Imperfect Progress Titles

So this post (and sending it as an email newsletter) has been on my to-do list for at least a month. Oh, the exact contents have shifted over time, but the announcement itself is unchanged.

But why have I hesitated? Why have I held back? The news I have to share is exciting, amazing even, and yet I delay and delay. Last night I was thinking about it, and I believe I know the answer: I am afraid. No, I am TERRIFIED.

Yeah, I know, that’s not the right way to start an announcement of amazing news, but it’s true. I’ll explain, but first the news:

I finished the fourth draft of my first novel.

It’s done. Ready to go out to Alpha readers this week. Writing this book has been a supernatural experience. There is no other way to explain it:

• The afternoon of Friday, March 21st, after a discipleship session where we talked about very hard things, I went home and began writing, unaware it would become a book.
• Ten¹ days later, at 2:40 am on April 1st, I had a finished novel just under 65,000 words. Besides almost no sleep, my keyboard was a casualty of this adventure.
• On April 18th, four weeks to the day from when I first sat down to write, I finished a full rewrite… my second draft.
• April 17th. I read the entire book on my kindle (so I couldn’t tinker) and made notes about what needed to change.
• May 3rd I finished another full rewrite (the third draft).
• May 26th, I finished a proofread (which is way harder than a rewrite) and had a finished fourth draft.

I’m sharing this timeline, not to brag—because honestly, it’s crazy—and it was only possible because I’m still unemployed after my November 6th layoff. Also, what is sleep? Because I don’t think I have heard of that recently.

No, I share this only to show how supernatural the writing of this book was. I had no plans to write a book, sat down to write something to work through a sticky bit of trauma, and then ten days later had a finished novel? That is not how books work.

But this is all good news. I wrote a book, really fast, and I believe it is amazing. So why am I afraid to announce its completion? I am very proud of the book and what I created, so why hold back from sharing it with others? Why have I dragged my feet for weeks on asking for early readers?³ Why haven’t I sent out a newsletter or posted a blog until today? 

It’s because I am afraid.

See, where every other book I have worked on before held a good story, this book is far more personal. Although fictional events and characters populate it, the story is mine.

The atrocities that happen to Alice at the beginning of the story are fabricated, and yet the internal healing journey she has to walk through echoes my own tumultuous recovery.

The protagonist’s friends (Amanda, Victoria, and Brittany) are not one-to-one with anyone in particular, but they each hold pieces of the people who have pulled me through the healing process of my trauma.

I am proud of the book. It is imperfect and needs feedback, edits, etcetera… and yet the thought of sharing something so personal for others to read and critique TERRIFIES me.

So, what is this book about?⁴ On its surface, this is a thriller about a girl running away from a very powerful, very connected man who is trying to drag her back into sex slavery. Under the hood, this book explores what it means to trust after betrayal, how to rebuild an identity after being shattered, and the role community plays in the healing process.

This book is not for children. While I don’t explicitly describe the traumatic abuse, there are very adult themes in this story. Also, some characters use foul language.

It’s also not a Christian book, although there are Christian characters in the story. Spoiler alert: The main character doesn’t find Jesus at the end and then that solves all her problems.

This book is staged in a mostly realistic version of our world. There is some made-up technology in the hands of the antagonist, just to keep it interesting, and I stretched a bit on exactly how migrant farming works in America, but both tweaks to our world are background, just to make the story work.

Now what? Here are my next steps with this story:

• This week, the novel will go to Alpha readers. These readers are the ones who give general feedback on the story. What is confusing or needs more clarification? Where is it too slow or too fast? What is over-explained or under-explained? Which relationships need more time to develop? What secondary plot lines feel dropped or drag on for too long?
• As soon as I have feedback from my Alpha readers, I will do a full rewrite to create the fifth draft.
• Then I will run the book through one or two edits before sending it to Beta.
• Beta readers give more specific feedback: This paragraph is unclear. This sentence is worded oddly. You use too many em dashes. This “there” needs to be “their” instead. This language doesn’t match how that character spoke earlier.
• I will do another edit or two myself.
• Then I will use my tax return to hire a professional editor.⁵
• After going through the edits provided by the editor, it will be time to talk about layout, cover, and publishing. I plan to hire professionals if I can afford it, since I recognize this was the most difficult and discouraging part of the process with my first book.

So, with a normal book, this is a year-long process. And yet, this book has been anything but normal. So I do not know how long this will take. Still, there is a process ahead and I will need all the support I can get.

• The biggest way you can help me is by praying for me.
  • There is a lot of work to do, and it’s the detail-heavy kind of work that I hate. I need endurance to keep working at it when it’s hard.
  • I need to find the right people to edit, design the cover, and do the layout. I need to decide about my publishing plans, considering all of Amazon’s recent controversy.
  • I need courage to share this very personal story and to keep my identity rooted in Christ as I receive feedback.
  • I need to fight the impostor syndrome that says I am not good enough to call myself an author or that no one will ever want to read this.
  • I need a job, so I have the funds to hire professionals to help with this project. Also to pay my bills, although so far God has been incredibly faithful to provide for me over the last eight months.
• If you want to be more directly involved, I will need three types of readers:
  • Alpha readers (this week) get the book and give general feedback.⁶
  • Beta readers give more specific feedback on a more refined version of the book.
  • ARCs, or Advanced Reader Copies, are the people who receive the final draft ahead of publication so they can write reviews.
• I’ll also need support with the publishing process: people to post on social media, help with the book launch event, and other stuff I don’t even know yet.
• Hopefully, when the book comes out, you will want to buy it. And hopefully you will love it. And hopefully reading it will impact you as much as writing it impacted me.

No matter how you help (and I am totally serious that prayer is the #1 thing I need), thank you for being on this adventure with me! I am so thankful for the community of people who have loved me and walked arm in arm with me. 

Since this blog has been all over the place, I am going to break with convention yet again and end with acknowledgments (instead of waiting for the novel to come out). I feel like I couldn’t make this announcement without thanking the six of you. (As with anything like this, not seeing your name below doesn’t mean I don’t value you or appreciate you.)

In this book, Alice has three friends, and those friends intentionally have no physical description, so the reader can think about who in their own life might be those people. There have been so many people in my life who have, in different seasons, been those three friends for me. But in this specific season, right now, they are Kaitlyn, Erin, Maria, and Nicole. Alyssa and Patti, you are both in the story, too, in a way, through the characters of Ruth and Deborah, who provide love and support to Alice on her journey.

1. I consider it still March 31st, since I hadn’t gone to bed yet. ↩︎
2. Other than one Facebook post saying, “I will be looking for readers in the future.” ↩︎
3. Every author’s worst nightmare is trying to answer that question succinctly. ↩︎
4. I thought I would owe money and instead got almost $5,000 back! ↩︎
5. If you want to be an Alpha reader, let me know right away. Text is best. But email or PM works too. ↩︎