An Unfound Door, Take... Three?

[rynling]

I stopped writing An Unfound Door at the end of 2022 for three reasons.

First, the artists I commissioned for character illustrations flaked on me. That really hurt, emotionally and creatively. Not to mention financially. My resources are extremely limited, and knowing that I couldn’t rely on collaborators made me feel as though… I’m not sure how to put it, except to say that suddenly everything felt impossible.

Second, I was reading a lot of YA fiction in order to get a handle on the sort of "comparative titles" required for a serious tradpub agent pitch, and these books were so offensively awful that I stopped reading all fiction altogether.

Third, given that I was writing chapters that felt finished at 2k words, I realized that An Unfound Door is not going to be 60k words long.

But what if...

- I create illustrations myself.
- The story contains adult sexuality.
- The illustrations are a bit racy too.
- It’s a novella, and that’s okay.
- I can publish it myself even if it’s not suitable for the tradpub market.

So how about I just write what makes me happy?

Comments

[renegadefolkhero]

YA is hard right now. I honestly found YA comp searching just as demoralizing as KU market research, there was A LOT I didn't like or mesh with. I noped out.

Some writers query adult books as having "crossover appeal," meaning written for actual adults but marketable to the YA readers as well. Not sure how I feel about that personally.

[lassarina]

Firmly endorse writing what makes you happy. ♥