Mid-summer check-in

Manuscript updates + the second edition of Leave

At the start of the summer, I decided to pause this newsletter for a bit.

The biggest reason for the pause is that I felt like I wouldn’t be able to finish my manuscript this summer with just my early morning writing time, which right now is 5-6am every day. I had been getting up an hour earlier than that for 1000 Words of Summer, but I was tired! I needed to balance rest and writing time, so I decided to use my Sunday newsletter writing time for the novel, just for a season.

I have missed writing to you all here, and it also feels strange to not be documenting my novel process somewhere, not for you but for myself. The novel has come a long way over the last six weeks. So I’m here for a mid-summer check-in.

These six weeks in writing

At the end of 1000 Words of Summer, my project was at around 66,000 words, which all lived in 264 separate text documents in a Scrivener file, and those 264 documents were all out of order. Another 57,000 words had been cut and lived in a “Cut” file, in case I decided to drag anything back from the dead.

I have spent the last six weeks rearranging things.

Rearrange some things…

This is truly the fun part for me. I feel like most of the story is there, I just need to bring it out by putting the pieces in the right order. As y’all know, I am not a “plot” person, more of a poetry person. I’m looking for the story that is made through juxtaposition and white space and a kind of narrative enjambment. I’m collaging, I’m quilting, I’m weaving, whatever crafty metaphor you want to use. And I LOVE it.

I’m up to 42,000 words put in order. It’s getting a little trickier now because I’ve reached the part where scenes are missing. The end still needs to be written. But I feel close to a full draft, something that felt very far away in May.

These six weeks in reading

Still slowly making my way through The Power Broker but I’ve taken breaks to read Catherine Lacey’s latest, The Möbius Book, and to finally read Outline by Rachel Cusk. Now I want to read the rest of that trilogy, but first I’m reading Light Years by James Salter.

There was a night in July when I couldn’t sleep and normally I am very good about not looking at my phone when this happens, but on this particular night I suddenly remembered I had a backlog of Libro.fm credits and went on a 1am audiobook shopping spree. I got Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li and preordered Chloe Caldwell’s Trying. I have three more credits still — any audio recs?

Other news!

I had the honor of being in conversation with Erica Stern for the New York launch of her book, Frontier. I also interviewed Erica over at Zona Motel, for anyone to read! I love love love this book and helping it to find more readers has been a joy.

CRAFT published a conversation between me and my friend Randle Browning about Leave, blurry fiction/nonfiction boundaries, and motherhood. (Randle writes beautifully about motherhood and writing; I recommend her essay How to Break a Sentence.)

And here’s some fun news: there’s now a second edition of Leave and it’s available on Bookshop.org!

This edition is available from Bookshop, and the first edition (which just went into its second printing!) is still available from Autofocus and Asterism.

It’s been gratifying to watch this book make its way into the world. I feel I have released it in every sense of the word.

I’ll be back at the end of the summer with another novel update. Hopefully I’ll be able to celebrate the completion of a first draft. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you’re reading, listening to, working on.

With love,
Shayne