The Baby Book Blogger Days (& My Most Memorable Post)
A trip down memory lane, inspired by WLS's 14th anniversary next week. Including some awkward preteen photos + the very earnest post that put WLS on the radar.
Published April 7, 2025
“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong. — F. Scott Fitzgerald”
Admittedly, there is little more satisfying than having cold, hard evidence of my devotion in the form of concrete time: the years and the hours of my obsession with this corner of the Internet. Lately, a lot's been feeling full circle about the journey. As hard as it's been at times, I have always known what I wanted to do and (this is key) actually tried to do it. I just didn't always know why.
(One aspect I talked about in my review of Sunrise on the Reaping: how Suzanne Collins sometimes has her characters figure out their complex motivations in hindsight, which is so true to reality; we're often looking for the "real" reason for our actions, when we are notoriously terrible at determining a single cause.)
Nowadays, I have more vocabulary for the so-called purpose of my book blog. To spark awe. To elevate books as a form of indirect processing and connection for those who feel far too separate—that sense of "alone together" or "you get it." For that gorgeous, singular moment of stumbling across a striking line that distills (or catalyzes) an aesthetic or emotional experience. That all sounds clinical, when you put it that way, but it's all out of L-O-V-E. And perhaps a strong dose of prophecy.
In fact, I had business cards when I was a baby seventh grader that had a quote on the back that still gets to the heart of it. Ignore the @beachtwin110 tag. I am still a twin, I still beach, and my birthday is still January 10, but I have since graduated to the more elegant social media handle @wlsgrace.
Anyway, Here's The Origin Story
I don't remember why exactly I started the blog. I was, of course...a voracious reader, and in hindsight, I figured out that it also had to do with the need to differentiate myself from the frustrations of others constantly treating me and my identical twin as somehow being two halves of one person.
In adulthood, individual autonomy is one of my greatest values, and that all stems from my existential need to be a discrete person (pros and cons here.) If you ever ask anyone I know to describe me, their first word tends to be independent. Sometimes, they might tack on intense or driven or artistic.
Words Like Silver happened. Partly consciously, partly not.
My early drafts are short, conversational, and just embarrassing enough that I have dreaded transferring them over to the review archive. Some of them definitely need a refresh, but I try not to edit too much on Words Like Silver in general, and do see them as time capsules of my age and adoration. There are certain authors who I will always be affectionate towards because of their kind, thoughtful treatment of me when I was a baby blogger—like Jennifer Donnelly, who complimented my blog when my header was an absolute blurry mess.
When I attended BookExpo America for the first time in June 2012, I felt so fired up and desperate and longing after. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and frustratingly enough, far too young for it. I'd been blogging before the conference, but that catalyzed a lot of my understanding of the industry (and how badly I wanted to be involved.) There were people working full-time in this, and the conversations were infectious.
After, I went back home to Tampa mopey and wrote an absolute brain dump of a blog post that ended up going mini-viral (our definition of viral in 2012 was very different than it is now), which connected me with others who would form the spine of my blog and publishing career for the next 10+ years. That was unintentional; I just needed to express the sense that this was it. (I am a long game person, in case you couldn't tell.)
There's actually a quote from Grit by Angela Duckworth that I find hilarious simply because it uses the exact example of a seventh grader as someone who's unlikely to have found their calling already.
“Keep in mind, however, that a seventh grader—even a future paragon of grit—is unlikely to have a fully articulated passion at that age. A seventh grader is just beginning to figure out her general likes and dislikes.”
The Blog Post That Started It All
I thought this post had accidentally been deleted when transferring over from my archive—which is still very much in progress, as I'm doing so manually—but I just found it. After rewriting my own book 8+ times in the hopes of being the "next big author," this is my first time looking at it again.
I'm preserving the post as-is for posterity (and because it's frankly adorable in a nostalgic way—dignified, not condescending.) I was in the eighth grade at the time, so please excuse the repetitive aspects of the writing. I'll highlight what's striking me now because finding it again was extremely, without sentimentality, special.
There's a sense of inevitability here bundled with the horrific, wonderful responsibility of self-knowledge. I've known myself for years, and the world caught up with me long, long after.
The Original Post: "Having a Passion"
JUNE 22, 2012
I don't even know how to begin this post but this is an issue that has literally been plaguing me for all that I can remember of my life. It's beautiful and frustrating and lovely and awful all at once. This is a lot more of a personal post so if you're just here for the books, it doesn't have much to do with them although it is kind of related. If you are a family member or somebody I'm casually friends with (a.k.a Tampa people), this is personal so respect me and don't read it. Honestly, I can't stand talking to people I know about this kind of thing so I'm trusting you to respect me. Better not to read it if you get confused. I'm not even going to edit this post because this is me, raw.
