Comic Con & How Learning to Draw Is Helping Me Draft My Next Book
Welcome to the midnight, daylight, twilight musings of a perpetually sleepy writer. Grab a chair. I hope you’ll stay awhile 🍵 🫖
Hi friends!
I update this newsletter very sporadically and for that I’m sorry (but also I am of the opinion that there is far too much content out there. I subscribe to so many newsletters and magazines and barely have time to read even a fraction of them, so I will keep this short for us both 😘)
Comic Con
I’m going to Emerald City Comic Con! I’ll be on a murder mystery panel Thursday at 6:45pm called Totally Killer: Crafting a Murder (Mystery). If you are going too, please let me know! I get overwhelmed at cons but I’d love to try to meet up with anyone and attend some panels, or just say hi! I am going to be bringing swag items, probably, and if there’s a freebie table will be chucking stuff on there. Might even put out one of my one million final copies of The Book of Autumn that I don’t know what to do with 😂
Drafting & What’s New With Writing Lately
It’s been four months since my debut, The Book of Autumn, released and I’m in this weird sort of adjustment period where I feel very…odd. I think it’s a very common feeling when you have this whole big ramp-up for something and then it abruptly sort of just…stops. Feelin kinda..
My team and I are very happy with sales of my book and how it did, but no one ever said publishing was great for mental health lol. I have another book coming out that’s planned for spring 2027 and I submitted a draft for that and am waiting for a round of edits, cover meetings, and then hopefully I can do a fun little announcement post.
In the meantime, I’m drafting something new that I really love and feels very healing and nourishing for me. It’s about fear and nature and friendship and knowing your limits and accepting yourself for what you can and (maybe cannot or can no longer) do. I’m trying a slightly different drafting process this time in that I’ve been doing a lot of sprints to just quickly get something down. I used to go pretty methodically and kind of think about each step before I moved forward. I needed to be very in the moment, in the voice of my characters and so I wouldn’t write everyday. But after starting to learn to draw, I realize that it might be a better process to not try to do the whole thing all at once.
In my drawing class, the instructor has us breaking down the large components into smaller, more manageable ones. Instead of trying to draw the whole person at once, it’s an iterative process. You get a rough sketch - you get something manageable down, the s curve for the spine, maybe perspective boxes or even just rough circles for the torso and pelvis and head. Maybe you do a curve for the movement of the left arm, then another quick sketch of the broad gesture of the right arm.
The point is you don’t try to do it all in one go or all at once. Iterations and manageability are built into the process. You can erase once you get the broad strokes down and get into more detail by honing into different sections. It feels a little more manageable and less intimidating to start. Today I got to the part where they actually go on the main plot journey only to discover, oh shit like what the fuck is happening here? So now I’ll need to brainstorm and outline a bit before I sprint more. This is the part where I’m figuring out the characters and their relationships to each other which, spoiler alert, takes me literally like a year. A lot of the time I end up drafting the whole book and honing and figuring out the main character’s personality afterward and having to revise that back in.
Like everyone else, I think, I’ve admired Alysa Liu’s joy and mental clarity and have considered it in my own practice. It’s no surprise that her ability to cope with all the pressure and her mental health was one of the reasons she was able to triumph when a lot of the other US team didn’t. (Side note, seems a pretty common refrain with the US Olympians- do we not have any mental health experts on hand for our athletes?) Mental health seems just as important in your performance of athletics (and writing, and anything really) as nutrition, resting your body, and physically training. I’ve been trying to forcefully form a bubble of protection around my mental health lately with the difficult news in the world lately.
I have no tips here unfortunately, if you’ve read my books you will see it is a constant process of healing for me, but I do seem to feel better when I concentrate on what I’m taking in. Doom scrolling, reading terrifying headlines, and spending too much time on negative posts obviously doesn’t help, and I remain convinced that social media companies (most notably Meta) make money by purposefully making us feel sad and unloved so that we use the site even more to connect with other users and hopefully fix this artificial hole that they have created.
I’ve been spending more time connecting with others in the real world, and have recently started aggressively binging Witch Hat Atelier which is so freaking beautiful, cozy, and uplifting.
Other Stuff
What (Else) I’m reading
The Poet Empress - I’m about halfway through and holy SHIT this book is amazing? I’m reading it in literal awe of the worldbuilding, the plot, the relationships, POV choices and how smooth they are, the aching need for the protagonist to have her happy ending. It’s just… such a beautiful book, truly. Also Shen signed mine with the sweetest note 💜 pick it up today, friends
What (Else) I’m Into At the Moment
Catbird jewelry! Ok, so I started this jewelry search because I really wanted to bring a a little wizard whimsy to my event outfits, my best Howl you know? A little wizard chic. So I was very much lamenting the whole trend of dainty jewelry because I wanted a chunky garnet in the shape of a heart for a necklace, which they just do not make unless you are willing to spend $10,000 or go on some sketchy websites which BRO DID YALL KNOW THAT A LOT OF JEWELRY IS MADE WITH LEAD? Especially cheap stuff which like, new fear unlocked. Anyway, enter Catbird which at first I was like what the fuck are these chains, they are half the size of any other chain, their markup is insane they are probably rolling in cash.
Which like yes, all valid, BUT I bought this labradorite heart choker necklace and a $78 Greco lariat silver chain necklace and BRO MY GOD I’ve never liked any jewelry more in my life. They are dainty but because of that the necklaces are so sparkly and interesting looking. I think the brand means for most of their jewelry to be stacked and layered, which has a really cool look and feels very whimsical. Anyway, Catbird! Super cute!
That’s all I’ve got for today. Til next time, loves, be well 💕
xoxo,
Molly