The Bloggess

(If you subscribe to my art substack, this letter is already waiting for you in your mailbox, but I’m sharing it here too in case you don’t do substack but still need to read it.)

Dear friend,

This is the last week of October and so I drew you a Halloweeny sketch but then Sunday I had this really weird thought that someone out there needed to hear something specific and so I drew it up and thought I’d share it next week but my very compulsive mind is telling me that I need to post it now. This might just be my OCD winning but I also believe in following your gut, so next week you’ll get my Halloween drawing WAY AFTER HALLOWEEN and I’m so sorry I’m like this.

But…maybe you’re the person who needs to hear this today…

it’s going to be okay. I love you. You are doing amazing. 

The world is hard at times and we’re each fighting so many battles, but you’re doing so much better than you think. You are making differences in the lives of people in ways you’ll probably never see. It’s easy to let the darkness around us overshadow the light, but your shine is integral. It may be impossible to see the glow you bring with your own eyes, but it is so gorgeously obvious to so many others.

“I can’t always keep the rain away. But I’ll always share my umbrella.”

There is always space under my umbrella for you.

I super crazy love you.

Your friend,

~ Jenny

This isn’t a real post. It’s me venting a little and also maybe letting you in on something that might cost you a lot of money if you aren’t aware of it, especially if you are an author.

Scammers have been taking advantage of authors forever. They know that your books are your babies and you desperately want to find the readers who will love them and that can make you emotionally invested in ways that make you vulnerable to people taking advantage of you. Here are a few recent and not so recent scams to be aware of, including one I got close to falling for myself:

THE PAID PODCAST SCAM: This one consists of someone wanting you to be on a well-known podcast (or facebook live, etc) where you’ll be getting $3000 just for participating. This is the first red flag. You don’t get paid for being a one-time guest on a podcast. I’ve been on tons and I’ve never been paid. The scam is that it seems very real and the assistant just wants you to get on a zoom for a “tech check” and then they need to take over your screen for something or have you download something and then they have access to your computer. Or sometimes they need to see your instagram analytics or have access to your facebook so that they can promote the podcast so you can get paid, but really they just go in and change your password and blackmail you for access, or more often use your platform to sell crap. They can also use your video image to create AI videos of you. Bleh.

THE PUBLICITY SCAM: This one looks like a lot of different things but starts with a very complimentary email and an offer to share your book with their enormous bookclub or group of readers. They reel you in and then ask if you’ll send them money for something. A typical one is “We’d love to have you come to (WHATEVER STATE THEY KNOW YOU WON’T TRAVEL TO) but if you can’t make it you can send us $300 for snacks while our giant group discusses your book.” Or maybe they’ll ask for a gift card from you so they can buy some of your books to give out for pre publicity. It’s not real.

Even more upsettingly, this scam is ramping up because scammers are using AI to write these emails and so people are getting tons of them and they’re becoming more sneaky. I literally just got one that went on and on and on about the incredible and complicated themes in my latest book. Except that the book they mentioned was written by a different Jenny entirely. And it was a picture book. About golf. An actual line from the email: “So tell me, Jenny—when you wrote this book, did you know it would feel like this? Like sunlight and nostalgia woven into one gentle lesson about grace and joy?” *sigh*

THE COMMENT SCAM: I get this a lot in my blog comments but I’m starting to see it in my social media comments. The scammer writes a program to use AI to send comments that seem very related to the subject your writing about and then adds a link to whatever they’re trying to get traffic to. They will eventually get slicker but right now they’re often obvious. Yesterday I got one on a post where I was talking about how I was worried that the nervous blinking tic I’ve developed will be too distracting for people when I go back on book tour and I got this comment: “JENNY LAWSON’S CONVULSIVE EYE TREMORS ARE HYPNOTIZING AND BAD CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THIS GAME FOR RELAXATION JENNY.” Awesome.

Slightly related, a lot of romance scammers are on facebook and will leave comments on your posts or on other comments on your posts saying how beautiful you are and asking to be friends. They aren’t real people. Block them.

