Let's talk about sex, baby

Hello my loves! I missed you last week <3 I took a break because last Saturday was supposed to be a 24-hour writeathon with some friends, where I was gonna write 10,000 words. But then I slept all day and only wrote like 100 words, lol. Still! The sleeping was fun!

On Friday of this week, I posted on Instagram about how my depression has been rearing its ugly head lately. It’s been tough! I have twice-weekly therapy appointments and a ton of medication and yet the weight of the world & my own psyche continues to press into me so heavily that sometimes, I swear I can’t breathe.

I’m pushing through, if “pushing through” means trying to stay busy and not give Sue any opportunities to whisper in my ear.

From the heart 💗

On sexuality, desire, and a book series that wrecked me.

Ugh. I feel embarrassment heating up my face even before I’ve written this piece. My heart pulses in my cheeks at the mere thought of talking about this in public. For someone who has embraced her own queerness with something akin to religious fervor, you’d think talking about sex, sexuality, and desire would come natural.

Alas, the original religious fervor of my life1 has ingrained in me a deep and abiding sense of shame about anything having to do with sex or desire. And somehow, when I realized I was gay, I was able to divorce my sexuality from anything to do with actual sex.

I was reading this book series two weeks ago, the LSU series by Becca Steele, and it’s a very steamy, extremely sexy series of New Adult m/m romances. It was a delight to binge all four books in six days, but there was an unintended consequence of it all: me, realizing that I’ve never allowed myself to access sexual desire.

[Five-minute break to scream into the ether because I’m actually going to type these words and publish them on the internet for people to read, how embarrassing!!!!!!!!]

Okay, I’m back.

My therapist once told me I was very cerebral, and I said thank you, and I’m not sure it was actually a compliment. Ah well! The point is, I spend a lot of time up in my brain. I think things through about a million times before I act on them. In fact, I’m so “cerebral” and “thoughtful” that even when I’m, say, inebriated on too much bourbon at winter residency, I don’t say or do or laugh unless I’ve thought it through and decided that whatever I’m going to say or do or laugh about is a good idea2.

And so cerebrally speaking, I contemplated the fact that I was attracted to women; I played out scenarios in my head where I married a woman vs ones where I married a man; I chose my favorite scenario; I came out; I came out again; I embraced being gay without anyone causing this awakening within me.

It was all in my head.

And that’s all fine and well and good, except we’re four years down the line now and it hit me like a ton of bricks a week and a half ago that I’ve never felt sexual attraction toward a person I know in real life.

No, scratch that. I’ve successfully extinguished any embers of desire I might feel toward anyone I know in real life3.

So here I am, 31. I’ve never held hands with someone I liked and felt butterflies. I’ve never kissed anyone. I’ve never had sex. I’ve never looked at someone I had feelings for and allowed myself to swoon4. I’ve never allowed myself to look at someone I could objectively find aesthetically pleasing, and move it to, “Hey, I think you’d look good naked and I would like to see that.”

It feels like doing that would be crossing a boundary in an unforgivable way5.

I don’t like this!!!! I don’t like this at all!!!! And I don’t know how to unlock the side of myself that is open to sexuality and desire. I want to. I just don’t know how…

From the camera roll 📸

Lizzie in the light

From the page ✍️

On the changing of the guard dreams

I’ve clung tightly to a vision of what my career as a writer would look like for many years. From the moment I read my first John Green YA novel, I knew I wanted to write stories in the young adult category. And from the moment I realized I was queer and wrote my first sapphic romance, I knew I wanted to write romances.

For years, I’ve thought of myself as a YA romance author. Sometimes there’s magic, sometimes there isn’t, but the two truths of YA and romance were always there.

Except then last year I wrote an adult romance, and it was ready before my next YA, and I had to grapple with the very real possibility that my next book to go on sub — and possibly, hopefully, *knock-on-wood-oh-god-please* sell — would be adult

I know, I know, this shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it was for me. But you don’t understand, I have invested so much time, energy, and emotionality into making “YA romance author” my identity. It’s not just that those are the stories I write; that is the way I moved through the world. I got a freaking MFA in kidlit, for pete’s sake!

So to think that I wouldn’t even debut with a kidlit novel? That possibly I’d write adult romances and that’s how I would be introduced to the world? It freaked me out. It really, truly, threw me for quite a loop.

And then this year, I started planning what I thought was an adult paranormal romance and realized that the story I was plotting out didn’t follow the beats of a genre romance. And I had to reckon with the chance that maybe, just maybe…it wouldn’t be a romance at all.

All of these plans and visions that I had for my future career — they shifted. And like, I’m a Taurus. I like to know that the ground beneath my feet is steady. I do not appreciate big shifts!

But I’ve sat with these shifts for a few months now, and I’ve done what I do when I need to reconcile myself to something being different: I’ve visualized it.

I’ve pictured myself announcing my debut with a Publishers Marketplace screenshot, not one from the Children’s Bookshelf email. I’ve thought about how it would look if I had a launch party at a bookstore other than Books of Wonder in Manhattan. I’ve fantasized about going on podcasts that aren’t kidlit-focused.

And, slowly but surely, I have come to the conclusion that I like that picture, too.

Listen, I still don’t know how or if I’m going to debut. I could be handed a total plot twist tomorrow and wind up debuting with a YA again. My adult romance could go on sub but not sell, and I could end up sending out my YA witchy romance and having that sell6. Anything could happen. Nothing could happen.

I’m trying to be okay with that uncertainty.

From the shelf 📚

If We Were a Movie7, by Zakiya N. Jamal

God, this book was so fun! Rochelle is an incredible main character, she’s quiet and dedicated to her studies, not a big partier, maybe even a little prickly? I loved being in her head and watching her soften and fall for Amira. I loved seeing her social circle expand as she spent the summer working at The Horizon, a historically Black-owned movie theater on Long Island.

I reviewed this for Booklist and said of it:

The book isn’t out til late April 2025, so go ahead and preorder it now8! I promise you won’t regret it!

Alla prossima 👋

I’m tired. I’m depressed, anxious, and terrified, and all of it combines to just…exhaustion.

Please do something to take care of yourselves this week, my loves <3

— Karis xoxo