The last time I updated this list, I thought I was finished writing my novel. Spoiler alert: I wasn't.
In October 2017, I had wrapped up the fourth draft of The Blood of Their Dreams and sent it around to subscribers on this list as a thank-you. But in the process of querying around for Blood, I wrote a synopsis...
And found out that there were several twists and turns my characters simply didn't need to take.
What if my main character was already a historian, and didn't need to fight to become one? What if she wasn't single-handedly responsible for the empire's antipathy towards the underclass, but war had already been brewing?
o no, I thought, now i have to fix this
So I rewrote the first act...
Then I got an email from my friend Jon, asking if I wanted to start a startup with him.
I said yes.
Fast forward 1.5 years. The novel had been languishing—despite the occasional weeks I'd taken to work on it, with Jon's full support—and I realized the co-founder life was not for me. I quit the startup, shaved my head, spent a month in bed feeling utterly listless and depressed (not helped by the poor air quality that the Camp Fire brought to San Francisco), and only emerged with the patient support of my friends and partner. Over the 2018 holidays, I sat down to re-outline everything I knew about my world, its history, and the interactions of its major characters. 14,000 words later, I had what I started calling my Good Book.
Then I made, using Scrivener's virtual index cards, a Corkboard of Reveals. Starting from the very last, and working my backwards to the beginning.
Then I wrote the damn thing. Including that first act, again.
In 2019, I set out to be gentle with myself. I let myself remember how to feel joy. I didn't guilt myself when I wrote for ten minutes (or not at all) instead of the eight hours I said I'd get back when I quit my job—and I found a community of writers who knew that feel. I tried very hard to unlearn the shame I felt for continuing to drain the funds bequeathed to me upon my mother's and grandmother's deaths.
And last week, I finished Draft 5 (and 1/2) of The Subtle Art of Empire.
I'm beyond excited about how far it's come. This is the first draft where I've finished scenes, sat back, and said aloud, "THIS IS SO GOOD, HOLY SHIT." I feel like I had to write the four previous drafts to triangulate what the story was actually about—like the angel was in the marble, but I had to keep heaping marble on and watching marble slough off before I could see it—but now that I'm here, I absolutely believe I'm in the right place. I take how easy it was to write my query letter this time around as evidence of that.
So now what? Well, I'm waiting for feedback on the letter from a published author. I'm collaborating with a friend on an anthology submittal. And I have a handful of other short stories in the works that I'm hoping to turn into a second book, thanks to a winning run at NaNoWriMo 2019.
I'm looking forward to sending Subtle Art around, and I've expanded my agent list with a couple names that I'm really excited about.
But mostly I'm processing the emotions that come with finishing a six-year-long project—and still not being quite where I want to be with it.
When I've secured representation (or 40 rejections, whichever comes first), I'll be ready to talk again.