Coming Out of Retirement
Astute readers will note that my last book came out in 2019 which was, like, a long time ago. Before that I was publishing (almost) yearly. So what have I been up to?
Well, I’ve been calling it semi-retirement. I got a fulltime job after six years of writing fulltime because as much as I loved the freedom of calling myself a real honest-to-goodness successful author, I also never had the financial stability I wanted. And I honestly will trade annual publishing in exchange for a steady paycheck and health insurance any day of the week.
The problem is that the fulltime job is also as a writer—just as a different kind of writer. I work for an internet marketing company and I write content for other companies’ websites and emails. It’s not exciting (my personal specialty is in roofing and plastic surgery), but it pays the bills in a way that writing books never did. (ie: reliably.) Anyway, the problem is that when I’m writing all day for the day job, I don’t have a ton of creative stamina to write after hours for books. So I haven’t been writing.
Add to this the fact that I am mentally ill and that I have been suffering for the past three years from terrific depression. (To be clear, I’ve been suffering for the last fifteen years from depression, but the last three years have been debilitating.)
BUT: about five weeks ago (end of July 2024) my psychiatrist made a change to my meds that has done the following:
Bought me three more hours of productivity in the day. Previously the depression essentially put me in bed at 3pm every day. It still does put me in bed, but I’ve found I have the willpower to gut through the depression and work three more hours on my laptop or in a notebook.
Made me not sad all the time. Which, you know, is great.
ALL OF THIS TO SAY:
I’m kinda working on a book???
It’s still in the early stages, but I’m really loving the process of creative writing again. I am completely out of the loop on the market, so trying to step back in and pick up where I left off is daunting. The YA market is not what it was when I left it.
For starters, I write science fiction, not fantasy, and YA sci-fi just doesn’t sell like it used to. My whole career was built on the shoulders of The Hunger Games—my books were often called dystopian even though they weren’t really dystopian. I always referred to them as modern day young adult with a science fiction twist: you know, androids and bioweapons.
The book that I work on doesn’t fit this mold exactly, but it certainly isn’t middle grade fantasy, which seems to be all the rage.
My current project, temporarily titled “Failure to Thrive”, takes place 100 (or so) years in the future. There is an international science fair kind of thing called the Junior Genius Grant, and the book starts with Maeve, our main character, and her team landing a top spot and winning a trip for an internship on a Mars colony. But when they get there, things start to go very wrong.
Will it be published? I have no idea. But I’m writing again and it feels good. I’m 28k words into it and haven’t gotten nearly far enough in the story. This thing is going to be long (for a YA), or, in other words, it’s going to need a ton of revisions. But that’s okay. I like revisions.
Anyway, it’s good to be writing again. And, if all goes well, this book will eventually make it into your hands.
