Newsletter, August 2025
My deepest apologies that May, June, and July’s newsletters have been nonexistent! (Lol.) I really wanted to get Project SOLH to my beta readers by June 1, so almost all of my free time went to revisions and I got behind on the non-writing business of being an author. If you follow me on Instagram, you also know there’s been a lot of changes (and soul-searching) going on behind the scenes.
I have an unfinished draft on my computer for a June newsletter, and in it, I said that by the time the leaves changed color, I would be sending out my very first query letters. Funny how things change, isn’t it?
The Decision to be an Indie Author
Let me preface this by saying that this was my personal decision based on my feelings regarding traditional vs indie publishing and that both paths are equally valid. This is just what is true for me.
There were a multitude of reasons for my decision, but the biggest one boiled down to my own personal happiness.
When I decided I wanted to be traditionally published, it was a choice (not that I realized at the time) mostly made out of a sense of inadequacy. The subconscious belief that I wouldn’t be a good enough writer until I got an agent and a book deal and made it into a bestseller list. But what I didn’t understand at the time was that a book that sells well and a book that is a quality work of art are not always the same thing. Often they are, but not always.
Publishing is a business (which sounds obvious but please remember we writers mostly have our heads in the clouds all day 🤣) and the books that get the most support are the ones that are expected to make the most money—not the ones that can make the most impact or that are the most beautiful or entertaining or well written. Sometimes all those qualities overlap, and sometimes they don’t. I’m not saying this to criticize any books but to state the facts of how the industry currently is.
I could write the best book in the world and still never make a bestseller list, maybe never even get an agent, because I’m already at an automatic disadvantage. Despite efforts in some spaces to change this, BIPOC authors face steeper challenges in the industry and that’s simply a fact. There are people who don’t want to see brown girls on covers and who don’t find black characters “relatable.”
I’m at a disadvantage, too, because I refuse to write to market. I write stories that I hope are beautiful and meaningful enough to be considered literature one day—that’s my goal and dream as an author.
All this to say, the validation I was seeking from agents and book deals and bestseller lists isn’t really even the validation I was looking for, because it’s all based on money. On what will sell well. And the meaning I derive from writing isn’t based on money (though I would like to write full-time one day) but on impact.
The NYT Bestseller list does not measure impact. The reader who reaches out to you and tells you their book helped them feel seen does.
When I decided to query, it meant no one (aside from a few betas) got to read my writing any more. I wasn’t reaching people the way my previous two books had, and I deeply missed that. I missed seeing my work resonate with people. And I realized it didn’t even matter how many people my books affected—it just mattered that it did.
So what did I need traditional publishing for when I was already making my dreams come true on my own?
The Scales of Lost Harmony (SOLH)
She’s done. The story idea I’ve had since middle school, my first novel, my book baby is finally done. I sent her off to beta readers in June, and she’s due back any day now! Copyedits are scheduled for September, and the cover and book trailer are ready to be revealed very soon. You may even see an early reveal here in the coming months (and possibly street team sign ups)!
I didn’t expect to have to change much with this round of feedback, and it was kind of originally planned as a last minute check before I started querying since I had made so many changes in response to my developmental edits earlier this year. However, one of my betas reached out to message me about something that was tripping her up while she was reading. The romance (or what was supposed to be a lack thereof 🤣).
I talked about it briefly on social media, but when my goal was 120,000 words to be able to query, I cut the rest of the words I needed by removing the romantic subplot from the story. When I decided to publish this myself, I figured I would just leave the manuscript as it was because I was happy with it, and a lower word count would save me money on language editing.
That was the plan, until my beta texted me something along the lines of, “I’m having a really hard time not shipping these two. Your book still reads like a romance.”
