It’s the first morning of 2022, I’m having the first coffee and thinking about skin shedding and grave rising and other rebirthy concepts, and I thought I would write a New Year Post that will answer the following questions that you may have been carrying if you are interested in my writing or other things that I do.
Where the hell have I been?
Am I even doing anything?
Before I left Seattle, I was always on the go, walking around the city, cruising the country in my camper van, or traveling the world on book tours and random adventures. All that external action provided an endless supply of content for social media. I had photos of all the little curiosities I discovered in my wanderings. I had jokes and observations. And I always had some book-related promotion as I continued to flog the Warm Bodies series. I was Extremely Online.
My days are very different now. The pandemic dropped an anvil that crushed my life pretty flat. I spent 2020 in lockdown like the rest of us. Then my dad died. Then I had a mental/financial breakdown and decided to sell my house and buy land in the eastern Washington wilderness and develop an off-grid homestead from which to watch the world burn. That development process turned out to be a LOT slower than I expected (something-something covid-19 mumble-mumble unprecedented times) so I spent most of 2021 trapped in limbo, living in the guest shed at my mom’s house in my hometown while doing the job of a General Contractor and also trying to finish a novel.
My external environment is not my own right now. It’s borrowed, it’s transitional, and it doesn’t inspire me to document or share. So I’ve been quiet. There may be more to it than that, perhaps a more profound departure from the concept of online presence, but I won’t know until this gray limbo ends and my “real life” resumes out in the bracing starkness of the desert. Which should happen—absolutely must happen—this spring.
Despite the shattering of my family, the unraveling of my social fabric, and the ongoing smothering of my exploratory impulses (something-something Delta mumble-mumble Omicron) I have not stopped writing. I completed a new novel in September. It’s called THE OVERNOISE. It’s about a singer and her band struggling to adapt as a new communications technology buries the world in noise. It’s about the devaluation of art, the loneliness of infinite connection, and our unchecked plunge into dehumanizing progress.
I sent it to my agent/editor having no idea if I’d created anything of value. I thought it was entirely possible that I’d just vomited a year and a half of grief and dread into a story no one would ever want to read. I had never offered him a manuscript with less confidence, and I’ve never gotten such a glowing response in return. Apparently, according to at least one person who knows a thing or two about books, I’ve actually got something here.
Of course he also had notes, ideas on how to make it bigger and better, how to develop the themes and deepen the characters, and as always, they were gold. I’m currently nearing the end of the first major revision and I’m more excited about it than I was at any point during the initial creation. Writing a first draft is a lonely and terrifying experience, spending a year with your face buried in this highly personal creation with no idea what it looks like from outside. Diving back into it with a wider perspective—and some assurance that it’s worth the struggle—is exhilarating.
So. Very soon I’ll wrap up this draft and send it back to my agent. And then….we’ll see. I won’t provoke the universe by proclaiming any high hopes for this year. Big publishing comeback? Functional house to live in? No no no. Just gonna keep my head down and keep working and expect nothing. But you may catch a few secretive smiles.
