YA Romance and Disability Representation with Melissa See - You, Me, and Our Heartstrings

Marissa chats with Melissa See about her YA contemporary romance - YOU, ME, AND OUR HEARTSTRINGS - as well as how life experiences like drama and theater (and playing Dungeons and Dragons!) can benefit your writing career in unexpected ways; treating your disabled characters with the authenticity and respect they deserve, and reframing your own perspective to avoid disability sensationalism in your work; immersing yourself in music in order to describe the act of playing and listening to music in your prose; writing two dynamic voices in your duel point-of-view story by infusing each character with different aspects of your own personality or experiences; and tips from a professional digital marketer on what to do on social media to promote your author career - while recognizing that doing the best you can do is enough!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello, and welcome to the happy writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers, more books, to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thank you for joining me. I am broadcasting today from my bedroom, uh, because I walked out to my office to start this interview and whew boy, it is toasty out there. Uh, the office does not have air conditioning, but my house does. So I quickly turned around and made a B line back inside. Uh, so I'm very cozy, surrounded by pillows and blankets right now. So probably unsurprising the thing that is making me so happy right now, and I do feel a little guilty and a little spoiled saying it because I know not everybody has it, but air conditioning, uh, what a Marvel of modern science that has turned out to be. Uh, so if you are going through this heat wave, uh, in one corner of the world, that's experiencing it and you don't have air conditioning. I am so sorry. I wish I could invite everyone over to just hang out in my house all day long because it makes it much, much more tolerable. And that is definitely making me happy today. Of course, I am also so happy to be talking to today's guest. She is a disabled author of young adult contemporary romances who also works in children's publishing in New York, her debut novel you, me and our heartstrings comes out tomorrow on August 2nd, please. Welcome Melissa C. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. It is so great to have you. Thank you for joining me. You're debut novel comes out tomorrow. How are you feeling? Uh, flustered also very excited. It's kind of like, cuz I've done theater and the way that I'm able to kind of articulate it the best is that I'm behind a curtain and I'm taking my place and I'm, and I'm waiting and ready for the curtain to come up. And so it's just all of these emotions and your stomach is partially just where it's supposed to be, but also at your ankles. So it's this just really kind of oddly magical feeling. So that's basically how I can describe this. Oddly magical. I will accept that<laugh> as a good description for how it feels. Um, do you think that having a background, I also have a, a small background in theater and it was the sort of thing that I never expected to be useful, but then becoming a writer and being expected to suddenly do like events and talk in front of crowds. I was like, oh wow. I actually feel weirdly prepared for this.<laugh> do you, how much do you think it's gonna help you this week? It's helped me a lot already because that, and the fact that I've worked in radio before, and also the fact that I played Dungeons and dragons on the weekends where it's just six and a half to seven hours of improv, that is honestly such a huge help. So if any authors are listening to this, get involved in Dungeons and dragons, it helps immensely. There you go. Best tip of the episode.<laugh> on that note, I would love to ask you the question we start out with, with all of our guests. I would love to know your author origin story. How did you get here? Okay. Well, I distinctly remember I was seven years old and my sister was on a traveling softball team at the time and we would go up and down the east coast, um, in the summer. And I do not like sports. I, I, I, I, I still detest them to, to this day. And I had bags and bags of books with me. I'm talking like big black contractor bags of books with me. And I remember sitting on the bleachers one evening at sunset and I was reading a book. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I kind, I think it may have been three as a crowd if I'm not mistaken, which I reread that book multiple times. And I remember sitting on the bleachers and reading it and then I looked up and I, and I had the thought of people get paid to write books, people write books. That's what I wanna do. And so I've known since I was seven years old that I wanna a writer and it just stuck. I love that. I don't think I have had a guest yet who could trace it back to like a very, very specific moment. I assume that leading up to that, you must have been a book reader and a lover of, of just the written word up to that point. