Knock knock

Hi, it’s me, I know it’s been a while, I’ve been a bit busy. Here’s why: 

I’m getting a novel published!

This book has gone through a very long journey that started more than five years ago. It was my first novel, and also my second novel, and my third…. This is the novel that taught me how to write novels. Each time I rewrote it, I understood it better. And the journey’s not over. I’m currently swimming in the depths of revision. 

When I opened up the manuscript back up again after receiving the offer, I was terrified. I finished the most recent version three years ago. And one of the goals of writing is to improve. That means it’s theoretically a good thing to look at something you wrote five years ago and cringe. What about something I wrote three years ago? What about something that may soon see the light of day in publication?

I would like to commend three-year-ago-me for the effort, and I’m thrilled it was picked up. But over the years I’ve had time to reflect on what I was trying to do in that book, and come to some different conclusions, and when I reread the manuscript I also discovered that a hundred things were just not quite right, and so… I’m back in it, deep. I’m back in it even as I know that, five years down the line, I might look back on this version and see a million more problems that can never be fixed. Even though that is a goal of being a writer. For some reason I’m publishing my imperfections for the world to see. Why am I doing this again? Oh, because I love it. And if I can put out a book that is the best I can do at the time of its creation, that’s worth something. 

The editors and publishers have been amazing so far, and super gracious about me being a diva. Can you imagine offering to publish someone’s debut novel and they’re like, “Thanks, but first, can I just pull the whole thing apart and put it back together real quick?” Also they still want to publish it in June 2025, which, in publishing time, is super fast, and which means I’m on a tough timeline. Come May 24, my deadline to finish this next draft, I’ll be in a much better place to celebrate this news. 

But I’m feeling really good about this new version. And I’m enjoying the weird energy that comes with devoting myself to a made-up world for several hours a day. I’m living in this strange dreamstate where, even when I’m not writing, I am half in the book and half in reality. I dream about aluminum trees and messages written in the ground. I talk to someone in real life while thinking about the dialogue from a scene I wrote earlier that day. I walk up a hill and a tricky plotline fits itself into place. 

And always at the end of the day I walk through my neighborhood, with its perfect spring weather and flowering lawns and trees newly budding and birds and bugs and lawn mowers. The big question I have right now is whether to mow our lawn or not. For the first time in our lives, my husband and I have our own yard. We bought a push mower in an unopened box. I had planned to seed the lawn with clover but I think I missed the deadline there. So I walk through the neighborhood and notice which lawns are mowed and which are full of plants and which are simply left to themselves. Our lawn is in the latter category right now, and a surprising amount of other houses in our neighborhood are the same. I actually like dandelions. And we have violets and some tiny purple flowers I can’t name and other little things that wouldn’t survive a mow.

my dream wild garden

Those are the things I think about on my evening walks which are so very much not the book. Lawns. Flowers. And also birds, like how pompously this one goose waddles, and that sandhill crane who feasts on grubs in the nearby park and looks you straight in the eye. Then something will come to me about the book: YOU MUST DISCUSS DARK MATTER! and I’ll make a note of it and continue thinking about birds or grass, or sometimes the weird thoughts will remain lingering in my brain, sorting themselves out. The chaos behind the curtain is a phrase I think about a lot these days, like what curtain and where? Is it made of flannel or linen? The book I’m rewriting is, essentially, a story about chaos, but what does that mean? These chaotic lawns are just trying to be what they are.

or maybe this one

There are big questions that don’t have answers, but I’m trying to get closer nonetheless, and something about the process of writing (and rewriting, and rewriting) a novel helps me get there. For this, I’m grateful.

I’ll also be grateful when it’s finished.

Anyway. More to come. And thank you for being here. 

-Denise

(and Mondo and Lazy, who are keeping a close eye on my progress)