Help Me Finish My Novel
Donation protected
Friends, family, people who may not know me but who really like the idea of what I'm working on: Please help me pay my bills for the next few months so I can finish my novel.
A little over a year ago, I quit my job doing tech support at a major insurance company. After 6 years there a change in upper management made the place unendurable. We became the whipping boys for the cut-rate programmers they hired after laying all the good ones off. Advancement opportunities in other departments dried up. The word "outsourcing" started floating around in meetings. I developed a wicked case of carpal tunnel, I had to double the medication I was taking for my anxiety disorder, and the stress was causing an exciting assortment of other health problems.
My intention was to coast on my little bit of savings while I worked to establish a writing career.
This plea for assistance isn't to say the whole "quitting the day job to write" thing is floundering. What it IS to say is that it took a lot longer than expected for me to recover from the crushing stress of my day job. I now have a small but steady income from a column I write for my city's alt weekly, and I have something coming out this spring from Dreamspinner Press that will pay a good royalty, but pays *nothing* until then. And most importantly, I have this novel I'm working on, but it needs love and attention I can't give it without asking for a little help from my friends.
Last month a friend of mine gave me a small loan to help with my bills on the condition that I pay it back +$50 once things start paying off near the end of the year. Establishing a writing career can be crushing because it requires you to put months if not years into a project with no real feedback, no validation except from those closest friends you trust with your early drafts. But that small loan had an incredible effect on me. Someone believed in me. The knowledge that not only did I have more time to write but I had more time to write because someone believed what I was writing was worthwhile led to the most productive weeks I've had since quitting my job.
Most novelists either let their work simmer on a slow burn for years or have someone like a spouse to support them financially so they can get their first novel finished. (For those unfamiliar with the publishing industry, a sold first novel gives you an advance that can keep a roof over your head while you work on the next and then the next - it's a cycle, but you have to start it.) I've heard a lot of women write theirs while on maternity leave. I don't have a spouse, and I have no intention of having a baby. What I have is you guys.
Whew, that was a lot of text, right? Let me tell you what I'm asking:
What This Will Pay For:
1. Bills - Internet, electric, gas, car insurance, my floating-week membership at a coworking space, my tiny cell phone bill. I've already whittled things down to the necessities: No cable, limited phone minutes, no frills.
2. Food - Even ramen costs something. And coffee.
3. Pets - I have three ferrets, and they need to be fed and kept up on their shots. This stuff isn't expensive, but it's more than I have to spare right now.
4. Transportation - I drive very little, but still, sometimes I gotta drive. Or take the bus.
What This Won't Pay For:
1. Rent - My newspaper writing pays just enough to cover that.
2. Toys - If you know me well, you know I've been a pretty hardcore toy collector for a long time. I've been selling off a lot of that since I quit my job, but I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel there. But I won't just spend your donation on plastic crack. If there's something new I can't live without something old will have to be sacrificed for it.
The Ultimate Goal:
1. Financial stability so I can focus on my novel and other writing work that will not pay off until this summer at the soonest but which needs my attention now.
2. Encouragement so I can have the spiritual strength to keep going. Knowing people believe in me is worth nearly as much as the money itself.
What IS This Novel And How Much Progress Have You Made?
The novel is a take on the dark fantasy archetype of the noble but cursed knight, but with a female protagonist. It's one of those "Be the change you want to see in the world" projects. Dark fantasy is a really fun, intriguing subgenre that's often bogged down in pointless, aggressive misogyny. I want to show that it doesn't have to be that way. I want to give women like myself something they can enjoy and relate to without feeling uncomfortable or triggered, but without softening it up - only a simple mind thinks sexual assault is the only or even best way to make things dark.
I completed a first draft as part of NaNoWriMo last November. After taking a break from it for much of December I'm now about a quarter of the way through the second draft. After that it'll need one more going-over for polish and then I'll start looking for an agent. This isn't an idea, it's a work already in progress.
And I intend to see this published by a real, reputable publisher. If the manuscript I send them isn't good enough, I will improve it until it is. I'm not allowing myself the option of failure with this one; I won't succumb to rejection.
Why Not Kickstarter?
