What If?

Writing Update

Okay, a lot happened this week!

• Copy edits came back from the editor. Woohoo! My biggest sin seemed to be "There is/There are" sentence starts. 😅 Whoops. (And extremely goofy typos, of course, but that goes without saying.)

• Not only that, I also finished reading through my physical proof copy. I . . . will be spending some time removing a lot of Will's F-bombs.

• I've gone through three chapters so far to apply the editor's notes. My dual screen system (using my iPad as a second monitor) seems to be working well. I meant to bring home my old laptop from work this weekend to see if I could use that for its bigger screen, but I got busy marking some posters and I totally forgot. Oh well. I'll try to remember on Monday!

• I'm now five and a half chapters into revisions on The Patron Saint of Scoundrels. It's relatively quick work, but finicky, because there are things I changed for TMOT that now need to be worked into TPSOS. (My fault, of course, for writing them backwards. Oh well.) For example:

  • The big Bree thing I'm scared to bring up. (It's in "The Perfect Mark," though, so I should stop being coy about it, probably.)

  • The tattoo changes.

  • The setting change. (Bye-bye, little cabin in the middle of nowhere.)

  • Plus a bunch of other little things, of course.

• Not at all a priority, and there will be no action taken on this for probably YEARS, but I had a lightning strike about how to revise the beginning of The Queen of Lies when I delve back into that (eventually). Into the notes app it goes!

• Book 3 is on pause for the moment while I juggle copy edits and Book 2 revisions. (And report cards. Oh, joy!) I'll keep adding detail to my outline, though. :)

I've shared this scene SO MANY TIMES on Tumblr. Have it again, in PHYSICAL BOOK FORM. 😍 (Bonus typos included!)

ID: a photo of Kate holding up the last page of a TMOT chapter where the protagonists discuss the night sky. Some annotations are written in pencil, pointing out errors or making comments.

ID: the last page of The Mark of Thieves with the final lines cropped out. The text reads: To be continued in THE PATRON SAINT OF SCOUNDRELS. A sad/crying face has been drawn in pencil on the page.

Insecurities

Okay, all of that is fine and dandy. But do you know what else happened this week?

Terror struck.

Imposter syndrome struck.

The sudden desire to give it all up — delete every account, ghost every friend, cancel every plan, ALL of it — struck.

First, a little backstory: This wasn't the first time I'd felt this way. Around this time last year, I went through a similar thing. My self-confidence hit an all-time low. (And, listen, I'm not a low self-esteem kind of gal; this was definitely unusual.) The urge to quit became incredibly overwhelming. So, at the beginning of May, I disappeared from my usual haunts on the Internet for three months, choosing to focus on real life. I didn't touch (then-titled) TPOT for about five months. I didn't quit, delete my accounts, give up, what have you, but I took a long break.

And what kicked off that big crisis last year? Those same obsessive thoughts, the desire to give up writing completely and just disappear.

So, this isn't the first time these feelings have come around. I find it quite interesting that it's happening again roughly around the same time of year, which indicates to me that it's rooted at least partially in burnout. (I work full time as a teacher, after all, and this time of year is parent-teacher interview, report card, AND standardized test season.) And I'm sure that the ever-present habit of comparing myself to others even though I know very well I shouldn't isn't helping.

This week, cue me getting weepy on the couch, exhausted, barely able to stay up past 9pm, confessing my fears to my husband:

• What if I fail?

• What if no one reads it?

• What if no one likes it?

• What if I'm delusional, and all the things about my book I think are good are truly, objectively NOT?

• What if everything I changed from TPOT to TMOT, all changes I believe were necessary and for the better, alienate the folks who remember the original story?

• What if I made it worse?

• What if my friends see me fail and for the rest of time, that's all they'll ever see me as — a failure?

• What if I try my hardest and nothing works anyway?

• What if, what if, what if?!

Okay, I know I'm not alone. I'm not the first person to have ever felt like this. But writing can be so insular and so lonely. The landscape of indie publishing can also be incredibly daunting. Combine that with me genre woes (discussed last week), and you have fertile ground for a writing-related breakdown.

I don't have a single answer to any of those questions, by the way. I don't think there's much I can do other than keep going. If I give up now, I'll never know what could have been. At least if I fail, I can learn and try again.

Hubby's answer: "So what?"

He didn't mean this callously, of course, and I know him well enough to understand that. And while it wasn't exactly helpful, it was also sort of what I needed to hear, because it reminded me to put things in perspective.

The same night he said that, we went to a wonderful local production of Guillermo Verdecchia's play Feast, which explored modern anxieties and, particularly, the climate crisis. It was well-timed for me, for sure. My terror over publishing my book is not the biggest problem out there. I'm just a little speck of dust in a grand, wide universe. And while my feelings are also Big and Scary, they're not earth-shatteringly important. They, too, shall pass.

My book will succeed or fail. Life will go on. Bigger problems will continue to exist.

Is this comforting? I'm not sure. But it is true.

Anyway, if you're also someone who's having Big Feelings lately, here's a message for you:

It'll be okay. It's hard. It's frightening. But you will get through it, whatever it is.

Just promise me—no, not me but yourself—you'll keep going.

Snippet

Hmm. TPSOS, anyone?

“What’s wrong?” I ask, more than a little helpless at the prospect of trying to give aid to this girl who doesn’t seem to be entirely in her right mind. “It can’t be,” she chokes, a nonsense answer. New tears are already streaming down her cheeks. She backs away from us some more, chatting into the table in the centre of the room and sending a pile of spoons crashing to the floor. She shrieks at the sound. God help us. “Hey. Uh. Are you okay?” She’s definitely not—no question about it—but it seems like the right thing to ask, even if she isn’t fit to give an honest answer. With another glance at Geoff, I try to communicate as best I can: This girl’s completely mad.

Have a great week, everyone! I'll leave off with a nice photo of the CN Tower I took yesterday while on a walk. Hope you enjoy!

ID: a photo taken from a cemetery with some headstones visible. In the distance, the Toronto CN Tower is framed by bare tree branches.