Many of you know that I’ve been writing historical novels for what seems like forever, but haven’t yet published a book. There have been times that I’ve felt less ambitious about it, and times when I doubted my own ability to achieve my publication goals, but overall I’m committed to making it happen.
For those of you who are working on or considering writing your own books, or those who are simply curious about the process, I thought I’d share the timeline of the book I’m currently working on, The Eugenicist’s Assistant.
The timeline begins in early 2018. At that point, I had been collaborating with a literary agent for two years. We’d tried to get my first novel, Before the Fire, published, but due to a combination of factors, it did not find a home. I spent about ten months working on a new manuscript, The Loss of Our Mothers, set during the Blizzard of 1888. It wasn’t working, and my agent and I ultimately agreed to set it aside.
2018
In early 2018, I wrote about ten chapters of a book tentatively titled “Keeping Faith.” It was a contemporary multi-generational story about three women who were all conflicted about their faith and had converted from the family religion. I turned it into my agent, and she said it didn’t seem to fit the market I was targeting, unless I was trying to sell to Christian markets. I didn’t want to do that for my first book, so I kept the theme of faith and the three main characters, but re-set the book as a dual-timeline saga and married it with research I’d been doing about eugenics in the 1930s. That was the birth of The Eugenicist’s Assistant.
2019
I spent most of 2018 writing the first draft. In early 2019, I sent it out to beta-readers. Based on their feedback, I revised/rewrote another couple of drafts, and sent it to my agent early in the summer of 2019. I received a response from her assistant on my 38th birthday– I was out on our boat in the middle of Schroon Lake drinking wine from a can when I got the email! It was fairly positive, but there were several things she wanted me to work on. I decided to let the book rest until September– I was working on some short memoir pieces at the time and wanted to finish them first.
I spent the fall revising, powered through NaNoWriMo to give me the final push, and sent the manuscript back to my agent in early December. By that time, I had already gotten the offer to read my short memoir piece, “The Band Room,” at Lincoln Center and gotten a few more pieces published. I was feeling great about my writing life.
2020
This year started off with the amazing Lincoln Center reading, and I was still feeling great. But just a few weeks later, I got an email from my agent. She felt that the manuscript for The Eugenicist’s Assistant still wasn’t ready, but she didn’t have any more editorial advice to give. She thought it was best that we part ways. It was a big blow, after working with her and feeling the security of having an agent for 4 years. After that email, I really struggled to work on the novel. I wasn’t sure if I believed in it anymore, even though I didn’t really think my agent’s response was meant to discourage me. I think she just came to the realization that she wasn’t the right person for my book, and we were wasting our time together. Our breakup was probably a long time coming, though it had been hard for me to acknowledge. We’d worked together well, but hadn’t sold anything in 4 years. It was time to move on.
A few weeks before COVID-19 hit, I decided to give the book another chance. I re-read it, decided on a few structural and point-of-view changes, and started re-writing. I had only just begun when the world changed, and it took me several weeks to get back on track with my mental health so that I could write well again.
But the last few weeks have been fantastic. After a much-needed pep talk from my sister, I finished revising the first ten chapters and I’m pretty happy with them. I decided to look for an editor to give me a developmental assessment on the first third of the book, to make sure I’m going in a good direction (and have someone to bounce ideas off of). I submitted to Reedsy.com, which is a hub for editors and other literary professionals, and had 4/5 editors respond with bids. It’s hard to choose the right person, but I think I’m ready to make a decision and move forward.
The path to publication isn’t an easy one, but I’ve gotten to be a much better writer through the process. Perhaps even more importantly, I’ve developed a thicker skin. I’m excited to query agents again, and hope they’ll see what I see in the book. But even if they don’t, I’m not going to stop writing.