Coffee

Do you have any idea how difficult it was to get a stock photo of black coffee instead of some sort of latte? I had to scroll, my loves. It might as well have been on the second page of Google results.

Now, when Past Michelle prompted Present Michelle to write about coffee, I do not know that they had in mind, because that was, frankly forever ago. Nonetheless, I will do my best to to right by their intentions, and we will all just have to get through this together, like adults.

But first!

I have finished the rough draft of Depth Rose, the fourth and final book in the Stone and Sky quartet, and I want to talk about that. It is probably the only thing that I want to talk about more than I want to talk about coffee.

I was trying to keep the draft under 100,000 words, but I was not successful and it currently sits at 125,000 words. The vast majority of my notes are things that I want to add, and my drafts almost never get shorter, but we’ll have to make an exception, because I really don’t want it to be much longer than it is right now. A lot happens, but more importantly, a lot resolves.

Thing is, I finished the first book, Faces of the Moon, in December, and I started querying it in late December*, and the number one tip that people give querying others when it comes to tolerating the uncertainty and waiting and anxiety of the querying process** is to write more.

So being, honestly, several elves short of a functioning workshop, I picked up some dangling threads from Faces and started writing Coming of Rage, which is a direct sequel only in the sense that it happens after Faces. Rage has almost entirely new characters, it’s set halfway across the country, and doesn’t directly pick up the main plot from anywhere.

Partly because I didn’t yet know what the main plot was. Hazards of being a pure, dyed in the wool, undiluted pantser.

But now I had a second pillar to play with. Rage fleshes out the magic, introduces some new groups of shifters, dabbles in some political background, and adds my favorite MMC of the whole quartet. I expanded on some things that I only gave a single sentence to in Faces, and I liked what I saw.

A vague picture started to form about where things were going, and I knew that I’d need two more books to do it. That’s when I started calling it a closed quartet.

I finished Rage in late March. I had started book 3, Fall from Grays*** on my phone in early March, so by the time I was done with Rage, it was already at about 30,000 words. I still don’t outline, but now I had a direction, and I kept this one focused on the end point, which had crystalized in my mind into one idea: American folklore was colonized just like the people were, and this really should be a bigger deal than it is.

I finished Grays in late April, and started Depth Rose in May. Yesterday, July 21st, I typed THE END on that manuscript. This one is rougher than my other drafts have been. Still no placeholders, except for things like [eye color] and [number] that I fixed on my first readthrough, but it does have some plot threads that I decided on halfway through at the beginning, and some things that I dropped that I’ll need to either finish cutting, or add to the end.

Nothing dealbreaking; it works just fine, but some amount of smoothing will be required. At my usual pace, probably a week, maybe two.

So while I’ve been querying**** one book, I have written three others. At the very least, I can promise that no one is getting Rothfussed.

I’m deeply proud of these books, and one way or another, they will see print. I am fully aware that they would probably be better if I had the funding to hire a real editor, but alas, it will probably just be me, editing all four books together into one cohesive thing.

Faces has been frozen, spared my usual, constant tinkering, since an agent asked for the full manuscript, but my list of edits that I want to make is ever-growing, in addition to the things that will make it a better Book 1, in addition to being a better book.

As soon as there is no more material out to agents, I will bring Faces back into the editing fold, and I’m so, so excited about it. I’ve written four other books***** but none that I’ve really just wanted to chase people around with. My friends are probably entirely over it, but their toleration of me and my nonsense is why we get to stay friends.

So what then? What am I writing while I wait, now that I’ve finished the Stone & Sky quartet?

The Bookbinder’s Guild

Gaslamp fantasy romance with the slowest of burns******, The Bookbinder’s Guild: Book Binding follows Charlie as she starts work in the library, and just as she’s gotten her feet under her, she is working on a book from the prison wing, which tells of a man unjustly imprisoned within its pages. Updates will go in the usual place.

It is possible that I will finish the first book before I’m done querying Faces, given the disparity between my pace of production and the pace of publishing. I have no idea what the etiquette is querying two projects simultaneously. If it comes to that, I’ll look into it.

It will be fun for all of us, I’m sure.

Now I’ve had 1200 words to ponder what it is that Past Michelle intended for us to talk about, and I have no clue, which is a lesson I should probably learn******* about balancing my responsibilities and allowing myself to hyperfocus on finishing a project.

Probably something about ritual. Right? That sounds like something I’d find interesting.

Recent Writing

I know, I know that it sounds stupid and overwrought and ridiculous, but saying less about how I feel about you didn’t do the trick, so I’m trying something else now, because I don’t know why you can’t believe me, but I will make sure that you can’t doubt me, and if I get bored or lax or stupid at some point in the future it will be because I fell short, not because you did

Next time I’ll talk about my whole sitting-down-to-write ritual. It does include coffee.

Do good, friends.

*Do not come at me about the timeline, just trust me; I edited it. My first drafts are very clean, and I have a reasonable handle on what I want it to be, and further, my budget is zero dollars. My goal is traditional publishing, in part, because then I don’t have to find, vet, or pay out of pocket for an editor, I just have to take their notes. If any editors out there will work in exchange for some glorious handknits, I will make you any sweater you pick out from Ravelry (as long as the pattern is still available) for each book you dev edit.

**You know, the part where we run around baring our souls to strangers and hoping they find them marketable.

***In addition to being fun puns, the titles are thematically relevant, because I’m a literary genius.

****Still the worst way to get a job anyone has yet invented, save, perhaps, for the press gang.

*****One of those books might be resurrectable. I still like the idea, but it’s something I’d want to co-write. Any dark fantasy peeps interested in a real enemies to lovers situation wanna hmu? My insta DMs are open.

******I’ve got it all figured out in a nebulous, pantsery sort of way, but they’re not even going to meet until book 2.

*******but won’t