sticker anxiety
A few days ago, my husband came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth and told me he’d seen an Instagram reel about a girl who said she had so much anxiety surrounding stickers and putting them in the wrong place that she never used any of them at all, opting to keep a stack of them in her drawer instead. “And I thought,” he said, “that sounds just like you.”
It’s true. I’ve always been afraid of placing stickers, or putting them on the wrong thing, or losing them forever to an item that would soon be exchanged. I’ve never decorated my laptop, or water bottle, or anything despite a stack of stickers that do, in fact, live in my desk drawer. One even dates back to when I still lived in Baltimore, so surely that’s… 18(?!) years old?1
So when one of my closest friends (hi Haley, love you!) sent me a bunch of stickers unrelated to this conversation, ones that made me feel really seen, I figured it was time to conquer the sticker anxiety and do something with them.
I’ve always had a writing notebook on my desk, though now, it lives on my bookshelf because suddenly, my toddler can reach everything. But in any case, my last writing notebook has been with me since 2020. The first pages contain a breakdown of story elements, character motivations, and friendship archetypes I was hoping to keep alive in a feature screenplay I was writing back then.
I don’t usually write prose by hand, but I always handwrite notes and to-dos. It helps me process notes I receive to write them out. After the notes on that feature, there are notes from the (last?) pilot I wrote. And then, research for the project that eventually became my debut novel, NOW THAT WE DON’T TALK. There are notes I received on that book, and notes on the manuscript that would become my second book with Berkley, which I was preparing to query (and later put on sub since I didn’t think NTWDT was going anywhere, lol joke’s on me!). My prep questions when I got my first agent offer, and everything I scribbled down furiously during that call. Pages and pages of potential new backstories for Norah and Henry as we prepared to take the book out on sub.2 More notes on book 2.
And then things shift.
The questions I prepared for my editor meeting, the (barely legible) notes I took out of frame during that call, and the breakdown I wrote for myself after it ended, while everything was still fresh. Jotted down deal terms. Pages of ideas for the changes I wanted to pitch based on my editors’ notes before our developmental edits call. Flags for all their in-line notes. A running list that helped me the decision to leave my first agent. Notes from my CPs on my next query package. Thoughts on calls with the offering agents and their client references that followed. Comments from copy edits and my chapter tracker. And then some notes on something new I’m working on that I can’t talk about yet (apologies). I used up the final pages of my notebook for that last week. So it was time for a new one.
And what better way to get over that sticker anxiety than by setting up this new notebook?
A moment for the stickers!!! They are all so good and so me, but your anxiety is a lying hoe is truly the perfect decoration for a notebook that will hold a bunch of critiques of my work. I’ll be getting notes back on book 2 soon, which I assume is what will kick off these blank pages. And while I love Norah and Henry forever, book 2 is the book of my heart, so my anxiety is already in full force. But I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my shit, so that’s what we’re going to do! And on the topic of hot girls read books…
What I’m reading
I’ve recently read the wonderful sophomore books of two of my favorite debuts last year! These are two authors I cannot recommend enough!
Look, we know I love a story filled with decades of yearning, and Katie Naymon is the Mayor of Yearntown for a reason. IN EVERY FUTURE, IT’S US (out 12/1) has so much delicious tension and angst and emotional warfare (extremely affectionate), and there was a moment I shrieked (internally, my toddler was asleep) and RAN into Katie’s DMs. I read Katie’s debut, YOU BETWEEN THE LINES, right after I got my book deal, when my imposter syndrome was in full force, and I related to Leigh so deeply.
I also just finished Victoria Lavine’s NOT THAT KIND OF PROPOSAL (out 7/21), which featured Victoria’s signature perfect blend of laugh-out-loud funny banter and balanced care with heavier topics. NTKOF features a truly iconic meet cute, and the way intimacy was explored between these two characters was so hot and thoughtful. Victoria’s debut, ANY TROPE BUT YOU, was the first book I read of 2025, when we were relocated with our four month old during the Los Angeles fires, and it really kept my spirits up.
More soon!
xo R
And the restaurant closed and was possibly embroiled with some sort of drama at this point? I waited far too long to use this sticker!!
It took a lot of tries to find the right one but I’m so happy with where their backstory ended up.
Sticker anxiety is so real! Now every time I impulse buy a new vinyl sticker, I turn them into magnets using magnet sheets from my local art supply store. So now my sticker magnets adorn my rolling metal TBR book cart.
Once again we are the same person because I too have sticker anxiety. Love your notebook though, it's inspiring me!