I wrote a novel during the pandemic. Many agents said many nice things, but no one took me on. A couple months and a viral Ozempic article later, I did partner with an agent for what would’ve been my third non-fiction book (and the first under my name!).

You can now read chapter one of SELFLESS in full! https://t.co/8LrRHVdUQM

You can subscribe to Selfless below, joining 100 early subscribers over the past week, and thank you if you do! https://t.co/UixQOrgK6O

At the very least, I think this Substack will help build writing and even conversations about writing back into my day to day. And generally give me some accountability and momentum toward a new project that I’ll be working on simultaneously.

I love these characters, and I want to see what other people think about them. So, I’ve started a @substack called Selfless: A Novel. Every Monday morning, I’ll post a new chunk of the book — about 800-1,000 words but stopping in a good place.

Many said nice things, but never as nice as “I love book and want to represent the shit out of you.” One could argue that I should keep trying, but I also don’t need my first real foray into fiction writing to be done the traditional way.

I pitched it to about 20 agents. I don’t understand the success stories where writers say they were rejected by hundreds or even thousands of agents. All the submission guidelines say clearly not to pitch to multiple agents within one house — and there are only so many agencies.

Selfless was always the title, always the North Star. But I didn’t architect a carefully thought out plot in advance. I had the idea, and I wanted to see where it took me.

I wanted to write a novel about two women, each of whom spend their days propping up men. One at work—an ambitious administrator who puts in so much labor with none of the credit. One at home—a new wife who excels at marriage but knows she’s in the wrong one.

Can you imagine? The epitome of womanhood is to lose one’s self completely.”

They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honor our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience, or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves. Women who are best at this disappearing act earn the highest praise: She is so selfless.

The idea for the novel emerged when I read this passage in @GlennonDoyle’s Untamed: “We weren’t born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part of our taming. We were taught to believe that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous.

When that proposal didn’t sell, my creative spirit broke. I was mad at writing the way religious people sometimes get mad at God.

You know you’re not main character energy when the Uber driver changes the music from hip hop to soft jazz at the start of your ride.

We teamed up with @fairygodboss + @FortuneMagazine to survey more than 400 female executives for this story. Read it below 👇

This has been #1 on @TheCut all week, and my editor tells me it’s one of their most successful stories of the year. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you will. #ozempic https://t.co/HfLVQEoIm5

Love a 2-word sentence ⁦@devin_tomb⁩ “Hell ensued.” #writing

@devin_tomb .@devin_tomb's report on how horrible Ozempic can make patients feel was featured today in One Great Story, our reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly: https://t.co/JNGEftMKV9

Wrote about #ozempic for @TheCut. Multiple women I spoke with experienced incessant vomiting; another said she had heart-rate spikes so strong they woke her up at night. Thanks to @_jordanlarson for stellar editing throughout this wild reporting ride.

Patients taking Ozempic describe constant nausea and vomiting. But doctors say everyone is asking for it. @devin_tomb reports