I got my developmental edits back for my first book.

It’s currently called Things That Are Under, and it’s a supernatural murder mystery.

It’s about a young and grumpy NYPD homicide detective who, after realizing that her murder victim is a vampire, teams up with the vampire + werewolf private detective duo that saved her life a few years back.

Now…if I told you that a big part of the story was inspired by my life…you probably wouldn’t believe me. Right?

Well, too bad. It is.

Just dying to know how the heck that’s possible?

Buckle up!

Keep the change.

It was hard moving across the country. I knew it would be, and yet I had no idea.

During the long drive from Southern California to Appalachian Ohio, I didn’t really think about it. That as a blessing in disguise, really. If I had thought about it, I probably wouldn’t have gone. I wouldn’t have quit my job, I wouldn’t have enrolled in school, and I wouldn’t have moved 2,300 miles away from my family and friends.

I’ve never really loved change.

It’s the reason why I start reading books and never finish them. Why I watch 3 out of 5 seasons of a show, then call it quits. Why I have a box in my closet back home filled with everything that mattered to me as a kid.

I’ve convinced myself that I like what I know, and won’t like what I don’t know even if I eventually get to know it.

I vaguely remember the first time I realized that my life was changing, and that there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I wasn’t double-digits yet. We lived at our old house, the one with the popcorn ceilings, the single bathroom, and the plum tree out in the side yard. We had just gotten home from some kind of vacation–to Maine, I think. We got home late in the day. It was dark out. We dragged all the luggage inside. The house was quiet. I distinctly remember that as I walked from the kitchen, through the dining room, into the living room, I had this sense of This isn’t my house. Now, obviously it was. But it was like I didn’t recognize it. It’s not like anything had changed, everything was the way we’d left it. And it wasn’t as if we’d been gone that long–a few weeks, maybe.

And yet I felt this heavy sense of Life isn’t the same anymore.

I didn’t feel like me. The house didn’t feel like my house. And I didn’t know why–I still don’t, really.

And eventually, as time went on, that feeling faded. Things went on as they always did. But every time a big change comes along in my life, I think of that night.

And then a question comes: What if the feeling doesn’t go away this time? What if things are never the same?

Just close the blinds.

Like I said, I didn’t think about any of that when I moved to Ohio. Thank God.

But after a few weeks of settling in, it all started to hit me.

I was tired. I was surrounded by new things. I didn’t know what to do.

So what did I end up doing?

I tried to close myself off. I didn’t want to deal with people. I just wanted it to deal with me–and myself and I, if they showed up to the party.

I think it was easier to distance myself from the whole situation than to accept the change.

“It’s just two years,” I’d say. “You don’t need to put roots here. You don’t need to form friendships. You don’t need to invest. It’s just two years.”

And you know what?

TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE IDEA. I beg of you, please do not ever think that is a good idea to try. It’s awful and exhausting and oh so very pointless!

Past Lucy gets a big thumbs down from future Lucy.

Cripes. I gotta look back and laugh, y’know? Because when you spell it out, it really sounds ridiculous. “Who needs friends?” EVERYBODY, LUCY. LITERALLY EVERYBODY. Without community, man falls apart!

And friends aren’t just the people you knew back when things were good and normal and operating the way you were used to. Friends aren’t just the people you love from 2,3000 miles away.

You need friends around you, too. It’s important to have people to keep you in reality.

In horror movies, what’s the #1 reason people die? They SPLIT UP. And I point and laugh and call them silly, but then do the exact same thing.

So I wrote a book about it.

It has scruffy but attractive vampires, and weird werewolves you can’t help but secretly like.

But beneath the mystery–beneath the murder, mayhem, and monstrous creatures–it’s about how change happens whether you like it or not, and at the end of the day you need to let people help you with that.

In order to live, you can’t close yourself off. The past is so often lovely, but it does not have a sustainable atmosphere–you can learn from it, but you can’t live in it.

Not all change is bad, obviously. But regardless of whether it’s a good change or bad change, time flows on.

And when things change, you don’t need to go at it alone.

How does that one Queen song go?

“It’s so easy now
Cause you got friends you can trust”

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