THE FAKE BOOK SCAM: Some scammers will create books that look similar to yours and then put them on Amazon so that people might accidentally buy theirs. Really though, theirs is “a summary of Jenny Lawson’s book” and is about 5 pages long and completely wrong. People will also use your name to publish their book in the hopes that people will think it’s yours. Grrr.

THE PUBLISHING SCAM: There are a lot of people who look like real agents or publishers and ask the world at large to send them stuff. Is it possible that some of them are real? Totally. Is it also likely that some of them are trying to use you? Sadly, yes. An agent should not ask you for money. Same with a publisher. (Unless you’re self-publishing, in which case there are a lot of well-known and reputable places that people have depended on for years that have good feedback.) Publishers get paid when you get paid. Same thing with agents. Don’t send your manuscript to a publishing company that doesn’t have happy past customers. You have no idea what they’re going to do with it and if they suddenly publish a similar book that is just yours that has been slightly rewritten with AI you’ll have a very hard time proving it. In fact, if you’re submitting something to a publisher or agent just send them the first three chapters and a proposal letter. If they like it enough they’ll ask for the whole thing and then you have proof that they were interested in it in case they do try to steal your idea later.

THE DEAD UNCLE SCAM: This is not a book-related scam but my mom just called to say that she got a letter in the mail that a distant uncle of ours had died with no children and a $10 million dollar life insurance policy with no beneficiaries and all she had to do was retain the lawyer who was sending her the letter. Luckily, she realized this was a scam (who is paying premiums on a life-insurance policy with no benefits?) but I’m mentioning it here because a lot of us have told our grandparents to avoid phone and internet scams (DON’T CLICK ANY LINKS, MEEMAW) but written letters might seem more legit, especially when the dead uncle has a similar name to actual distant relatives and now you can send this to them to warn them.

THE FIGHTING ROBOT SCAM: This is less about getting your money and more about getting online hits. There are a TON of AI robots on social media who are created specifically to fuck with you. They are often created by political groups who want a ton of people all saying the same stupid thing so that it trends and so that people fall for it. Sometimes they even create fake profiles of people on the other side of the aisle and make them say extreme things so that everyone gets mad at them. Sometimes their bots will fight with other bots and that thing will trend and you’ll think, “Wow, I guess people really do hate (whatever they want you to hate)” when really it’s just robot fights. And then we spend time fighting with robots about things that are just a purposeful distraction. Take a deep breath. Talk to real people. Do real things. Focus on making changes that are real. Your time, energy and peace of mind are precious. Protect them.

There are also a lot of people who get paid for interactions and will purposely post inflammatory bullshit just for attention and money. And if you comment telling that person they are an idiot it tells your algorithm that this is something you’re interested it and suddenly all you get are idiots. If I follow you I will see the stuff that you’re replying to and so if I’m following a lot of people who are yelling at hateful idiots I will have a timeline full of hateful idiots, but if you comment on someone who is doing incredible work then I’ll see that and that will be promoted to the timelines of everyone. Grow what you want to see and what you want others to see.

One thing that really opened my eyes recently was my threads trending page was filled with book drama and it gave me this idea that threads is sometimes toxic for writers but then my kid showed me their threads trending page and it was completely different. The major news stories were the same of both our trending pages but they were getting none of the writing stuff I was getting and it made me realize how easily siloed we become and how easy it is to think that something is all anyone is talking about but may not actually be how the rest of the world is seeing things.

Sorry if this has typos. I’m about to go to Nowhere Bookshop with Hailey for the Haunted Adult Book Fair which starts tonight (COME!) and we have to put on our costumes.

Know of any other scams that I missed? Leave them in the comments.

Someone recently told me that the reason I have so much anxiety is because I read so many dark, horror books and I explained that studies prove that reading horror can actually be good for your resilience and empathy and give you a safe outlet to process emotions. And I added that I’ve had overactive anxiety since I was child. And then I remembered that I started reading Stephen King in Elementary School so maybe that last part isn’t as valid, but still…I love a good horror movie or book and October is a great month for it.

