I didn’t intend to let this newsletter lie fallow for four months, but deadlines got in the way—the most consequential of which being my manuscript delivery date back in mid-October.
For those blessedly untouched by the world of book publishing, the delivery date is when you turn over a complete draft of your book to your editor, after which you revise the damn thing before it gets sent to be (ideally) fact-checked (mine will be), copy edited, laid out, and otherwise readied for publication. In other words, it’s the most consequential step in publishing a book, requiring the most work on the part of the author, because without a full draft there is no book.
While I’ve been working on this orphanhood book in some form since early 2021, when I began the proposal, I wrote the majority of the draft this year—almost 50,000 words (about half the book) between August and October alone. Part of this was a deadline crunch. I’m not a big procrastinator when it comes to writing, but I also love a deadline as a motivator to get the thing done. Having a very long lead deadline for the book draft meant that I didn’t really feel the fire under my ass until this summer. Part of this was due to the fact that I had to do a ton of research, reading, and reporting before I could begin to synthesize it in writing. And part of it was due to the realities of juggling writing a book with freelancing—I couldn’t afford to only work on the book these past two years, and in some months, I worked more as a freelancer than as an author.
Anyway! I feel massively relieved to have met and passed my manuscript delivery date, and excited to begin to revise the draft with my editor soon. We’re looking at a January or February 2025 pub date, and the new title is The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow. Deetz on preordering as they come.
Back to freelancing, though—because I was so focused on finishing the book draft in late summer/early fall, I didn’t take on any freelance writing work during that time. Instead, I scheduled myself out with lots of deadlines for after I turned in the draft, a smart financial move that in effect left me with no breathing room between mid-October and last week. Next time, I won’t agree to any deadlines within a week of finishing a book draft, but I’m not sure how else I could have made things work this time around.
Three of the seven projects I filed have already run:
For The Washington Post, I reviewed Ben Austen’s Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change, which provides a revelatory lens for examining mass incarceration. I learned so much from this book.
I once again contributed to NPR’s Books We Love, the annual project where NPR critics and staffers recommend their favorite books of the year. I have ten picks in there, and for gifts I especially recommend Lydia Kiesling’s novel Mobility and Sarah Viren’s memoir To Name the Bigger Lie.
Also for NPR, I reviewed Paul Lynch’s novel Prophet Song, which won this year’s Booker Prize. This book haunted me (do not read it before bed), and I can’t stop thinking about it. It feels eerily timely in part because it is—there is so much in here that echoes with current news, from the context-collapse controversy at my own alma mater (on which I agree with Will Bunch) to the horrific siege of Gaza and the attendant humanitarian crisis. But Prophet Song is also timely because it is timeless, because it is about the constant struggle for human dignity.
That is more than enough for now. Thanks for reading.