An Extensive Portrait of Eight Book Drafts

The story of Mountain Sounds is a constant one. Whether it's on the backburner or consuming my being, it's been the spine (or more accurately, the nervous system) dictating my entire postgrad life.

I've known that I've wanted to be an author for my entire life, and it's been practically baked into me since age six; my 14 years as a book reviewer have only stoked my passion for the book publishing industry.

About My Book (Informally)

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A bittersweet, speculative Southern Gothic—

“A scrappy foster kid counselor with a secret must fight to stay at her beloved summer camp after aging out or risk losing the only home she's ever been able to return to, but when the weather changes just for her, she discovers an ancient evil waking in the mountains instead.”

In my twenties, I have shaped everything around this pursuit. Where I live, what I do, how I work and what contracts I take—even being a contractor in the first place. My interest in storytelling and sense of place intersect beautifully in my travel writing coverage too, actually: an exact example of how you can argue for cohesion being intentional or unconscious.

Everything feeds my work, process, and awareness, which also supports my belief that being an effective writer (in my style, at least) requires seeking experience, novelty, freshness, etc,. just as much as it requires me holing myself away in my studio for sleepless weeks at a time. I also jokingly refer to much of my adjacent processes as cross-training my writing and creativity, which I'll dissect in detail another time.

During the periods in which the wanting was most painful, I described this pursuit as a low-grade fever: aching enough to hurt, but not enough to feel fully justified in any agony, because it won't quite break.

At Some Point, I'll Talk About:

• my favorite tricks for revision (butcher paper, sensory variation, word frequency, realistic character flaws) and how I apply each,
• average day in the life as a full-time writer and journalist (cue "spend the day with me!" voiceover),
• comp titles I considered i.e. who my book is "for fans of",
• & some other FAQs.

I get lots of questions and asks for help in writing and publishing, which I'm happy to give in my capacity as a reader, reviewer, or author! The perk—and curse—of having been transparent about my writing and publishing process from a craft perspective (and a gal who's been floating around the ecosystem for so long) is that a lot of people didn't understand how time-consuming and esoteric the traditional publishing process can be—even if you get lucky with timing. Say you're a fast drafter, quick querier, snapped up at auction, etc,. You still have to love your book and live in it.

No, It Doesn't Normally Take This Long.

My twin sister (bless her) told me recently she's read it five times total, which is extremely kind. My agents are probably at a similar count over the last year? Since January, I've read Mountain Sounds seven times, with individual sections recurring much more frequently.

You have to love it. At least, to write in whatever cursed way I've figured out works for me.

I'm actually convinced my next book will take three weeks to get down on paper and maybe 1-2 full passes to reach the level of polish I hope that Mountain Sounds has (especially since Lauren Puckett-Pope convinced me to try the Freewrite for drafting.)

So I do not expect this process to ever, ever (knock on wood) take this long again. The first hopeful debut significantly matters to me to align exactly with "who I am," and I'm this way in my journalism drafts too; each time I submit to a new publication—like popping an essay to Shondaland or, oh God, my first time sending a draft to The Wall Street Journal—I experience total paralysis over the initial submission. (This is also an instance in which writing and revision as a muscle translates from other media. Writing for magazines feels different, but the process, structure, and feelings can be similar—so improving in each domain helps the other!)

Like I mentioned, Mountain Sounds is not my first book. But while writing it, I was in college; then, I was working multiple jobs straight out of school and writing in the 5 A.M. margins. Pivoting angles then tacked on a multi-year delay. At key points, I just got unlucky with timing.

So this process is absolutely an anomaly, but it taught me "the right way" to execute and build for myself. Depending on my work situation, I expect a normal draft would take me a few months of drafting, a deep round of edits, then a meticulous cleanup round—all in all, much faster.

What Writing Looked Like, Draft by Draft

I thought it might be interesting to break down each draft for you.

And this is just in preparing to go "on submission" to publishing houses (and shop it around at film studios—hell yeah.) If I end up selling the novel, I'll have more edits to shape my manuscript towards whatever voice, vision, and/or strategy makes sense for the imprint it lands at within a publishing house.

I wrote eight drafts over many years, five of which were full guts if you don't count the first. By gut, I mean involving significant change—perspective, pacing, scenes, lens. "Everything," broadly. Top-to-bottom redo, although the core remained similar, and there are parts that have remained constant.

