House of Nepenthe: It's Harder to Work When You Just Don't Want to, Duh.

I recently finished another revision pass on House of Nepenthe, a process that felt like trying to get a long sofa up a spiral staircase, and I didn't even have anyone screaming pivot at me the whole time to keep me motivated.

For context, Vise Manor came out in 2022. I started working on House before Vise even hit the shelves. By all metrics of momentum, discipline, and general authorial enthusiasm, I should have been done by now.

But then, life happened.

I had a daughter. I changed jobs. I spent six harrowing months between jobs, recalibrating my sense of professional worth by applying to positions I wasn’t sure I wanted for salaries I definitely did. The kind of stuff that’s deeply character-building and creatively draining.

The delay in finishing this book says a lot about where I’ve been mentally the last couple of years. I used to think depression and anxiety made me a better writer. That suffering was necessary. That you couldn’t convincingly write about pain without living through it first. And maybe that’s true for writing—for bleeding out onto the page in a glorious catharsis of art and trauma.

But revisions? Revisions are not art. Revisions are work.

Revising a book isn’t about catharsis. It’s about discipline. It’s about sitting down, reading the same horribly written paragraph for the twelfth time, and deciding if “the” should be “that.” It’s like rubbing sandpaper on my eyeballs. And unlike writing new material—which I always want to do—revisions demand a very specific headspace, one I have a hard time accessing when I’m tired, overworked, or emotionally cracked.

And for the past two years? I’ve been all of those things.

It was hard to revise on three hours of sleep. Hard to revise when I was at a job I’d been with for eighteen years and had long since emotionally checked out of. Hard to revise when I was unemployed and spending most of my energy pretending I was fine. No amount of artistic suffering could fuel a full pass through a 400-page manuscript. You need brain calories. You need some kind of routine. You need stability.

Now I finally have those things again.

I’m working. I have balance. I’m sleeping a little better. And for the first time in a while, the mental path into revision mode doesn’t feel like bushwhacking through thorns. It’s still not easy, but it’s happening. I’m diving into one last revision pass before I send the book to alpha readers. After that, it’s off to querying agents, a process I enjoy about as much as explaining a dream to someone who didn’t ask.

The epilogue is half-written. The prologue hasn’t even been started. I always save those for the end anyway—like the frame around a finished puzzle, the last chance to say something before the lights go out.

I’m looking forward to this next stretch. I really am. I'm cautiously optimistic, or maybe just numb in a new and exciting way. Either way, I'm pushing forward.

Even though I know, deep down, that only a handful of people will read this book when it’s done.

Now, try spending three years on a book with that kind of attitude.