09. Never Back Down, Never What?
First things first, I have some wonderful news!
If you’ve been following along, then you’d know that I’ve been working on my new novel, House of Frank, since June. I challenged myself in the summer to finish my first draft in 30 days, and I completed it in 28 days!
I spent the remainder of the summer doing developmental edits, and in October, I learned about a PitchFest hosted by Bindery Books. House of Frank was chosen by Ezeekat Press and will be published (hopefully) next fall!
So, let me tell you how this whole crazy thing happened…
In a previous post, I mentioned how important it is to follow your intuition and the story inside of you begging to be told. And I’m so glad that I took the time to break away from The Bonai Chronicles and focus on House of Frank. If I hadn’t, I would have never known where it would’ve gone and where it would’ve taken me.
But more than that, writing House of Frank was immensely cathartic. It was fun. I wanted to live in the world I created. And it was a chance for me to pour out the very mixed emotions I felt from my mother’s passing. It was probably part of the reason I was able to finish the story so quickly. I just had so much to say from the past three years, and I was finally able to get it all out.
After I finished my first draft, I took a much-needed break. I didn’t begin my dev edits until mid-July and didn’t finish until the end of August. I wasn’t sure what the outcome of the manuscript would be. I just knew that it was honest, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed reading it back again. So when I sent it out to my CP and a couple of beta-readers, I didn’t know what their reaction would be.
(Side note: Thank God for social media!)
Because while I waited for feedback, I came across a mutual’s post about this hot new publisher, Bindery Books. The business model was new. They were using influencers as ‘tastemakers’ with their own imprint. I’ve never heard of anything like this before, but I was intrigued. When I learned about their PitchFest (opened to indie and unagented authors) I stopped everything to get my manuscript ready. Submissions were only open for two days (bruh), and I hadn’t even worked on line edits yet.
I have a huge issue with overwriting, and my manuscript sat at 104k words. I stayed up for 26 hours.
26 hours. Straight. No sleep. Nothing.
I wanted my manuscript to be as clean as possible. Personally, for me, I don’t like when a book is a few pages too long. I didn’t want whoever came across my manuscript to think I didn’t know how to get my point across concisely. So I stayed up, using some of the edits from my critique partner (Thanks, Rubesss), and worked like a dog until I could get my manuscript as good as I could get it. The word count went from 104k to 100k.
A family friend told me that when it comes to applications and submissions, most companies only look at the first like 100 (if that), and hardly give a glance to applications that come later. So my sister suggested that I get my manuscript in as soon as possible on the first day. And I did. (Thanks, Shy.) (Thanks, Don.)
Along with my manuscript, I had to work up a pitch letter/query. And after working on this story for weeks, I had no idea what it was about and had no idea how to summarize it. So, I drafted up a pitch and got a trusted mutual from Tiktok (she knows about queries) and she gave me such valuable information. Her critique of my query helped me get it to the best shape it could be. (Thanks, Kels!)
Are we seeing a theme here? Writing House of Frank was a solo journey, but getting it out there, meeting deadlines, and putting it in front of the right people was a community effort. And a huge effort that I don’t take lightly. I’m extremely happy and grateful to my critique partner and my beta readers for their feedback. To everyone who helped me send House of Frank off to Bindery.
I know this post is a bit longer than most, but I wanted to tell the story of how all of this came to be. To make dreams come true, it takes a little bit of dumb luck and a lot of fortified commitment. And if you have it, also a great support system.
You never know where your stories will take you. Write honestly. Write with passion. And have fun. One day, you’ll look back and be so glad that when it came down to it, you always did what you loved.