Working on a book is often a solitary experience. It takes a tremendous amount of commitment and self-belief to keep showing up—day after day, or simply on the days you can—without any promise of recognition. You have to begin with the quiet acceptance that the thing you're devoting so much time to might never be seen, let alone read.

So how does someone with so little self-esteem naturally commit to such a daunting task?

When I started writing this book back in 2010, it wasn’t meant to become anything. It was a cathartic, depression-fueled project, encouraged only by my father, who hoped it might offer me some relief from the dark place I was trapped in. I sent him email after email, filled with words that didn’t make much sense, weren’t spelled right, and ignored all structure. The original drafts were more like an avant-garde portrait of a feeling than anything anyone would call literary. But still, I persisted—two years of projectile vomiting my thoughts into emails, only to be read by my dad. No name. No arc. No sense of where it began or where it was going. Just someone trying to write her way out of pain… never imagining it would one day form a book.

Fifteen years have passed. Fifteen years, across multiple versions: one with recipes, one focused solely on my eating disorder, one set in Paris. I’ve queried over a hundred agents—some rejected it outright, some never responded, and some asked for more, only to eventually pass. Not because the writing wasn’t strong, but because the story didn’t quite fit. Or the market didn’t know what to do with it. I’ve been told the story wasn’t finished. That they didn’t agree with my character’s (or my own) choices. That maybe they were wrong, and the book might one day prove them wrong—but it was still a no.

It’s been hard. Hard to write, and even harder to keep writing. My father used to say, “If you’d known how long it would take, you wouldn’t have done it.” He was probably right. And it’s hard to keep facing rejection—again and again—and still hold onto the belief that one day, someone might read it as a real book.

But there it is—my one unshakable trait: stubbornness. The one thing in my DNA that’s stronger than my low self-worth. I can’t say I speak kindly to myself. If you’ve read my Substack, or spoken to me about my relationship with my body, or about the earlier chapters of this book, or sometimes on how I view my recovery, you’ll know that I can be brutal. Sometimes just mean. But there’s one part of me I’ve rarely attacked: my drive.

When I want something—when I’m fixated—I don’t let go. I dig in. It’s how I got through rehab, found myself in Paris, and somehow manifested an acceptance to a top university in London. It’s how I wrote this book.

And over the years, quietly, I began to see the ripple effects of my little project. From the woman who helped me write it, to the friends I dared to share it with. To my mother, who only read it after it was finished. And, of course, to my father, who was there from day one. Their reactions—moved, impressed, sometimes changed—made it feel like I had created something that mattered. It felt like a gift.

And personally, I noticed the book became an extension of myself. It had a name. It was a kind of companion—something I could point to when everything else felt murky. A form of proof. That I had made something out of nothing.

And then last week, I discovered that a new book was being published. A debut, a speculative fiction…that had been given the same title I’ve been self-marketing for nearly ten of those fifteen years.

It sunk me.

I was sitting at my computer with a newsletter open—Six Highly Anticipated Books of the Summer—when I saw it. Second row, last book named on the list: Aftertaste.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” That was the first thing I said out loud.

I took a screenshot and sent it to a handful of people who’ve been close to this project for years. Responses came in fast: What the fuck, Omg, No way, !!! A quick flurry of validation. A few people tried to be rational: Titles overlap. Don’t let this get to you. Which is fair. They do. But this wasn’t just any book. This was a book also about food and love. A book with the full weight of a Big Five publisher behind it. A book that already had marketing muscle, film interest, and—because the universe has a sense of humor—an audiobook narrated by an actress named Tessa.

You really can’t make that up.

And there I was, recently committed to self-publishing. No marketing team. No budget, beyond what I can cobble together. Just me, trying to breathe life into something I’ve quietly nurtured for fifteen years. Watching the name I’d used—marketed, shaped, clung to—get swallowed whole by something louder, shinier, more viable.

It made me sit back and wonder, again if I’ve been deluding myself. If all the years of work, the rewrites, the rejections, the persistence—if it’s all just been a way to avoid accepting that this thing was never meant to go anywhere. Maybe the agents were right. Maybe this was always just a project to get me through something. Maybe it should’ve stayed that way.

You might think, It’s just a name. Let it go. Choose something else. And sure, that’s not wrong. Rationally, that’s correct.

But when I finally turned this into a book—when I gave it a title—it became more than a label. It became a form of identity. It was the moment, I recognized myself as an author. No longer was I talking about writing—I’d written something. It had a name. And for years, that name was my answer.

When people asked what I did and I said writer, the next question was always, What have you written?

A memoir.

That would usually be followed by some kind of surprise: But you’re too young to have written a memoir.I’d offer something half-cheeky, half-defensive, like: Well, I had a story to tell. And it’s done.”

It’s done?

Yes.

Does it have a name?

And I’d say the name—without hesitation, without apology—even with no agent, no publisher, no set date… it gave me something. It made it real. No matter what anyone said, it existed.

So to see that name—my name—on someone else’s book, to know it was no longer mine to claim, felt like grief. Like mourning. I was ready to dig a grave in my backyard and give it a proper funeral. Flowers. Eulogy. Quiet sobbing. Something ceremonial to mark the loss of what had carried me through a very long process.

And this should not be taken as a slight to the author who has achieved not only the difficult feat of getting a book published, but also, of finding herself in the rare position of big marketing budgets. She could never have known about me and my book… so, I do wish her the best success. 

Now, back to me on my bed.   

First thing I thought—then kept thinking for the next two hours— is this it? Is it all over? Was this the sign?  I sat there, stiff, stuck in place, trying not to fall into another thick wave of depression. I’d only just gotten out of the last one the week before.