This post is related to a particular feeling, a particular need. It's something that I've struggled with for ages and it has a lot wrapped around it. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, please don't comment on it because it's something that's really important to me. I feel like there's a purpose to my life that I'm only just discovering. It's both a blessing and a curse having a passion.
It came to me earlier that I have a really hard time relating to other people my age because of my passion. Being so passionate about things in my life and things that I still want to discover mean that other people don't feel the same. I'm mostly at the fringes of rising-freshman society because I don't have the same interests as other people. I feel more like an adult than a teenager, but it's not just that.
I just tell myself that life will be so much better when I'm in New York, when I'm an adult, when/if I'm working in publishing. In eight years, I'll find my something more. I'll stop feeling like I'm homesick for a place that doesn't exist, like there's something that I haven't discovered yet that I need desperately. It's a strange feeling to describe but it's the strongest one in my life. I constantly feel this longing for something, but I don't know what that something is.
I'm using this example because this is the one thing that consistently inspires in me this feeling: staring up at the stars. It makes everything seem magical and it tears my world apart because looking at the stars, that's where I want to be. I'm not trying to be lyrical or poetic, simply trying to put into words how potent my need is for there to be something more to the universe. There's this quote by Maggie Stiefvater in her novel Shiver where Sam says:
“I surfed for photos of circus freaks and synonyms for the word intercourse and for answers to why staring at the stars in the evening tore my heart with longing.”
That is exactly how I feel. My heart is being torn apart with longing when I stare at the stars because I can sense something more out there but I'm stuck living an ordinary life. I read to find extraordinary things. My world is composed of passions and longings that ache so badly and I can't even describe how deep it is because I want something more so much that it's not even a want anymore but a need. The problem is that I don't exactly know what that more is.
I feel like there's another layer to the world that only a few people are allowed to see and only then, only in glimpses. Whether that's something like in books (like a paranormal secret only a few people know about) then so be it, let there be mystery, but I want to find whatever that layer is.
Life will be so much better when I write a book, when I fall in love, when I move around. I'm ready to jump past these eight years until I'm out of college and actually treated like an adult. My age is a barrier; nobody takes a fourteen year old seriously. It's actually a problem for me because I can easily visualize myself.
I find myself reading about apartments in New York and writing down budgets for when I'm living there. I have to remind myself that it'll take at least eight years of school before I can work in a publishing company and when I can finally chase my dreams.
People around me don't get it at all. I'm just a sort-of-strange girl who is kind of cool but kind of isn't. I'm just itching to grow up and be able to finally go out and do something. I want to make people feel things and I can't, not yet, because it will take years for me to get there. That fact is hell to me.
Because I have this deep-rooted passion that I can't ignore. It's inside of me every day gnawing at me and telling me that I need to share this. I want to find my "something more" so badly that it hurts. I need to find another layer to the world that reminds me why I'm living and that makes me feel alive.
I'll talk about it to my friends or my twin and while they're supportive, I still feel alone. The most I'll get from them is a "cool" or "it's so awesome how you're only fourteen and doing this." I do feel awkward talking about it to adults who aren't already in the industry because I feel like they're humoring me. They treat me as a...teenager. But I get sick of it because I'm completely concrete about this.
There's a reason that it's called a passion. This is EXACTLY what I want to do with my life. It's not a phase, but I honestly feel like it's what God wants me to do with my life. Sometimes I wonder if that's why I'm so attracted to paranormal books in YA because there are these teenagers with the world in their hands who are alive and finding "more" and they're actually being taken seriously. Their passions are indulged and they are living. Even then, there are only a few songs and books that even come close to that feeling I get when I look at the stars. I feel like I'm paused right now.
I think I need to stop talking now because it's a strange thing to put into words. Many of you might not understand it. I'm sure that my wording in this post is absolutely horrendous and makes no sense whatsoever but how do you put your deepest feeling into words? How do you describe how much a pursuit means to you?
My age feels like a barrier because I want to go out and explore the world and change it. I want to influence people and discover what my "something more" is and I can't. I can't even drive. I feel like an adult trapped in a teenager's body. And it's not just hormones or being dramatic. I've felt this way for my entire life, like there was something out there meant for me to find.
My entire life has felt like a search for whatever makes me feel complete. Don't get me wrong; I feel blessed to have a passion but it's hard when I feel like I can't relate to anybody my age or that I'm stuck waiting for years.
Also, I'm not looking for advice. My life is great and I know that it will get even better, this is just a testament to others who feel this way and why I do. I love you all!
Thank you,
Grace
Okay, Wow.
It really hits me to read this now.
I'm a 27-year-old, full-time writer. I live in Waialua, Hawai'i and pop to NYC on occasion. I write for travel magazines. I've written multiple books, am represented by a powerhouse of a literary agency and two wonderful agents (beat those <0.06% odds twice), have fallen in and out of love, and have lived in NYC, Park City, and Honolulu.
