Mental Health, But Make It Fashion

Tallulah Willis is wearing a red sweatshirt with a varsity letterman patch in the shape of a cheerleader megaphone that simply reads: Empathy.

Willis is the youngest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. She’s open about her struggle with OCD, BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) and MDD (major depressive disorder). Her Instagram account (trigger warning) is often a very close inspection of her struggle.

Last year she embraced it on a whole new level by launching a clothing line, Wyllis (yes, with a Y). It’s a small line with some of her goblin-like drawings and sweatshirts “Nothing like feeling super vulnerable” in a lasso-inspired, country western font. Sizes go up to 3XL so she’s clearly committed to all body types.

At the bottom of the site, on every single page, it reads “You are never alone,” and lists the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the National Alliance for Mental Health Helpline.

Back in 2016, I wrote something on my fascination with Tallulah Willis’s Instagram for The New York Times Magazine. I really loved how she and her mother seemed so close even after Demi’s very public breakdown. (Demi Moore writes in her book about how Tallulah and her other daughters shut her out during that time.) They both had suffered a lot and seemed to have come through it. It was almost as if they were reconnecting and rebuilding their relationship right in front of our eyes.

Tallulah Willis’s clothing line is about a year old and it’s really nice to see how she’s parlayed her struggle into something so positive. I hope it does well.

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On Writing

I’m having a tough time writing this week. I should give myself a break from it all since I just sent in a major 3rd revision to my editor last Friday. But I’m worried. I have this great idea for a book and I’ve written three chapters. I want to really get a lot of it down and understand the structure of it so that in a few months, my agent can try to sell it. Except I can’t write. I’m stuck.

The book publishing industry is structured in such a way that you can’t sell a book until you see how another book has done. And of course, this makes perfect sense, except it goes against the artist’s experience which doesn’t fit in boxes. Plus, because of the pandemic, how do we really know how any of these books are doing?

Big named authors are repeats on the best seller lists, but people who are lesser-known? Not as much. I hate hate hate thinking about the business side of this, and writing this post is actually informing me about why I’m probably blocked.

Because I’m thinking too much about the outcome instead of the work itself.

Of course, it’s a Catch 22 because it’s impossible not to think about these things. It’s impossible not to get swept up in what you should write and if you should be making a TikTok account about writing and if you should be posting more on social media and if people will even like what you write and if your agent can sell it.

Stop. Exhale.

Part of creativity though is immersing yourself in the process and letting go of these externals. The truth is, I’m not freed up from the other project enough to really put all my energy to this one. And that has to be enough right now.

Creativity is as much about forgiveness as it is productivity.

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What I’m Reading, Watching, Thinking About

I just sailed through Teddy Wayne’s The Love Song of Jonny Valentine and was completely blown away by his ability to write from the perspective of a savvy, manipulative yet vulnerable 11-year-old pop star sensation. What a great dive into the horrors of the pop star marketing machine.

Farmhouse Fixer with Jon Knight (yes, that Jonathan Knight); Eye Swoon; Hilaria Baldwin and the Strange Allure of Celebrity Fertility; Anything and EVERYTHING about and leading up to Oprah’s interview tomorrow with Harry and Meghan; Social media expectations for authors; WandaVision.

Liner Notes:

I would love you if you pre-ordered THE FALLING GIRLS on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, or from your local indie bookstore through Indiebound. If you’ve already pre-ordered, I love you already.

Thanks for reading,

Hayley