When working on Heifer, it would take 4-6 weeks to hear back on each iteration because it was a WHOLE BOOK. Keeping track of different threads and what was changed, what wasn’t. And then I would take at least 4-6 weeks to make my edits to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. In the final tweak revisions, we turned things around in 2-week increments, but it still took a long time.

For most of the first draft of F.O.M.O., I was really working with Isabel, a junior agent at the agency. With Heifer, she also read the book through edits, so I kind of look at both Kristina and Isabel as my agents. Yes, I signed with Kristina, who is the principal agent and the boss. But Isabel has been just as helpful and involved, and what is a win for me as an author benefits them both. So, Isabel is focusing her list on romance and romantic fantasy titles; it makes sense that she helped with this book more.

In between drafts, I would catch up on mom work. Researching VPKs and homeschooling, planning outings for the kiddo, reading, and life.
I also submitted some short stories to literary magazines, pitched my local library on my books for their book clubs, and marketed my backlist. I did the authorly things.

My process when I had the draft with me was to write 25% of the book from the outline, review, and revise. Then, write the next 25%, review it, and revise that section. Then read it all together and revise. Then the next half. I got to the point where if I drafted too much before reviewing, I felt like my writing became too technical and had no prose to it. This balance worked for me for this book. Some days, if I was just too exhausted to think, I did revisions instead of writing. But this was by far the fastest I’ve written a book.

Technically, I wrote Architects for 2019 NaNoWriMo, but I had at least 30K words already in the document from a couple of years of tinkering and building the idea, so let’s say that took 2 years, but it was done in one month. And by done, I mean draft 1 complete. There were still revisions and edits and formatting, all the things.

Now you know we have a manuscript and it is on Sub… And that the first rule of being on submission is to not talk about submission. Which tells you everything you need to know, that I am, in fact, no longer on submission.

Stay tuned!