I've been featured in Teen Vogue and Business Insider; I've been published in The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan (my personal favorite bylines), Lonely Planet, other publications that would absolutely floor me. I've been flown out to Scotland and Iceland and the Dominican Republic and other places just to write, and have met such phenomenal people all in pursuit of this "sense of place" love letter I adore so much. I've helped some people, and tried to.
And I don't mean to list this all out in a braggy resume way (there's no other good way to say it), just as an...excavation of sorts. The blog did that. Daily, constant writing.
I forget, sometimes, exactly how far Words Like Silver has gone. Many of my readers—over 10,000 people—have stuck around. When people start reading WLS, they don't often stop (which floors me, actually.)
I've been running this blog and loving it just as much as I did on day one. The people I've met, the books I've read, the opportunities I've had. All of it's because I took myself just as seriously then as now, and didn't let my age stop me from giving myself the proper respect for the pursuit—which is very, very life-affirming to realize.
Similarly, that's an aspect I actually love and cherish about my own book: a genuine respect for children and teenagers (which, funnily enough, is a stance Fran Lebowitz takes too.) Both their pain and their triumphs! I was fully-fledged (in this way) at 13, even though I had lots more growing up to do. It's only ever evolved and deepened and gotten better, but that core was still there.
I haven't read that post probably since I was 15 or 16. I'm still in publishing, but in a different capacity. I feel entirely grounded in who I am, what I'm doing, what I'm passionate about, and my ability to articulate that "layer," so I'm glad I finally found the it factor of all this. And I just knew it would be the blog and the books. I do say it gave me a bit of a child prodigy complex—I was not a prodigy, but longed to be—because so much of the buzz was always about my age, but I stole that line and wrote it into my book.
(Also, I think it's hilarious and wonderful that "being a reader" is the supposed ultimate cool now, with multiple publications talking about the rise in reading cited within dating profiles, the styling of bookshelves, the rise of the literary status symbol, etc,. Whatever gets people to their next favorite book!)
What Book Publishing Looked Like Then
At the time, I think I just had my blog posts wired through Wordpress (my original platform) to auto-tweet upon completion. And that post ignited.
Again, viral then is not viral by modern standards but suddenly, a ton of people within publishing and other book bloggers were talking about my post. I connected with any houses I wasn't yet involved with. I had emails with coffee-date-type offers to get more involved in publishing.
In high school, I ended up working for a small press, running book clubs at two local independent booksellers, working for a bookstore, attending BEA once or twice more. I even ended up going to prom with a blog reader my age up my senior year of high school (which is a great story.)
When I first published this, I got an email shortly after from a friend who ended up becoming a (very successful) literary agent who is very, very involved in the history of Mountain Sounds.
In Brent's email, he wrote: one day, ten years from now, we'd be sitting across the table from each other at lunch in NYC. He'd be an agent, I'd be an editor, and I'd buy his client's latest in a six-figure deal. We're both very close to that vision, but in different ways (and locations.)
Many book bloggers eventually stopped writing. Some are still active and around, like Alexa (from Alexa Loves Books) and Jamie (from The Perpetual Page-Turner.) Other friends went into and out of publishing; others are still in it. I remember when "BookTube" first became a thing, and you'd see the YouTubers start to come around at BEA and ALA. (Eventually, BookTok.)
I remember all my blogger friends going to publisher parties I couldn't attend because there was alcohol (and later, sneaking sips when I was old enough.) When BEA eventually stopped happening! Hanging out with author friends like Siobhan Vivian and Jenny Han, who's now showrunner for her massively popular The Summer I Turned Pretty series.
In college, I visited houses and agencies and met with scouts and chatted with people I knew then and now (like Emma, who runs the enormously successful Substack Lit Girl and worked in book partnerships for Meta, or Jane, who's been absolutely killing it at Reese's Book Club.) Some of us have been around for forever. (And those who stopped working with books, I still adore!)
At age 15, I interviewed a bunch of publishing professionals for a breakdown of how imprints worked, and Jeremy (Scholastic) and Erica (Bloomsbury) and others patiently broke them down for the blog explainers.
It's really hard to express this all without sounding name drop-y, but it's all crucial to the "lore" (as the kids would call it.) I have seen a lot, and own original ARCs or bound manuscript of just about every young adult series that eventually took off—those household name-type books. On occasion, I still get DMs of avid fans trying to buy Throne of Glass off of me (which is both frowned upon and illegal, by the way.) I tend to say I was grandfathered in, but don't keep up with all the nitty-gritty social bits on a daily basis.
In college, I decided not to work in publishing directly, largely for financial reasons and because I figured out I was too much of a nature gal to end every work day in NYC. I eventually pivoted to magazine publishing, which is not much better on the money front—but still targets my same obsession with aesthetics, sense of place, travel, etc,. The book publishing interest is a perpetual through-thread that defines just about everything about me. Writer, author, journalist, book blogger.
