There’s a moment, in the latest (and final) season of Hacks that has been living rent free in my mind since it aired last April. If you give me the space of three paragraphs to set the scene, I promise I have a point and it’s a good one. (Would I lie to you? No. Lying gives me hella anxiety.)
In the episode that replays at least once a day in the movie theater of my mind, Deborah, a successful, world-renown comedian, with a list of accolades and a resume longer than an entire 12-pack of Charmin toilet paper rolled out end-to-end, is at a celebration for the show Who’s Making Dinner?—one she starred in, wrote for, and helped create when she was barely twenty years old.
At this fiftieth anniversary celebration, Deborah moves about the event oscillating between falsely blasé and outright grumpy. Every corner she turns at this exhibit is bursting with adulation for Frank, her ex-husband, co-creator, and co-writer of Who’s Making Dinner? who is also the man who cheated on her with her sister, claimed credit for the show, and has stolen her spotlight for the last fifty years—yes, even after his passing.
But at this event, there’s a moment where an old unaired interview of Frank plays for the audience, and in it, Frank admits the show’s success was all due to Deborah. “She was always the funniest person in every room,” he says. And Deborah falls into silent shock, later delivering the most poignant line of that whole episode: “It’s been fifty fucking years. Why do I still need to hear that?”
The thing I love most about this show—aside from the sharp and refreshing humor, and the cast of excellent actors—is the way it just gets it. It gets what it means to be a creative, axe-picking your way into a prejudiced industry that invalidates your worth as an artist all while turning the hamster wheel under your feet.
That moment was so real, I haven’t known peace since I watched it. And the question that keeps tumbling over and over in the restless dryer of my brain is:
Whose validation are we subconsciously waiting for?
Validation has a bad rap. Unless it involves getting money back for parking, admitting you wanted someone’s validation would generally incite scorn or worse—pity. Especially in this world where hyper-independence is celebrated, craving validation from any one person would be seen as weak and needy.
But is it something to feel ashamed of?
In Hacks, Deborah has a moment (played beautifully by Jean Smart) when we see the confusion, shame, and self-disgust cross her features at the realization that, after all that time, she was still waiting to be given credit by the one person who'd taken so much of it from her, someone of whom she doesn’t even have a high opinion.
Do we judge her? I know I don’t. A huge chunk of the five years I’ve spent in therapy have mostly been focused on how to dismantle my need for outside validation. I’ve sought it from every corner possible. Like a light pre-programmed to turn on at a certain hour, my need for validation has always been ready to spring up. To show my best smile, my softest voice, to wear myself thin in my work so that whoever it was that I was dealing with at the moment would have the best impression of me.
And it’s exhausting.
Slowly, I’ve begun to shed that layer. After much therapy work, I’m much more aware of when that reaction starts creeping up in my body. But I’m not infallible.
Recently, I found myself caught up in wanting to impress someone, only to have them say some disappointing things about a group of people with limited resources (which includes myself), and the glass screen came shattering all around me again.
The thing is, I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to impress this person, until they made those disparaging comments. Previously, I’d looked at this person as if through a cloud of glitter, excited to interact with them. And once again, through every interaction, I brought my best face.
I didn’t realize it was validation that I craved. I’d looked up to this person. And I wanted them to also see me in a certain light. And I believe this is why the blow hurt more than it should’ve. I had not been looking at my need for validation for this person in the eye.
It made me realize that sometimes, even after therapy, after working on our self-worth, even after garnering accolades, or becoming an expert in our fields, our need for validation can still blindside us.
It takes mindful work. As writers we know we want to impress our readers, even while we maintain some expectation that our stories won’t be for everyone. Certainly, we’d like to impress our peers: our friends, our families, those whom we care about and who support us through all the hard work. These are expected, and to some extent, we can almost prepare ourselves for rejection should it come.
But I think it’s a completely human response to want another human to accept us and help us feel seen. And I don’t believe in shaming anyone, least of all ourselves, for having these feelings.
I do think that once in a while we will surprise or even shock ourselves with whose validation we’re secretly hoping to get. And the work isn’t in forcing ourselves to stop wanting it, or to detach ourselves from that primal need for acceptance and inclusion. The work is in acknowledging that we are human, that our mental wiring predates us, and that it’s not always easy to untangle. Things lurk in our subconscious that we cannot even begin to put words to.
At the end of the episode, Deborah gains insight after her realization. She learns a lesson and she solves a problem. Personally, this is how I like to look at life. In every situation, there's always something it can teach us. We just need to stay mindful and pay attention.
So go easy on yourself as you continue to navigate this world of creativity, which is so tightly wound to a need for acceptance. Roll with the waves as best you can. Remind yourself that even the best of us are in some way wired to want this.
Meanwhile, in novel writing land...
As I write this, I have 100 pages of my printed manuscript left to revise. It's been a labour of rereading and ruthlessly hacking away at my own words and deciding what gets to stay and what needs to go. I've always been surprisingly good at making peace with cutting out what doesn't work. Even now, I'll admit I shock myself. Shouldn't I be more torn up about it? I do wonder if being an editor has anything to do with easing the blow of cuts.
I expect to be finished with that stage of revisions by next week. Then I begin to piece everything together again on my cork board. And then, the real work of rewriting begins. I sense, perhaps, if I end up crying that's where it'll happen.
