Over the past six weeks, I launched my third book, went on tour, and accepted an offer of representation for my fourth book1.

Th…

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The Revenge Party is out in the world! It’s available in hardcover, e-book, and audio, so please purchase in the format that suits you!

I’m extending my pre-order freebie through t…

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I know. Me again, asking you to pre-order. I’ll keep asking every day for the next couple of weeks, so it’s probably a good idea to j…

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Our cat died this week. I’m not going to sugarcoat, I am sad. He was fourteen, so we weren’t naive to the fact that his years were numbered, but we really thought we had more time. When my oldest dau…

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At least you know that when you receive an e…

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Alright, I know, I know. I am not meant to be a regular newsletter person; I know this about myself. Honestly, I keep the “paid” option available because not everything I write is suitable for every…

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I'm currently sitting in a hotel in LA for a few days1. I had a meeting yesterday2 and dropped off my youngest with my oldest while I participate in a one-person retreat (aka a writing hole, writing cave) where I can write without distraction3. It’s working, I guess, since I’m finally publishing a Substack post after over two months.

This week, I shut down the group I founded five years ago during the pandemic: Sober Mom Squad.4 This was a very bittersweet decision that was multi-layered. I am sad about it, and it’s also an enormous weight off my shoulders. SMS wasn’t on my 5-year plan or any plan. It emerged from the pandemic: a desire to help and a need for community. It was an incredible experience, but for many reasons, it had to come to an end.

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I went to the ER on Valentine's Day a year ago. I’d been fighting a nasty case of COVID and couldn’t keep anything down, so I became severely dehydrated. I thought I’d get some fluids and be on my way. Two hours after triage, I was in the ICU with septic shock. My blood pressure was 70/45. My heart rate was nearly 200 bpm. My fever was over 103 and would not come down. I ended up having a blood transfusion.

Spoiler alert: I lived.

I know ER interactions can be rough (’s recent experience reminded me of a few terrible ones of my own), but thankfully, this time, the system worked, and it worked well.

But I have not been the same since.

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As you may have read in my book, I was chronically online while deep i…

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The horrid fires in California

Writing and rewriting and rewriting

The general hellscape of our political climate

Dissociating

Social media sucks

And then I realized, ooh! I made a list! I love lists. Easy, peasy.

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I spent New Year’s Day 20171 mostly in bed, hungover from my last series of drinks the night before. New Year’s Eve 2016 went much like any other uneventful night out with…

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As I mentioned last week, I’m querying my novel.

Woof!

Querying is the process of courting an agent, hoping they swipe right. I never used a dating app, so maybe that’s a terrible analogy. You email agents you wish to represent your book and hope they pick you. If you enjoy pitching something you’ve worked on for a year, with high odds that it will be rejected, querying may be for you!

Typically, agents receive 10-30 queries daily and only take on 1-3 new authors a year. Those are really shitty odds.

I may sound grim, but I’m less nervous about the querying process this time around since I’ve been through it once before. Also, listening to agent sessions at the Kauai Writers Conference set me at ease. I learned that the odds aren’t as terrible as they seem.

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This is a paid post in a series about my path to publishing. Go back to read part 1 if you haven’t already.

Last reminder: you have less than 24 hours to pre-order my paperback and get a year of this substack, FREE!

I know I have a broad audience of people who’ve been there and done that, as well as those who have never thought about how a book comes to be. Before I published, I loved seeing the behind-the-scenes details, so hopefully, this will help someone. Bear with me if you’re an old hat at this.

As I said last time, when I decided to leave my MLM, I knew I needed to write about it. Initially, I didn’t know if I’d write a book, but I knew I’d write something. I even toyed around writing something under a pen name, but decided against that. I’d been so LOUD about recruiting and pushing products on people against their will that I wanted to be just as loud in the other direction. But first, I wanted to talk to others who had been involved.

I began posting anonymous surveys and asking for personal interviews in my Instagram stories. Over six months or so, I talked to hundreds of people about their experiences. (If you’ve read the book, you’ll recognize those interviews as personal anecdotes from others at the beginning of each chapter.)

And I wrote—a lot. Like my recovery story, I wrote everything I remembered about my time being recruited, rising in the ranks, and eventually leaving. Once I did that, I realized I had (more than) enough for a book.

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Last week, I attended the Kauai Writers Conference, which was incredible. I’m currently trying to sell my third book, a novel, and it’s a whole new process compared to nonfiction. I had dozens of conversations with authors about our respective writing and publishing histories and backgrounds, and I thought I’d also peel back the curtain a bit for my lovely readers.

This is a paid post in a series about my path to publishing. For the full Scoop, remember that you can get a free year of The Outsider Scoop by pre-ordering my paperback (which comes out in a little over a week!), Pre-order here or anywhere, and email the receipt to me. More details are here:

When I was 5, I skipped a grade in school. I remember my Kindergarten teacher hugging me and telling me I’d be in first grade the next day, and I was like, “Ok, bye!” as if I wouldn’t see her in the hallways at the same school for the next five years. I’m sure there was a discussion about it between my parents and the administration, and my mom said she talked to me about it, but that’s all I remember. Long story short, I was one of those “gifted and talented” kids of the 80’s. It wasn’t until a decade or so later that educators and psychologists began realizing it wasn’t a good idea to place academic success over emotional maturity. By the time I was 16 and a senior in high school, it was a little too late to backtrack.

