Allow me a bit of preciousness in the next few paragraphs.
I am moderately to very squirrelly when asked to describe my works in progress, even with friends and family. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about them. It’s that I haven’t yet figured out how to talk about them in a coherent and interesting way. And when you cannot describe your project in a coherent and interesting way, people’s reactions to said project tends to be a) overenthusiastic (read: fake) or b) a confused nod/smile—through no fault of their own!
Writers are generally a perceptive bunch. We can tell when you’re not really digging what you’re hearing. A feigned smile or sound-of-affirmation-that-could-mean-literally-anything or, worse, “Cool!” may sound harmless to you, but I have, can, and will spend hours questioning whether the project is a dud after being on the receiving end of one of these reactions. (My brain is very healthy. It’s fine.) What I’m saying is that getting a “meh” response to a new idea risks killing its magic for me. Magic is critical in the early stages of writing. Magic (and delusion) is what convinces you to devote six months to two years of your one precious life working on some random story that popped into your head one day. Do you ever think about how bizarre writing novels is? How much unwarranted faith a writer has to have in their strange fancies? No? Just me?
Like a baby chick (or all babies, I guess, but I wanted to put the image of a chick in your mind), my ideas are at their most fragile the younger they are. The firmer shape they take, the better I know how to talk about them because I’ve been living with them longer. By the time they get to most readers’ hands, I have been rewriting jacket copy for months, which I then spin into a verbal pitch I use over and over in interviews.
The longer a book has been on shelves, the less vulnerable I feel about it. If you’ll allow me another metaphor, my published books are kind of like old romantic relationships. I look back fondly on them (some of them, anyway—you know who you are 😬), but I don’t feel the same emotional closeness I did while I was writing them and going through the publishing process.
Finally, the most straightforward reason I don’t share much is because I’m not really supposed to. Publishers like to make a big reveal of a book’s title, cover, pub date, and hook, so I can’t give you loads of concrete information. I can, however, offer you visual breadcrumbs.
As of this writing, I have four books in my head in various stages of drafting.
Book #3
If you should be so kind as to pick up my next book, this is the one you’ll read. If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll remember my posts about changing my process with my current WIP. This is that book. My editors have seen and reviewed the first two-thirds of the manuscript. I have since completed the first draft! That draft is now under editorial review. I’m hoping to have the book ready for copyedits by end of October (gulp), which would mean one more round of revisions before then. We have a title for this one but no cover yet. The book will publish in fall of 2024.
Book #4
This is an idea I pitched along with the one above over the Christmas holiday last year. My agent and editor told me to save it for later, so I did just that. Over the summer, while waiting for feedback on book 3, I got more serious about developing it. I’ve written around 4,000 words so far but had to put the project on hold for a few months once I received book 3 feedback. Now that I’m waiting on book 3 feedback again, I should get back to work on this project, but to be honest, there’s never a more daunting time to start another novel than when you’ve just finished the previous one. Instead, I’m writing this newsletter and calling it work. When I reach 10-15k words with this story, I’ll share it with my agent to see what she thinks. If all goes well, this could become my fourth (!) published novel.
Book #?
This is my odd-child book, one I wrote under contract in 2021-2022 that was put on hold. While writing it, I kept the above image as my laptop background to get me in the mood. (I have a funny story about that for another post.) Yes, I’m aware the image is extremely weird and creepy. So is this book. I will begin writing its third draft as soon as I’m able, which will unfortunately not be for a while, given my other commitments.
Book #?
This one is just a four-page Google doc of thoughts and plans. I don’t know enough about it yet to offer any visual breadcrumbs! I’ve sworn to myself I won’t even think about this project until I finish the other three—or at least two of the three. In some ways, it’s the book I’m most excited about because it’s the most different from everything else I’ve written. It’s not a thriller. It’s speculative fiction. (If you’re wondering how I’m defining “speculative,” think The Handmaid’s Tale, The School for Good Mothers, The Power. It’s a world similar to ours except for one major difference.) This book is the one I’m most nervous to write because I’m not sure I’m a good enough writer yet to do it justice. It has some big ideas and themes I’ve never explored. Naturally, that only makes me want to write it more. Writers are masochists like that.
I don’t normally have four book projects in my head at once, nor do I necessarily recommend it. But I’m feeling very creatively energetic this year, and that’s always a good thing. I keep a digital corkboard of all my story ideas, most of them just a couple words or a sentence or an area of interest or a true story that intrigued me. Right now, the corkboard has 28 notes on it! When I first began writing, I felt limited by my imagination. Now I only feel limited by time. For that I’m incredibly grateful.
Sound off: which of these books are you most excited about, based on the images?
Thanks for reading,
omgosh YES i love speculative fiction!! they always end up way more nonfiction in the end hehe
Love these images!! And now I’m REAL excited to hear about the spec book—when you’re ready to share 😂