My writing confession + a teeny tiny sneak peek

Also, why I've been knitting so many hats.

I have a confession to make.

I haven’t been writing.

When I talked to my agent the other day, and she asked how my book was going, I showed her all the hats I’ve been knitting instead.

She didn’t look disappointed or anything. (She’s a very good agent like that.) But she does know where I am in my schedule, what I’m (supposedly) working on, and that I’d very much like to get a book written to (hopefully) sell sometime next year.

Anyway, here’s the hats. And a pair of mitts, for variety.

I’m fine. Everything is fine.

Last month, I shared my annual social media post about how on Halloween 2003, I decided to stop just talking about writing my book — and actually do it. And the same night years later, heavy with rejection after rejection, I stopped worrying about writing what I thought publishing wanted from me and instead wrote INCARNATE — a story I’d come up with years before but had been too afraid to work on. And that was the book that did it. The one I wrote for myself.

It’s been 20 years since I decided that if I wanted to be an author, I needed to do it. And since writing and publishing INCARNATE, I’ve celebrated that night (I think) every year by writing. Usually something that’s under contract, but sometimes with a new project I’m excited about. It just depends what I have going on.

Twenty years is a big milestone. But this year, aside from that little post on Threads, I just . . . didn’t celebrate it. Even though I have a book I’m ostensibly working on. Even though I have time to do it.

I just . . . didn’t feel like it.

So I didn’t.

Instead, I listened to audiobooks and knit hats.

There are multiple reasons I haven’t been writing. The first and (probably) most obvious one is that I’m tired. I don’t tend to talk about my work — and how I’m feeling about it — publicly, but these last few years have been hard. Writing (and struggling to finish) DAWNBREAKER was hard. Writing (and rewriting) MY SALTY MARY was hard. Pivoting projects at the start of the pandemic was hard. Releasing multiple books where I couldn’t go anywhere or see readers was — you guessed it — hard.

And now, for the first time in years, there’s nothing that I’m actually obligated to write. I mean, contract wise, I’ll soon have line edits on a project, but I don’t think that will be difficult. (Thank goodness!) Then it’s just production stuff for that and Salty Mary. And then . . . nothing but the releases next year.

Of course, I do need to get something written if I want to afford to live. And — as I said in my bonus September email — I was hoping to have at least half a draft done by the end of this year.

Considering that I’ve written, uh, 3,600 words of my new thing, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Hah.

I mean, it’s possible! I could buckle down and do it this month. But, allow me to introduce you to the second reason I haven’t been writing: