Turning in My Book! & lessons in letting go

Hello all! Long time no chat. There have been just a few updates since we’ve last spoken, which I’ll provide lightening round summary below -

I attended the Roots. Wounds. Words. Storyteller of Color Writer’s Retreat in September. It was a beautiful and restorative time! But also, we got stuck on the mountain during Hurricane Helene and had to get helicopter evacuated off the mountain! Please consider donating to help Asheville rebuild if you are able to

I turned in the final(ish) draft of TWIN TIDES to my editor earlier this month 🥂 They are now going to copyedits

I am currently working on two projects, including my potential option Young Adult speculative thriller & my adult horror

  Finishing TWIN TIDES 〰️ Finishing TWIN TIDES 〰️ Finishing TWIN TIDES 〰️

Once again, being on deadline kicked my butt. In mid to late October I received my editor’s latest notes on edits for TWIN TIDES with a turnaround date of early November. This was to be the final draft before copy edits. I turned back my last somewhat big revision (mostly concerned with clarifying the plot and streamlining). After a few more back and forth edits, the final version was transferred to copy edits earlier this month. While these changes were less substantial than my last big round of edits, it did involve a lot of work daily in order to finish my changes on time.

There was also the looming pressure of knowing this was almost the last point in the publishing process I could make major changes. You as an author can still make big changes in copy edits, but the idea is that your manuscript should be in mostly its final form. A lot of the stress in this stage of the editorial process was simply letting go and trusting that this was in the best shape it could be. My partner, who is a professor in English Literature and focuses on Asian American literature did read this version of the draft and helped me A- make metaphors make sense and B- affirmed in his biased opinion that this is a good project and I should stop telling myself it is not.

It’s funny because I am not someone who set out to write “the book of my heart” and I was very much agnostic when it came to any changes to my manuscript (I didn’t feel particularly precious about anything). But the finality of turning in the draft was quite daunting for me. While TWIN TIDES may not be the “book of my heart” it is an ambitious project that fully represents what I want my writing career to look like. It is a multi-POV novel with epistolary elements — often highlighting the real historical context to the Vietnamese diaspora (and the real violence of the war). TWIN TIDES is very much an Asian American story at its core, while still very much being a story about teen girls getting into creepy shenanigans.

I drafted both my dedication, acknowledgements, and an author’s note exploring all of this. This book does mean so much to me, and I still can’t quite believe it will be out in the world next year.

Next steps?

I will be working throughout the next month on my next YA project, which is the potential option project I’ll be submitting to my current publisher. Options are often in publishing contracts, giving a publisher the right to see a project before it’s submitted widely. I don’t want to reveal too much yet, but my next YA is going to be a dark academia spin on Vietnamese mythology (big surprise there) and a cross between PRETTY LITTLE LIARS, MEAN GIRLS, and THE CRAFT 👀

The materials I hope to get squared away are the first three chapters (about 9,000 words) and a detailed synopsis.

I’ll also probably be getting TWIN TIDES back from copy edits sometime before the holiday break, so will be taking time to work on those changes whenever they are returned to me. I don’t anticipate having time to work on it the rest of 2024, but my adult “eldest daughter revenge horror” is something I want to commit to finishing in the first few months of 2025. Wish me luck!

I hope you all have a good end to your year, and are able to take time to rest and take care of your community!

❤️ See you soon