Substack, Interrupted

Why I've decided to press pause...

If you’re a paying subscriber, please read to end!

I started writing my seventh novel in January of this year. I submitted the first draft in June, and I received my editorial letter in July. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the process of publishing (and why would you be?) the editorial letter is a comprehensive critique of the manuscript, giving feedback, and suggestions to improve it. At this stage of the process, it’s usually structural – we need to lose 20k words, the pacing lags in the middle, I’m not sure Mr X works as a character, have you thought about changing the ending? –  and is more concerned with overarching, big picture issues than the minute details.  I find the first round of edits the trickiest part of writing as a whole; it’s painstaking, agonisingly slow work. Often, I can see the vision my editor has for the book, I can see how much better it will make the manuscript, but I’m not sure how I will implement the changes, or if I even possess the ability to do so. (I have always found a way but those fears have never dissipated fully, no matter how long I’ve been in this job.)

This particular editorial letter was thorough, and included a radical suggestion from my agent which I knew instantly was a brilliant idea but would require a huge amount of work. In fact, it would necessitate an almost complete re-write in order to make sense. The mere thought of it put me into a state of paralysis – I went to London and then to New York and I kept going to my desk every morning, looking at the printed-out manuscript I had carted to both countries with me, and I did not know where to begin. I distracted myself in all sorts of ways, and very effectively I may add. I told myself it was fine, I was fine, but with each day that passed, the fear rooted deeper and deeper. What if I had forgotten how to edit? What if I would never finish this book?

The ability to edit, and to do so well, is something we don’t talk about enough as writers. Being able to re-write, to re-draft, to kill your darlings, to look at the narrative as a whole and instinctively understand pacing and cadence and rhythm, all of that is work, and it’s fucking difficult, but it’s what turns the manuscript from a collection of ideas thrown on a page (just me?!) into something that is worthy of being published. It is also where you are met with your own limitations, with the boundaries of your talent and imagination, and that can be excruciating. You don’t like hearing your own voice, you say? Well, imagine having to read 100,000 of your own words over and over and over again! It is enough to make you lose the will to live… and yet. And yet, when you finally get into it, when you dig deep enough and the ideas start to flow and you can see where the jigsaw pieces should slot in and this wave of energy, of momentum washes over you and carries you with it, it can be addictive. Hard-to-leave your desk, don’t-care-about-anything-else, wait-when-did-I-last-wash-my-hair type of addictive.

I’m just coming off three intense weeks where a) I was relieved to discover I did remember how to edit and b) I hadn’t realised how much of a psychological weight I’d been carrying knowing I had a task to complete and pretending I was fine with not doing it. (Spoiler alert: I was not fine) I submitted the second draft on the 31^st and the RELIEF, pals, it was indescribable. The only way to describe October was feral; I was pulling 12–14-hour days to get through the pages. Except for one trip to Dublin for a friend’s 40^th, I barely left my house. I ate sharing bags of Maltesers for dinner. My mother called in to check on me at one stage and she was like, Louise, you need to shower and go to bed. It was a mess. I feel tired now, I look and feel like absolute shit (my poor skin *cry face emoji*) but I am grateful. Because while I was editing, I remembered who I am. I am a novelist, this is what I do. It’s important to me and I don’t want to take that for granted. I am grateful to have this work, grateful to have found my way back to it. I am grateful that I have fallen back in love with writing, and I feel creatively fulfilled again. How lucky am I?

I wanted to tell you something. When I was in New York, I received some good news. It is exciting and I am delighted but it is also going to be a lot of extra work. In the past, I would have found a way to juggle this new project with the novel I’m editing and my Substack, trying to squeeze my personal life in around that, but I’m not prepared to make those sacrifices anymore. Something has to give and it can’t be my relationships, not any more. So, after a year of writing this newsletter, I have decided to suspend my Substack indefinitely. I’m hoping I’ll be back – I love the community we have built here, I have felt so supported and safe and I hope you had a similar experience – but I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep. I don’t want to disappoint any of you by continuing to write here if I don’t have the time and energy to maintain the quality I expect of myself. Your money is too hard earned for that, and you deserve better.

With that, my friends, it’s goodbye for now. Thank you for subscribing, for reading my words, for taking the time to comment and to share my pieces. It’s meant more to me than you will ever know.

All my love,

Louise xx

NOTE: For all paying subscribers – your subscription will now be suspended and you won’t be charged going forward. You still have access to the full back catalogue of newsletters. If you are someone who paid in full for the year within the last few months, please contact me and I’ll arrange a refund x