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because my mom, she, uh, would come down, uh, to the hospital every weekend, uh, to read to me, um, from my incubator because I was born three, almost four months premature. And so I had to stay in the hospital for 98 days and she would come down and she would read to me. And she said that in spite of how sick I was, um, she was reading me a picture book that it had a picture of a sailboat. And I apparently raised my head to see the picture better from the incubator. And it's, it's been that way ever since the rest is history<laugh> yeah, it was you in books. Yep. Um, alright, so then fast forward, at what point did you start writing or maybe actively start writing your first novel and kind of, how did your process into publishing go, oh, I've as far as writing, I've done that forever, but as far as writing you, me and our heart strings, if we wanna just dive right into this thing, um, I, it was October of 2019 and I was emotionally and creatively exhausted. And I was talking to my critique partner, Tia, who I love very much. And I told her, I said, I have this idea for this, why contemporary romance about two orchestra musicians and their DWI goes viral, turning it into disability, sensational. And she said, you have to write this, you have to write this, you have to write this. And so I opened a word doc and started writing it and now we're here.<laugh> feel like you've skipped over a big part of that story.<laugh> how did, could you kinda talk me through your, your, your agenting process or how did you yeah.<laugh> and boom published<laugh> yeah, it, yeah, it happens every, um, every TV show with a publishing plot line makes it seem that way. It does. It does. It just is so easy and fast<laugh> yeah, just simple, easy. It's fine. You'll get your agent at your book launch. That's how it works. Great.<laugh> um, no, no, no, no, no, no. But what happened was I heartstrings was the third book that I queried. So by that time I knew what to expect. I knew going into it that there was gonna be a rejection. I knew some of it was gonna hurt. Some of it was gonna just be like, like, okay, it's water off of ducks back. And that, because it was my third time in the query trenches, it felt like water off of ducks back pretty much immediately. And then I was in the query trenches with you being her heartstrings for 66 days. And then, um, I got a letter from my agent, Emily Forney and she wanted to talk and I, I, I, I, I started freaking out. I'm like, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. She just wants to talk, come down. She just wants to talk. It's it's fine. And then we talked and within two minutes she was offering representation and I was just like, wait, what?<laugh> so it, and, and then it went on from there. And I, I distinctly remember when she called me to say that, uh, Scholastic was taking Yu heart strings to acquisitions. I was at work on my previous job and I got a call and she was calling me and I, and I thought she usually texts before she calls. Why like, um, what's going on? And I answered the phone and she said, okay, I have only 30 seconds stock, but I just have to tell you that's Scholastic success with the booking. They're taking it to acquisitions at, at that point I started sobbing and I didn't stop sobbing for an hour and a half mm-hmm<affirmative>. And then when Scholastic offered and it, and then six months later we announced, and I was just like, okay, it's happening? It's happening? And people knew about Daisy and Noah because I'm active on Twitter for them. I have been for a very long time and everyone was just so excited and they're still so excited now. And then, but to back up when we had the cover reveal for Humana heartstrings, I I've never felt like that before, because with the cover reveal, that was just a huge moment as it is for anyone. And for me, it was even bigger because there was a visibly disabled girl on the cover on the cover of a romance novel written by me. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and it, and people were saying, she looks like me. She looks like me. She looks like me. And again, I, I, I cried for three hours.<laugh> it like, like all of the, all of the response, just the meaning behind me bringing representation that I didn't have growing up. Yeah. Was just absolutely just this massive, incredible feeling. And even now my roommate who also has CP cerebral palsy, she, she still gets excited to see Daisy's feet because her feet are the same way.<laugh> mm-hmm<affirmative> and it's, and it, and it's just, and it's, it's honestly just the sweetest thing to have her in my life, because she's been with me since before heartstrings. And she, my roommate is just this absolutely wonderful presence in my life because I was two months into writing Yu, me and her heartstrings. And she said, you're two months into writing this book. Why are you still on chapter four?<laugh> and she is just an absolutely amazing person. And to have her by my side, as I'm launching this book is just such a wonderful comfort. So Kara, you're listening to this. I love you. Aww. I think that might be the first shout out we've ever had here too. Well, thank you that very much was the, the origin story that I was looking for. So thank you for sharing it. Welcome. And with that now, would you please tell listeners a little bit more about your debut book coming out tomorrow? You, me and our heartstrings, what is it about? Sure. You, me and our heartstrings is a young book, contemporary romance about two disabled orchestra musicians. Daisy is a violin with CBR palsy and Noah is a tri prodigy with generalized anxiety disorder. And they end up getting cared up to perform a duet at their school's annual winter holiday concert. And they fall in love throughout the process of rehearsing the duet, but then their duet goes viral, turning their romance into one of disability, sensationalism, leaving Daisy and Noah to have to figure out how to change the