Inaugural You’re Doing Great: Top Secret Keep Out! Edition

Secrets! Confidences! Jokes!

All right, so I said this would come out yesterday. But then some stuff happened! Stuff which you can learn about next week, should you decide to be a part of this new part of You’re Doing Great.

What is it, you ask?

I’m calling it TOP SECRET KEEP OUT edition, because it’s where I’ll post diary comics and personal writing. Including, yes, the story of why I broke into a house this morning, and why this newsletter is late.

Because this is the first installment of You’re Doing Great: TOP SECRET KEEP OUT! edition, and because I am a benevolent ruler, I am giving it out for free. After this week, the advice column part of You’re Doing Great will continue to be free, but my personal comics and musings, like the below, will be behind a li’l paywall. In olden times, if a wall stood between you and your objet de désir, you went and got your battering ram, or your trebuchet, or your army of orcs, and you smashed that wall into oblivion to get to the other side. How barbaric! In 2022, all you have to do is pay me five sleek, lightweight dollars through the miracle of the internet, and behold— here you will be, behind the wall. I hope it will be worth it, but if it isn’t, remember that you expended comparatively little effort to get here, and chill out already, will you?

What do you think of the name, TOP SECRET KEEP OUT! ? Builds intrigue, right? A little salacious? I think about such things now because I’ve been in Los Angeles for about a week (bury the lede much?) and I’ve had many conversations about marketing and/or publicity (I still do not know what the difference is, and, you’ll be shocked to hear, I simply refuse to care or learn). 

Here’s one such conversation, which took place a few days ago when I went with my friend H to the dog park.

Why, might you ask, am I in Los Angeles? Because it’s sunny here, and I finished my book, and I didn’t really need more reason than that. I love New York, and I am excited to return in a month, but New York in the winter in the middle of Omicron, for a person who lives alone and doesn’t really have a job or a project right now, looks like this:

Speaking of my beloved city: it has followed me to Los Angeles. Here’s what J, my temporary roommate, told me yesterday:

This fits neatly as further evidence supporting my impression that LA is a) not real and b) so silly. As does this:

SO! There are your secrets for this week. If this appeals, please sign up for a paid subscription! Do you know how? Because I’ll be honest with you: I think I set it up, but I don’t know what you see on your end. If you can’t find the paid subscription option, will you send up a smoke signal? Then I’ll climb through the computer’s air ducts and see if I can figure out where the problem is. There’s probably a dent in the, um, defibrillator of the motherboard, or something.

One last secret: as I mentioned to my manager-to-be (JK), I’m in one of those “what do I do now” stages. The book I just finished, Radical (out in summer 2022!), has been taking up the bulk of my creative energy for three years (more!), so it’s taking me a minute to adjust to this part, where I just sit here waiting for it to come out and wondering if anyone will buy it, and, beyond that, like it. My point is, it’s-a-good for me to have a reason to write some prose every week and take stock of what I’ve been up to. Otherwise, I’m liable to slip into a state where I convince myself so fully that reading novels is “work” that I forget how to write and draw and disappear between the sofa cushions. So thank you for reading, and for giving me an excuse to stay in solid form.

Stay out of my room, mom, 

Sofia