✨ Book BTS: My Dying, Gasping Darlings✨

Gems on the cutting room floor

I spent almost an entire year writing I’ve Got Questions (still currently on sale at Amazon and even more of a deal at Baker Book House, or if you’re an indie bookstore person, I have a little list of fine purveyors), and through that process, I wrote a lot of things that, for one reason or another, didn’t make the final cut. There are several reasons for this:

1. I am a notorious over-explainer. I simply cannot be brief. I am not a short and sweet girly, I am but a tall and spicy lady. Couldn’t be more long-winded.

2. Some of it was genuinely bad. See the now legendary chapter about the musical Oklahoma! This, much like the footage of Jonathan Bailey doing the Dancing Through Life choreo in only his Fiyero boots, will never see the light of day.

3. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings. Maybe Faulkner said it, maybe he didn’t, but sometimes you have to ruthlessly cut genuinely good material because girl, you’re trying to make a point about predestination, we cannot take this side quest to talk about how much you hate Lord of the Rings.

So for this month’s Book Behind-the-Scenes, I wanted to share with you something that actually didn’t even make it into the first draft submission, because even I knew this wasn’t the place to unpack THAT MUCH purity culture trauma. I do have some self-awareness.

Is the self-awareness with us now in the room? (This will help you visualize my age for forthcoming canon event.)

Anyway, here’s very first thing that I cut from I’ve Got Questions, void of any spiritual or thought-provoking implications. Here’s the story of how I got dumped so my high school boyfriend could enter the priesthood.