Through the Pages {my first novel}
Once upon a time, not too long ago, in fact, a little less than a year ago…
{August 19th, 2017}
“Hey, Annie, remember how you were asking, ‘what will I write next’ the other day?”
I did ask that question, after finishing Jump: The Things I Remind Myself. But when God asks a question like that, I’ve found He tends to have ulterior motives behind it. So I very cautiously said, “yeah, I remember… what about it?”
“Well, I’ve got one for you. Write a book for your mom.”
Cue wide eyes and a heck of a lot of confusion. And a scrambled message to my girl’s group. “I think I’m supposed to write a book for my mom. Help!”
Go figure, they all thought it was a brilliant idea.
“Hey Annie,” came the somewhat amused voice from the upstairs regions of the cosmos. “It’s for her birthday next year, by the way. And it’s about books. The interior will be cream paper, with an artistic book drawing for underneath the chapter headers. The cover will be purple.”
And that is the story of why I had a meltdown from August 19th to August 21st.
This was uncharted territory for me. I was pretty sure it would be a novel, not one of my short stories or a novella or something easy. (I’ve never completed a first draft of a novel, only a lot of partial first drafts.) And I had less than a year. And I needed to keep it a secret from everyone around me. (I’m horrible at keeping exciting things secret.)
{the journey}
The rest of August, September, and October were spent in a weird sort of stasis. I didn’t write a whole lot, at least, not that I remember. I did a lot of thinking. I spent a lot of time with books, and with my mom. And by mid October I had a pretty solid idea of what this story was supposed to look like.
November came around and I used NaNoWriMo as my excuse to pound out a 50k novel in a very short period of time. For the first time, I had a whole, finished, novel. And I couldn’t tell anyone.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from this story:
“That’s the thing, Miranda, you never get over the butterflies if it’s the right person. They just settle down a bit. If it’s the right person, you just go your whole life being all tangled up with the butterflies in your stomach and the love in your heart.”Through the Pages
Annie Louise Twitchell
Fun Fact: I had the hardest time finding an editor until I was actually ready to see about hiring one. At that point, Facebook hiccuped and showed me a notification for a post from an editing page I’d been following and hadn’t done much looking into. If you’re in the US, I highly recommend Lemons to Lemonade Editing. Not only did she do a wonderful job with my line edits, but she works on paper, meaning I had a marked up paper copy to make my changes from. That was perfect for how my head works and the way I prefer to do things, and made my process of fixing things so much easier.
Fun Fact #2: I’m still a bit giddy that I actually did this thing. I will probably be varying degrees of giddy for the next two months.
Fun Fact #3: I’ve actually been so overwhelmed since I gave the book to my mom on the 5th that I’ve had two or three headaches and gone swimming a lot and written almost nothing. Just this blog post. I’ll get back in my groove eventually. I think.
~Annie
Consumed {poem}
The Ocean And I {Release Party}
Here is the link to the Facebook event: {party!}
I got my order of ten of these beauties this week! You can order one from Amazon, or…
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ON SUNDAY OCTOBER 8TH, YOU CAN ORDER AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OFF MY WEBSITE.
THAT’S RIGHT, DARLINGS.
In fact, my three paperback books are all available there. I do have limited stock, but THERE THEY ARE.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks working on getting it set up, and I’m proud to announce it’s almost ready! Don’t worry, I’ll still be blogging here – so if you’re subscribed to my emails, you’re all good. If you’re not, maybe you should be, so you can be overwhelmed with a lot of bubbly Annie talk almost every week. Totally up to you, though.
Hey, so I’ll be running some giveaways and games at my event. What would you like to see? Let me know in the comments!
Jump: The Things I Remind Myself
Jump: The Things I Remind Myself is here! Order your copy on Amazon, in paperback or Kindle format (or both!)
Here’s some of my posts from the Facebook launch party:
was a hand to holdas she jumped off the cliffuntil she learned that maybejumping off the cliff was really justthe metaphor for taking a stepall by herselfwithout a hand to hold.
“I told you, I don’t know how to fight a dragon! The last thing I want to do is get killed!”
“If you’re avoiding death, maybe you should have considered an occupation other than a knight,” Ninnia muttered.
Jump: Release Party!
Jump: The Things I Remind Myself releases on August 20th (assuming the last bug with the cover format works out – cross your fingers!)
I’ll be posting videos, answers questions, and running a giveaway, over on my Facebook page. The event runs from 7pm to 8pm EDT, but I will probably leave the giveaway open for a couple days for those who can’t make it.
Stuff and Things
I’ve been loudly absent this month, which is interesting because it was July last year that I was pretty absent too. Maybe I should just take July off.
A large factor in my absence has been my emotions and mental state. I’ve been swirling from anxious to depressed to hyper-actively happy and right back around again. It’s been hard. While I’ve been safe the whole time, interacting with people has been a struggle, and most days it’s been as much as I can do to get out of bed and do my normal daily chores. Sitting down to write has been difficult, because by the time I’ve trudged through the day and have time, all I want to do is sleep. I’ve lost count of how many meltdowns I’ve had, one of them at 3am and a girl online talked me through it so I could go back to sleep. It’s been okay, the stuff I’ve been anxious about has been able to be resolved, and my family has been really great. But even though it’s been okay, it’s been hard. Tiring. I want to just sleep for three days straight (except I tried that once and I lasted three hours.)
It feels like years since I published Spinner, not two and a half months. It was six weeks ago that I talked to the classrooms – what? No, I’m 98% sure that was two years ago. I’m disoriented by how time is passing, probably because I’ve been doing so much more on a daily basis since April 1st than I have my entire life. Every day is twice or three times longer and busier than they ever have been, and I’ve been having a hard time finding my balance. In addition, I have another part job. That comes with its own stresses, especially trying to find my balance with my boss. The last time I worked under someone, it went downhill fast and I ended up badly burned. So I’m trying to figure out how to keep my boss happy while still doing the best job I can do while still staying sane. If I can’t stay sane, it’s not worth it, even though the money is good. It’s complicated.
Life’s complicated.
But, I’m feeling like I’m over the worst of this period, and will be able to start August on a better foot. Here’s hoping.
NEWS:
I have a poetry book coming out! I’m planning a Facebook party on August 20th.
Copyright 2017 by Annie Louise Twitchell
Something
I have to say
I have to say
The thoughts slipped through my mind –
Curse this sieve that is my brain! –
And I can’t remember –
can’t remember.
I can’t remember.
Back track,
walk through the house,
back to the kitchen where I was when
I realized that I had something to say.
I was grinding pepper into the pot of chicken soup.
Grind some more –
too much pepper,
still no memory
But I can’t remember the words.
Words are so much a part of me
I forget them the same way I forget myself.
The words are gone and
Something I have to say –
I have to say
something.
and I can’t think of anything else;
just those words that I can almost taste
but can’t remember.
Something I needed to say.
And all I can remember is,
I love you.
The Reasons I Like You
My Silence Is My Destruction