Category: writing

Building the Plane: Deciding to Move Forward with Independent Publishing

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I’ve spent the better part of the last two months being told that I am building the plane while flying it. It’s an apt metaphor that I am not unfamiliar with, but as I have grown comfortable with the notion of being in a state of forward propulsion without knowing quite what to do next, I have been moved to make a decision.

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For years, I have been of the staunch notion that I would query, find an agent, then a publisher, then publish my books. I have cobbled together draft after draft, trying to get it “perfect,” and for seven years, I haven’t really made any forward motion.

But for me, at this juncture, I want my words out there. I want people to read my writing, and I have come to a couple of realizations that I think have moved this along:

  • I want the freedom to genre hop: Not to say that you can’t do this with traditional publishing, but the truth is, it’s harder. I recently had an idea for a “weird girl lit/horror” that I am obsessed with, and I want the freedom to pursue that project if/when I get through the backlog of ideas I have.
  • I want agency and ownership over my work: Of course, criticism, constructive feedback, and notes are important to the writing process. I will be working with developmental editors, with people who can help and support what I am doing, but I want to pick my covers, market the way that makes sense to me, and keep my writing as a tether to me. And if I decide a story has to end a certain way, or that something isn’t going to work, I want to go with my gut a little bit more than I think traditional publishing will allow.
  • I have a good amount of industry knowledge from a marketing perspective: Because I have been tangentially “in” bookish spaces for a while, I know enough to know enough to cobble together a marketing plan for my books that hopefully will drive sales/reads.
  • The statistical probability of success is just as probable as failure: At the end of the day, I am just as likely to land a book deal, to find an agent, for things to go “well” just as much as things could go poorly. And I could, very well, use my time to market my book, rather than spending time tracking queries and hoping for success that way.

Now, let me be clear: Independent publishing is going to cost money, time, and energy. It’s going to require me to spend a meaningful amount of time on work that isn’t necessarily going to pay off. But genuinely, I have been waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect time, the perfect story, the perfect pitch. But I’m tired of waiting.

All of this said, timeline wise, my intention is May 2027 for my first book. It’s going to be an interesting 10 months, but I am looking forward to sharing the journey with you, as always.

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Thank you for reading <3

-M

Projects I’m Not Picking Up Again

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I think we all have those writing projects that we start and never finish, or leave with the intention of coming back to. I’ve been writing online for seven years, and over that time, there have been a few dropped projects. So here they are, in no particular order, and a brief overview of why I’m not going back to them.

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Is My Writing a Hobby or a Job?

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As someone who writes and defines themselves as a “writer,” I see a lot of my writing as a job. And I get paid to write blog posts, news articles, and to do copy writing. But what about this novel I’ve spent the last eight months trying to write, or other personal writing projects. Are they part of my “job?”

I’ve read a lot of blogs and twitter posts that if you want to “make it” as a novelist, you must treat it like a job. Set hours that you are going to write, dress up for the occasion in a pencil skirt and blouse, sit at a desk, etc. And I can agree that these things make you feel official and that they will lead, potentially, to some productivity.

But then I think of an Elizabeth Gilbert anecdote about the poet who would be outside, and would hear a poem coming for miles, and she would have to run, faster and faster to her desk to be able to sit down and work on this poem and jot it down as it flowed through her body and if she wasn’t at the right place at the right time then it would float on by, on to the next writer who was ready for it.

Writing is a job for me. It is a “freelance, sit down, have a deadline” job. It is studying mannerisms of speech and googling facts and doing research and it is sometimes hard. Far harder than I ever wanted it to be.

It’s about getting up before work starts for the day to look up newspaper articles that just broke. It’s about sending countless pitch emails to publications to compile a list of rejections. It’s about first time luck prevailing and second guessing and hoping and praying and failing.

Is writing my job? Yes. It’s one of many things I do. My novel, however unattended to, is my job. It is to be worked on and teased out and toiled over and written. And I treat it, now and forever, like a job.

I’ve been writing semi consistently since I was 16. There isn’t lots of my work out there for the world to see, but it’s there in the corners of the internet I’ve been playing in for years. I’ve written plays and blog posts and articles and short stories. And a lot of it, so much of it is fun.

But it’s also work.

Tell me about your relationship to writing in a comment below. Is it a job, or a hobby to you?

A Little Bit of Everything: Reading, Writing, etc.

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Dear Reader, I am going to resist the urge to apologize for the lack of schedule, the lack of through line and theme, the lack of any and everything, and I am just going to talk today about what I’m reading, what I’m writing, and all that jazz.

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