How My Book Nearly Broke Me

(And How It Pieced Me Back Together)

Sep 25, 2024

Death Card’s second draft is officially out of my hands and into my editor’s inbox! The process of writing this draft was exponentially more difficult than the first. With the initial draft, I was exploring the world for the first time and acquainting myself with the characters. The words flowed easily because I was having fun! In fact, I had so much fun writing that I finished the book two whole weeks before my deadline.

With this draft, I didn’t know whether I would actually finish on time. Thankfully, I ended up reaching the end two days before my deadline — just in the nick of time.

Even though I knew where and how I wanted the narrative to go, digging into the nitty gritty turned out to be like pulling teeth for me. All the minute details needed to make sense, which meant I was forced to dive deeper into my outline.

Instead of the painless revision I expected, I rewrote the majority of the book and relied on a detailed spreadsheet inspired by De Elizabeth.

Unlike my first deadline, I had a TON going on in my personal life. I wrote before work, after work, and on weekends all while packing up my townhouse and moving! I struggled with the sheer amount of sitting I had to do on a daily basis. I would wake up and write for 30 minutes to an hour, spend 8 hours stuck at my desk working my day job, and then sit on my living room couch for 2 hours after work. Due to the move, my exercise routine was thrown all out of wack. (My entire life was thrown out of wack around this time, but we won’t go too into detail on that.) When I did manage to make it out of the house for an evening walk, my muscles were stiff from the lack of movement. I could practically hear them screaming at me.

All around, writing the second draft resulted in:

Neck pain
Back pain
Tingling in my hand and arm
Eyestrain
Headaches
Tears

By the end, I thought my body would be irreparably broken, but the jury’s still out on that one. I even started drinking coffee! I nearly succumbed to a caffeine addiction, but thankfully, I haven’t picked up a mug since I handed in my book. *phew*

In more positive news, this draft also resulted in:

An additional 6K words added, bringing the draft to 80K
Hours of research and YouTube video tours of the French Quarter, which brought back memories of my 2017 NOLA trip
Swoony romantic scenes that made my heart skip a beat
A stronger relationship with my partner
The best book I’ve written (yet)

Top row: Jasmine wearing a mask in a shop, a photo of the French Market. Bottom row: a selfie of Jasmine in front of the French market, a photo of Decatur written on the street. — Let us take a moment to shame 20 year old me for taking such godawful photos

The people in my life who’ve read this draft have told me that it’s much more polished than the first draft. My best friend said, “It feels like a real book!” And that means I did my job.

I still have more rounds of edits to go through with my editor, but for the first time, I feel like the structure of the novel is finally in place. Most of all, I feel like I know Mikaela, Orion, and Joelle more than I did before. And in roughly a year and 7 months, I’ll be able to properly introduce them to you.

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Sneak Peek

Since the final draft is still far off, I figured I’d provide a tiny exclusive snippet. Everything is subject to change:

I slump against the bookshelf as my vision narrows in on the cards still laid out on the table. After sucking in a deep breath, I walk over and touch my fingers to the last card. The vision reappears just as strong as before.
Like I told Joelle, a Death card doesn’t automatically mean someone’s going to die. It usually means the opposite. It can represent the transition from one chapter of life to another. It’s the card of transformation. Usually, my visions are of a major change in that person’s life, like the start of a new relationship or a new job.
This time is different. Wildly different.
Joelle is going to kill me by the end of the next full moon, only two weeks away.
The worst part is, I don’t know why she would want to hurt me, or how I’m going to stop her.