In which planning what to write in 2025 is like racing sled dogs while people who don't know any better complain about animal cruelty
or: sometimes the dogs don't run
In March 2016, I was in Minneapolis for the launch of Exit, Pursued By A Bear. My local regional sales rep had gotten me a slot at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Independent Booksellers Association (MIBA) speed dating session. They did their best to pair the writers with common interests, but I ended up with a local poet. When she sat down next to me at our table, I leaned over and said “Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been picked last for dodgeball?”. She laughed, and we split the bowl of candy in the middle of the table while we waited for our booksellers to show up.
I do have plans for 2025. I know that, at the very least, I will have two new books. Titan of the Stars comes out on May 27 and Sky on Fire comes out on July 22. Preorders are available now, but I don’t know if I’ll have any events. Recent evidence points to no, but I am not making plans for those two weeks out of sheer optimism. I can always give myself a few days off to celebrate. Outside of that, though, very little is confirmed.
Conference speed dating looks like this: one or two authors sit at a table, and for 10 minutes (maximum), they talk to a collection of booksellers. When the bell rings, the booksellers get up and go to the next table, and the authors get to give their pitches to new people. After the third or fourth one, you and your table partner could probably pose as one another if you wanted. If you don’t have a pitch when you sit down, you’re definitely have one after five rounds.
I know I have to write two books next year. I am HOPING that I will have to write three. I realize this sounds counterintuitive because I usually say that my dream is to write one book a year, but until my dreams catch up to my finances, three it is. The catch is that I’d have to write all three of them by June. Which is…a lot. But I have a spreadsheet (okay: I have a sticky note on my bookshelf), so I have made it something I can conceptualize, which always helps.
By the end of the speed dating rounds, my tablemate and I had eaten about 40 miniature chocolate bars between us, and I was humming with the adrenaline that comes with talking to a bunch of strangers after a full day of school visits. And, you know, the sugar. The authors were parcelled off to signing tables, and I said good-bye to the poet. I was wedged into a corner with a debut writer who, unbeknownst to both of us, was about to change my life.
The Two Book Plan is to write a couple of outlines in December in between batches of cookies, and then write drafts in January, February, April, and May. The Three Book Plan is to write a couple of outlines in December in between batches of cookies, and then write drafts in January, February, April, May, and June, with March as another month for outlining. It sounds intimidating, but it all fits on a sticky note, so, you know, it feels like something I can do.
Before I got to my new table, Andrew pulled me aside and said “The author you’re sharing a table with is a sexual assault survivor, so keep an eye on her while you’re chatting with the booksellers”. I drank a bottle of water and took my seat. Then Blair Braverman turned to me with her arms spread wide, a huge smile on her face, and said “Welcome to the rape corner!” We were all a little surprised, I think, but it was immediately pretty obvious that I wasn’t about to upset her.
Publishing isn’t a great career for you if you like constancy. If you need a plan to be made one time and then more or less followed, you might need a different job. Publishing is a GREAT career if you like catastrophizing, coming up with ten plans based on a series of ever-shifting variables, any of which could collapse or disappear at any moment. There’s a reason we’re all a little twitchy. I have two(ish) plans, and no idea which one I’ll be following. And I won’t know until I’m halfway through.
Blair Braverman is a musher, that is: someone who races sled dogs. She was at the conference for her memoir Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Berg. She has more than 20 American huskies, each litter named to theme. Most of them live with her and her husband Q year round, but some have vacation homes with their neighbours. Glory, from the Buffy litter, moved to California permanently to live with Blair’s parents for one very simple reason: she didn’t like to run.
The trick I have learned is to plan for a spectrum. Make the worst case plan (two books, x-number of dollars) and the best case plan (three books, x-number of dollars), and then make sure that the worst case plan is enough. Because it might have to be. Sometimes, no matter how you’ve prepped or planned or whatever, the dog doesn’t want to run. You have to make sure you can live with that, but that doesn’t mean you stop hoping, stop planning, for the dog who does.
You can’t really make a sled dog run. That’s why it’s silly to say that mushing relies on animal cruelty. You can encourage the dogs, and you can steer them a bit, but at the end of the day, they have to want to run. And if they don’t, you don’t go anywhere. In 2020 (I think), one of the world’s best mushers was on track to do really well in the Iditarod (before, you know, NO ONE did really well in 2020), and instead his dogs sat down and that was it. When Blair realized that Glory didn’t want to run, she made arrangements. Now Glory lives on a beach while her siblings are just as happy in the Wisconsin woods.
2025 might be the year the dogs don’t run. Maybe no one will want my time travel murder book. Maybe no one will want my fantasy romance novella series. Maybe no one will want me to write IP for them. I have to be ready for that, but it’s not a failure on my part if it happens. All I can do is make a new plan.
And it turns out that I am pretty good at that.
Blair Braverman is amazing, and you can help her take care of her amazing dogs if you want! She has a patreon in addition to her three (current!) books (and trail mail, and an annual calendar we’re probably coming up on), and the UglyDogs community is one of my favourite sections of the internet.
My books are great if you are trying to reach a 2024 reading goal, because they are mostly pretty short!
Pretty Furious: 224 pages
Exit, Pursued By A Bear: 254 pages
Aetherbound: 256 pages
The Druid’s Call: 300 pages
But if you want a challenge/do not care about the divisions of linear time, there’s always:
Prairie Fire: 304 pages
The Story of Owen: 320
That Inevitable Victorian Thing: 336 pages
The Afterward: 352 pages
A Thousand Nights: 352 pages
Spindle: 384 pages