On Writing vs. Fun: A Guest Post by Holly Brickley
With sentences that’ll stick in your head like your favorite lyrics, Deep Cuts is a big-hearted story with an eclectic soundtrack. Spin your favorite record, pour a drink and fall into this story of love, coming-of-age, identity and belonging. Read on for an exclusive essay from Holly Brickley on writing Deep Cuts.
Hardcover
$25.00
$28.00
Deep Cuts: A Novel (B&N Exclusive Edition)
Deep Cuts: A Novel (B&N Exclusive Edition)
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$25.00
$28.00
“Tender as a ballad and pleasurable as a pop song, Deep Cuts is both a romp into the indie sleaze era of the early aughts and a timeless love story.”—Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters
“Tender as a ballad and pleasurable as a pop song, Deep Cuts is both a romp into the indie sleaze era of the early aughts and a timeless love story.”—Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters
Writing has always held a complicated position in my heart. Like a petulant sibling, its instinct is to compete—not just with the usual factors, like motherhood and work, but with almost every other piece of my identity.
A selection of things Writing hates about me:
My lifelong obsession with music. My predilection for fun, for slamming my laptop shut at the first sign that a friend somewhere wants to exchange strong opinions over weak beers. The dance parties and shows that consumed my twenties; the kid-friendly dinner parties that lit up what little free time I found in my thirties.
Writing, compared to the other things I loved, felt satisfying but lonely. I did it in small increments, as if shouldering a boulder up a hill.
Then, a confluence of events. The pandemic prompted a move to a more affordable city, which allowed me to get a less stressful job. My kids matured enough to make themselves cereal in the morning, and I matured enough to stop buying the 25 Books Everyone Should Read This Year and focus on reading what truly brought me joy. (For me, this meant literary love stories like Normal People or Writers and Lovers, music novels endorsed by Nick Hornby, and epic collaboration stories like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow).
I started writing a new novel, and this time, the boulder seemed to roll downhill. I was chasing after it, delighted; I could hardly pry myself from my laptop. For a year, I slept five or six hours a night. I wrote about my favorite things (music, love, collaboration), and set the story in my favorite cities (New York, San Francisco) during my favorite years (the aughts). I suddenly had things to say—about talent, about the particular brand of misogyny my generation grew up drinking like milk—and wow did I have fun saying them.
I wasn’t sure if anyone would like this book, but I found I didn’t care. “I think it’s really going to speak to you and maybe twenty of our friends,” I told my husband as I neared the end.
I was wrong: it spoke to an agent, and then it spoke to publishers. And when advance copies went out to booksellers and influencers, my DM’s filled up with heartfelt reactions to it. Some were moved by the love story; others sparked to the music and nostalgia. A shocking number told me they felt like I’d written it for them.
This is the best part: that my personal pursuit of fun can mean so much to people. That by finally seeing myself, fully and clearly, I can make others feel seen. Is this cheesy? Again, I find I don’t care.
Because this is what all that fun was really about: connection. And writing, for me, will never feel lonely again.