderful, intense, and also nostalgic, as it included visits to old haunts from my decades in the Bay Area. Some of those places were inspirations for locations in the new book. The abandoned lab building that is the setting for much of the novel is still standing although it was condemned years ago. It’s been sold to a developer and will soon be torn down, so I’m glad I got photos this time out.

By mid-August when we flew back to North Carolina, the Delta variant was in full swing and the crowded flight was nerve wracking. We arrived back to find we now have seven COVID cases in our little neighborhood of 36 houses (six breakthrough cases and one young child). I wonder whether we will hunker down again like 2020–what do you think? How is it where you are?

All in all a big month for us, and for the world. A massive evacuation from Afghanistan in the middle of a pandemic highlighted just how fragile are human rights including women’s rights. For the first time since my blogs began, I only wrote one blog this month, and it was about Afghanistan and what it means for us as women.

Next month I’ll return to my regular schedule of two blogs. One will be about shows to watch when you’re sick of watching shows—perhaps all too timely if we are back at home due to the variants. The next blog may be an interview with a romance author who is not afraid to show her age. Brava her! 

Now that I am about to publish a romance novel (because I’m assured the Bastard novel is romance, not erotica), I am even more aware of the sexism and ageism inherent in the publishing business. Most romance readers are in their fifties, yet publishers demand characters in their twenties and consider characters in their thirties to indicate “seasoned” (I.e. senior ) romance.

I have strong opinions on that score, and you may as well. Let’s all continue reading and writing vibrant older characters to push back on the sexism and ageism in the publishing industry and in the culture at large.

Wishing you good health and good writing,

You may remember the terrific guest post by my friend Simone LaBerge, “Sexuality Down the Decades,” where she reflected on her own sexual development from childhood to her seventies and talked about her hopes for the years ahead. 

Her writing inspired me to create a free short course to help you to reflect on your journey so far and your hopes for the days to come. 

Sign up for a fascinating interior journey, and share the details with your close friends and on social media please!

This is Stella's monthly newsletter.  Please help by sharing it with your friends via email and social media.

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Thank YOU!