narrative that surrounds their love story. Mm-hmm<affirmative> all right. So you touched on this a little bit already with your, uh, cover story and, and how impactful that was seeing the cover for the first time. Um, but I would really just love to talk a little bit more. So we've got Daisy, our protagonist, she has cerebral palsy. We have Noah who has an anxiety disorder, um, and throughout the book, we get to see Noah seeking treatment and kind of starting therapy. Um, and I would love to know. So in your bio specifically, you mentioned how, not only do you write books about characters with disabilities, um, but you specifically want to write their love stories. Why is that important to you? Because disabled teens deserve to see themselves in love stories, essentially, because for so long, the disability representation we got in fiction, especially if, if, if there was a romance Ben to, it was full of disability sensationalism to the point where I didn't even think to write disabled characters for a long, long time. And then when I decided to write disabled characters, experiencing love stories, and getting a love stories that they, that they deserved, it just made, it just filled my heart because I knew that in writing those stories, I was hopefully putting out the representation that I never saw growing up and having disabled teen see themselves in a Lovery, as I hope they'll see with Daisy and Noah and Yu and our heartstrings just is absolutely beautiful to me because it, heart Yu me and our heartstrings comes from such a genuine place of my love of romance and wanting to imbue that into these characters and imbue that into their love story. And to show that disabled teams are worthy of happily ever afters. Mm. That right there is a quote, disabled teams are worthy of happily ever afters. Everybody is worthy of happily ever afters. Yes, they are. Indeed. You have mentioned a couple times, uh, disability sensationalism, uh, which I don't think is a phrase that I am familiar with. And I wonder how many listeners might be familiar with this concept. Uh, could you maybe talk a little bit more about what exactly that means? Oh yeah, sure. Disability sensational is basically, it is the practice of glorifying disability, glorifying to civil bodies for enabled audience where people see a disabled person and they think they're so inspiring for just existing or they're so inspiring for quote unquote, overcoming their disability or something. And disabled people don't exist to inspire people to exist just to live. And our needs are also not special needs. They are human needs because if I need to access a door, same as you, that's an access need. That is not a special need. And disability sensationalism is rife throughout society. And in having disability sensationalism in Humana heartstrings, that was completely intentional because I wanted to, to not so much just lightly kind of push back at the narrative I wanted to just defenestrate it. Uh, and I, I hope I did that<laugh> yeah, no, I think, I mean, it definitely comes across, uh, in the plot. Um, I just, I don't know that you used those specific words. And so for readers who haven't read the book yet, but when you read the book, you can definitely pick up on, uh, that being a major theme throughout the story. Um, so then my next question is I think a lot of writers, um, and speaking for myself here as well, like there is a desire and, uh, uh, we recognition that there is a need for more, um, disability representation in ye fiction and in all fiction, really. Um, but I think for whatever reason, and I don't really know why, but I think that there is, uh, big fear from a lot of people and this uncertainty about getting something wrong. If somebody like really wants to include more representation in their stories, how would you recommend they tackle that? Or how did you tackle that in, in writing this book? Well, how I would recommend people approach it is if you're coming from a lens of having been quote unquote inspired by disabled people, rethink your positioning, because again, disabled people don't exist to inspire you. They, we, we just don't, we exist to live our lives again. And so if someone is approaching the need to want to write a disabled character and they themselves, aren't disabled, you have to talk to people, you have to talk to us, you have to explain why you're doing this. And if you tow the line between wanting to do it, just because you've been inspired by a disabled person, or you are a parent of a disabled child or something like that, you're approaching it from a completely wrong place. If you wanna approach it from a correct place, it has to be, you talk to disabled people first, and you say, this is why I wanna do this. How can I do this in as respectful and manner as possible? And you do that by seeking out sensitivity readers, and you ask questions. The main line is don't approach writing a disabled character purely because you've been inspired by a disabled person in such a way that belittles the existence of that disabled person. Mm-hmm<affirmative> no, I, I think that that is a really great advice to just kind of reframe the thinking in general. Um, and also it sounds, I'm just kind of reading between the lines here, but sounds like also avoiding, like writing a character for the purpose of inspiring people. