Until the Heat Death of the Universe
Any moment now I will have newsletter-worthy news because I am waiting on multiple lines of news, none of which I can discuss until they are confirmed or contracted or concluded or announced.
Waiting is hard. It becomes particularly debilitating in publishing when a writer hits one of those points where it seems all the waiting Things (to use the correct technical term) have piled up, and nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to break that logjam. In fact, probably, the waiting will extend infinitely, without resolution, until the heat death of the universe.
Here we go:
Big Thing 1: This one is on me. The staggeringly late LADY CHAOS (Sun 3) is years overdue at this point. I am working on it now; it’s big, and complex, and slow going, but it is proceeding. I don’t expect to have a complete first draft until the end of this year. Believe me, I wish the first draft was already done, but it isn’t, so the only way out is through. (Revision is an easier process for me than first drafting, so my stress level with respect to a project tends to drop as soon as a first draft is complete.)
Big Thing 2 : Still waiting for my edit letter on the as-yet-unannounced [let’s call the announcement Big Thing 2.5] fantasy duology scheduled (as far as I know) for 2025. Both parts of the duology have been completed and are to be revised in one go. I’ve been waiting a while for this edit letter, as it will immediately go to the top of the work plate once it comes in. I had hoped to have had the revisions completed by the end of last year. But sometimes delays like this are how it goes, and thus, this is out of my control. I just have to wait.
Potential Thing 3 : Waiting to hear back from agent about a rights issue. There’s nothing I personally can do, and emailing my agency every week to see if anything has changed is counter productive. So I wait. And wait. And wait.
Potential Thing 4 : Can’t pursue this very intriguing and exciting Potential Thing further until Sun 3 has a complete first draft, so I guess this wait is on me, too. Need to draft faster. Weary sobbing.
Small Thing 5 : I really hope to get permission to include the two Cold Magic universe maps (done by Jeffrey Ward) in the forthcoming collection, but the person who oversees the mapmaker’s rights is evidently very hard to get in contact with. Again, this is something my agency is handling, and I just have to wait. I’m not sure whether the maps will make it into the book. I hate uncertainty.
Small Things 6 : I’m lumping what is right now six things related to the Cold Magic Collection. I will not feel easy until all the parts are in hand, and the printer’s quote given and accepted, and the collection has moved fully into production. I keep waiting for some wrecking shoe to drop, as it were. Possibly because of all the other delays piled up, as per the above, so my waiting nerves have grown tauter and more highly strung even than usual.
At times like this, I reflect that I can manage one wait, even two, but when so many loom over my head like a mass of bowling balls held in a fragile net, I brace myself for some manner of crash or setback. I recognize this bracing as both protective behavior and as classic anxiety (something will go wrong!) Not that writers are wrong to feel braced for bad news in publishing, an industry rife with bad news, but also with good news at times, to which one aspires, buoyed by the anchor chain of hope and striving.
My coping mechanism seems to be opening up multiple unrelated early-stage projects that I poke at, and get distracted by. This multi-project poking is most likely a form of magical thinking: If I could just finish one or two or three brand new projects, they (too) can go into a waiting queue, but SURELY will be the one(s) to move swiftly through whatever process awaits. Or, alternatively, if I just had enough finished work at various stages of the publication process (on submission, acquisitions, editorial, production, just published, interest in sub-rights), then I would always have something I could be acting on in the moment. Maybe the early stage projects keep me grounded, or give me hope. I don’t know.
But having written this newsletter, I do know that I need to get back to work on LADY CHAOS.
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Don’t forget that I’ve been hosting a monthly one hour vidcast, Narrative Worlds, since 2020. You can find recordings on SFWA’s You Tube channel. I have had so many fascinating and wonderful guests, just the best. The most recent is a great conversation on internal monologues with the incomparable Charlie Jane Anders.
For those interested in more frequent interaction with me and with other readers, I have a Patreon.
Over the last three years on my Patreon I’ve written a lot of craft of writing and related posts, and this year I am writing a dedicated world building series. Material on the Patreon also includes portals into my writing process and what’s on the table, multiple patron questions that I’ve answered (often in depth), occasional deep dives into weird topics, an in-depth look into the partial manuscript of Dead Empire (currently in limbo due to rights issues), and weekly photos of Finn.
Like this one, which I call The Stretch-Sploot.
As always, thank you. I could not do this without you.
Kate Elliott
Ok, I can comment here too.