Hello!
It’s been a while since I’ve managed to write a blog post. I’m pretty sure I’ve squeezed in a whole year’s worth of events into this final quarter! Between moving into a new house that has needed non-stop work (including a massive leak which means I have half a living room wall and the need for new carpets) to rescuing two adorable, mischievous kittens, to being put into a redundancy process for the second (!!!!) time in two years and managing to grab a new role that I am absolutely in love with before I’ve even started, to finding out I’m going to be an auntie, it’s been a heck of an autumn/winter!!
And that’s not all. To my MASSIVE surprise, I was selected by Leah (@zipitelle) as her mentee, through #RogueMentor!!! I absolutely cannot believe I was chosen, after so, so long submitting, querying, writing, and getting nowhere, to being selected by a wonderful mentor who I have every confidence is going to help me make Marionette absolutely shine. I am thrilled to be ending this year on a high (as long as there are no more leaks in my house please!!!!) and am so excited to get my head down and get some work done on Marionette in 2022. Not only that, but it couldn’t have come at a better time.
I hadn’t discussed it outside of my partner, but after Marionette, I was planning on stopping querying indefinitely, both for this and future projects. I wasn’t going to stop writing, but it did feel like I was hammering my head against doors that wouldn’t open. The publishing world just felt completely impossible to join, and despite the love I had for my projects, I was losing love for my dream. I’d planned on simply writing books, keeping them to myself, and then perhaps look back into querying one day in the distant future. Being chosen has given me a brand new sense of confidence, and before I’ve even received my notes from Leah, the kind things she has had to say about it so far has made me prouder of my book and skills than ever before. And!! LOOK AT THE AESTHETIC LEAH MADE FOR ME IN ALL IT’S WONDERFUL GLORY.
She’s a beauty.
So yeah, hopefully once I get into the rhythm of my new job, and my house gets a little bit less broken and full of water in places there shouldn’t be water, I’m going to dive into edits for Marionette, hopefully pick my next project to work on (I am pretty much stuck between 10 different ideas, though I’ve started leaning towards 2 a bit more recently…), and once Leah and I have worked our magic, perhaps even begin querying again.
Who knows what will happen? All I know is I’m ready to put in the time and effort to find out!
Thanks for sticking around.
E. V. Woods