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, believe me. If, if I see that in a book or if my friend see it in a book we know immediately. Yeah. And it's, it, it doesn't, it, it doesn't feel as if the author is doing it with the right intentions at all. Yeah. Yeah. Because in, and then in doing that, you're closing the door, you're slamming the door in the face of disabled authors who deserve seats at the table, because the only way we can improve disability representation in publishing is to have room at the table for disabled authors. Yeah. Having people write about disabled characters when they themselves are not disabled, you're not making room at the table. You're taking that room away for yourself. So we need to have room at the table for disabled authors yeah. In order to make that happen. All right. I wanna talk a little bit more, um, about Daisy, um, and Noah who are so much more than just the cerebral palsy and the anxiety. It is a part of who they are, but they are also musicians. They have these wonderful family dynamics and relationships explored throughout the book. Uh, so first of all, talk to me a little bit about, uh, writing that you chose to write the book from both perspectives from Daisy and Noah. We have a dual point of view storyline going on. Um, so why did you choose to do both as opposed to just Daisy's perspective and then how did you go about developing their characters and kind of distinguishing how different their voices would be from each other? Sure. Well, I knew pretty early on, I wanted this book to be dual POV because I wanted to tell the love story from both of their perspectives. And originally I started it in Noah's perspective. His name originally was Hudson. And I was writing a scene in the bathroom. Um, Noah was in the bathroom and he was in the middle of an anxiety attack. And I didn't realize that until I was about a page down and I stopped. I, I stopped, I took my hands away from my, from my keyboard. And I said, this kid has an anxiety disorder. And I wasn't planning on Noah having an anxiety disorder when I came up with it. And then I thought, I, I have an anxiety disorder. I also have cerebral palsy. So let me have this story feature, both of my disabilities or two of the disabilities that I have. And then as far as developing them as characters, I knew early on that Daisy was just going to be this independent person who wouldn't let ableism be in her way at all. She, she, she would just push back against it as much as she possibly could. And then there's Noah, who is so entrenched in this world of music, because he's been a cellist since he was three. And he, all he knew was music. He didn't, he, he didn't have time or space in his mind for friendship or romance or anything outside of his cello. And so I wanted to have Daisy be there to push back against ableism, but I also wanted to have Noah be there to show that you can open yourself up to people who care about you. And when you open yourself up to people who care about you, it opens the door to so many other experiences. And their voices were also pretty easy for me to fall into as well, because Daisy is from an Italian American Roman Catholic family. And I also am from an Italian American Roman Catholic family. And so I kind of imbued my culture throughout Daisy. And for Noah, I wanted him to be this pretty quiet guy who, the more you got to know him, the more you learned about why he is the way he is and what makes him the way he is and a large part of why he is so reserved is because his anxiety has his mind in a corkscrew where he has to be perfect all of the time. And he thinks that if he's not perfect, then his family will think badly of him. When in reality, that is not the case at all. His family loves him unconditionally. And it's a journey for Noah to realize that mm-hmm<affirmative> and he realizes along with Daisy, that he is worthy of love just as she is. Were they the sort of characters? Cuz it clearly just from here you talk, you've put so much of yourself into them. So many of your own experiences into them, how much did you feel? You knew these two characters right away, like page one, versus how much did they change or how much did their voices even change over the course of writing and revising the book? I knew them pretty well, very early on because character work is some of my favorite things I get to do regardless of what I'm working on. I love creating characters. I that just getting, because the first thing that I do whenever I work on something is I come up with characters plot later, plot is later, do I even know what plot is? Probably not<laugh> but um, characters, characters have to come first. If I have a character, then I get to fill them out and I get to see who they are. And Daisy and Noah, I, I, I pretty much knew exactly who they were. Noah's anxiety disorder was a huge surprise to me, but I got that surprise really early on. So it informed who he was. And they've now that, now that you asked me that question, I'm surprised that how well I knew<laugh> from a very early point, you were just there ready to have their stories told. Yeah, exactly. So you talk about doing character work and how much you love doing character work. What is your process like? Do you have like, do you make profiles? Do you free write? Like what do you do to create your characters? This is going to be a really relatively simple answer, but Daisy just kind of came to me. I even knew how she wore her hair before I wrote a word. She said, mm. And, uh, and Noah came to me as well. So they came to me completely, fully formed. And when that happened, well, the exception of nos anxiety disorder, I learned about that early. And when that happens, when, when characters come to me fully formed that I don't have to think much about them. That's when I realized, oh, wait, I've got something. Mm-hmm<affirmative> I, I like, like I, okay. I have something here. Here is what I have. And I have you two and I have to make you two fall in love with each other that I can do. Mm-hmm<affirmative> that I can do. That's the fun part. Yeah. I have to ask. So you mentioned earlier, uh, that you have played a lot of Dungeons and dragons, and now I'm curious if your love of character creation might be because you've done D and D so much. I'm actually incredibly new to D to D and D. Oh, okay. I, my first you gave me the impression that you're like an old pro. Oh, well, thank you. Um, but I'm incredibly new to D and D I'm actually in my first campaign ever. And, and my roommate is laughing at me from the other side of the door.