I feel like I'm in this weird limbo where I have to wait for certain things to happen before I can take other steps regarding my writing career.

I've hit pretty much all of the agents I wanted to query; I currently still have 2 full manuscripts out and 3 queries that still need a response. Of the 2 agents who have my full, one of them I'm pinning my hopes on because she tweeted that she wants Chinese fantasy and wuxia/xianxia stories. I've decided that if that agent rejects, I'll immediately move forward with my plan to submit to publishers that have open submissions (Bindery and Penguin Random House Canada), rather than wait until god-knows-when for all the other agents to respond.

I'm not super confident about receiving a response from those publishers (I don't know if PRH Canada has ever published a book they received from their slush pile), so my plan is to use the 6-month period while waiting to see if PRH Canada ever responds to research and prepare for self publishing.

I feel good about my plans, but I just hate how I have to wait until undetermined periods before I can take action.

I've been slowly editing Novel #4, but I just really feel that I've spent too long on this book and I've hit editing fatigue. (It's hard to edit when you have memories of every previous version of the story still lingering in your head.) Also, I think I'm just not good at plotting a murder mystery, and even worse at revising a murder mystery.

It's been over a year now since I finished drafting Novel #5, but I haven't really felt inspired to write anything new. Part of that is probably because I'm not feeling inspired as a reader, either. Traditional publishing has really pivoted HARD to romantasy and low fantasy (as opposed to high or epic secondary-world fantasy, though with lower stakes than the grimdark fantasy that used to be considered low fantasy). I'm sure part of the issue is that I see far fewer book deal announcements now that Twitter sucks, but when I do see book deal announcements for fantasy novels, they just sound...boring. Every romantasy is about fae (or elves). Non-Western fantasy acquisitions seem to have scaled back significantly.

Sigh.

2024 was...a blah year for me. It started off exciting, with my finishing drafting Novel #5, and then I once again fell into the black hole of traditional publishing.

2023 was the first year, I think, when my stress and anxiety over traditional publishing started to become unbearable. I was hoping things would get better this year, but with how poorly I did in the querying trenches, that ended up not being the case.

While it ended up being a better reading year than 2023 in terms of number of books I read, I didn't love most of the books I read, so I also didn't feel very inspired or optimistic about the publishing industry. (Anecdotally, I can tell that some SFF publishers I used to love are pivoting hard toward romantasy/cozy fantasy/white-authored fantasy. Orbit has seemingly scaled back on the number of diverse authors they publish, Tor seems to be focusing more in their romantasy imprint Bramble, and Del Rey I've been told basically no longer publishes epic fantasy from debut authors and has completely shifted to romantasy. So, that's depressing.)

*

And now that it's almost 2025, so that means time for some new goals...

1. Finish revising and query Novel #4, and if that dies in the query trenches, take a break from pursuing traditional publishing.

My goal is to finish revising Novel #4 by the end of this holiday break, but if I don't, I'll try to wrap it up early in the new year.

Novel #5 is still out to a few agents, and I plan to submit it to two open submission calls if all agents reject it, but if nothing comes from that or querying Novel #4...it's time to take a break. My mental health has been garbage in 2023 and 2024 because of traditional publishing, and honestly, I can't go on living in this constant state of anxiety.

2. If Novel #5 gets no bites from traditional publishing, start the process to self-publish it.

I think it might help to feel like I have control over something again. Plus, I have a dream cover artist in mind for Novel #5 and some ideas of the target audience for the book.

3. Find a skincare product that actually improves my skin.

I guess this is aspirational, but I have a few skin issues that I'd like to resolve next year (namely, milia, uneven skin tone, and hyperpigmentation spots), and I haven't yet found a skincare product that has addressed them, so there are a couple more I want to try.

4. Generally improve my mental and physical health?

I ended up gaining a bunch of weight this year without being sure how. I've tried to cut down on my diet and managed to lose some of that weight, which I'm happy about, but I'd like to lose another pound or two. (My biggest nemesis is my lack of self-control when it comes to buying snacks from Trader Joe's. :( )

And, like I said above, my anxiety has been quite out of control for a while now. While I'm sure publishing is a major culprit, I'd like to see what else I can do to try to improve things.

