Welcome to A Little Bookish, A Little Writerly wherein I will write a new story in real-time and occasionally talk about how my experiments in non-traditional publishing are going.
The goal of this newsletter is to close the gap of the feedback loop, meaning, I don’t want to wait months or years to know if what I’m writing is any good. At the same time, I know writing is subjective and I don’t expect all of my friends to like what I write. My hope; however, is that some people will like my stories and provide me with the excitement I need to keep writing them.
As I write this, I'm filled with more motivation to write than I’ve felt in the past year. Don’t get me wrong, 2021 was a good year for me in terms of writing benchmarks. I graduated with my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (a goal I pursued for the better part of six years) and my poetry novella, Babydoll, was published by an indie publisher. These were massive goals achieved; however, they were the culmination of years of behind-the-scenes work and by the end of 2021, despite many failed attempts, I hadn’t written anything new.
This strangulation of creativity was a new feeling for me this year. Since starting my first fantasy novel, Daughter of Blood and Embers, in March 2015 I’d always spent a large portion of my creative time working on my book. Whether that was re-writing it from scratch all over again, or pitching it to agents, or competing in publishing competitions, I was accustomed to writing something that I was passionate about.
To provide some background, I started DoBaE back out of feverish desperation to pull my family out of poverty with the strength of my pen. That didn’t work out as planned since I had zero understanding of the publishing industry at large. Six years later and after several full re-writes from scratch, countless queries to agents, and many pitch contest submissions, I finally realized that I could not be objective when it came to my own work and that I would not tamper with my book without the help of a professional.
My search began for an editor who would be able to help me take DoBaE from what it had become into its next permutation with the hopes that I would finally see it on shelves in bookstores. I found a reputable editor who had an impressive client list, saved the money I needed, and sent the manuscript off for in-depth feedback in November 2021.
Now that I wasn’t going to be tinkering with DoBaE on my own anymore, I decided I’d start a brand new book with a whole new cast of characters in a completely new world. The only problem is that I’ve been struggling to stay motivated to write it.
That’s where this little newsletter comes in. In truth, it’s an experiment that I’m running to stay excited and to write on a regular basis. Just the act of writing this out has me buzzing with joy and anticipation. I haven’t felt this eager to write in a long time and I hope that this newsletter is the push I need to get the momentum going.
Now, on to some logistics. I plan to write every day (that’s ambitious, I know, but I’m allowing myself to dream big this year). However, I don’t know if I should post what I write at the end of each day or if I should just plan to post at the same time each week.
I guess this is where you, the reader, come in. What do you think? What would you like to see?