On the Characters We Create and Then Let Go
If you love something as deeply as so many of us love our books, you should keep fighting.
Welcome back to Haunted Books & Haunted Girls, a newsletter all about writing and ghosts. I’m so happy that you’re joining me. If you haven’t subscribed already, please consider signing up below (for free!), so you never miss an issue of this newsletter. It’s always spooky szn here.
As the year winds down and the final weeks of 2022 are filled with lists and recaps of accomplishments, I can’t help but think about the people whose dreams might spill over into the next year. People who are still working toward a goal. People waiting for ~news~ or waiting to share said news. People who are waiting, period. Those lingering in that prolonged stretch of hope that comes with choosing a path in publishing. A forever sort of limbo of holding your breath and checking your email and manifesting, manifesting, manifesting. A phase that doesn’t exactly go away, regardless of where you are in your journey; the waiting only changes color.
I’m also thinking about ghosts (surprise, surprise, this newsletter does have the word “haunted” in the title after all). But I’m not talking about the literal kind of ghosts today. I’m thinking about the characters we create that turn into ghosts; the ones we get to know as deeply as we know ourselves, who become part of us. The ones we fall in love with and can’t wait to share with the world.
The ones we ultimately might have to release and let go.
Maybe it’s the book you started writing but never finished, the one that nags at your daydreams, demanding your attention. Or maybe it’s the book that you queried for months, but didn’t get an offer. Perhaps it’s the book that landed you your agent, but its flame fizzled out in the sub trenches. Or maybe it sold, but debuting wasn’t what you thought it would be. Maybe it’s a book that published years ago, but you’d write it so differently today.
Maybe it’s the book of your heart, and it’s tucked in a desk for now.
I’d imagine that most authors have a book that fits into one of the above. More specifically, I’d imagine that they have a collection of meaningful characters that go along with it. And in some ways, we always write characters to ultimately let them go, right? That is the point after all—to share them with the world, to say to readers, These characters came from my brain, they were once mine, but they’re yours now.
But when that act of letting go doesn’t align with the tangible conclusion of a release day, it can feel a whole lot murkier. And the painful truth is that you don’t always get closure. There isn’t necessarily a definitive moment where you’re told a book needs to take a rest; no one may ever tell you that at all. And it can be gut-wrenching to look at the characters you’ve spent months or years getting to know, close the drawer, and decide it’s not their time. To face the story you spun from your heart, to face yourself and all the work that you’ve done, and acknowledge that you tried your best and yet.
As writers, we want words for everything. A name for every ending. But saying goodbye to a book you wrote and loved doesn’t necessarily come with a last page or an epilogue. It’s quiet, and full of questions. The door always feels partially open, a window that just won’t close.
However, the other thing about publishing that I’m learning is that it is so, so non-linear. That manuscript that never got representation? After you get an offer on your next book (or the one after that), maybe you can dig it back out. The one that slipped away on sub might be able to be revised and sent back out later on. The characters that still sink their teeth into your soul will always be with you, and they might find their way into another story in the future—just in a different way than you expected.
Going into the drawer doesn’t mean that they’ve disappeared.
A friend of mine (the incredible Kelly Andrew, psst, go buy her book) once gave me some advice that I think about nearly every day. She said that publishing is less of a marathon and more of a relay race, and sometimes your stories have to pass the torch to one another after a while. If one book isn’t “it,” the next one might be.
And so maybe when we let one character go, we bring another one to stand in its place.
All of this also makes me think about that scene in tick, tick…Boom (you all know which one, I still haven’t recovered!), where Jonathan asks his agent, “What am I supposed to do now?”
Her response: “You start writing the next one. And after you finish that one, you start the next. And on and on, and that’s what it is to be a writer, honey.”
And so, as 2022 hurtles toward 2023, I leave you with this: If you have characters you’re holding onto, I’m rooting for you.
If you have characters that you’re figuring out how to say goodbye to, I’m also rooting for you.
I’m not sure if this journey ever gets easier, but I do know that if you love something as deeply as so many of us love our books, you should keep fighting for it. Take breaks, touch grass, don’t burn out—but keep telling your stories.
Keep fighting for the characters that are still words on a screen, and fight even harder for the ones waiting for their turn to emerge from the drawer. I, for one, can’t wait to meet them.
Currently Working On…
I am in the final rounds of edits with my agent on my sea book (which is an upper YA dark fantasy with horror elements), and I’m supremely psyched to get it ready for the next step of its journey. I’m also in the midst of a secret project that I can’t talk too much about yet, but I’m having a blast getting to know some new characters and their very secretive, spooky world.
Behind-the-Scenes…
I’ve been loving the Canva trends on Instagram lately, and was all too excited to turn my books into movie posters and pinterest boards. May I present…
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