This month in NEW BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ I’m recommending these little jewels:

The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch : In 1950s Hong Kong, a young refugee of the Chinese Communist revolution struggling to put her past in Shanghai behind her. When she receives a shocking invitation— a competition in one of the city’s most notorious haunted houses, pitting six spirit mediums against one another in a series of six séances over six nights, until a winner emerges. I liked it so much I picked it for the Nightmares from Nowhere Book Club (which you should totally join if you are a horror freak like me.)

Happy People Don’t Live Here by Amber Sparks : In this darkly funny gothic tale, a reclusive mother and her saturnine daughter move into a haunted building brimming with eccentrics—and secrets. A cozy supernatural for those who love eerie without being terrifying. If you’re a member of the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club (join us!) you’ll be getting this book in the mail.

Replaceable You by Mary Roach : You’d think a non-fiction read about human anatomy might be dry but this is one of my favorite books of the year. If you like funny but dark and fascinating stories, this one is for you.

Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa : A day-in-the-life novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class, an intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don’t even know her true name.

The Creeping Hand Murder by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper : Seven people receive mysterious letters. Someone knows their terrible secrets. They are summoned to a posh townhouse where one is stabbed right in front of the others, but somehow no one saw a thing. Can you help Scotland Yard solve the mystery?

Intemperance by Sonora Jha : a middle-aged woman starts a firestorm when she holds a contest, based on an ancient Indian ritual, in which men must compete to win her affections in this satirical feminist folktale.

Which one calls to you most?

Hailey and their sweetheart came home with a little spooky season surprise for me.

A small metal friend at the door.

“Knock knock, motherfucker.”

She has a little solar panel on her neck, so at night her eyes glow from inside her little chickeny ghost shroud. I haven’t come up with a good name for her yet but I’m leaning toward “Myrtle Poultry-geist” and on Halloween night I may sit out on my porch with her and hand out deviled eggs. Victor was like, “You can’t give kids deviled eggs” and I was like, “Obviously I’ll offer them a sandwich bag first so they can carry it if they don’t want to eat it immediately. I’m not going to just hand wet eggs to small children. That would be crazy.” And of course, I’ll also offer candy but I wonder if I can get candy eggs and hide them in Myrtle Poultry-geists butt and then pull them out like magic. And then I can ask the kids if they know a good eggs-orcist. Omg, this Halloween is writing itself.

PS. People always ask if I still have Beyonce the Giant Metal Chicken…and yes, of course I do. You don’t just throw away family. She’s now 14 years older and I can see her from my desk as I type. Also, lots of people have reached out to ask if Seth Rogan was giving me a shout-out recently when he said “Knock knock, motherfucker!” in the The Studio, and I really doubt it but wouldn’t that be incredible?

These chickens will cut you.

Look, this is going to be rambling af so totally okay to skip this whole post because it’s me talking about something that gave me so much joy and I want to write it down for myself so I always remember it. It will not be well-written and if you are not a fan of Shelley Duvall you will be confused as shit. But in case you’re just here to check on Hailey, they are still in pain but much better and seem to be recovering well. YAY!

Still here? Okay. I’ve written before about how much I adore Shelley Duvall. I’ve seen almost everything she’s ever been in and her Faerie Tale Theatre show was one of my favorite things ever, especially because I’ve collected old children’s books (especially dark fairy tales) since I was a kid and never quit. (Click the link to watch Jeff Goldblum as a sassy wolf. Fun for all ages.)

Twelve years ago we lived in the Hill Country not far from Shelley and I never told her how much she meant to me because she was in a delicate state sometimes and I didn’t want to scare her with my adoration, but once we ran into her and she stopped Hailey (who’d dressed themselves in a fluffy hat and poofy dress and green galoshes that looked like frogs) and asked Hailey if they were a princess, because they certainly seemed to be one. And Hailey beamed and I may have cried a little afterward. It’s one of my favorite memories.

A local auction house is auctioning her things next month but this weekend they had an estate sale AT HER HOUSE and so of course I showed up at dawn and waited in the heat with so many other people who were so kind and shared their own Shelley stories. I told Victor that there were only two things I really wanted…a fairy tale book and a small flower crown that I’d seen in the preview pictures hanging with hundreds of her hats because it reminded me of one she’d worn in one of my favorite Faerie Tale Theatre episodes.

