In October 2023, I received editorial notes from my agent on draft #6 of my novel. She poured on the usual praise in the beginning, but this letter was different from past ones. In a remark that made me feel like a Thanksgiving turkey with its entrails ripped out and replaced with stuffing, she said she wasn’t sure I knew yet what story I wanted to tell (draft SIX, people). As with most feedback, I needed some time to digest it fully and properly. This, after all, was a spiritual problem with the text, not a cosmetic, not a structural, but a ‘wtf are you even doing here?’ problem. A kind of problem that makes you abandon a project. So, for the next eight months, I rewrote the entire 99,000 words from scratch, re-starting with a blank page. It took three rounds of full-blown rewriting, but the plot was more propulsive, the stakes stickier, and the humor more fully, wildly mine. I sent it to my agent in July and, in mid-August, she got back to me…
Saturday, August 10th: “What’s the damage?”
I was a jittery wreck that morning waiting for her notes. The week before was riddled with stress dreams starring my writing career going up in flames. That afternoon, I was supposed to be going with my mom to Old Town for their annual sidewalk sale, but I didn’t know if I was going to make it. What if my agent sent her notes while I was in public and I needed to go rip all my hair out but couldn’t find a place to do it? Her notes came at 11:30am. The damage was…reasonable? Expected? I was only mildly surprised by one of her suggestions about a love interest she felt needed to be more compelling. Because I am who I am, I immediately walked up the street to the library and printed out her email, bought some highlighters from C.V.S, and chewed on the work ahead of me. But my biggest question had yet to be answered: when were we going on submission so I could pull my hair out, but for a reason other than rip-you-a-new-asshole revisions?
Sunday, August 11th: “Finally, a fucking finish line!"
At 6pm, I hopped on a call with my agent to talk through the revisions, ask clarifying questions, and talk about a timeline. I was so nervous. I didn’t know what I’d do if she said something like ‘this could use seven more rounds.’ But what she said was: you’ve got two weeks off, right? Let’s see what you can do in that time. It’d be a dream to go out this fall. BET. I got off the call buoyant. Finally, a finish line flagged in front of me. Now it was down to me to run the last mile (of this race) without passing the hell out.
Monday, August 12th: “I’m writing stuff, but none of it sounds like me.”
I had the week off, but I woke up with an anxious heart like I was going into the office or worse: had to revise my novel for the 10th time. I was woken up at 5:50am against my will and decided to just get up. I stretched for twenty minutes, called my mom, ate a banana while failing to read some poetry. And then I opened my novel. I was still waiting on my agent’s line edits, so I hesitated. I settled for brainstorming ideas on how to fix the problem of the uncompelling love interest. Walking to the library, I printed the first 20 pages of my manuscript (I didn’t choose this number, it’s just the library’s daily maximum). Around lunchtime, I went into the office for some unrelated shenanigans. It was a G.ho.s.t T.o.w.n. My agent sent her line edits that afternoon. I leapt for my phone. My stomach turned when I opened the document. I just saw line after line of strikethroughs. The first joke in the novel was struck through. I texted T., my screenwriter bestie/creative soulmate about my fears of losing my voice in the process of being edited. I sent him the first few pages of the line notes and he held my hand, talking me down. He didn’t feel like any of the changes had changed my voice.
Things were fine for the rest of the day until I tried to dive back into the novel that evening and implement my agents suggestions for Chapter 1. My attempts at humor felt watered down and held back. The uncompelling love interest felt too…nice in this new version. I worried the interaction between him and the protagonist had lost the bite and friction I loved so much. I wrote on a Post-IT note and put it on my nightstand: “Just focus on addressing your agent’s notes then go back in to add your voice later.”
I called my other bff on the verge of tears about the whole thing: “I don’t know what my voice sounds like anymore. I’m writing stuff, but none of it sounds like me.” I read him the beginning of the roughly revised first chapter over the phone and something funny happened: by reading it aloud, I saw that my voice was still there, just a bit scaled back. Lesson learned (or rather, remembered): the first few days of muscling through any major revision are often more about wrangling your emotions than your prose.
Tuesday, August 13th: “Three’s a crowd…but it might fix my book.”
Agony. Pain. Misery. I got up at 5:50am again, my body clock ruined. Made some tea, ate a banana, and made a revision to-do list. Mercifully, the list was just over a page, a page albeit with some big-ticket items. As soon as I opened the novel I was tormented by my voice and the problem of the uncompelling love interest again. He was more likeable with my first chapter changes, but I was BORED. It was BORINGGGGG. I didn’t want to begin my novel with a perfectly fine encounter over drinks—I wanted FIGHTING!!! And I felt like I couldn’t move forward until Chapter 1 was fixed. I sent a desperate 7am audio message to T. and we bounced ideas off of each other for the first chapter: So, Uncompelling-Love-Interest is my heroine’s boyfriend’s BEST FRIEND (I know, but they’re open so it’s bad but not as bad as you’d think. It does get worse though teehee). And he’s not a L.I in the beginning, they’re just meeting up because they have this mutual person in their life. Initially, their interaction is combative and full of friction (I was writing them as enemies to lovers), but my agent felt like he was too big of an asshole. Now, I love an asshole, so here I am trying to compromise. As I said, I rewrote it with much less combat and it was boring. My agent had suggested opening with the three of them together. The bf lives in L.A so he’d have to be in town. At first I was opposed. But with the tension drained from the first chapter, it seemed like the perfect way to UP it. I floated the idea to T. He really liked it. I was almost ready to get to work, but first I had to walk to the goddamn library to print and then, of course, to Starbucks…
Because I’m the Queen of Free Printing at the library, I spent ten minutes helping a guy with the convoluted printing process. Afterwards, just as I was experiencing a *major* breakthrough with Chapter 1, I knocked over my coffee, soiling the slew of inspirational Post-IT notes on my nightstand—a metaphor whose meaning I’m sure will reveal itself to me in the months ahead. The good news is, I rewrote Chapter 1 (yay!). The bad news? I’m, like, forty pages behind schedule and my back started hurting because I hadn’t stretched that morning (great, noted for tomorrow).