<laugh> oh my God. You're, you're impossible, but I love you, but<laugh> well, okay. But as far as, as far as my love of character work, falling into D and D that I should have seen coming, um,<laugh> I should have seen it coming immediately because I realized that I had this idea for my current D and D character. And I immediately was like, I, I need to recruit friends to, to build the campaign with me. I have to, like, I have, I have to play as this character please. And thank you. So I recruited my friend in the span of less than a week and, and we play together and it, and we're all authors. So it's just this absolute wonderful mix of chaos and role play and absolute joy and creating Henry who my D and D character was. He, he came to me pretty much fully formed as well. I'm like, okay, you're a disabled Inkeeper cleric, um, who enjoys baking raspberry squares. And you're terrified of going on an adventure. Also your late wife commissioned a cane for you that has a sword concealed inside of it that you work too terrified to use at the moment. So that's fine. And it it's just, I was like, okay, now I, I was like, I, I have Henry, I need a campaign. And we are in a campaign right now. And it's just so much fun to have that well of creativity all the time. Yeah. Because me and my roommate, we talk about our campaign. We talk about our characters every single day, because we love it so much. So it's amazing to have that sort of creative will to draw from. Yeah. I love that. I have not played D and D since I was a teenager. And, uh, there's obviously been this influx of interest in it. Um, I, I assume partly because of stranger things. Um, and so I feel like it's just like all around me right now. And it has made me so nostalgic and miss it so much that just the last week or so I've started thinking, okay, who, who can I get together to start a D and D campaign? Cause I feel like my life is missing. This that's how it starts. Yeah. That is how it starts. I also wanna talk about the use of music in the book, um, because this is one of those things that I, I know I have done in a couple of books, not a whole lot, but every now and then you have a book in which music plays a really big part. And suddenly as the writer, you're trying to figure out how do you even describe some of these things on the page? And I was not surprised when I was, uh, looking over your bio on your website to learn that you played violin, um, as Daisy, our main character does. And so I was just really curious, like for you, when it comes to actually writing these scenes and describing music, like, is that come easy to you? Do you have any tips for how to do that? Well, it came easy to me because I was a violinist for, for, for about six years. So, okay. Well then<laugh> research before I even had to last, um, the, what happened, other, what is really interesting is that I haven't played violin for many years now, but, um, I'm still able to pick out the names of the strings by ear. So whether it's an a E D or G I'm able to fully understand what string it is, just if I just, if I'm listening to a piece. So apart from playing an instrument for years, and to the point where you still remember what, what each individual strength sounds like. One thing that I highly recommend is honestly, just listening to the sort of music that your characters are playing or performing or practicing, because if you hear it, then you're able to sort of discern what is going on and how you can then sort of transport it onto the page. And also if you don't know how an instrument is held, watching videos of how instruments are held also really helps. And just immersing yourself in the music that your characters are playing. It's good for anyone to do that if your characters are musicians, but it was even just good to get in the mindset of a particular theme in Yu Hart strings, where I knew music was playing, or if I needed to have a certain mood, which I, which I love listening to music as I write, I can't, I can't write in silence. I have to have music somewhere. Um, so honestly just immersing yourself in the music that your characters are playing is what I would recommend. All right. I wanna switch topics, uh, real fast because I saw that you also work in children's publishing currently. Uh, so what do you do for starters, cuz it didn't your bio, didn't say what you do in children's publishing. And now I'm really curious, I'm a digital marketing coordinator, uh, which means that I do a lot of digital marketing stuff and I'm on TikTok for my, um, for my publishing houses and it's, and I'm also writing, um, copy for Twitter and Instagram and things like that. Just essentially doing a lot of social media marketing. It, it it's, it