The mask! It won't come off!!!

Embracing personhood outside of your practice.

Happy Halloween, slayers. We’ve got a short one today because we all have ~pumpkins to carve~ and ~neighbors to terrorize~ and ~fun-sized candies to cram up our crannies~

I watched the Disney+ Goosebumps remake last week. It was very bad but I’d still die for Justin Long because I like a man with vaguely lizard vibes. Thankfully, the series includes one of the very best Goosebumps books: The Haunted Mask. The book follows Carly Beth, a timid kid who buys a creepy mask from a Halloween store. The mask fuses to her face and alters her personality, driving her toward all manner of naughty behavior (casual strangulation, et al).

Two things to know about this book:

1. Scholastic published The Haunted Mask in 1993, and filming for Jim Carrey’s The Mask also began in 1993, so it’s sort of a chicken-or-egg situation when you think about it??? I love philosophy

2. R. L. Stine says he got the idea for the book from his son who somehow got stuck in a Frankenstein mask, which is so funny I honestly can’t think about it for too long

Revisiting The Haunted Mask got me thinking about a recent conversation with my sweet friend Taylor, a fellow comedy writer who also runs a bangin’ Substack. Between bites of grilled cheese, I did something truly depraved: I asked Taylor about life outside of work. Her jaw dropped jokingly, and she sputtered: “That’s an insane question to ask.”

It is an insane question to ask, especially among creative friends when the conversation tends to default to work updates. Don’t get me wrong: I love talking about work. I started a whole-ass newsletter to talk about work. But it’s something I’ve been working on since the summer, when my book tour left me creatively and socially depleted in a way that felt really scary. I spent two months completely focused on my creative output: book sales, book events, building my platform on social media, attempting to conceal the cystic acne breakout that resulted from the stress, etc.

It left no space for personhood outside of my creative practice. I was my work.

So when things didn’t go my way—when I didn’t hear from my publicist, or book event attendance wasn’t what I hoped, or the week’s sales went wonky—it felt like a reflection of my character, my work ethic, and my value as a person. That felt awful.

My question for you: What are you doing to embrace your personhood outside of your creative work?

I’m spending a few extra hours a month volunteering at the dog shelter where I adopted my wretched beagle. I’m also leaning back into a non-creative goal, bumping up my running mileage in an attempt to explore my neighborhood and get outside more.

Of course, some work must be done. See below.

y’all remember halloweentown 2?

What I’m working on this week:

• My second book proposal is done! It’s a short one, clocking in around 10,000 words. My agent starts the pitching process tomorrow; once that’s done, paid subscribers can expect an interview with her about the specifics of the pitching process. Hot insider info!!!!

• I’m reading a lot of research material for the second book, which means I’ve got a stack of paperbacks the size of the Burj Khalifa on my nightstand. And yeah, baby—I wrote ‘em off my taxes. (Paid subscribers can expect a post about that, too, probably in the next month.)

• I’m eating so much candy it’s actually probably becoming a problem???

I’d love to hear what you’re doing to feel more like a person and less like a machine. Reply to this email or comment on Substack…. if you DaAaAaRe

cram it up your cranny,

Lil