Writing Update: Not Quite 100k
I’m sending Project SU (Seen & Unseen) to an editor later this month for a manuscript critique, and my goal has been to get the word count down to <100k. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re close!
This particular project is years in the making, and has had several iterations over that time. I’m not just talking about basic edits/revisions from draft to draft; I’m talking, I tore it down to the studs and started over. Twice.
The Creative Process
It isn’t that this never happens when I’m writing novels. It does. But this particular world came to me more as a vibe and less as a story back in 2021. There was one concrete scene which inspired it—a dream my daughter shared with me. From there, it developed organically, rendering like a video game might. I met the characters. I saw them interacting in their daily lives. I lived in their world and understood who they were within it. But I didn’t have a solid plot. It’s hard to describe the creative process for this one, honestly.
What started as a YA fantasy, following a group of siblings and friends hiding forbidden powers while encountering an otherworldly force, turned into an adult dystopian fantasy following their parents, 20+ years earlier, where their own hidden powers threaten to expose their family as that otherworldly force is emerging. And even when I wrote that second version of the manuscript, there was very little plot I was working with. It was more about the people and their relationships. I ended up setting it aside to write a few other manuscripts, but came back to it when a fellow author agreed to look at it in exchange for a sensitivity read on one of her books. Her feedback led me to completely toss that manuscript and start over again. What I created from that is the foundation for what exists now, though still in drastically different form overall.
Since this project has taken years to bring to this point, I’ve grown a lot as a writer since it was first incepted. The very first version was literary and quiet. The second version catalyzed a shift to a more commercial approach in terms of voice. I changed my writing style to be more accessible than the original, but I lost a lot of “me” when doing it, and still didn’t have much going in the way of plot and pacing. Plus, the interiority was super weak as a result of my writing in an unfamiliar style. That, and I was still writing in first person, when the story needed to be in third. So by version three (after that author feedback), I was committed to finding something in the middle, really focusing on more commercial structure and pacing while finding my voice again and rewriting in third person present. It completely changed things, but by version four, we had a pretty great story without having to totally rewrite it anymore. Version four was a pretty standard developmental edit. And now on version five, it’s ready to be polished up.
Lessons Learned
I’ve written pretty polished manuscripts much more quickly than this. In fact, most of my first drafts are completed within two months of starting them, and they usually don’t require much in terms of developmental or structural editing. I have several projects completed and query-ready, and none of them have taken as long as SU. Despite this, SU is the one I can’t let go of or move on from. I keep returning because I truly believe this world needs to exist. I’ve drafted four books in this world, and though the rest are in early revision stages, I have to see this story told. It’s why I keep picking it back up in between completing other projects. Something about it feels big and important to me, so I want to let myself take my time with it.
I did query this one some earlier this year. A previous version of it, anyway. I only sent one batch of queries, so it wasn’t much of an attempt, but it helped me gather insight for future querying. I got personalized feedback, which is always helpful, but I think the big hurdle is going to be finding the right agents to take on this kind of project. It doesn’t fit neatly into a genre category, and given the state of our world at the moment, people might not want a dystopian. I knew all this, which is why I queried a different book last year. I got a really great, encouraging response from that querying process, even if I ultimately didn’t sign with an agent from it. I learned a lot about what I want, and I realized that SU is more in line with the types of stories I want to tell right now.
So, for most of this year, SU has gotten the majority of my attention. I’ve tinkered with a poetry collection, written a handful of short stories, and edited another completed manuscript, but aside from providing critiques for clients and friends, I’ve focused my creative energy on SU. I’ve learned that speed isn’t everything. Yes, I can draft really cool stories, really quickly. And that will come in handy for a writing career once I’m signed with an agent. But for now, I’m spending my limited creative time and energy on SU, and it feels like the right move, even though it’s been a long journey with this one.
Hopes and Dreams
It’s no secret that I want to publish SU, and for the past several years I’ve had my heart set on traditional publishing. That’s a whole post for another time, but the short of it is that I’m disabled and have felt like I need a team to help me do this. I know I can build that team myself (and actually, in many ways, I have), but I also don’t have the distribution major publishers do. And I’m not up for the task of marketing at the level I’d need to in order for my book to have commercial success.
In the past, I’ve done well with businesses I’ve started. I know how to market, and for the most part, I’m good at it. But I can’t sustain it in the long term, and with my writing, I want this to be it. This is what I want to do with my life, and I’m not willing to burn myself out early on and risk losing that. As I said, I’ve started some truly incredible businesses in the past, but I’m honest about my limitations now (both with myself and others), so I know I can’t keep that pace up on my own for any length of time. Now, writing, editing, and doing some marketing/promotion? I can do that. I can sustain that. I just can’t do it all anymore. Not on my own.
So, instead of pressuring myself to publish ASAP, I’m taking my time. I’m taking classes. I’m learning and growing. I’m revising. I’m getting really helpful feedback, and I’m applying it. One day, hopefully later this year, I’ll be ready to really give this project a solid attempt at querying. That’s the goal.
Right Now
At the moment, I’m doing whatever I can to trim the word count. The original, first draft of this story was over 150k words! The second version was still about 130k, and the third version (the foundation of this current iteration) was around 120k. My goal has been to get it down to 100k words or less, and it’s been no small feat! I understand that adult SFF and dystopian can technically be a bit more than 100k words, but as a debut author especially, it’s hard to pitch anything that long these days. Once I’m an established author, sure, I can have doorstoppers. But right now, I can’t. So I’ve been whittling away it it, trying to get it down into the <100k range prior to the manuscript critique later this month.
It’s been a huge challenge, but I think it’s made me a better writer. Having to cut away at my work has been hard, but has also helped me not be so precious with it. It’s hard to cut beautiful lines or additional interiority, back story, and description (ugh, I love description lol). But ultimately, I’ve finally got a handle on maintaining the overall voice and tone of my prose, while trimming away any excess. It’s still me, just more concise. Nothing else has taught me this quite so thoroughly as Project SU, and I’m grateful for it.
All that to say: I’m at 100,892 words, as of this afternoon. It’s not quite under 100k, but we’re close. I’m going to put it down for a day or two before going back through it to cut more. Wish me luck!
