March 6, 2024

🐔 lisa writes stuff issue #31 💋 untraditional heroines

We’re loveable and sexy at all ages

Welcome to A Most Unreliable Narrator, the slice-of-life newsletter of GenXer around town, Lisa Rabey. I talk about anything and everything with a bit of swears. I’m glad you’re here.

Dear Internet,

Friday was beyond fucking productive in writing my book. I wrote 3419 words and I’m up to chapter five. I’ve clocked in nearly 20,000 words as of Tuesday afternoon in the last few weeks.  

I’ve never been this far in my life. It’s crazy to me how far I’ve come. Novels are between 75K to 100K words (300 – 400 pages). The way this story is taking shape, it may be on the high end. I already know there will be lots of editing. I’m keeping track of questions and fixes in a paper notebook.

Jesus christ.

While I have the gist of the plot planned out, new things are happening to my characters. The lead, Alex, is debating if the feels she caught for her (male) best friend is romantic love after all these years but she is being led off course by a new man in town she meets at the dog park and the male lead gets jealous. Alex has a mental illness and I got the brilliant idea of having her flirt with someone in the anonymous virtual chat group she’s in and having it turn out to be the male bff or the new man. I’ve ditched that idea for now because it’s complicating the story but another book idea!

I also thought: what if she ends up with either or no one at all, which is also a possibility.

Linda Holmes (she of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour) wrote two books about older (in their 40s. yay) leading ladies whose HEAs looked a bit different than what we’re used to and I’ve been intrigued by that idea. Recently, Best Kate mentioned she “shat a gold brick” when Barbie chooses herself and not Ken.

With each book I’ve thought about, I’ve thought about going the way of Holmes and having the endings with an unconventional HEA but for this lead, Alex, she’s been through a lot already and learned how to stand on her own and while no, she doesn’t need someone to complete her, it would be nice if she got someone who romantically loved her mental illness and all.

As I mentioned in Sunday’s AMUN, I’m in a deep depression right now and I’m vainly and desperately trying to not let it color Alex’s joy. I’m pulling up everything I can to give Alex a happy world and while it’s tough, I’m making it happen. I’m tracking my daily writing. The most I wrote last week was nearly 4,000 words in one day (which is a fuck ton) and the worse was Thursday when I got 77 words in. I promised myself that whether I wrote 100 or 1000, I would be happy.

While the plot is loosely outlined and I have a notebook to keep track of things to fix or add later, the story is taking shape. Finding the inspiration comes from my own reading habits when I think, “How would Alex react to this or respond to that?” The three main drivers of the book are:

1. Alex has a severe mental illness but she is stable.

2. Alex gets a romantic partner.

3. Alex’s favorite aunt dies and leaves her her bookstore.

As someone who identifies as non-binary, I’ve been thinking of queering up Alex or her love interest but that doesn’t seem right with this story right now. The focus is on her mental illness and how she responds to the world around her.

Representation of mental illness in books is coming along, fucking finally. Two books I’ve read in the last year, Weather Girl (Rachel Lynn Solomon) and At First Spite (Olivia Dade), gave really good descriptions of depression so I’m hopeful that taking something as taboo as mental illness and normalizing it will certainly become a thing.

(As an adjacent topic, Dade’s main female (and some male) characters are gloriously fat (however you want to define that). They are 100% themselves and live life uproariously. If you want a character study in writing fat characters, read Olivia Dade.)

Aging of female leads is also important to me. Alex is in her early to mid 40s. In both of Holmes’ books, the female lead is in her late 30s and early 40s. Dade’s lead female in 40-Love is 40 while her male lead is 26. Age gap love is also of interest to me because I’ve seemingly dated mainly younger men. Mr. Lisa is 45 to my nearly 52. (I’ve jotted down that Alex’s potential new boyfriend may be younger than her.)

What I want are books that represent me because you rarely read about mentally ill OR fat OR queer characters these days that aren’t written magical gay best friend or the quirky depressed girl. So, you know what they say, write what you want to read, so I am.

Over the weekend I didn’t write a word, but I kept thinking about the story.

I woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday morning with a brilliant idea about my story and the panic set that I would possibly have to re-write nearly 20,000 words.

That’s the thing you’ll hear over and over from novelists is trunked novels. The idea is that your first, second, or hell, even your third novel will never see the light of day. And that’s okay. I believe strongly in this story but I am recognizing the more I keep throwing against the wall, the better it is to par down. So, I take paper notes in hopes to use those ideas somewhere else.

#

One of my online writer’s groups is doing a “book in a week” challenge where the idea is that the group of us who participate support each other in however that makes sense. On day one (Monday) we all posted our aspirations for the week. Some were revising, others editing. Still others would be doing research. Since this writer’s group is for thrillers and mysteries, I wrote my aspiration for the week is to plot my cozy mystery novel. I needed a break from Alex since she’s all I’ve been thinking about for what seems like forever.

I found the notes on my cozy and it didn’t seem to give me joy so I started over. As I wrote the summary, moving pieces around, it still doesn’t give me job and that is frustrating. I’ve read a zillion cozies so I know the drill and I’m not sure why this isn’t clicking for me and it’s pissing me off.

I’ve got the character’s outline mapped out, her name, her occupation, and where she lives. Every time I think I’ve got who’s dead, another situation appears. Sure, this makes sense for a series but I just need to concentrate on one thing and get that plotted.

I do other things when I’m stuck hoping for that spark but then I feel like the dicking around is making things worse and not better.

Novel writing is hard, yo.

Leave a comment

Submission update

78 submissions, including 63 rejections, 8 acceptances, 1 withdrawal, and 6 outstanding.

Publication

chapbook: commercial breaks

lisa x

(Fuck fascists and Nazis!)

You've just finished reading A Most Unreliable Narrator: the slice of life newsletter from the GenXer about town, Lisa Rabey. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky if you're so inclined. I am everywhere. Copyright © 1996 - 2025 by Lisa Rabey