*

I know New Year's resolutions are the thing at the end of the year, but I guess listing what I'm looking forward to is even more exciting. Here is the list:

- Books: I know I mentioned in a recent post that I've been disappointed so many times this year by my most anticipated reads, so I'm trying to keep my expectations low, but I hope I can find some good reads next year.
- Video games: I'm considering replaying Xenoblade Chronicles X when it gets ported to the Switch. And rumors of the Switch 2 have been flying around forever now...so we'll see what Nintendo announces next year. There are also games I'm excited to watch on YouTube rather than play myself (because I don't have the console); namely, the video games coming from China—Lost Soul Aside, Wuchang Fallen Feathers, and I reeeally hope Phantom Blade 0 gets released next year.
- Movies: I'm behind on watching movies. On my bucket list: Wicked and Sonic 3 (Shadow fan for life!!!).

It's been 6 months since I started querying, and I haven't heard anything about my outstanding queries for what feels like forever. I feel like I've become numb to it all, although there are two agents who have my query/full who are opening back up to queries next month, so I feel like I might get responses from them soon? Maybe???

Nearly every book I've read over the past month has been, quite honestly, poorly written. I know this is a controversial opinion, but I honestly think that the reason many books haven't sold that well this year is that they're just badly written. It's usually hard to say books are "objectively" bad, but I have read so many recently published books that have:

- stiff, wooden, unrealistic dialogue
- tons of telling rather than showing (including infodumping)
- action scenes that consist of vague summaries
- POV jumps from third-person limited to omniscient within the same scene
- plots that consist of a sequence of events coincidentally happening to the protagonist

And like, sure, on some level, I've known for a while that writing skill doesn't matter to publishers as much as a "marketable" premise. But this is a whole other level of "writing skill doesn't matter."

It's honestly demoralizing, thinking about how this is the kind of garbage agents/publishers think they can make money on and pride in improving the craft doesn't matter to them. I've also been feeling uninspired on the writing front after reading trash book after trash book.

On a more uplifting note, though, I'm a little more at peace with my desire to self-publish this book if it dies in the query trenches. I've seen enough horror stories from authors who have had bad experiences with editors/publishers not marketing their books that I'm more okay with a situation in which I have more control over this book specifically - a book that I have a very specific vision for, know the specific audience I'm targeting, and have a dream cover artist for.

I'm trying to distract myself from querying by overhauling my skincare routine, lol. I don't like spending a lot of money on skincare, but my skin has been looking bad, so it's probably time to upgrade my cleanser (and maybe my moisturizer). And I'm finally going to tackle smoothing out my skin tone and getting rid of the milia on my face.

I mentioned before that I can't distract myself with a new writing project because it typically takes me a year to a year and a half to come up with an idea I'm passionate enough to write. Or, in other words, it takes a year or more before I feel like I have something to say, enough to write a book about it. It's like I pour myself into every book I write, and I drain myself so completely of thoughts and emotions that it takes a long time for the dry well to refill.

I've been thinking, and maybe the reason why I've been spiraling so hard is that this round of querying reminds me of the last time I was on submission—with a book that I thought was fantastic, but which met with apathy from editors. The dissonance between expectation and reality is really hard for me to cope with. And it feels like I'm reliving that trauma.

It's also hard not to get frustrated when I see the kinds of books that get agent and editor attention are literally the same old, bland, mid-sounding white people fantasies. It's like publishing as a whole has decided "we don't want to pretend we care about BIPOC anymore." Even though, as a reader, the vast majority of my fantasy reading is BIPOC fantasy because I want something different.

Sigh.

Well, I'm officially in the query trenches again. It seems that querying has gotten slower every year, so I'm desperately trying to figure out what to do to occupy my mind so I'm not just sitting around anxiously waiting for news.