When I got inside I was overwhelmed because it’s a small house and it was PACKED (although everyone was very kind and helpful) and it was not air conditioned so I just ducked into the space just a few feet into the front door because that was as far as I could go without getting panicked…and that just so happened to be where hundreds of her fairy tale books were lined up. *magic* Victor had disappeared in the crowd so I picked up an armful of books I wanted and smiled at how many obscure books I skipped over because they were already in my weird collection. (WEIRD MINDS THINK ALIKE.) They weren’t in great shape (many had survived the California earthquake that convinced her to move back to Texas) but I don’t care about condition because I read them and don’t sell them. They were mostly $40 each and when Victor finally showed back up I handed him a big stack and he was like, “Really?” and I was like, “I know. I am showing great restraint here only because I know other people will want books too” and he was like, “No, I mean..do you really need all these books?” and I was like “Is that a trick question?” And he pointed out that I hadn’t even gotten to other rooms and I said, “Yes, but I can’t do it. This is enough. I’m happy.” And he was like, “What about the crown you wanted?” and I said, “Forget the crown. I need a xanax and a quiet corner” and then he turned to show me the flower crown in his arm that he’d picked up while I was in book heaven.

And when I got home I found a screenshot of Shelley Duvall in her crown and…

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess)

I went through the books one by one and most were inscribed with her name and the date she bought them and where she bought them (Abilene, London, NYC, Kyoto).

One that I’d never seen before was called Master Snickup’s Cloak and it was a very out-of-print dark fairy tale about syphilis, the dark ages, the plague, prostitutes and flagellation and the art was spectacular but what struck me most was this image of a giant with ship on his head in the sea, which I’d seen before in a Shelley Duvall movie ” Time Bandits”. Now, Shelley bought this book in 1979, but Time Bandits came out in 1981 so I assumed that this illustrator (Brian Froud) must’ve worked on the movie but when I looked him up it said that he hadn’t but that the director, Terry Gilliam, admitted to borrowing from “a book” by Froud. Was this the book? (Froud would later go on to work on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.)

I spent the whole night reading her books and pouring over the illustrations and trying to identify what she was doing in her life on each date. Some books were bought during her time shooting The Shining but most were bought in the 80s when she was doing Faerie Tale Theatre. I also picked up an unpublished script for Aesop’s Fables that was marked with her production company’s logo. In an interview she’d said that wanted to start shooting the fables but hadn’t gotten to it. I suppose this was one of the pieces that never got made?

It was a little heartbreaking to see pieces like that, honestly, because it feels like her personal papers and one-of-a-kind scripts and photos should be in an archive or with a biographer or documentarian rather than scattered to the wind. Perhaps they were all copied before they were sold? I don’t know. Ephemera is so fleeting.

Yesterday I wanted to go back for the last hour of the sale because I really wanted to walk through her house and thought maybe the traffic would be better. (She lived down a one-lane, mile long country road and we were trapped for an hour trying to leave because you couldn’t leave if someone else was entering.) Victor agreed to take me and we figured if the traffic was still bad we’d just park and walk the mile but it was almost empty when we got there.

The house and barns were fairly empty of things, which was fine because I just wanted to walk through and say goodbye but then someone pointed out that there were bookcases in the garage that still had children’s books no one had wanted. They were mostly from the 60s through the 90s, and there were stacks of books that I’d read over and over from the library. Steven Kellogg, Mercer Mayer, Rosemary Wells, Marc Brown, Beverly Cleary. It was like a small, dusty time-capsule of my childhood. None of them were inscribed with her name and they weren’t in great shape but I was one of the last people remaining so they gave me a very good deal and so I pulled together a stack that I’d like to one day read to my grandkids if I have them. I got a few for my sister, for my mom, for friends who couldn’t make it but who were inspired by Shelley and her work with books.