it's, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. So obviously that<laugh> is a really useful skill to then translate into your writing career now. Uh, so maybe what are some of like the top things that you can suggest any author, but maybe in particular, a debut author, like what should we be doing on social media right now? What would you recommend if you can do what your energy allows? Don't think every author is on TikTok. I have to get on there too. If you can get on TikTok. That's great because virtual, because I'm not virtual, uh, a vertical, uh, short form content is really, really popular right now. Uh, if you can do that, go ahead. If you can't no worries. There's plenty of other things that you can do. I would highly recommend seeing if you can learn Canva, which is free, unless you go for Canva pro, um, which I believe is$13 a month. And let you resize just with a few clicks for things. If you need to do a Twitter post and Instagram post, just do what you're comfortable with. Don't push yourself just because people are expecting certain things in terms of promotional materials, do what you are physically capable of doing and know that that's enough. Mm-hmm<affirmative> do you, is it hard to do it as your job and then have to go home and also promote your own work? Yeah, it's not exactly easy, but I do my job because I love my job and I write books because I love writing books. So I do what I can. And at this point with my debut coming out tomorrow, as of the time that we're, that we're, that this episode will go up at this point. I'm just excited for people to read the book. And I know people are excited to read the book. So I have that in my head where yeah, you're okay. You're, you're, you're gonna be fine. And Daisy, Noah will find the audience that they need and they've already found them, which is great. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, that's good to keep in mind that it's really all about the book. Um, I know when it's getting close to launch day and the build up to the whole launch season can be so overwhelming and you feel like you have a to-do list, a mile long and like constantly questioning, am I doing enough? What more should I be doing and on and on. Um, but at some point you do just have to take a breath and feel like, okay, I've done the best that I can. And it's just gonna have to be enough. Yeah, exactly. Ju just keep that in mind. It's you're doing your best and a person's best looks different from person to person. Yeah. And that's okay. All right then, are you ready for our bonus round? Yes, I am plotter or pan 100% tea or coffee, tea cake or pie. Oh that's oh Melissa. Yeah. Oh, sorry. You went silent. And I was thinking maybe you cut out on me. Oh no, my bad. Are you just thinking about your answer? This is a really tough one cake and pie. That's honestly not fair, especially because I play a cleric who heals through food for now? Uh, that's not<laugh> oh God, that's not fair. Um, I'm gonna go with cake. Okay. Now we've gotten the important question out of the way<laugh> writing in the morning or writing at night at night violin or cello violin because I'm partial because I played it classical music or show tunes, show tunes. I am, I am a Broadway nerd show tunes. Absolutely. What is your favorite thing about being a writer? Characters? I love creating characters and I love seeing people get to meet them. What is your personal mantra? Do your best and you'll be fine. What book makes you happy? Um, and, and the French kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Oh, that's such a good one. That whole trilogy made me so happy. It's the trilogy that made me fall in love with why romance, honestly, who feel that way? What are you working on next? Awesome. So my next book, which comes out in is called love letters for joy, and it is a disabled. Why contemporary romance, retelling of Syrian de Bergerac, which follows joy, a pan mantic asexual girl at cerebral palsy, who wants to be the valedictorian of her elite, New York city preparatory school. And she realizes just being as entrenched in studying as she is that she has possibly missed out on experiencing a high school romance. So she writes to this anonymous letter writer at her academy called Caldwell Cupid, requesting love advice, except joy is unknowingly writing to and falling in love with the very last person she ever would've expected. I love it. That was so good. Thank you lastly, where can people find you? Right. So I'm on Twitter at Melissa C and see is built like the verb. And then I'm on Instagram at Melissa C books and then, oh, oh no. Melissa C writes on Instagram and then I am also on TikTok at Melissa C books. Awesome, Melissa, thank you so much for joining me today and thank you so much for having me readers. Be sure to check out you, me and our heartstrings. It comes out tomorrow. Of course, we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore. If you can, if you don't have a local indie, you can check out our affiliate store that is at bookshop.org/shop/marissa Meyer. And don't forget to check out our new red bubble store by searching on red bubble for the happy writer to see all of our super fun, happy writer merchandise. Next week, I will be chatting with Gina Chen about her debut Y fantasy violet made of thorns. If you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe and follow us on Instagram at Marissa Meyer author and happy writer podcast. Until next time stay healthy, stay cozy and whatever life throws you today. I hope that now you are feeling a little bit happier.