NORA AND THE NIGHTMARE KING.
This project really surprised me. I’d never seen myself as a middle grade or young adult writer, but once I had the idea for this book, I knew I had to write it.
My goal: To write a FUN book, to write the kind of book I would have devoured as a kid, and to challenge myself.
This story is not doing anything especially new, but it is my own take on everything I’ve always loved: fiery female protagonist, old house, found family, nightmares, and boarding school (I’ve never been to one, but I’ve always loved the idea). It’s a love letter to the stories I love: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Gallant, and Over the Garden Wall, to name a few. NORA AND THE NIGHTMARE KING will appeal to fans of The Girl in the Walls by Meg Eden Kuyatt, Nightbooks by J.A. White, The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel, and other creepy, magical stories.
While querying SMALL THINGS, and writing and editing NATNK, I also got a full-time job again as a designer. Since March of this year, I’ve been working for Wyld. While I haven’t talked much about the emotional stress of being mostly unemployed for the past two years in my previous posts, this was huge for me.
I do want to acknowledge that things definitely weren’t as bad for me as they could have been. While working full-time in 2021 and 2022, I saved as much money as I could, worried that I’d have another stretch of time without work. I’d spent the entire year job-hunting in 2020 and I knew it was possible that might happen again. So, going into unemployment, I was somewhat prepared. My boyfriend and I also lived with my parents for most of 2023 and we didn’t have to pay rent during that time. I say all of this because I know not everyone is as lucky as I was. Not everyone has the support system, the savings, or the time (especially if you’re a parent) to turn being laid-off into an opportunity to follow a life-long dream. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t still incredibly hard and stressful, but if you’re another writer reading this, I hope you don’t compare your journey to mine. I hope you don’t see that I’ve written three books in two years and think that’s a reasonable goal for someone who is working full-time, trying to take care of kids, in school, or all three.
Now that I am working full-time again, facing query rejections is honestly a little bit easier. I do have less time to write than I did before, but knowing that I have consistent income again has made such a difference. Now, I don’t feel quite so desperate for my writing career to take off. I finally feel like I can take my time, or at the very least, a day off.
I finished writing draft one of NORA AND THE NIGHTMARE KING in October of 2024, sent it out to beta readers in December, and did edits based on that feedback in the spring. I felt like it was in a pretty good spot by April. I hired my friend, Savannah, to do some custom illustrations, and I scheduled consultations with agents through Manuscript Academy, to get feedback on my query and first ten pages.
Another thing made easier by having a full-time job: paying for these services! It isn’t cheap to hire an editor, get time with agents, or hire an illustrator to make promotional work for your project, and therefore not something every writer can afford to do (but worth it, if you can). I’m incredibly grateful that I’m in a position where I can invest in this process.
Meeting with agents through Manuscript Academy was really helpful. The first agent I met with had some feedback, but the changes were pretty minimal. After making those adjustments, I scheduled another call, with a different agent, to take a look at the newer version. The second agent I met with was pretty confident in the query and ten pages, but like the first, had some minor adjustments.
After going through this process twice already, immersing myself in agent and editor interviews, and being involved in a small writing community online, I felt more prepared than I ever had. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me—the part that knows the feeling of rejection all too well—that isn’t scared.
I decided to start querying this month based on the feedback I’d gotten so far (slowly, and in rounds). I hope this project finds the right agent, someone who will love this story as much as I do and be excited to work on it. But, even if that doesn’t happen, it’ll be okay. This isn’t the end of my writing journey, and I still have so much more to learn.
Since finishing NATNK, I’ve been working on my next project. I don’t want to give too much away until I’m further along, but I will say that it’s another adult fantasy standalone, and that I’m having a harder time with it than I did with my previous projects. In fact, it’s the first book I’ve written where I feel kind of stuck. I’m choosing to see this as a good thing. I’m uncomfortable because I’m growing. It just means this project might take longer for me to finish than my previous three, will require more research, and I might need to step away from it for longer periods of time.
A few people have asked if I’ve considered self-publishing, especially now that I’m working on my fourth book.
Working in design/marketing, I can more easily imagine the path to self-publishing. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse, I’m not totally sure. I have the skills to design my own website, my covers, and to market my books, which means I wouldn’t have to hire someone else to do those things, but that also means I know how much time and work it would be—how many hours, how many late nights.
If I’d known how difficult traditional publishing was before I wrote my first book, would I have done it? Would I have found the motivation? Probably, but sometimes a dream is sweeter when ignorance can guide you—when you can believe that by the end of the year your book might be in the hands of readers. It’s much harder to keep going once you realize this path will take years, not months, and more rejection than you ever imagined.
I’m not writing just to be published, I’m doing it because I love it. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t also love to walk into a bookstore and see my book on the shelf, or that the timelines aren’t daunting. Maybe a few more books down the road and a few hundred rejections later, I’ll invest in self-publishing, but, for now, I plan to keep querying literary agents.
I’ll be posting updates for NORA AND THE NIGHTMARE KING and my future projects on Substack. If you’re an agent or editor who is interested in this story (or you know someone who might be), feel free to leave a comment or message me! I’d love to send this project to anyone who thinks they would be a good fit.
See you next time! :)
