Soooo before I get into this post, I have to share the most ridiculous AI image. I was attempting to develop an image of me at the helm of a ship, navigating the publishing and author life waters, and well, apparently my idea of this was not the same as ChatGPT’s.
Although, as my husband pointed out, I do appear very happy. 🤣 And I don’t write in books (especially not with a crooked-nibbed pen), so there’s also that. Also, not enough coffee. But most of all, I’m afraid to know how short the robot thinks my legs are.
The publishing world is not an easy one, and it seems like a particular mess these days. Booktok has skewed the way bookstores think about the books they buy. Publishers reserve substantial marketing investment (beyond standard catalog listings, basic press releases, and routine social media posts) to their top 10% of books. Everyone I know seems to be cycling through agents who aren’t working out, have left the industry, or worst of all, have died. Attracting new agents is harder than ever. And AI doesn’t help, with the number of people churning out slop books, and AI changing SEO and social so much that it’s really difficult to cut through the noise and promote new novels. It’s a huge conundrum in general and most anyone you might talk to in the book world will have more than a few lamentations for you, regardless of where they sit in the ecosystem.
I remember Ann Patchett once saying at a conference that “writing is the hardest career you might ever choose to do,” or something along those lines. And while it probably doesn’t compare to cleaning skyscraper windows or shoveling horse shit, it’s still not an easy path.
So I’m always having to go back to WHY ON EARTH AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF?
And it boils down to one thing. Because I LOVE writing and creating the worlds of my stories. It actually IS fun. I love the feeling after I have sat down for an hour and scribbled up a blank page. I love the feeling of longing when I have to stand up from that chair and go do the tech work that pays me the actual money. And there is nothing more rewarding than finding out someone else loves diving deep into that story that occupied my mind for at least a year or two.
I’m nearly done with the first draft of my seventh novel (plus three published, one on the way, one on submission, one in the drawer), a fantasy set in Venice that tangles up the god of dreams with a bit of my favorite Italian novelist, Italo Calvino. It’s a bit to early to give more than that away but it’s a WILD story, even wilder than The Happiness Collector which comes out in December. It’s by far my most ambitious novel yet and in about two weeks the story will be fully on the page. Then the hard work, of selling it to a publisher, then all the edits, then hopefully in a year or two it will be in my readers’ hot little hands.
Two weeks. I’m already starting to panic about that moment. Because then what will I do? What story will take its place? I made the mistake of having a gap between writing The Chef’s Secret and In The Garden of Monsters and I was absolutely bereft. I felt like I had lost an old friend, or at least my way in the world. I fall asleep every night thinking about the next scene in my book. When I don’t have a scene to imagine, too many other things creep into my mind that shouldn’t be there.
I have a couple ideas previously spun up but they aren’t grabbing me in the same way as they did in the past. But one theme keeps poking at me. An ages old theme—immortality.
Maybe it’s because I just read three books that feature some form of immortal creatures (also, all lesbians for some reason!): Paulette Kennedy’s absolutely luscious The Last Bride, V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil and Natasha Siegal’s As Many Souls As Stars (out Nov 25).
All of them were deliriously sexy, and took ages old ideas of vampires and demons into new territories. But underneath them all was the idea of immortality and what it might actually mean to have lives that transcend the centuries.
I think I’m drawn to the idea of immortality right now because I’m wading into my own midlife crisis (and no, I am not going to go out and buy a Corvette). I’m at that point where it has become painfully clear I’m hurtling toward some end-point. The invincibility of my youth is solidly gone, and now I’m trying to figure out how to stay alive as long as possible, and how to manage the emotional aspects of friends and family trying to do the same thing at the same time our own government is actively working to kill us.
The new bookish idea is growing roots in this gnarled brain of mine. Two souls, a city (maybe two cities?), lifetimes full of history, food, forgetting, discovering…exploring mortality/immortality in a very different way. The first thought of it is already on the page and I can’t wait to see how it will spiral out from there. I have to start this part of the process before I finish the draft of my current work-in-progress, so that I can water the idea and be ready to reap the fruit when this one is off to find its new home. I’m already itching to get started!
What’s Bringing Me Joy
This is next-level everything.
This totally rad list of the most dominant slang words from, like, every year since 1950.
This is an adorable trend.
I CANNOT WAIT for the next season! Even if you’ve never played the game, you should binge season one. SO good.
If you love food and love Italy, and haven’t read IN THE GARDEN OF MONSTERS, THE CHEF’S SECRET or FEAST OF SORROW, click the links to learn where to buy your copy! And now you can pre-order my latest, THE HAPPINESS COLLECTOR!
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Same girl same!! :-)
Generative AI is destroying the environment and depleting the water supply with every prompt.