In theory, my backup plan if Novel #5 dies in the query trenches is to rewrite Novel #4 and query that. Currently, though, I feel like I'm still too close to that book to effectively think of ways to rewrite it. I'm waiting for my critique partner to return from a trip so we can brainstorm together.

I've definitely been feeling too tired (and burned out by the publishing industry) to write something new. It doesn't help matters that I don't feel like I've read a good book in forever. I find myself rewatching The Untamed/Mo Dao Zu Shi and Scumbag System to entertain myself. :')

Speaking of, while I still dearly wish and hope to see Scumbag System season 2 one day, the shine has rubbed off the story as a whole for me, mostly because I feel like there are just way too many consent problems with the latter third of the book. Honestly, maybe a censored screen adaptation would fix the relationship issues, in a way...?

It's also fun for me to think about how MDZS and Scum Villain really feel like two sides of the same coin. It feels to me like Mo Xiang Tong Xiu started Scum Villain as a parody of tropes, and then decided to write MDZS to play the tropes straight and justify them. Both stories have a "villain protagonist" (who dresses in red and black, to boot!) who were orphaned at a young age, were thrown off a cliff and thereafter gained "demonic" power.

In the past, I've rarely if ever reread my books/stories once they've been published, in large part due to a fear that they might not be as good as I thought they were at the time. (I've still never reread Novel #1.)

Well...I guess that fear came true with Novel #4!

I asked my oldest CP to reread the book, and they came back and said "Novel #5 is WAY better."

So...hahaha, I guess it died on submission to editors for a reason??

Still, my CP and I both agree that the premise is still great, it's just that maybe the execution needs improvement. And isn't that what I need an agent with a keen editorial vision for??

So...anyway, that just goes to show that I need an agent who can help me grow as a writer, not just half-ass their job and hope I've written a brilliant novel that they don't have to do much work on.

It also makes me wonder...if Novel #5 (epic fantasy) is "way better" than Novel #4 (detective fantasy), is writing epic fantasy my true calling after all?? (lol.) It's a funny thing to think about, considering that I used to hate epic fantasy (largely because I don't like tons of POVs or slow pacing).

My CP thinks that because Novel #5 was clearly inspired by other books I'd read (and also donghua like Mo Dao Zu Shi and Scumbag System), while Novel #4 was kind of me trying to discover a genre for myself (I'd tried to read other fantasy/mystery blends but didn't enjoy any of them), that's why Novel #5 is much better. Which, maybe!

I do tend to write books that are (a) dissimilar to my previous work, and (b) dissimilar to what I've read (following the old adage of "write the book you want to read" [but haven't read yet]). So...yeah, it's hard for me to use my books as "practice" since I just end up jumping to something completely different for my next project. At least, different in terms of genre/structure; as a writer, I do return to certain themes and characterizations.

I might have mentioned this before, but as an author, I have a very "focus on the current project" mindset. And being a writer without a traditional publishing deal has strengthened that mindset. I don't have lists of books I want to write; in fact, I seem to only come up with a book idea I feel passionate about once every two years. And those ideas inevitably take me by surprise. So, will I write another epic fantasy in the future? I feel doubtful right now, but who knows!

So.........I thought I would take a break from writing/revising, but I found myself feeling so antsy that I decided to start revising Novel #4. (I've also run out of ARCs and books to read for the time being, sigh.)

Miraculously, I do have some ideas for how to revise the book now. Not ideas for major rewrites, but tweaks here and there to make the mystery more interesting and possibly make individual scenes more compelling.

But that's led me to feel sour, too.

Being a marginalized person, especially a multiply marginalized person, in traditional publishing often feels like not only are the barriers higher for you than others, but also, no one cares enough to mentor you to improve. You have to be twice as good as your peers, because if not, gatekeepers will just say "you're not good enough" and leave you to flounder on your own to figure out how to get better.

