Newsletter, April 2025
The past month has been a strange mix of great things and not so great things. I had my fourth surgery for endometriosis, but the medical leave gave me time to truly rest, spend time with my family, and remember to enjoy the small comforts of life like pastries and sunshine through my window. My grandpa was in the hospital for two separate admissions totaling a month, but he finally came home last week and I got the gift of more time with him than I thought I would have. This month has been exhausting and heavy and I’m ready to leave it behind.
But that’s enough about me for now—let’s chat about how the traditional publishing process has been going (or rather, not going 😅).
Should I Just Give Up?
“Maybe I should go back to self-publishing. My books can be as long as I want, and there’s no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.”
I had a lot of thoughts like these this month, while working toward cutting Project SOLH down to a query-friendly word count. It’s been hard, so much harder than I thought it would be. I’ve done 3 passes through my manuscript in the past month and I still have at least 15,000 words to go, and that’s just to get to 120k. Ideally, it would be even lower.
“If I can’t get my manuscript to 120k, is it even worth querying?”
“Should I just put it in the drawer for now and start on my next project?”
I really wanted to give up. I felt frustrated and like I was getting nowhere. I felt terrified that I was going to ruin the heart of my story by cutting so many words from it. It felt impossible to get it any lower than 135k without cutting something vital.
I asked a few friends about it. Some said yes, it would be hard to query the way it is now at 135k and that I should just shelve it for now and move on to my next project. Some said I could self-publish it instead. Some said no, absolutely do not give up on your story.
The thought of shelving it made me sad, even if it was practical advice. The thought of self-publishing it and having to spend a lot of money when the world is so uncertain right now didn’t feel good either. I already deleted my BookFunnel account (a site authors commonly use to send ebooks to ARC readers), and the thought of ever having to login to IngramSpark again made me want to vomit. 🤣
The thought of not giving up on my story, even if I couldn’t cut it any further, even if it would be a very uphill battle in what is already a climb as challenging as Mount Everest—that filled me with determination (if you didn’t get this reference then please go play Undertale 😂).
15 year old me wanted this story to be my debut novel, and she wanted it to be traditionally published. If I’m going to let her down, then I at least want it to be only after I’ve done everything I possibly could. And I haven’t reached that point yet.
The doubts are loud, but the dreams are louder.
Project SOLH
We’ve already talked a lot about the emotional wringer this manuscript has put me through (I’m in editing purgatory—send help), so I just wanted to give a small update here.
Flashbacks have been cut or condensed. Internal monologues have been shredded. Paragraphs of worldbuilding (info dumps) have been chopped down to a few relevant sentences. Redundant words have been deleted (RIP to the lavender purple teacup).
I did one pass to cut unnecessary story things (info dumps and internal monologues mainly), and one language pass to make my prose more concise. That got me from 165k to 135k. I’m working on another language pass, trying to cut at least 10 words per page, and on some pages all I can do is combine “I have not” into “I haven’t.” 🤦🏽♀️
On one hand I’m glad—even proud—that a lot of my prose has been streamlined as much as possible, but on the other hand it means I need to take a deeper look at my story now and find places to trim it back. Which breaks my heart a little because I haven’t had to touch any of my story elements up to this point.
And really let’s not even talk about the scenes I still need to add based on feedback from my developmental editor.
It’s a frustrating process, but I hope I’ll have better news by the end of next month.
Project FOS
This little baby is waiting patiently for me to escape editing purgatory so I can go back to working on it. I miss this world and these characters so much and I can’t wait to get back to cleaning up this story to send to alpha readers.
What I’m Reading
I read more than I thought this month given everything that’s been going on.
Fable for the End of the World
What the River Knows
Loveless
What the River Knows made me laugh more than I have in a long time. Whit and Inez were a constant source of amusement and their relationship dynamic was refreshing and unique. Fable for the End of the World was a beautiful book about doing what you can to survive, and it was a book I very much needed when I felt that I was barely surviving this month. I read the ebook but I definitely will be picking up a physical copy to annotate. Loveless. . . I read the whole thing in a day.
And a book I haven’t finished yet but started recently: Strange the Dreamer. It took me exactly five seconds to fall in love with this book, and I am so excited to see where it goes.
Closing
Sometimes, giving up is the practical thing to do. But who ever said artists were practical?
The doubts persist, but so do my dreams.
If you have any questions about my writing/editing process, want to recommend a topic for a future letter, or even just want to chat, shoot me an email! See you next month!