Full Circle, Like I Said—
While I likely have more to say on my literal blog anniversary, April 15—the perk of adulthood being that there came a point in life when I started thinking of the date as Tax Day instead—I am so forever grateful for the resonance of all this.
In looking back at my nostalgic baby blogger days, there is a whole lot of corniness but also a lot of earnestness that makes the rest of this all feel like the "earned beauty" I try to chase in all areas. At the time, I didn't have the precision or the vocabulary to describe the project or why it matters, and I'm sure I'll say the same about myself now another 10-12 years from now.
I've considered what makes Words Like Silver enduring and what makes it appealing. I think it's good that it's never been reactionary to trends or an algorithm (although that's a skill in itself) because I keep my readers around, and will always be a good mix of evergreen and timely. If TikTok changes their formula or gets banned, or if Substack becomes saturated just like the others, I'll be here for the ones who seek me out. I'll do the others as needed for viability, sure, but having control over my own platform has always been a key to longevity for me.
I love the skillset forged here, so I do love scheming what's next—likely my first major push of genuine growth and multi-platform flexibility—so that's my next step after finishing rewriting yet again. I fell in love with my site all over again when I invested in and launched the new iteration. My thoughts come so much more easily. I sit down at the end of the day and crave writing on here. As WLS grows, I'm still trying to figure out what level of separation or buffer is most comfortable as the audience becomes largely made up of people I don't know; I'm forever considering optimal degrees of privacy and visibility.
My sense of responsibility for this work (and more broadly, the salience and affinity for beauty that it represents) can be a burden at times, but I feel frequently lucky to have such a significant calling. There's an inherent satisfaction in a steady commitment to something that makes you feel most like yourself, even though it makes my brain look like this.
My vision's only gotten sharper and clearer, and I describe Words Like Silver frequently as a prism for what I find most meaningful (which tends to be through the lens of various books.) My taste changes. I get broader. Certain core themes stand out as being constant, while the exact combination of writers dealing with them varies.
I said this when describing my book revision process, but: although I don't know what will happen to my own hopeful debut novel, I do appreciate that I've always known what I want from life and have done everything possible to work myself to the bone for it.
You'll never doubt my authenticity in all this, regardless of outcome, and I mean it when I say that reading all these books, and pursuing all this in tandem, makes my entire life significant.
One thing I talk about within my book is how history and outcome are not 1:1; deservedness is a tricky line to walk when you're also empathetic towards others' hard work and tiredness and pain likely feeling just as similar to your own. It's decidedly a Stoic position to wonder about the roles of fate and luck and market and merit in all this.
But the history of all this, at least, makes me hungrier for my life dreams. I do, ultimately, hope for that moment of having "earned" what I want, even thought the cynical pocket of me worries that wanting—and articulating that—means the universe will plan against my desire just for spite. Like as soon as I dare to pray for something, it will spin out of reach just because I dared ask. And, as The Plague by Albert Camus put it,
“Truthfully, his only task was to create opportunities for luck, which only stirred if it was provoked.”
But clearly, in the case of Words Like Silver, being transparently wanting only made WLS more of a presence. I got lucky. On the author side, I hope to again.
I have 14 years of history on here, hundreds of unconscious patterns and taste alignments and references that have all formed the core of who I am, even when seemingly un-book-related. Even as a journalist and author, reading is the backbone because I'll swear up and down that to be a writer, you have to be a reader. Fundamentally.
Find your next book. Poke around a little bit. I hope to be here for another 14 years and onward.
Some Love from Readers I Have to Share
There is no good way to share this without seeming ego-centric, but it really makes a difference to know the ripple effects WLS has had over the years. I've tried to be better about saving the comments because I forget that it matters to other people beyond me too.
Once, a teacher told me that WLS got an entire school system to switch from sourcing books from Amazon to going through their local independent bookstore—and I never would have known. And then there are smaller ripples: making readers, starting conversations, or trying to make people feel inspired or less alone. (Corny but true.) I forget the milestones sometimes too. I honestly forget that people even read this. Often, I write and don't expect anyone to ever click.
And it got me here, which would feel special by itself.
I really can't wait to see what happens next. Fingers crossed.
And do enjoy the gallery below, but don't judge my awkward, gangly teenager stages, or the blur of bad Facebook-induced resolution (or Snapchat, because that was a thing once.) It is all painfully teenage, I do not look flattering in them, but oh man. I love this history of mine so much. It's all just felt so very heartwarming to me lately.
Single cause fallacy, which is beautifully illustrated in The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell.
Absolutely wild fun fact: I used to have a curse where I'd name a love interest in a story or book I was writing and then meet and date someone with that name. This happened...more than once, enough to make me slightly suspicious. Needless to say, I changed them.