All of my beta readers loved Novel #4. My agent didn't point out any major problems with it. But I did not get a single bit of useful feedback from all the editors who rejected it. The "kindest" rejections were "I just didn't feel drawn into the story enough" or subjective reasons for rejecting. The worst were the ghosts and the form rejections. Only one editor even commented on the premise, which I thought was a fresh and compelling hook, but apparently editors didn't.

It just feels like I'm left to fumble in the dark and figure out how to edit my books perfectly myself before editors will take me seriously.

I'm done with the first draft of Novel #5!!!

It's a little under 113k words. By far the longest book I've ever written. My target was 120k words, but I'm glad it's under, since I always add during revisions and now I can do so without stress.

I'm hoping to finish my own revision pass by the end of the month, though we'll see if that happens. My main revision plans are to flesh out some scenes, weave in a minor character subplot, flesh out character arcs generally, and expand descriptions. I've gotten some advance feedback on Part II of my book, and now I'm waiting on advance feedback on Part III to make sure the central mystery makes sense (which is my main concern).

Once I'm done with all of my revisions, then it's time for general beta reader feedback.

I thought I'd be happier, but really, I feel like I've been exhausted for 1000 years. "^^ I'm looking forward to being able to take a break.

Happy 2024!

I've just spent the last 10 days in a writing cave, working feverishly on Novel #5. I'm now at 100k out of 120k words, and I think I can finish drafting the book by the end of MLK Day. Then, of course, I'll need to edit and get feedback from my critique partners to make this book the strongest it can be before I can jump back into the query trenches. (Hopefully, the first half of my book is polished enough and I don't need to edit it much, focusing mostly on the second half.) As long as I don't need to do any major rewrites, I think I may be able to query agents in March???

I'm happy with my progress, though I'm also feeling pretty exhausted after drafting 40k words in 10 days. I've learned that I can draft for 4 or 5 days in a row before I start feeling the mental strain of fatigue (I did take a break last Wednesday to slow down and do some editing rather than drafting). I definitely wouldn't have pushed myself this hard if I wasn't trying to get back into the query trenches ASAP; the last time I spent Christmas break drafting, I only wrote about 9k words over the break.

It's interesting. 120k is my maximum wordcount target for this book due to the conventions of the publishing industry, but the book definitely could be longer. It's structured a bit like an anime and it was inspired by Journey to the West, a fantasy adventure epic, so there are more subplots I could add. But I'm trying to keep it lean for the sake of keeping the pacing tight and to avoid giving agents/editors a reason to pass due to the wordcount. (My brain also got tired and ran out of ideas for more fight scenes, haha.)

I still think about my former agent sometimes, and one of the things that hurt me the most from our relationship was when she told me that, instead of trying to see if UK publishers would be interested in Novel #4, it was a *better use of my time* to write a new book and go on submission with that. It's still unbelievable to me that an agent would dictate to their client what they should think the best use of their time is and not understand how condescending that attitude is. At the very least, shouldn't an agent ask how their client felt about that? Like "would you rather continue pursuing publication for this book or, since you're working on something new, would you prefer to focus on that? Let's talk through the pros/cons of each choice"???

I am literally the one doing all the work (especially since I also had to come up with all the pitching and submission strategy for my books!!); I am the one juggling writing books with a day job (since my agent worked as an agent full-time), and I am the one who understands my own writing process, how much time it takes, and the toll it takes on my energy when I decide to write a new novel. Not to mention, my agent can never guarantee that she could sell a new novel I wrote, either!!

It's unbelievable to me, because she always said the right things; she always thanked me for my hard work whenever I turned in a new book or a round of edits to her, seeming to acknowledge my labor. But then she turned around and acted like I should be a book factory who can just crank out books for years with no compensation until I produced one that she could sell in a big deal. I could never work with an agent who took such a cavalier view of my labor. And that was absolutely incompatible for my own vision for my career, which was to grow my career with a publisher who was as invested in my passion projects as I was, even if I have to start small. To get my foot in the door, because even though publishing is unpredictable and doesn't come with any guarantees, it still seems easier to sell a second book once you already have a book published. Plus, you can't build a fanbase if no one can ever read your work.