A little over a year ago, I quit my job doing tech support at a major insurance company. After 6 years there a change in upper management made the place unendurable. We became the whipping boys for the cut-rate programmers they hired after laying all the good ones off. Advancement opportunities in other departments dried up. The word "outsourcing" started floating around in meetings. I developed a wicked case of carpal tunnel, I had to double the medication I was taking for my anxiety disorder, and the stress was causing an exciting assortment of other health problems.
My intention was to coast on my little bit of savings while I worked to establish a writing career.
This plea for assistance isn't to say the whole "quitting the day job to write" thing is floundering. What it IS to say is that it took a lot longer than expected for me to recover from the crushing stress of my day job. I now have a small but steady income from a column I write for my city's alt weekly, and I have something coming out this spring from Dreamspinner Press that will pay a good royalty, but pays *nothing* until then. And most importantly, I have this novel I'm working on, but it needs love and attention I can't give it without asking for a little help from my friends.
Last month a friend of mine gave me a small loan to help with my bills on the condition that I pay it back +$50 once things start paying off near the end of the year. Establishing a writing career can be crushing because it requires you to put months if not years into a project with no real feedback, no validation except from those closest friends you trust with your early drafts. But that small loan had an incredible effect on me. Someone believed in me. The knowledge that not only did I have more time to write but I had more time to write because someone believed what I was writing was worthwhile led to the most productive weeks I've had since quitting my job.
Most novelists either let their work simmer on a slow burn for years or have someone like a spouse to support them financially so they can get their first novel finished. (For those unfamiliar with the publishing industry, a sold first novel gives you an advance that can keep a roof over your head while you work on the next and then the next - it's a cycle, but you have to start it.) I've heard a lot of women write theirs while on maternity leave. I don't have a spouse, and I have no intention of having a baby. What I have is you guys.
Whew, that was a lot of text, right? Let me tell you what I'm asking:
What This Will Pay For:
1. Bills - Internet, electric, gas, car insurance, my floating-week membership at a coworking space, my tiny cell phone bill. I've already whittled things down to the necessities: No cable, limited phone minutes, no frills.
2. Food - Even ramen costs something. And coffee.
3. Pets - I have three ferrets, and they need to be fed and kept up on their shots. This stuff isn't expensive, but it's more than I have to spare right now.
4. Transportation - I drive very little, but still, sometimes I gotta drive. Or take the bus.
What This Won't Pay For:
1. Rent - My newspaper writing pays just enough to cover that.
2. Toys - If you know me well, you know I've been a pretty hardcore toy collector for a long time. I've been selling off a lot of that since I quit my job, but I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel there. But I won't just spend your donation on plastic crack. If there's something new I can't live without something old will have to be sacrificed for it.
The Ultimate Goal:
1. Financial stability so I can focus on my novel and other writing work that will not pay off until this summer at the soonest but which needs my attention now.
2. Encouragement so I can have the spiritual strength to keep going. Knowing people believe in me is worth nearly as much as the money itself.
What IS This Novel And How Much Progress Have You Made?
The novel is a take on the dark fantasy archetype of the noble but cursed knight, but with a female protagonist. It's one of those "Be the change you want to see in the world" projects. Dark fantasy is a really fun, intriguing subgenre that's often bogged down in pointless, aggressive misogyny. I want to show that it doesn't have to be that way. I want to give women like myself something they can enjoy and relate to without feeling uncomfortable or triggered, but without softening it up - only a simple mind thinks sexual assault is the only or even best way to make things dark.
I completed a first draft as part of NaNoWriMo last November. After taking a break from it for much of December I'm now about a quarter of the way through the second draft. After that it'll need one more going-over for polish and then I'll start looking for an agent. This isn't an idea, it's a work already in progress.
And I intend to see this published by a real, reputable publisher. If the manuscript I send them isn't good enough, I will improve it until it is. I'm not allowing myself the option of failure with this one; I won't succumb to rejection.
Why Not Kickstarter?
What I'm trying to accomplish will result in a publishing company having the rights to publish my novel, at least for a while, so I won't be able to create rewards without serious contractual wrangling. I may be able to offer rewards of some kind later - say, signed copies - but I can't commit to anything until I have that contract.
Still, I'd like you to think of this as contributing as much to my project as to myself. Don't you think the world needs more feminist genre fiction?
Organizer
Jennifer Jaye
Organizer
Columbus, OH