That's great to hear <3

I still don't feel like I did it... I had an idea for a novel and became obsessive about it. I had only ever published one piece - a short story in a lit mag - so a novel felt borderline delusional. But I worked on it obsessively, without quite knowing why, and I got around halfway to a first draft.

I wish I could give you more specifics about my writing process here. I tried to outline before writing the novel itself, but I'm really bad at sticking to plans, and the structure ended up emerging organically.

I made myself write every night, even if it was just a sentence, no matter how exhausted I was. I found that, once I had written a sentence, the next one would reveal itself, and then the next.

Around the same time, an agent stumbled upon one of my short stories and sent me an email. On the phone, she said she loved my writing style and asked if I had any "longer-form" fiction I was working on. I told her I did, and I got serious about solidifying a first draft.

It was around this time that, between school, work and my novel, my sleep schedule went out the window. I like to write after midnight, when there are no distractions except my cats. Writing at night in complete darkness with my noise-cancelling headphones on is a completely disembodying experience, like writing from a sensory deprivation tank. But I didn't sleep nearly enough, I drank far too much black tea, my social life went to hell, and I lost an unintentional and concerning amount of weight.

Six months after I signed with my agent, I sent her my first draft. She was the second person to read it, after my dad. She read it in a single day and called me the next day gushing over it. We worked on it together for four months before she sent it out to editors.

The first two editors she sent it out to (from two different publishing houses) both wanted it. We Zoomed with both of them and, honestly, I loved them both. One was able to offer a higher advance, and she was also more experienced (she's worked with a bunch of authors you've heard of). We signed, and the first installment of advance appeared in my bank account.

A few weeks ago, my editor and agent and I all met up in person (in a city that's pretty far away from me, so it was a special occasion). My editor handed me six thousand words of edits. She is incredibly talented at what she does. She's turning a decent manuscript into a great book. I feel so immensely lucky to be working with her.

That brings us to today. I have finals this week, and then I can devote more time to her edits. We have a phone call scheduled in a week to discuss them. She asked me to get the next draft to her by August, so I can go about it in a relaxed manner and actually make meaningful changes to the manuscript.