Honoring the Body and the Vision
How I’m preparing for my next novel revision with my agent
In case you missed it, last month, I published a piece about a TikTok challenge I created for myself and, through it, tried to understand how I can showcase myself and my writing online authentically. I also filmed a video chat about some strange things that happened at the country club where I worked last year, how the club has been a lifeline for me, and why I think it's high time I moved on. (This one is for paid subscribers as it gives a lot of personal details but I hope you will consider upgrading your membership. Your support means the world to me!)
Writing begins with the body
My agent sent me her notes a few minutes before 5:00 PM on a Monday. I hadn’t been sure when to expect them as I had sent her my latest draft on December 15th. But here they finally were, at the end of January, a line-edited version of my manuscript with her notes in the body of the email.
While I was happy to receive it much earlier than I anticipated, a wave of overwhelm overtook me. My eyes filled with tears. Another edit, I thought as I read her notes.
And if I sound like a baby, it's because I was not in the right head space to read that email. Or rather, let me rephrase. I have come to learn that when I’m in my luteal phase, I have to be choosey about what I do in my creative life.
During the week before my menstrual cycle, it feels as if my whole body is slightly tense. My mood is low, and I have to talk myself through more negative thoughts than usual. It is such an intoxicating feeling that I can literally feel when this phase is through— the change over that happens in my body feels like a hand has finally loosened its grip. I suddenly feel calmer, my mind at ease. Back to normal, I suppose, leveled out after that drop in progesterone. While I could roll my eyes at this hormonal shift and power through it, I’ve decided not to do that anymore. Listening to my body and nurturing it when I can has been working out better for me. And since this happens monthly, I have also learned to incorporate this shift into my writing routine.
is the only writer I can think of who has mentioned the luteal cycle and writing. But I’m sure others can relate. As Laraine Herring says in her book Writing Begins with the Breath,“Deep writing requires presence in your whole being, whatever it looks like, whatever its limitations. Move into your body and you will move into your writing.”
Writing is such a bodily thing. The best that I can do for myself is to move with my cycle rather than against it. To understand my limitations and stopping points so that when I do come to the page, I am ready to tap into that deep space.
So, in this case, I waited an entire week to read my agent's notes fully. I glanced at her comments in the email but I didn’t open her line-edited draft until the following Monday, when non coincidentally, my menstrual phase started. I was clear-headed and emotionally leveling out so I could better absorb the information that, a week earlier, had left me in tears. Hormones are wild, but they are also a blessing. A reminder to slow down. A reminder that I’m not a machine.
By giving myself this space and scheduling my follow-up call with my agent a week later, I put myself first, and the fruits have followed. My agent and I had a lovely one-hour talk and I told her of the brainstorm I had in the car earlier and we discussed areas of improvement in 3 vital parts of the story. This one scene in particular, I’m bursting to edit because I have never felt like it was 100% ready, even after all these rewrites. This was the first time I truly felt an “ah ha” moment about it, and I’m excited to dive in.
(Ps. I’ve been thinking about making a course on “creativity cycling” for a long time. Should I do it??)
The vision comes first
Last week, in the Write or Die newsletter, we published a craft piece by our fiction editor,
. She texted me earlier that week, letting me know her essay was coming to my inbox shortly and that it was slightly “unhinged,” if that was okay. (Um, yes of course, it is). Unsurprisingly, because Suzanne is brilliant, it was a banger of a craft essay. I broke out with goosebumps after the last line. And the timing for me to read this couldn’t have been more serendipitous.She says:
“Everything, everything, everything (every damn thing) should be in service of your vision. The form, the tense, the POV, the syntax, the voice, the style, the process—whether you type the whole story or novel with your thumbs on your phone in bed for 20 minutes every day over the course of two years or sit for five hours upright handwriting on a legal pad for a decade—should all flow out of your vision.”
And then what feels like a war cry:
“DO NOT PUT THE RULES FIRST. PUT YOUR VISION FIRST.”
While Suzanne grapples with the idea of the plot, or rather if any story is ever entirely plotless (spoiler: the answer is no), I considered my latest novel edit. Although my agent and I align on most things, I was reminded that going into this next revision, I need to hold tight to my vision.
In her essay, Suzanne asks:
“When you first began, what did you want to do? Not in some grand artistic sense, but what small thing initially got you excited? I don't want a philosophical artist's statement, but I want to know what you looked forward to in that piece of writing. What sounded like it would be fun?”
When I go to write this aforementioned pivotal scene that I’m excited about, I will meditate on what excited me initially, when I wrote it years ago.
During a revision like this, it is easy for me to continue to think of each round as a sort of cleaning up the mess on the path to publication. Yes, we are making the book as best as it can be, but sometimes, it feels as though my approach has become mechanical. Here is my list of things to change. Here is what I have to do.
And while these things are good and necessary to the editing process, I’m aware that I could lose that sense of what I initially wanted to feel in the scene in the name of story mechanics.
But Suzanne reminded me to revisit these scenes with more “softness.” With that curiosity of the baby writer who first wrote them. Like in my first draft, when I initially wrote that pivotal scene I’m referencing, I had no idea how much emotion would be stored up in it because I didn’t know the full extent of the stakes yet. But now that I do, I can still tap back into that first moment when I just saw my main character standing in that room and looking at everything around her and realizing she made a terrible choice. She is holding something, literally in her hand and that thing is a reminder of something she wanted to forget. That feeling of realization is overwhelming to her. That was the vision. The pieces that make up this scene now came later as a result of this vision. I never want to forget that.
Maybe it's the nostalgia that is always threatening to burst from me, but thinking about myself first writing this novel and comparing it to where I am now is a tender thought that makes me a little emotional. This novel is so full of me, and with each revision, I grow prouder and prouder of what I have created. My vision has held on through everything.
What’s next
My plan is to now finish this next revision before I go to AWP in LA at the end of March—two months to go through the novel again. I think I will start at the end of the book again and work my way to the beginning that way. This tends to work for me in every other draft, and like I said, I’m excited to dive into that ending, climactic scene.
Thankfully, I have some good reading to keep me company. I’m almost done with my friend Shelby Hinte’s debut, Howling Women, which is an atmospheric exploration of female rage, desire, and secret— I absolutely love it. I’m so blessed to have received an early copy of Xhenet Aliu’s new novel, Everybody Says It’s Everything. Her first novel, Brass, was a guiding star book for many of my novel drafts, so I’m thrilled to be reading her work again during this one.
Fingers crossed, I can get this novel into enough shape that we can go out on submission in May or June!
Thank you for reading <3
Upcoming things
Write with me— join
and me for a special day of writing over Zoom on February 15th! This is a retreat made to help you prioritize your work with the accountability of a loving and fun community. We also have an exciting guest, , who will wrap up our day with an interactive craft chat on embracing authenticity in writing and standing out in today’s digital spaces. I hope to see you there :)+
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Kailey! THANK YOU for this. I could talk for hours about it. I’ve had PMDD for many years and am finally coming to terms with my luteal phase. I have 3-6 days per month where I can’t really work (and that is with meds and lots of talk therapy). Instead I try to reduce all the demands I put on myself and mostly sit around reading / listening to audio books / sometimes crying. 🙈🤣 It takes so much patience to roll with your body’s rhythms for work and productivity instead of fighting them. 🩷 Have fun with your revision!
This is so great and validating. I'm admittedly not on top of my cycle in terms of which phase I'm in when, but this was the push I needed. Have fun with the revision!