And, yeah, like I mentioned before, realizing the disconnect between (some of) her words and her actions has definitely left me with deep trust issues and made me wonder what else she lied to me about over the course of our relationship. Like whether she actually did much work to identify the best editors, or whether she even cared about my books. Especially since she had a history of not engaging with me when I had industry questions.

Look, I'm a logical person, and if you show me facts that prove me wrong, then I will change my mind. What drives me absolutely nuts is if I present facts and ask you to explain why those facts are different from what you told me, and you either ignore me or tell me I should *just trust your experience*. That just makes me mad, as well as paranoid that you are either purposefully misleading me or that you're not competent at your job. We can debate whether or not a book is marketable or well-written. We can't debate about the publicly reported size of deals made by publishers or whether or not publishers have distribution in the US.

The way she communicated with me was just baffling. I still don't understand why she felt that the appropriate response to me saying "You seem to be very opposed to UK submission, so I'll let it go, but I want to understand why you're so opposed to it?" was to say for the fourth time that she thought UK submission was a bad idea but we could still do it if I wanted. And then when I said I felt like I was being strung along, her response was to deny it and said we could still do UK submission if I wanted. No attempt to explain herself. No acknowledgement whatsoever that a reasonable person, after being asked *3 times* to confirm that they wanted to do something, may become suspicious when told "I need you to confirm one more time that you want to do this, but I'll still do it if you want to." Like, you're going to have to at least explain your motivations for why you've been acting that way if you expect me to believe you.

Thinking back, there were other times I could have been more direct and pushed her earlier in our relationship, but I always held back out of politeness and fear of sounding like a nag. If I had been more direct then, maybe I could have realized the problems with her sooner, because that's how the house of cards finally came crumbling down when I pressed her on her reasons for not wanting to sub my book to the UK. And I guess that's a lesson I should take going forward into a new agent relationship—not to be afraid of being direct and asking my agent to explain themselves. Because if they can't or won't, that's a major red flag.

I know I'm just ranting about my ex-agent again. Here's to hoping I can find a true advocate in 2024.

Well...I know I previously said I would wait to leave my agent until I had a new book ready to query. As it turns out, our relationship very suddenly imploded. Even though I was very angry and hurt by an email she sent me, I tried to lay out my issues and point out that I'm concerned about our communications lately, deciding that I'd give her a chance to explain herself and see if she'll express any willingness to salvage the relationship.

And...she did not.

She said she was sorry for being unclear, but then proceeded to claim I misunderstood what she said, which felt like a defense instead of an apology. Plus, I still think it's unreasonable for her to act like "just because I told you three times that I thought UK submission was a bad idea doesn't mean I was trying to talk you out of it," or even if that truly wasn't her intention, there's no way she can't understand why I would come to that conclusion. Then she wildly misinterpreted something I said in an outrageously unreasonable way and didn't apologize for that at all. Her recent emails have generally felt like they were full of "polite professional-speak" without actually addressing my concerns or truly acknowledging why I might be hurt.

The consensus among my family and friends is that she's purposefully trying to obfuscate how she truly feels, and there's no way I'll ever know for sure what's going through her mind. Still, I'm neurodivergent and I obsess over people's behavior when I don't understand them, so here are the possible interpretations I came up with:

Scenario #1: Assuming that she wasn't completely lying and purposefully trying to mislead me, and that she was being honest this whole time (even though she backtracked on her position and didn't explain why): She is a terrible communicator (for someone who makes a living based on reading), but she cannot accept being challenged and refuses to take accountability for her own bad communication. If she had just said "I completely understand why you read my email that way and I sincerely apologize for not communicating clearly and causing you unnecessary anxiety because that was not what I meant" and said she was willing to discuss how she can improve communicating with me, she would have completely defused my hurt and anger.

In any case, the fact that she seemed unwilling to meet me in the middle feels like she was uninterested in retaining me as a client anyway.

