Hello dear readers from your long-lost friend,
My last Substack dispatch was from a pizza bar in Newark Airport in January 2024. I was on the way to the World Economic Forum in Davos with (RED), an event for which I was as enthusiastic as I was unqualified (i.e highly).
The pizza was average, I recall, but I ate it as fast as Homer Simpson eats a hogie. It was two years after I’d been canned from my role as editor-in-chief of InStyle, so I was signing off to begin writing a book with my friend of almost 25 years, Kristina O’Neill, All the Cool Girls Get Fired. It was a wee little post, saying thank you, and more importantly: please for the love of God pause your subscriptions.
I’ve seen, over the last year and a half, little pips and pops from some of you newly following me, and well, thank you all so much. Especially since I’ve given you precisely nothing.
But the point of taking that time was to write “ATCG” and I’m very proud to say we’ve done it. A whole damn book—a joyful roadmap back from job loss—filled with indispensable advice, inspiring interviews and bookended by one, the wide-eyed beginning of our careers, and two, the wisdom and learnings we hold dear now. A book that Kristina and I hope brings a revolution in the workplace, and reframes women’s relationships with their careers (fine, fellas, you can read it too).
You’ll be hearing much more about All the Cool Girls Get Fired a little under two months from now, on our publication date of October 14. “Where can I pre-order?” I just projected you gasping. Well, below!
I’d been thinking of popping back on here for an update, but so much has happened, I didn’t quite know where to begin. Enter my big brained friend, Jessica Testa, a media reporter at The New York Times, who I had dinner with a couple nights ago. She wisely noted how angsty and solitary writing can be, and suggested I share some things that worked for me. (I’ll make Kristina start a Substack for hers, ha).
So, I’m sharing these tips here, in case you find them useful. (Please note that as a first-time co-author of a book that’s not even out yet, I have no real credibility. But I have opinions!).
Fear Not the Blinking Cursor
You are under no obligation to immediately pump out, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” or “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” You do not have to begin at the beginning. Because beginnings are hard! My cursor is blinking at me as I write this, and I’m ignoring it. I’m just letting the thoughts out. If they suck, I can fix them later. There is no score or prize for writing a perfect book from beginning to end. It does not exist, and none of us—including Dickens and Tolkein, who I’d wager scrunched up some paper and cursed more than once—will ever achieve it.
Use Your Notes App
No, Notes is not just for a celebrity’s “lapse in judgment,” it’s for…notes. And when tapped out in random, unexpected places, weirdly often the better they are. I remember that I banged out what became the first paragraph of our book on a Delta flight at Gate 37, JFK. I have the note on my phone to prove it.
What you dump out could be a springboard to greatness; or you might read it back and wonder if you were drunk. But it’s there, and it might just spark something much bigger. That basic little app is an important resource. Use it.
Don’t Invite Too Much Feedback
This is not implying that you’re beyond criticism, it’s simply to save your brain. And there is some ego in it. You’re writing something that’s important to you, so you have to—right from the outset—remember to trust yourself.
And trust me, the feedback will come in thick and fast later—from your partner, your friends, random colleagues, or your publisher (if you’re lucky enough to have one). Your brain will boil down to overstimulated slop soon enough. So, for now, stick to your guns, give yourself time, and tell your story. (Not the idea from your friend Greg who thought a fight scene might help).
Sit the Hell Down
When writing specific chapters of the book, or editing down our interviews, I would take to the couch and would just stay there, sometimes four to six hours, without moving. It was starting to “give bedsores,” but you know what, it worked. When you are on that blissfully rare roll, stay there. There’s a rhythm to writing, and when you feel yourself hitting the beat, keep tapping your foot.
Don’t Be Formal
I remember(ish) an editor’s letter Graydon Carter wrote for Vanity Fair many moons ago. He was writing about how one of his children’s school papers was critiqued for being “too conversational.” His argument was that, in fact the best writing is conversational, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. Who needs to wade through a Thesaurus to immerse yourself in a story, when the story can simply say hello? Great writing isn’t intimidating, it’s inviting. Write how you speak. This is your voice, not your college professor’s. And certainly not ChatGPT’s.
Finally, I’ll share what I’ve described to people as my “horny word of the year.” As they indulge me and ask, “OK…what is it?” I grandly reply, “Diligence.”
I know, I know, you’re fanning yourself. 2025 has been my year of diligence, of sitting down, focusing, giving myself time and getting it done. And when you believe in something as passionately as Kristina and I do with All the Cool Girls Get Fired, you’ll do that too.
And however long it takes you to get there, you’ll be proud of yourself. I promise.
Make a note of it.
This is so great and so you. Cannot wait to read it!! You didn't mention your boffice!
I feel targeted