Sense of Sin, Kelly’s First Time, and (Untitled Sophomore Novel); Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing
Here are the facts, as far as we know them. I say the facts, because I still can’t believe they are true until I see them in front of me.
On June 23, my debut novel, Sense of Sin, was released by American publishing house Solstice Publishing. Two days earlier my short story, Kelly’s First Time, appeared in the anthology Let’s Have Fun: Volume One. A week later, it was released as a standalone short.
To the best of my knowledge, I’m still alive. Still here, still struggling to believe I’ve had a book released. I’m now a published novelist at 22, a fact that I will never tire of typing.
So now what?
Sense of Sin was written in a 2 day daze, the way most of my writing is. Kelly’s First Time was drafted in a matter of hours. But both were stories which occupied some space in the further reaches of my mind for as long as I care to remember, as vague, cute concepts, log-lines-
“A BDSM rom com where the tough-guy, sweet-girl roles are reversed”
“A slasher story where the “dumb teens” are the ones in control of things”
Like anyone, I had a million such stories run through my mind, and had rarely given a second’s thought to making them a reality. There was something precious and pure about their status as ideas, as if they were worth millions until written down.
Now that’s all changed. Now Sense of Sin and Kelly’s First Time are immortalized in print, and all I can do is move onto the next project.
Right?
Right.
Except that it’s almost impossible to move onto the next project, my mind teeming with fears both fair and unfounded, my trigger finger tapping to refresh Amazon rankings once every couple of seconds. I’m terrified of losing the pace I had, scared I’ve already lost my momentum, afraid I’ll lose any remaining enthusiasm upon sight of my first royalty payment. I lie awake and wonder whether I should ever have become a writer, what I could have changed in the story or the novel to make it perfect, what I can do to get my words into the hands of readers who want to see them. I’m scared my writing will be lost in the flood of Amazon releases. I’m scared I’ll never have a ranking, or never have one I’m happy with, or never know what ranking one should be happy with. I’m afraid no one will see the stories I have to tell, and I’m afraid I’ll never know if I told the stories the way they were in my mind.
That’s heavy (Doc). It’s real. But that’s what writing is. It’s being scared, and saying so, and still saying what you have to say. Simple as.
So, sophomore slump or comeback of the fucking century?
James Joyce was almost blind by the time he finished Finnegan’s Wake, and his previous novel was still banned in his home country at the time. Dan Harmon fought tooth and nail for dozens of projects before Community succeeded, than continued to fight tooth and nail for Community after that, and Rick and Morty after that. As Kanye warned us all, they expected The College Dropout to drop and then flop- check the charts a decade and a half later if you want to see how that prediction panned out.
So, am I ready to start writing my next novel? To keep screaming into the wind about why you need to read Sense of Sin, and Kelly’s First Time, and (this next thing)? To keep hustling and hammering out words as long as I can still stand?
Fuck, you couldn’t hope to stop me.