I'm tentatively looking at a publishing date of Spring 2028. And as of right now, I'm fully committed to self-publishing. It feels like the right choice for me, and I'll probably get more into how I made that decision in a future post.
In the meantime, enjoy this unhinged picture of how revisions are going:
Future editing me detests past editing me. Past editing me loves to troll. Future editing me is full of the kind of rage they wrote about in Greek myths.
That Moment I Realized I'd Been Writing White Characters By Default
There’s a new blog post up on my author site where I talk about the moment I realized how much I’d internalized the white narratives I’d grown up reading about before I finally started writing about my own culture and background as a Latina.
"But although I had always been a voracious reader as a child, and though I'd known very early on that I would someday grow up to write and publish novels, it never occurred to me to write about characters that looked and sounded like me—moreover, who ate the same things like me, who had simple Spanish sounding names like me, who sometimes couldn't find the right word to say in English and supplemented it with a Spanish one, or their own "no sabo" version of it."
If you’d like to read more about this, check it out here.
What fed my dopamine addiction in June
Football, football, football!
That's it! Thank you for coming! See you guys in August!
Okay, so there was more than just football in my life in June (and yes, I call it football and refuse to call it "soccer" because guess which one considers using your hands an infraction and which one actually requires its players to use their hands? Exactly. Do not speak to me about this—I cannot be normal. I'll fully turn into the meme of that guy trying to explain the plot of Wicked to his friend).
But for the most part, yes. If I wasn't revising, I was watching football. As I write this, they're just starting the third round of group stages and it looks like both teams I'm backing are getting into the rounds of 16! (Colombia and Brazil.) I swear, every World Cup I learn something new about the sport, and this year I'm in a fantasy football league with my siblings-in-law. I'm not doing great, but it's fun (and I'm scoring higher than my husband, which always adds to the fun!).
But I still made time to read. And with me cutting back on social media, I've been able to read so much more.
I gave The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang my best effort, and while I loved the first half of it, once the war started all the talk of strategy and battle scenes kind of lost me. As I told my sister, "The war book has too much war." I loved Yellowface and Babel by Kuang, and even though I could tell this book was really well written, I just wasn't invested. With about 70 pages left, I decided to just skim until the end. I'm sure it's a great book—for someone else. Unfortunately, it wasn't for me.
I also read Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn, which I loved. It's a story about a Jamaican woman who acquires a U.S. visa with the premise of visit a friend for a wedding, but actually decides to stay there leaving her young daughter behind. The story follows Patsy as she
adjusts to the cultural shock of moving from the sunny and laid back Caribbean to the cold, corporate-run world of the North.
I was raised and lived in the Caribbean for over twenty years, so there were so many things in this narrative that hit close to home for me. Missing the local food, the cold that we Caribbean-grown implants will never fully adjust to, how hard it is to build a community in a land that feels strange to you and to which you look strange. Overall, this was an excellent read, and I'm glad I picked it up.
Olivia Rodrigo’s new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love also came out this month, and it’s been an absolute, no-skip, instant repeat for me since. It’s a mark of a true artist when they’re able to experiment outside of what they’re known for and still find a place within their own sound. Some favorites are “stupid song,” “honeybee,” “u + me = <3,” “the cure” (which has not left my brain the whole month), “what’s wrong with me,” “less,” and “cigarette smoke.” Yup, that’s about 90% of the album. And trust me, the other 10% are all bangers too.
Usually I really hate when it feels like the algorithm has been spying on me. However, last month, as I was in the throes of wanting to set my social media on fire, YouTube offered me
Jamie Sea’s YouTube channel. The video below spoke to all the parts of me that were screaming for a way out of social media because all the advice I'd been getting felt so inauthentic. On her channel, she also talks about unlocking limiting beliefs surrounding money and success, and she’s already helped me become so much more aware about my own negative self-talk and the anxiety that creeps up in my body when the topic of making money or advertising my work comes up. If this is something you've found yourself struggling with too, then I 100% recommend her channel.
July will bring about the end of the World Cup, but also, a road trip to the sea! By the time you receive this newsletter, I will be a human wiener roasting on the oven shores of North Carolina. I am SO excited. I haven’t been near the ocean since I last visited the Caribbean back in 2023. Soon after that, I’ll be headed to an art retreat with my sister-in-law which should also be tons of fun.
And by then, I should be fully ready to dive back into my novel and start rewriting. If all goes according to plan, this new version of my novel will be ready before the end of 2026. I'm excited to see its new shape after its much needed transformation.
You guys, the sun is out, we can sit outside in shorts and a tank tops (and not 30 layers of clothing), we can swim, world tournament sports are consuming us, the birds are singing, summer is summering, and it’s all this Caribbean cactus could possibly ask for.
Until next time,
Have you been looking for a cozy novel to dip into over the summer? Well, then, let me recommend my friend B.A. Franc's novel, A Daisy in Lily's Valley.
This is a novel full of heart and charm, following sweet and optimistic Emiliana as she tries to find her own space in the world outside of her mother's overbearing and critical gaze. It's a story about finding your power and learning to stand up for yourself, especially in front of those who'd like to mold you to their own will and for their own benefit.
If you're into quiet novels full of charm, set in quaint little towns, with food descriptions so vivid they'll leave your mouth watering, then you should pick up a copy of A Daisy in Lily's Valley. Get the paperback here, or if you prefer the ebook, then get that here.
