If you’re even remotely familiar with YA novels, you’ve probably heard of Becky Albertalli. Her debut novel Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda was made into the movie Love, Simon, and it inspired the Hulu series Love, Victor. Her newest book, Here’s To Us, co-written with Adam Silvera, is a follow-up to their book What If It’s Us.
In the new book, we’re reunited with Arthur and Ben. Ben’s back in the city for an internship, and while both young men are partnered, they keep running into each other, prompting some what-ifs and second thoughts. It’s an entertaining, fun read that will leave you feeling all the things when you’re finished.
Albertalli and I caught up over phone one night to talk about being a working writer and parent during a pandemic, and much more.
What prompted you to write this sequel?
We planned the sequel pretty early on, although we didn’t have a duology planned from the very beginning, because the first book had a different ending that wasn’t quite as open. But I do remember that we were starting to plan it out on tour for What If It’s Us, so we were already actively starting to plot the story, although it did end up changing a lot by the time we sat down to officially write it. We had to line up our publishing schedules so that there was enough time to squeeze it in, and then… Covid.
What’s it like writing with a co-author, as opposed to writing a novel by yourself? Can you describe that process?
I’ve talked to enough writing duos that I know that people do have really different processes, sometimes dramatically so, so this is just my experience. I’ve cowritten two with Adam Silvera, and with Aisha Saeed (Yes No Maybe So). Interestingly, I’d say that the processes for the first one with Adam and the one with Aisha were similar, and this one was the outlier. The system kind of fell apart.
What seemed to work really well for us, was in the beginning we’d have a very collaborative brainstorming and outlining process. We developed every aspect of the story together, the broad strokes, and many of the details. We created characters together, and pulled together a sort of outline. Not the school-like, detailed outline, but more like chapter one, this happens; chapter two, this happens, and so forth. All three collaborations have been dual point-of-view, so each of us wrote one character. We’d break apart and write our own chapters, send them to each other, and bounce back and forth a bit. But since we both had the outline, it was okay if one person got ahead and the other one caught up. It’s pure joy—I love collaborating. It’s like a little private fandom, it’s not as solitary and isolating, especially in the early stages of drafting, like with my solo books, when I kind of feel adrift in the beginning. It’s a different kind of energy with collaborations.
We usually revised together, made changes to our own sections, gave notes to each other, and so forth. But what happened with this book was different. The timing got very tricky. Adam had an earlier deadline for his book Infinity Reaper—it got delayed because of the pandemic, things were pretty close to deadlines, and so basically Adam couldn’t start writing Here’s to Us until later in the process. But because of Covid and the fact that my kids were home most of last year—my younger son was home the whole year—I went into it knowing that my work week was going to be slashed in half for over a year. My husband decreased his work hours and we traded off supervising the younger child; his school was great, but he still needed some tech support and other things. There was no space for any kind of work during those times. It meant I couldn’t wait for Adam, I had to start the second I could. Because I knew that as soon as he jumped in, he would have the ability to go all-in and get his chapters done and just bang them out, so I had to be ready. Because of the outlines, it worked, but we were writing our sections alone, and it ended up being more isolating in some ways. I knew Adam would write his part, but I couldn’t bounce things off him as I wrote. It ended up being useful for the story because the characters are so isolated from each other, but I was deep in Arthur’s head and it was like writing half a love story.
Oh wow. And yet when I read it, I would never have guessed. Do you have a writing routine? If so, what does that look like? How has the pandemic affected it?
When my kids are in face-to-face school, part of my workday is like a regular workday in which I drop off the kids and then work while they’re in school. When they come home, if I’m able to, I’ll take the rest of the day off, but right now I feel like I’m catching up from the pandemic last year. More often, my husband and I are switching off hanging out with the kids while the other person gets a little more work in for the day.
Also thank goodness for Minecraft. I feel like I should dedicate my books to Minecraft and Roblox. We muddle through, it’s definitely better now than it was when they were home during the pandemic; I finally have pockets of time to get in that headspace for productive, creative work.
During the thick of it last year, it was really chaotic. I had to take all of the childcare for a while until my husband was able to sort out his hours. We both work from home, so we each could take the kids while the other worked, and we’d just work in every spare second. We’re still catching up, but it’s not as bad now that they’re both in school again.
I feel like this has been like this extreme version of the dilemma that’s always existed for working parents since the dawn of time: you feel like you’re not doing either role really well. You’re constantly pulled in both directions, and the pandemic—that feeling—added top amplification to feeling all of this.
For sure. I saw a quote once where it said that we’re supposed to work like we don’t have children and parent as if we don’t work.
Yeah, there’s just never enough time and so you end up feeling more inadequate, or the cracks are showing and getting bigger…. but it’s gotten better—a lot better—since they’ve been back in school.
How do you think the creative community can support those who aren’t cis men, and mothers, especially?
What a great question…. One way is that the shift toward virtual events and meetings and things in publishing has been really helpful. It allows more people to access them and addresses some problems in publishing. A shift toward more virtual options has made it more doable for those who don’t live in NYC, who don’t live near NYC, who can’t afford to drop everything and travel, and things like that. I’ve appreciated the ability to participate in Zoom calls instead of having to be in NY or LA, and I keep thinking that especially when my kid was younger and I was breastfeeding, that would have been helpful.
I do think back to some of the difficult publishing mom moments, like being at a book festival and having to run back to my hotel room and pump, and then having to run to the next panel—so while it’s hard to know how to fix everything like that, it does seem like these things are always an afterthought with authors and events.
What are you struggling with, as a parent and as a writer, right now?
Definitely the number one thing of all time is time: there’s just not enough of it. It’s always something. Parenting is interfering with writing, or book stuff is interfering with family stuff—that feeling of never having enough—I haven’t done everything I needed to do, but I have to do carpool… it’s just a constant stress.
What books inspire you, and what are you reading right now?
I’m reading a YA book called Between Perfect and Real, by Ray Stoeve. I love it. It’s just a perfectly done coming of age story. It’s a bit of an awakening story, a theater kid story, a coming out story. I love the complexity of some of the relationships in it. It’s a lovely book and I’m going to be sad to finish it.
It can be hard to know where inspiration comes from. My writing inspiration comes from the Australian writer Jaclyn Moriarty, who changed the game completely for me. Her work, which I first read decades ago, just clicked for me. It showed me that good writing doesn’t have to be just one style. I really connected with it, because I never felt like I was writing at my most authentic and I was trying to write this beautiful “prose-y” prose, and she showed me that more voice-y writing was okay, and really inspired me. But I do feel like I’m constantly drawing inspiration from peers and colleagues, it feels a little like a Golden Age. Angie Thomas is just absolutely the queen of voice, walking the tightrope between hilarious and gut-wrenching; she’s amazing. I just finished Mackenzie Lee’s Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks; and getting into a character’s head like that was one of those reading experiences where it feels like someone’s in your brain, poking around. Nobleman’s Guide and Concrete Rose are recent ones that I keep coming back to.
What’s on the horizon for you?
Right now I am drafting another YA contemporary that is not going to be out until 2023, since I’ve been doing a lot and I kind of burned myself out. After putting out two books a year and just kind of going nonstop, I’m giving myself a little bit of a break. I’m enjoying the process of diving back into a story and getting to know the characters, working out the knots, and stuff. I’m at the fun part of drafting, so that’s really exciting.