The last one I picked up was a teddy bear book written by Kathleen Hague and illustrated by Michael Hague, which had a little water damage but my mom and sister and I love Michael Hague so I couldn’t leave it behind. When I got home I cleaned each book page by page and when I opened up the Hague book I found that it was signed by Kathleen and Michael and that Michael had drawn a teddy bear inside. 0_0 This seems like a silly thing to most people but when I told my mom and sister and sister they were like, “OMG” with so many exclamation marks so just believe me that this was an absolutely giddy hyperfixaction thrill.

It struck me how many of the antique fairy tale books that I bought were written by women (although often under their initials or pseudonyms) at a time when women weren’t often recognized or remembered as anything other than mothers and wives. I also saw how often the names of the books owners inscribed in the books were usually women…each a temporary guardian of stories that others may see as frivolous, but which carried secrets, inspiration and often offer a temporary sort of freedom and escape that was not always available to women.

One of the books I bought was a 1903 copy of The Ward of King Canute, by O.A. Liljencrantz. I bought the book this weekend from Shelley’s house. Shelley bought it second-hand in April of 1982. Before that it was owned by a woman named Rita Cantine, who died in Texas in 1976. Before that it was owned by Eliza Vanderveer Prince, who was a Brooklyn native (and died there in 1932) and who probably bought it new in 1903 from the F. Loeser and Co. Brooklyn Bookstore, who stamped the inside of the book. The author (Ottili Lilincrantz) was still alive at the time it was printed, but died at age 34 in 1916. She was best known for writing the book the silent film The Viking (1928) was based on. She was inspired by her drama teacher, Anna Morgan (1851-1936) who was the first person to put on a production of Caesar and Cleopatra with an all female cast. I know this all can seem like pointless details but if you’ve ever done genealogy you know who rare it is to be able to find women listed as anything more daughters, wives and mothers. Getting even a tiny glimpse into the minds and lives and tastes of women from as far back as the 1800’s using just a single book is sort of incredible. As each one wrote their name inside the book it made a spider web into the past, a note saying “I was here. I was real.”

I wrote my name in the book today. One day I assume there will be an estate sale for me and someone will pick this same book and write their name in it, which is sort of a lovely thought. In the end we are all just stories. But what amazing stories they can be.

Ps. As a small little rabbit hole in a whole post that is rabbit holes: One of my favorite things about children’s books is how often illustrators will hide tiny jokes in their pictures. I often go through the books with a magnifying glass and that’s how I found this infinitesimal image (truly smaller than a fingernail clipping) hidden on a newspaper in Graham Oakley’s The Church Cat Abroad (1973), that I picked up from Shelley’s house :

It cracked me up and made me look up the author and that took me to this 14-year-old blog post about how he couldn’t get published anymore after the 90s ended when there was a push-back on the detailed drawings with little jokes for parents and kids. His publisher said it was it was a bad idea to tuck in jokes and satire that kids wouldn’t get and he said that these books are for grown-ups to and would spur kids on to look up what they didn’t get or search to learn more. And now, 51 years after he published The Church Cat Abroad, I’m here doing just that.

Hello and welcome to the most boring blog post title I’ve ever written. Sorry, but I thought I’d reach out and try to crowdsource (after getting permission from my kiddo, Hailey.) You may remember that they were in the hospital for quite a while this summer with meningitis. The drs never figured out what caused it but their new neurologist believes it could be caused from Sjögren’s Disease, which can sometimes cause recurrent aseptic meningitis and that seems possible because it looks like Hailey has meningitis again. *Big sigh*

Thankfully they recognized it right away and were able to start super strong pain meds and hopefully it will be a mild case that can resolve quickly at home rather than at the hospital, but I’m reaching out on the off chance that someone here has had similar recurrent bouts of meningitis and if so, is there anything you did that helped to keep them at bay or resolve them quicker? Hailey is pretty tough but their college classes are all advanced chemistry and calculus and other stem courses that don’t lend themselves to missing a lot of classes, so finding a way to stop this from happening over and over would be a lifesaver.

Related: How do I hire a witch to remove a curse? Because this year has been a lot. Although yesterday I found out I don’t have ear cancer, so maybe things are looking up?

If you have read this far I would like to thank you with this picture of Dorothy Barker, who got a haircut and is feeling very self-conscious about it.