Memories

Facebook does a thing where they show you posts that you made on this date however many years ago, as a "Facebook Memory" (and yes, this goes horribly wrong when it reminds you of terrible things that happened). Today my memory post was:

April 21, 2010 ·

started writing another new book today, because hope seems to spring eternal.

The book I'm talking about there is actually The Siren Depths. At this point, I'd already written The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea, as well as Emilie and the Hollow World, and none of them had sold. (I'd also written the beginnings of a handful of novels that all died on the vine.) The Cloud Roads had been making the rounds of publishers since around August of 2008 and was being rejected because they couldn't understand it or couldn't sell it because it was weird or because my last book (The Gate of Gods in 2005 hadn't sold well enough) or just no reason in particular. Emilie and the Hollow World was also starting to collect its share of rejections.

On April 21, 2010 and I was still writing, but also in the process of winding down my career, refusing invites to local conventions and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. On June 25, 2010, I got word that Night Shade Books had offered for The Cloud Roads.