Scenario #2: She was lying about everything the whole time. She didn't want to do UK submission and tried to persuade/manipulate me into dropping the idea; however, when I called her out on it, she tried to backtrack, for reasons I don't understand. My personal theory is that she didn't want to go on submission in the UK because she thought she couldn't earn much money (which would be a massive conflict of interest if true), and when I pointed out to her that UK publishers can offer six-figure deals, she didn't want to acknowledge that I was right and she had been wrong, but that motivated her to backtrack and tell me we could still do UK submission, even though by that point I said I wasn't interested.

She suggested we part ways as a way to get rid of me; however, when I said she brought that up out of nowhere, she again seemed to backtrack. One of my friends suggested she is extremely conflict-averse and was trying to make me happy even if it wasn't what she wanted to do, and also at the cost of communicating any coherent position. I'm not sure if I personally believe that, because even if she was conflict-avoidant, she should have accepted it when I said I was willing to drop UK submission instead of coming back and insisting we could still do it if I wanted to.

I am a very conflict-avoidant person*, and one of the primary ways I avoid conflict is by preemptively apologizing whenever I feel like someone else thinks I might have screwed up. Obviously each person is different, but I'm just not sure I believe that conflict avoidance was her primary motivation for communicating with me the way she did.

(*I'm conflict-avoidant unless/until I feel like conflict is inevitable; once I'm in the middle of a conflict, I can become incredibly aggressive in standing up for myself, and I've noticed that people don't receive that switch well. Sometimes, I suspect that people assume they can bully me into obedience because I usually seem mild-mannered and shy, and then they react badly when I stand my ground and call out their BS.)


All of this is to say, I didn't have the energy to want to argue with her further if she was going to continue sounding this defensive and not receptive to my hurt feelings. So...as of yesterday, I am now agentless again.

I did have to ask her to pull the remaining submissions for Novel #4 and write them off as a loss, but there's a possibility those editors were ghosting me, anyway.

I also have to buckle down and finish Novel #5 in order to query again (querying Novel #4 would be a risk since it's already been on submission to US publishers).

Based on my experience and also speaking with many other authors, no author—and this is even more true for authors who don't have a book deal yet—ever wants to be in the position of terminating with their agent and being back in the query trenches again. While many authors do land another agent, there are also authors who don't. But the industry is so opaque that agents can, quite frankly, get away with treating their clients poorly and authors have very little recourse.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, there are many factors that pushed me to leave my agent. When I look back, there are multiple subtle hints I can now see that make me think my agent prioritized how much money she could make over my desires, which is a massive conflict of interest. I didn't pick up on those red flags at the time, because it's not unusual for an agent to want to get as much money as possible for a client; however, if a client values things other than money, an agent shouldn't pressure them, either. When it looked like a publisher was going to make an offer on Novel #3, my agent sort of pushed me to want a multi-book deal and seemed upset when I said I only wanted a one-book deal. The way my agent easily gives up on my books after they don't sell after one round to all the major publishers now feels like she's no longer interested if she thinks she can't get a big commission. And again, that's a conflict of interest. Money is not the only factor to weigh when considering an offer from a publisher. I've even heard that some agents pressure their clients to take the highest offer if there is a multiple offer situation, even if the author wants to go with an editor with a better vision for their book, and that would be an absolute nightmare scenario to me.

I'm cynical, so I feel like that my agent could probably claim that we parted ways because I was being unreasonable. But I left the relationship because I was starting to get stressed by the idea of interacting with her. Because I don't want an agent who is defensive, who hides or lies about their motivations, who is unwilling to have open and honest discussions with me even if those discussions are difficult.

I want an agent who believes in my books enough to fight their hardest for them. I want an agent who understands that this is my career and I need to have the final decision-making authority on issues that affect my career. I want to have an agent I trust enough that we can have discussions about the industry, about difficult situations and how to strategize if my career isn't going well, instead of suspecting that they might want to persuade me to one course of action or another for their own reasons.

Fingers crossed that I'll be able to find my advocate next year.