It’s the title, not the story, I told myself. I’ve felt this way before—about books, films with obvious similarities—and gotten past those. This is a completely different genre. Fiction. Speculative fiction. There’s no real comparison beyond the name. It’s proof that it was a great name after all. 

I kept trying to tell myself anything that might land. But it still hurt. It still felt like a death. 

Next, I started thinking about the project. The platform with the same name—the one that picks up where the story ends. That gave me a little relief. “I’ve got it,” I texted my mentor. “I’ll name the book Taste and keep the platform Aftertaste. The book might not stand a chance under that title anymore, but the platform’s different. It’s not in direct competition. It could still work. 

With this new idea, I wanted to pat myself on the back. Look at you—staying positive, solving problems before they turn into setbacks. I thought, again, you’re clever.

Then I called Dad—he was in the middle of a stage race in Norway—and he said, “I think you can come up with a better name. In fact, I know you will.”

I flatlined. I tried to push it aside. Let myself feel the small heartbreak. Told myself I’d come back to it tomorrow.

But my brain wouldn’t stop. It went rifling through the last 15 years. Santa Cruz. New York. Sitting at my mentor’s table with printed pages scattered around us, red pen everywhere. The time I slammed my laptop shut and ran out of her house crying because she couldn’t understand what I was trying to say.

Then—this memory: I don’t remember what we were talking about, but she paused and told me that our work together had deepened her understanding of eating disorders, of body image—and even more importantly, of me.

I thought about Dad  again, and all the real conversations we’d had—not just father and daughter, but two people. I thought about Mom reading it. Friends reading it. The surprise in their faces: that this thing I’d been hinting at for so long was actually good.

Then I thought about myself. The girl who started this project before she even knew how to write. The one who didn’t hide her feelings, but feared their power. I thought about how much I’m risking—writing this, exposing myself—and now, by choosing to self-publish, risking even more. Saying I don’t care that agents have rejected this manuscript because they don’t see it selling. So what if it’s imperfect? Here  I am celebrating that imperfection as the reason why it should be read. That’s terrifying.

I thought about everything that’s happened while writing this book—Paris, London, working at Wally’s, Covid. The rejection emails I’ve saved, waiting for the day I can finally say: see, you were wrong.

And I thought about the choice I made—to build something out of the illness. To make a career out of the hardest thing about myself and nurturing it into something beautiful.

Which led me to my photos…and images I was creating to stand as my platform. 

The first piece I wrote for my blog—my website, my newsletter, whatever one wants to call it—was about my relationship to my looks. Specifically, the discomfort I felt seeing myself in a photo. I couldn’t bear my own captured image. It felt so wrong I ended up in a plastic surgeon’s office asking him to break my nose. “Slightly,” I emphasized. But still—break it. Change it. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life hating how I looked.

But that didn’t work out, and I had to come up with another plan. I’d stage photo shoots. I’d ask people I trusted—friends, photographers, anyone with a good eye—to help me see myself as they saw me. I was particular about who I asked. I wanted people with similar taste, people who knew light and angle, who might understand how to work with the features I found so difficult.

And because I had a network of talented, generous people, I was able to do it, and I handed the control over to them. 

The irony was this: I never felt worse than on those days. My stomach in knots, my hair always a little off—too greasy, too flat. My skin would be breaking out. I’d just gotten back from a trip where I’d eaten and drank without restriction. Every time, I wanted to cancel. I was convinced I’d waste everyone’s time.

But I went anyway. I feared being seen as flaky more than I feared being seen in my body.

So I’d show up, pretending I wasn’t seconds from tears over how bloated I felt, how round my face seemed. I’d keep my shirt on. I’d hide the impulse to pinch my skin, to suck in my cheeks. Then we’d shoot.

I rarely smiled. I stayed quiet, withdrawn—half-naked sometimes—wondering what the other person thought. Could they see the illness in me the way I could? Sometimes we leaned into that, made it part of the aesthetic—art under the guise of our shared direction. Looking at these images, some of which are absolutely beautiful, I also saw how they got tangled in a lost title. They were darker, more sad or stoic. Not an inauthentic representation of me, but one side—the side I’ve always felt most connected to. And that side fit the title. That’s when I thought: maybe the loss is a good thing. Maybe it’s a step toward forming a different perspective.

This all started—the book, the photo shoots, the platform—because I wanted to like myself. That was always at the core. It wasn’t until much later that it became something else—a projection of the larger work I was doing. I think I’ll always feel like a disease, whether I’m highlighting it or not. And that’s okay. But maybe with a new title, there’s a chance to take a step away from always feeling like a victim of my past.

From writing my book and my shoots, I found I did like a softer girl. I can see it now—when I feel comfortable, when the light works, when the connection with the photographer clicks. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder—but it’s not exclusive. It can be shared, communicated, shaped.

It’s not just the hard moments we feel. It’s the softer ones that are truly felt.

Under Aftertaste, I wrote a book, found an unusual but purposeful path, and fed my conviction to succeed. It brought me back in front of the camera after years of fear. It got me to date again, to be pulled toward someone by that naive, stubborn sense of attraction. It brought me to a place of real personal accomplishment. But it hasn’t taken me to all the places I still want to go.

Aftertaste is no longer the name of my book. I can’t say what it will be. I can’t even confirm if it will continue to carry the weight of the platform. Aftertaste was the journey here. Personal, but nonetheless important.

I don’t think I want to keep making everything dark or distorted. There’s beauty in it, yes—and I’ve made some very beautiful work from it—but I gave it too much credit for who I am and how I live. And maybe that’s the point.

What’s in a name?

For my book, Aftertaste, it turns out… isn’t it.

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