A Fence, A Tree, And Broken Deadlines

I have struggled — and failed — to put my feelings about 2020 into words. There are fewer depressing moments as a writer than the ones when you’re speechless. So instead of reflecting on the past year in a final farewell to 2020 (“and don’t let the door hit you on the way out”), I’m sharing an update on my writing. I’ll leave it to other, far more eloquent, writers to opine about all this year has brought (dumped on?) us . . .

My goal for 2020 was to publish at least the first two books in an urban fantasy series I’d started writing waaaay back in 2019. I would have hit that goal, except that in July I came to the conclusion I really, really needed to hire a sensitivity reader to help me navigate the Japanese culture so prominent in my series and so lacking in my own white American life.

Luckily, my writing group includes two writers who are Japanese, and the group critiqued the first 20K words of the manuscript. They liked the book, but some of the cultural comments made me realize I needed more help.

I lost at least four months finding a reader, getting on their calendar, and receiving their critiques (happily, the time and effort were totally worth it; I found an AMAZING sensitivity reader who is also an equally talented developmental editor. I’ll be publishing a detailed post about that experience in the near future!).

With that project underway, I turned my attention to the creation of a reader magnet for my mailing list. If readers liked the first novel in the series, I wanted to give them an incentive to sign up for my email list (“If you enjoyed this novel, sign up for my newsletter to receive a free novella prequel!”). I wrote that a few months ago, got feedback from my writing group, made another editing pass, and then handed it over to my editor in late November.

Meanwhile, I finished my first draft of the second novel in the series in early October. That manuscript is due to my editor Jan 4th. So I’ve been editing and rewriting three different manuscripts since late October — none of which are ready to go live.

The good news is every round of feedback from my editor helped inform and shape the other books. A lot of her suggestions and corrections from the first novel cascaded into the novella before she even read it. The same was true for the second novel. Her comments on the novella and first novel shaped the manuscript rewrites for the second novel.

The bad news is every round of feedback meant yet more editing across both novels and the novella. I shuffled around world building elements, revisited certain scenes or characters (reasons varied: foreshadowing, elevating a minor character’s role, etc.), and gender-swapped a mysterious figure who crosses paths with the protagonist in the first novel.

All good work, and work which has definitely improved the books.

But that series of decisions and the rounds of editorial feedback left me in the 59th minute of the 11th hour of 2020 with the depressing realization that I’m still months away from publishing, well, anything.

Swing and a miss, author, swing and a miss.

Instead of rolling into 2021 keyboards-a-blazing and hot off a freshly published novel or two, I’m humbly limping across the 2020 finish line with nothing I can publicly share. And since I’m going to be so close to having the second and third novels done in early 2021, I’m considering publishing the first three novels at the same time so readers can immediately buy the next book (this is hugely important for Amazon ranking and sales and avoiding the “Amazon cliff,” when sales inevitably plummet after a couple of weeks because Amazon no longer pushes your new release).

Advice varies on whether rapid release is still a viable strategy. Even if it is, many intelligent voices in the indie writing community argue against this approach.

Who knows? I may pivot again once I’ve made the final passes on the first novel and the novella. I’ve been working on this series for sooooooo long, and I desperately want to share it with the world.

In the mean time, I’ve got no option other than to miss another self-imposed deadline.

<sigh>

On a recent walk around my neighborhood, I came across a fascinating sight: a tree that had literally grown through a chain link fence.

“How many years did it take this tree to literally grow THROUGH a chainlink fence?” I wondered (not being anything close to a qualified arborist, my totally scientifical and not at all a guesstimate answer was, “a lot”).

The tree didn’t spring to maturity overnight any more than it managed to engulf the fence overnight. Instead, the tree grew according to its own internal clock, and that plodding but persistent progress also allowed it to adapt to the pre-existing fence.

I hate that I missed my deadline for publishing my first novel. I hate how long it’s taken me to make progress on this urban fantasy series. I wish I was a faster, or at least more productive, writer. But at the end of the day, what’s a typing monkey to do?

Basically, KEEP TYPING. Embrace where I am, own the decisions I’ve made, and plot a path forward. Do not stop.

In other words, make at least a little bit of progress every day. Like that tree.

And if I’m the tree in the photo above, the fence is everything standing between me and my first published novel.

God help that fence . . .