Turns out you can’t just delete a kissing scene and say it’s not a romance anymore. 🤣
I was surprised to see this feedback from my beta because throughout the process of writing and revising this book, several people had given me feedback that there wasn’t enough romantic and physical tension between my two love interests.That suggestion was probably in line with what most romantasy readers expect from a novel, but when I kept getting that type of feedback, something inside me always went, “No.” I couldn’t articulate at the time why I didn’t agree with those changes, so I put it aside and started tackling my massive mountain of other revisions. Time passed, and the thought kept coming back to me that maybe I should just delete the romance from the book entirely because if so many people thought it wasn’t enough, then I just must not be very good at writing romance.
For me, romance is more of an emotional than a physical experience, and that’s how I wrote it in this book. But some people perceived it as not romantic enough, and I assumed that it wasn’t the kind of love story anyone would want to read.
But then someone did. Asana (my FMC) is demiromantic, and that’s how I wrote her love story. My beta who texted me about the romance told me that she felt like even without a lot of physical contact, the romance between my MCs was still swoon-worthy and sweet, and that there are people who want to read love stories like the one I wrote.
I haven’t decided what I want to do about these revisions yet. I always strive to tell stories that feel authentic and meaningful to me, and so I’m taking some time to sit with this feedback and decide whether the story feels more authentic to me as a cozy fantasy where the MCs are best friends, or as a romantic fantasy where their love is based on emotional intimacy rather than physical. Whatever I do decide, it will be reflected in how I talk about the book on socials, but I thought you might like to see a little bit into the thought process that goes into crafting a story and the kind of decisions writers have to make.
Project FOS
While SOLH was with betas, I (finally!) got the chance to pull this story out of the drawer and get to work on revisions. I’m starting to learn that beginnings are always the most difficult part for me, and that for the most part my middles and ends tend not to need as much revising.
Going in, I was expecting to have to rewrite the entire Act 1 of this book, but turns out I just needed to rewrite the prologue and create a new scene to become chapter 1! Once I did that, the rest of the beginning made sense, and I finished revisions on Act 1 over the weekend. Act 2 and 3 don’t need revisions so much as a few details and scenes I want to add to make the story stronger. I’m hoping to have this off to its first round of beta readers in early October!
I would really, really like to publish both SOLH and this book in 2026, and I’m working hard to make that happen! I’m already in the process of booking a cover artist for this book, and I have my fingers crossed that maybe this manuscript is clean enough that I can get away with one round of beta feedback for this book (instead of the like… 4 that SOLH needed 🤣).
Project TGAP
Oh, this story. I have an idea, but not much else at this point. I’ve mostly been doing a lot of research into mermaids to get ideas for how I want to build this story’s world, plot, and central conflict. I’m torn because the theme I want to write about says slow-paced, introspective story, but I want something a little more epic fantasy (and Greek tragedy 😂).
Closing
This was quite a long email, but I hope maybe it makes up for the three months of newsletters I didn’t write? Lol.
It’s hard, to change your mind. Sometimes we (maybe just me?) feel like we make this decision, and then it’s irrevocable, set in stone. Especially if it was a decision other people knew about. People tend to think you’re wishy-washy if you change your mind. And while that can be true (valid commitments should be kept), being able to change your mind is a good thing. Life doesn’t always go the way we expect, and flexibility is a skill that’s needed.
I’ve changed my mind on a lot of things this year. Focusing on fantasy novels instead of poetry. Dropping my pen name in favor of my own name. Thinking about adopting a new pen name for safety and privacy reasons (more on this next month probably). Deciding to try querying only to later decide I didn’t want to. I didn’t have all the answers (or information) when I first decided to self-publish a book in 2023. I only learned everything I have so far by trying new things and having new experiences.
The vision I had for myself as an author when I was a teenager is not the same vision I have now. Back then, she wanted a book deal, because she didn’t know there was any other way to be published, to be an author. She wanted a bestselling book because she thought that was the only way to prove her words mattered. Now, I know it’s not. Now, I know that all she really wanted was for her book to be out in the world.
And next year, it will be.