I Finished My Book!

An Excerpt from Adult Braces Just for You

My fourth book, Adult Braces, is coming out next year, and I have been working on it for four years. It’s a memoir, like my first book, Shrill, but sadder, more peaceful, more honest, funnier, and (I think) a better book. The day before yesterday I turned in my last substantive draft, meaning the last draft with major structural changes, meaning that the book officially is what it is now. I’ll probably add a paragraph here or there, but the major lift is over. After this will come line edits, copy editing, and proofreading, and then the text of Adult Braces will be out of my hands.

I just wanted to thank all of you for sticking with me while I worked through this process. Writing this book was super vulnerable and hard. It didn’t help that, due to the illness or death of literally all of the industries in which I work, I’ve had to launch extra projects to make ends meet, giving me even less time to work on the book and on this newsletter (my true love). Those of you who have remained paid subscribers during this period, despite long stretches between Butt Newses, have kept me afloat both financially and emotionally. (I know things are tight for everyone right now, so if you aren’t a paid subscriber I get it and I love you too!!) Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The draft I turned in this week was about 90,000 words. My first draft was 120,000 words. For comparison, Shrill was 65,000 words. So basically I have an extra half a Shrill on the cutting room floor, and I’ll be sharing those sections with you over the next year in the lead-up to the Adult Braces release day (TBA). Some will be free and some will be for paid subscribers only.

I was supposed to wait to strategize with my publicist before releasing any of it, but I’m feeling too mushy and grateful today. You all have kept me going for the past few years and this book would not exist without your support. So I’m dropping an excerpt in this e-mail as a thank you. (If you’re Gary or Jacqueline or Brant and you’re reading this, please don’t be mad at me or I’ll die!!!!!!!!!!!!)

When I first pitched and sold Adult Braces, it was supposed to be a self help book, but Lindy-style, half memoir and half life advice, with workbook exercises and transparency about what I see as the grifty shortcomings of the self help genre. As I worked, it became clear that this wasn’t that book—Adult Braces is a straight-up road trip diary—and all of the self help content was cut. The following excerpt was originally Chapter Two. It’s a little corny! But so am I!!!

(Content warning: There’s some stuff in here that could read as diet-culturey, but it’s in the context of me getting diagnosed with an eating disorder and trying to repair my relationship with food and movement from a fat positive place, which is explained elsewhere in the book.)

Also, before I go, I wanted to let you know that I’m now writing ANOTHER newsletter to accompany my podcast, Text Me Back, so if you want an extra dose of unhinged podcast-adjacent content, subscribe to Newsletter Me Back! It’s free! No paywalled posts ever!

And coming in the next few weeks, I’ll be Butt Newsing Tombstone, in honor of Val, so hold on to ur huckleberries.

Thank you forever,

Love,

Lindy

Lotrimin as Fuck

Okay! So we’re changing our life. Where do we start?

Well, first thing’s first: Let’s be kind to ourselves. We’re probably not going to do that good a job of changing today, lol. That’s not really how this works. I am literally writing a book about successfully changing my life, and yet I am, on this day, as severely depressed as I was at my lowest, before I even started my whole “successful” project. I have a smelly, yeasty rash in my armpit because, although I did manage to get myself to work out last week (progress!), afterwards I could not get myself anywhere near the shower and instead sat perfectly still on the couch for three to four hours, marinating in a sweat vinaigrette, my heart gripped by an nameless fear, whilst my brain, ensconced in a cloud of scratchy, graphite-gray static, floated through another realm that looked suspiciously like Crestwood from Dragon Age: Inquisition¹ (regress).

So perhaps you are wondering: how can I call myself a success? What could I, a loser with a rash, possibly have to teach you?