"When's It My Turn?"

Yeah, you caught me.

I’ve already referenced my love for Disney in the title, so there’s no longer hiding my being a “Disney Kid”; the word “kid” aims to infantilize Disney Adults such as myself, although I’d have to say I’m more of a Disney Queer—someone who is no longer under the overly romanticized, completely bullshit indoctrinations of The Mouse that “some day, my prince will come” or that “a dream is a wish your heart makes”.

See, I’m more of a realist who just occasionally opts to live in the delusion from time to time, whenever reality is too much, or when the world feels like it might end any day now…

*stares directly into fourth-wall camera*

All of that to say, the lyrics from one of THE BEST DISNEY SONGS EVER WRITTEN (which was almost scrapped during production!!! Go watch HOWARD on Disney+ to learn how a beautiful, talented, inspirational gay man helped create masterpieces such as Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast before heartbreakingly dying of AIDS) fits my current predicament of finally, at last, securing a Literary Agent!

*covers face bashfully while patiently waiting for cheers and applause to die down*

Okay, I guess dreams DO come true, don’t they?

It still doesn’t feel real. I’ve even signed an Agency Agreement and announced it all over social media, and yet…it’s like my brain refuses to fully accept it? I don’t know if it will only feel real once I get my first Edit Letter from my agent (Alex Brown at Mad Woman Literary Agency, if you haven’t seen the announcement anywhere else first), or once we go on sub, or once we get an Offer (or more than one? fingers crossed!), or maybe not even until we do get an Offer, sign, seal, deliver it, and I eagerly await for it to be officially posted on Publisher’s Marketplace. At least then I can make one of those cute mugs with the screenshotted image of said deal on it, and maybe because I’ll hold it in my hands as I drink hot chocolate or matcha or chai or wine, it will only then be real because it will be tangible, literally in my grasp, and not just a pixelated signature on a contract or a constant back-and-forth email correspondence between myself and my amazing agent.

There have been moments like this before. Moments of disbelief, of surrealness, of overjoyed numbness. Where it’s hard for me to accept that the thing I’ve worked so hard for, the major fixation of my life for a long ass time, is actually happening.

Some examples: the moment I was accepted into The Governor’s School for the Arts Musical Theatre Dept. in Norfolk, VA, as a “First-Year” (basically, only the one year) Senior in high school; the time I got to use covid-relief funds to pay the $3,000 and some dollars membership payment to officially join SAG-AFTRA (after first securing three Union vouchers while being Non-Union, it’s a whole thing); and being told I had “no evidence of cancer” just this past November, making it a solid two years of remission since my auto stem cell transplant and surviving Hodgkin’s Lymphoma TWICE since the start of 2020.

I like to say that I’m an emotionally clogged person, at times. Because all these big feelings come up in those life changing moments, and I never let myself quite feel them all the way. It’s as if I’m saving them up for something, or if I’m trying to wait until I’m alone to let them all out so that way I don’t embarrass myself in public with my crocodile tears and snotty nose and chest-rattling sobs of joy.

But because I hold off, they get stuck. They soak into my bones and cling to my skin, tucking themselves away into the unreachable corners of my body for the next time, when I don’t have to suppress them, and I let the tidal wave of emotions crash over me instead of building a mental brick wall high enough to stop them from rushing over. Except, that moment never seems to come. So, the cycle continues. I will say, it can be helpful at times, especially now that I’m finally back to performing theatre on the semi-regular; at least all those backed up emotions now have a safe space to be explored and let loose in!

Back on to brighter topics: I have an agent now! Which means, it really IS my turn! I get to explore the world of traditional publishing thanks to having representation through a reputable agency. And all of my weird, quirky books that blend genres and are actionably New Adult (even though the overlord that is Publishing barely recognizes says age category) have a home, a trusted second pair of eyes on them, and a shot at being out there in the world now (which is NOT a dig, because there are SO MANY GREAT BOOKS that are self pubbed; I just know that I personally do not (currently) have what it takes to take on Self Publishing at this point in my life).

And, look, I know I’m a self-labeled realist, but remember what I said about allowing myself some time to be delulu? I can’t help but feel like, this all might be the start of my very own happily ever after.

Sure, the world is on fire (here, in LA, it literally was!), and there’s an oligarchy on the rise, and AI is trying to take over, and we live in a world where genocide has been normalized and Nazism apparently isn’t a big deal anymore and…yeah, this shit fucking sucks. But I didn’t come all this way to stop now. I didn’t survive cancer during the beginning of a still ongoing pandemic, and over 80-something combined agent rejections between two fully drafted and (mostly) edited books, and go from being engaged to the man who pushed me to take my writing more seriously to not being engaged with my ex of almost four years now (which we still live together by the way; we’re friends now, this is life in LA, idk what to tell ya—it’s a story for another time) to let everything stop me from still going forward and fighting for my life-long dreams.

If I have to be published during the end of times, fine. So be it.

It is what it is.

I’ll take it!

I’m an almost-30-year-old nonbinary person. I’m a two-time cancer survivor who’s had to survive being Immunocompromised during a whole-ass fucking pandemic. I’m a SAG-AFTRA actor who joined the Union in 2021, and thanks to Covid, the Strikes, and now the fires, I’ve barely been able to advance forward in Film/TV the way I thought I would. I’m a gluten-free baker who’s trying to run the beginnings of a bakery out of a kitchen I can’t stand to work in, thanks to my current living situation. I’m a musical theatre performer who’s only just found their footing again after prolonged time away (cancer +chemo really did a number on my body, y’all) in the last year, thanks to the wondrous ways of community theatre.

If I can make my dreams come true, despite everything that my privileged white ass has been through the last few years, then hopefully that means others can, too.

I hope you’ll join me for the journey ahead.

“Watch and you’ll see, someday I’ll be, part of trad puuuub!”

Thanks for reading this far! I hope you had fun! And if you didn’t, well, hey, I’m already accepting the fact that everything I write won’t be for everyone, so that’s fine with me, baby.

✨Art is subjective for a reason.✨

If you’re the former, great! Please subscribe to this newfound newsletter if you haven’t already.

If you’re the latter, I’d love for you to send it to your enemies! Maybe they’ll hate it too! At least I’ll get views either way 😁 

Stay tuned for updates and more coming your way this year! Let’s hope I don’t dissolve away at the first sight of my agent’s Edit Letter for revising CUPID before we go on sub 😅 

Much love and many thanks,

Joey (aka J.L. Comes) he/they

www.jlcomes.com

linktr.ee/jlcomes