Random thoughts about The Darkening

We are near the end of June and that means there are four more months before my début novel, The Darkening, launches. I’ve been busy creating stuff related to the book and dealing with things that happen behind the scenes that are vital to have a book published, which is why I’ve been on and off here.

The Darkening is a standalone novel, and I always thought of it like this. From conceiving the idea, to outlining, to getting ready to publish, it has taken me more than four years if not more (yes, I did lose track. It happens). In that time, I have both loved the story and hated it.

Loved it because I think the premise is original despite the clichés of the genre. Loved it because it’s the first novel I finished. Loved it because thanks to it I improved my craft.

Hated it because it drained me. Hated it because as I was writing it, I realised I needed to learn more about me and my craft. Hate it because I’m so much of a perfectionist when it comes to my writing, that I’m still not satisfied with it. HAted it, because after all the years it took me to complete it, I couldn’t stand reading another line from it.

I’m not sure who said it (the Internet is full of conflicting information about this), but the following quote rings truer than anything else about my book: books are never finished, only abandoned. Boy, whoever actually said it, was they right or what?

At some point I was fed up with it, that I actually said, “Enough! I can’t stand edit you any longer!” (you see how many exclamation marks I’ve used? If you know me at all, you know I hate exclamation marks. And I used two of them. That should be enough to show how passionate I was when I said those words). That’s usually when a writer knows the story is ready to be published.

It never crossed my mind to ever re-visit the world of The Darkening. The thought still doesn’t appeal to me. Since “never say never” is a good adage, I’ll say instead the thought doesn’t appeal to me yet.

But I’ve been working (read: writing) on something for my newsletter subscribers that got me back into the world of The Darkening. And despite my original hesitation, now that I have finished drafting it, I have to admit, I enjoyed working on it. Probably because it’s very different from everything I’ve ever done. It was new, and it was exciting.

I’ll let you in on it once it’s over. If everything goes to plan (and everything has to go as planned because people now expect it), it should go live one month after The Darkening’s official release date. It will be available to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter around the end of November.