ANYWAY, I was praised for my writing skills throughout my schooling, but I didn’t pursue it as a career; there was enough writing throughout college, and I always kept personal journals. I also had a habit of writing letters to people to air my feelings and then throwing them away before sending them, and later, I would do the same with emails. Beyond that, I didn’t necessarily have an interest in being published.

Then, I got sober, and writing became therapy for me.

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My husband and I traveled to San Pedro, Belize, to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We planned it several months ago a…

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Twenty years is a long ass time, people! Both sets of our parents have been married for 50 years, which I know is rare.

Since 2004, we’ve had five children, numerous pets, moved across the country twice, resided in six houses (and two hotels), and lived 900 miles apart (Covid!) for 18 months.

Of course, people say, “Wow, congratulations! “While I understand the sentiment, I don’t know if the word ‘congratulations’ is correct. Is it? Maybe. I don’t have a suggestion for a better one but hear me out.

I’ve read many books (Liars, This American Ex-wife, as recent examples) that should be FUCK THIS MARRIAGE manifestos, and while they certainly didn’t make me leave my husband, of course, there were times I nodded my head while reading. You will never hear me say OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED at the announcement of someone’s split, because after being married, one understands WHY people get divorced!

I’ve had close friends who’ve left marriages, and Congratulations were deserved. It was the right choice for them. I also know people in hellish, horrible situations who have openly admitted they are unhappy, waiting for kids to grow so they can get divorced, or suffering through other terrible things, and congratulating them for staying married doesn’t seem right. Does an anniversary of a wedding decide that a marriage is congratulations-worthy? I get that it’s a milestone, and maybe I don’t know what I’m trying to say here.

Let me try again.

We often look back at pictures of the kids when we were little because they were so goddamn adorable, and there were so many of them, all at once, everywhere.

Recently, Kale (my husband—yes, that’s his name, believe me, the jokes never end) looked at the above photo of our five children under seven years old and said, “Wow, I can’t believe we survived that.” To which I replied, “Well, I did become a raging alcoholic!” and we laughed and laughed because that’s the kind of weirdos we are. If we couldn’t laugh at what we’ve been through, it simply couldn’t work.

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Full transparency, this is a pre-scheduled post because this week is full of many things, including out-of-town college visits and medical appointments, a colonoscopy (wheeeeee), our 20th anniversary, and a bunch of other shit that, for some reason, got crammed into the same week! So we are talking more about why my face is like this.

Make sure to go back and read Part 1!

Here are the more invasive things I’ve done for my skin!

Let me start by saying that you should do whatever you want for yourself. I know there’s a ton of pressure to stay looking young, and I could go into the whole patriarchal bullshit pressure placed on women, but I will avoid that rabbit hole. I’m a mix of pro-natural aging and a little help. If you want to throw your hands in the air and say FUCK IT and do nothing, or open your wallet and tell the plastic surgeon to go to town, YOU DO YOU!

With that, here are the rest of my more invasive go-to’s.

DEVICES

There are a plethora of at-home LED masks, radio frequency gadgets, and other facial improvement devices out there. I’ve tried some, returned some, relegated others to the back of the bathroom cabinet, and while I can’t speak for all of them, there’s one that is worth mentioning.

I impulse-bought this thing for myself last Christmas because I was heavily influenced by an Instagram ad, and then it sat in my closet for 6 months (I know, I know):

Turns out I love it! It’s the first FDA-cleared-at-home laser, which made my science geek heart skip a beat. It stimulates collagen and is totally painless. I use it on my face, neck, and chest. It takes about 10 minutes, and I use it 2-3 times weekly while I’m listening to a podcast or watching a show. It even has an app that tracks your sessions and photos, which is cool because you can see results in real-time.

Anecdotally, after a few months of use, my skin tone and texture improved (soft!), my neck seemed less saggy, and my undereye circles weren’t as dark. Here is the photo side by side from their app:

I feel like my eyelids are more lifted, too, but it could be how I posed for the photo. These aren’t scientific or professional, and the lighting is a bit different, but this, combined with the science, has impressed me enough to keep using it! Their website has tons of before-and-after photos and clinical studies if you want to check them out. Again, this is an affiliate link for 15% off (enter code EMILYP10), but it matters not to me whether you use my link or go straight to the website; I wouldn’t recommend something unless I really liked it.

Now for the in-office procedures I have done1

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Just a reminder: today is the last day to get 25% off an annual subscription!

Get 25% off forever

What? A break from scam content?1

The past few weeks, I’ve been busy with back-to-sch…

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I want to start with my friend Jennifer’s book which is out TODAY:

Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu!

I love it for so many reasons and not just becau…

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