Two Not Touch
Or why I can't do two things well at the same time
Welcome to all my new subscribers, many of whom (I think) came by way of Holly Burns and her Substack At Capacity. Holly very kindly recommended My Last Innocent Year along with honestly a fantastic list of things, including this mop, which I am *this close* to buying. Thank you, Holly, and welcome new subscribers!
Over the holidays, I got hooked on Two Not Touch, a new-to-me puzzle that appears daily in the New York Times.
The rules are: you must place two stars in each row, column and region of the grid and no two stars can touch, not even diagonally. It’s tricky, and I’m new enough that finishing both puzzles can take me all day. I love it.
We also got a new puppy the week before Christmas, a golden retriever we named Sunny. She is extremely very cute.
Everyone was mostly home from school and work so for two weeks Sunny was constantly being held by someone or watched by someone or taken out by someone or was asleep in someone’s arms. All along, I was vaguely aware that at some point everyone would leave, to go back to work or school, and I would be left as Sunny’s sole caretaker. I wondered, again vaguely, how I might be able to work, or even just sit at my desk, which is located across the house from the kitchen where Sunny spends her days.
Well, on Tuesday I found out: NOT WELL. With my husband and two younger kids back at school and the office, I was left alone with Sunny—and Sam, my oldest who is still home from college. It was complete mayhem. Sunny gnawed at the door frame while I led my weekly writing salon. She tore a wee-wee pad to bits and knocked over a large plant. She peed on the rug many, many times, tormented the cat and our other dog and basically chewed everything she could get her small, razor sharp teeth on.
This is the text Sam sent me on Tuesday while I was out at a previously-scheduled lunch:
When I got back from lunch, I realized I couldn’t really expect myself to work in any serious way until I got Sunny into some sort of shape, so I decided to bag work for a few more days and focus my attention on her. And guess what? On Wednesday, she had a (nearly) perfect day. Why? Because I didn’t try to do two things at once—writing a novel and housebreaking a puppy. If I had, I would have done both very badly and felt terrible about them both.
Two Not Touch.
On Wednesday, while I was out in the yard with Sunny, I had a call with a friend who is querying a book of essays. She has a query letter and a proposal she is sending to agents, a couple of whom have already gotten back to her with positive feedback. Now my friend was worried about actually writing the book (the proposal includes only a couple of sample essays). Stop, I told her. Focus on one thing at a time. Right now, you’re looking for an agent. After that, you can worry about finding an editor with the right vision who will help you finish the book. Find the agent first. Worry about writing the book later.
Two Not Touch.
I’m all about Two Not Touch. When I was writing my book, which took me five years, I had people kindly offer to introduce me to people they knew who were agents or editors. I always declined because I wasn’t ready—the book wasn’t ready. I knew I couldn’t worry about selling the book while I was writing it, and I also felt sure that when the time came to do that, I would.
I’ve been a proponent of Two Not Touch since at least 1993. Check out the answer I gave to my college newspaper when asked what advice I would give to incoming freshmen:
So shout out to all you multitaskers out there, but next time you find yourself burnt out or unable to make headway in something you’d like to accomplish, ask yourself (maybe) if you’re doing too many things at once. Is it possible for you to try a Two Not Touch approach?1
Right now, your inbox and feed are very likely filled with recommendations for great books, movies and television shows. But allow me to humbly recommend the WORST show on T.V. right now: My Life With the Walter Boys, a Netflix series that is based on a book that apparently began its life as a Wattpad story. And oh my god is it bad. The premise is that Jackie, an uptight New York City girl is suddenly orphaned (her parents and sister are killed in an accident) and instead of remaining in New York and living with her bachelor uncle Richard, she is sent to Colorado to live with her mother’s college friend who Jackie has never met and who lives on a ranch with her husband and TEN sons! I mean, come on. There are teenage dramas and of course an improbable love triangle involving two of the sons, who are brothers! and Jackie sort of their sister I guess? And through it all the trauma of this girl having lost her entire family in an accident takes second place to which one of the boys will she choose? One of them is Cole, a smolder-y bad boy whose tragic backstory is that he busted his knee and can’t play football anymore and somehow this is a trauma on par with Jackie having lost her entire family in an accident. Cole drinks and treats girls badly and yet the whole town is in love with him and all his brothers are jealous of him and what is known around town as the “Cole effect.” He fixes cars and wears white tank tops and there are several scenes that take place in the pouring rain.
It’s honestly terrible and we watched all ten episodes.
I was thrilled to be on Elin Hildebrand’s list of the Top 9 books she read this year, along with so many hits. Elin is a phenomenally generous literary citizen, and I am very pleased to be in her orbit. There’s so much talk in publishing about what sells books and what doesn’t—or, in publishing lingo, what “moves the needle.” Well, you know what moves the needle? Elin Hildebrand moves the needle.
Upcoming events:
I will be appearing with Alex Troy at the YWCA in Greenwich, CT on January 18 at 10AM. UJA-JCC Greenwich, registration and more info here.
First Loves and Debut Novels: I will be appearing with my love Avery Carpenter Forrey at Perrot Library in Old Greenwich, CT on Feb. 5 at 7PM. More info here!
March 7 at 7PM in NYC, I will be appearing at a Book The Writer pop-up book salon. In-person tickets are currently sold out but sign up here to get on the waiting list or to get a Zoom link.
YOU GUYS. I am currently at 987 reviews on Amazon, which is very very close to 1,000! So many of you have helped me get there so once again I am offering to send a personalized note and signed book plate to anyone who leaves me a 5-star review there (and lets me know about it)!
Just send me a message with your snail mail address and I will get that out to you tout de suite!
My paperback comes out Feb. 13! Same great book, nifty new package. If you’d like to preorder, be my absolute guest! Preorder HERE!
To be sure, I am most definitely not a therapist or life coach and there is absolutely no reason for you to come to me for advice.
I love this Daisy, and you can be my life coach any day ❤️