Wednesday, August 14th: “New motivation, unlocked.”
I got up at 6:30am (not 5:50am, thank GOD). Ate a banana, made some tea, did not stretch, read the new POETRY magazine that appears in a paper package in my mailbox every month, and read a bit of Akwaeke Emezi’s memoir-in-essays Dear Senthuran. They have two great essays on writing and publishing called Execution and Money. I re-read them, groping for motivation to begin revising. As I was making my tea, I thought, “I have to start finding motivation outside of myself.” None of my usual carrots were working: seeing the physical copy of my book, the dream of a tour that probably won’t happen, winning prizes. Those desires had gone stale. I’d been reading more and more about how getting a book deal is not the end, but the beginning of wanting more, and I was tired of wanting. I thought of my late grandma and great-grandma, both librarians. How excited they’d be to know I’d written a book. I grabbed a Post-IT and scribbled: “This is for grandma and great-grandma.” I was close to tears, but I didn’t let them come; I’ve been saving them for submission. New motivation unlocked. Let’s go.
I spent today cleaning up Chapter 1 and I have to say…I’m loving this new version!!! I’m also *almost* caught up on revisions (I got through 42 pages. I was hoping to be on page 60 today, but maybe I’ll be able to keep this pace tomorrow and hit 80 pages? One can dream). What I’m finding is that revision is a lot like rock climbing—not that I’ve ever rock climbed—you just need to find your footing in the beginning. Once you’ve got something to grab onto, your momentum, your speed, changes. I really stumbled for these first few days, but I am, dare I say, optimistic about tomorrow….
Thursday, August 15th: “Hard questions and even harder answers.”
PAIN. I woke up at 5:45am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Ate a banana, made some tea, played around on Canva—why does every morning involve at least three hours of not doing the work I set out to do? I had jumped up at 5:50am, possessed, and deleted a chapter in the middle of the novel. My agent says she’d like to see me cut 30,000 words from my manuscript (AHAHAAHA. Yeah, I’d like to see it, too). I’m on page 48 and am hoping to wrap today on page 100. Only time will tell…
Here is the thing with revision: It’s hard, in part because it forces you to dig beneath your decisions, clarify emotions you have reason to keep foggy. The war in Gaza is a thread in my novel—I felt compelled to talk about it, yet had no words to talk about it in a way that felt necessary. My agent asked, “Why doesn’t the protagonist care about the other wars and atrocities happening around the world? Why Gaza but not Sudan?” What a hard, ugly question. There was no choice but to answer truthfully, and the truth was, all of us subconsciously privilege certain causes, issues, groups, over others, if only in how strong or weak our emotional reactions to them are. Once I put an honest, bald answer to that question into my heroine’s mouth, the conversation the book was trying to have became richer, messier, and yes, harder.
By 2pm, I surpassed my goal of revising up to page 100 (!!!!). To treat myself, I walked the 2 miles to Politics & Prose in 90 degree weather (1/10, do not recommend). I bought FOUR books, because apparently I think I have money now, including Vladimir1 by Julia May Jonas, A Year of Last Things: Poems by Michael Ondaatje, Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck and The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue.
Friday, August 16th: “I don’t even know what day it is.”
I’m pretty sure something’s died in my apartment—the smell is epic. That’s Haili’s Law: if things are going well with my writing, something must go wrong in my house. Woke up, thankfully, at 6:30am. Spoke on the phone to my mom while eating a banana. Made some tea (hot, hot, hot). Read a bit. I’m already 50 pages into Vladimir!!! I knew I needed to move through the prerequisite, pre-destined three-hour transition window of doing nothing before digging into revisions.
At 9:30am, I got ready to go to Starbucks. This day was already harder than the previous one, revision-wise. I got too comfortable!!! I surpassed my goal, and now I was overconfident!!! I needed to be punished!!!
Actually, nevermind. By 2pm, I’d revised up to page 260 of the novel, like, who I am!!!!! At this pace, I’d be done with this round by the weekend.
I wanted to keep my motivation up so, after reading about writer Amanda Montell’s book cover design process and seeing her mood board for The Age of Magical Overthinking (a gorgeous cover, btw), I said, you know what? Canva IS calling my name, thank you. I won’t share the whole book cover mood board here, I’m much too superstitious for all that, but here’s a tease:
Weekend Look Ahead: “It’s back to the beginning for this bitch.”
Once I finish this round of revision, I’m planning to read the book from start to finish on my phone, editing as I go. I’ve found that I catch many more typos and am a much more ruthless editor on my phone, probably because it feels more casual. I’ll also note any parts of the story that still bristle me. THEN, I’ll get the manuscript printed and bound, read it through one last time, cutting more, tightening and elevating the prose, before sending it to my agent.
This week has truly surprised me. It began as one of the worse revision rounds yet, and ended up being the swiftest. I don’t know what that means. Maybe it’s just another reminder that the creative life has as much command over us as we have over it, and art-making is just another word for surrender.
That’s all for now, Diehards2 <3
Can we talk about the hardback cover of this book???? My ovaries are BURNING, my thighs are ACHING, I need to have a baby TONIGHT. I need that man to RUIN ME. Excuse me but, HOW DARE YOU PULL OFF THIS GRINCH GREEN CORDUROY TWO PIECE BETTER THAN THE MF WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS HIMSELF !!!!
Ew, do we like this??? I kind of love it!!
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