A manuscript in format's also a great metaphor for personal discovery á la Plutarch's Ship of Theseus experiment or existential questions about identity fluidity (which are relevant to my book anyway.) What about you remains the same over time even as everything about you changes? What do you hold onto?

I definitely found myself struggling over this post because I wanted to talk about so much within each draft, but am keeping it long and broad! I hope it's a helpful, curious peek behind the curtain.

1. The Zero Draft

THE FIRST (ZERO) DRAFT

2017—2018

I first wrote Mountain Sounds in scraps of time as a literal camp counselor and in college. I'll eventually write a post breaking down the inspiration or the initial core of the book, which resulted from combining a broader idea + a short story I'd previously written. I love the way my influences coalesced, so I adore discussing how it came together!

a cabin snap!

But I had other priorities in college as well, so put it on the backburner. Mountain Sounds is actually not my first novel, but it's the one I wanted to be my debut, if possible.

something very special about finding scraps from 2017 that made it into the final

As a perfectionist (of course), I hate how bad a zero draft feels. I'm definitely a writer who excels within layers and revision rather than the initial drafting phase. I'm preparing to enter a zero draft of another book that's been simmering for a long time (nicknamed Sun Guilt for now) so have been considering what's crucial to this process for me.

2. The First Actually Decent Draft (Gut)

THE 'FIRST' DRAFT

2018—Fall 2020

Over the next few years, I picked up Mountain Sounds occasionally, layering in details during any camp sessions I worked. (Unlike the worldbuilding in Mountain Sounds, my own summer camp had multiple sessions per summer rather than one long stretch.) I love the sketchbooks, lists of "human details," and other materials and research from this time.

lines and details tend to come first

Some inspirations were unintentional, too. For example: I have a sun tattoo because I had a difficult time with seasonal affective disorder in the gray days of a Virginia winter; in spring 2019 after a brutal season, I submitted a printmaking final using multiple abstract, anatomical heart prints and the weather. The prompt itself was climate change, but I took it one step past the standard interpretation for this idea of personal or permanent climate change (to the grace of my environmentally-passionate art professor, who definitely just intended the former.)

a draft

It's definitely not my best visual art final (not by a long shot) but it got me through the semester! And eventually fit the themes of the book. Some influences only make sense in hindsight, which aligns with how we construct patterns in all ways.

I'd planned to work on it and send it off after college, but of course, COVID-19 hit, and many others had the same idea. My roommates both left our gorgeous little cabin in Virginia before graduation, so living alone in that house for three months ended up being a lovely natural setting to immerse myself in my work.

meet our cabin, Rainforest!

In the fall, I spent most days hunched over the kitchen table in Honolulu (where I lived), butcher paper tacked to the walls. Bless my roommates for allowing my work-from-home spread during those days, as they all worked in town or in-office. I think of the book as finally being made "real" during that stretch.

I can't describe the feeling of finishing a book to those who haven't done it, but you know when you've hit that point. Usually, I sleep for an entire day after—or get so wired at the typing of THE END that I pull an accidental all-nighter.

3. The Revise & Resubmit Request (Gut)

THE ENTIRELY NEW DRAFT

January 2021—January 2022

I prepared myself to query and sent out about four letters in January 2021. I received an immediate R&R (revise and resubmit request), which is essentially when a literary agent asks you to make some massive changes. This can serve a few purposes: to make sure you have a similar vision for scale, and to make sure that you can actually perform those edits in a way that means your work styles and vision would mesh.

I run on butcher paper and stubbornness.

I yanked my draft and spent a year unraveling and rewriting it. This was an absolutely massive revision that changed (structurally) just about everything: scenes, motivation, order, tense, pacing, scene length. But all in all, the version I turned in the next January was so much more active.

Still, I can always tell I've done a book revision correctly when I'm frankly embarrassed that an agent (or anyone) even saw the previous draft; I've had that feeling in succession for each book draft since. I love the increased mastery of writing, and hope that leveling up is a lifelong process.

Credit / Project Discovery.

Luckily, every agent I've ever revised for (three thus far—this R&R, first agency edits, second agency edits) has said that I'm an abnormally effective reviser. When I turned this one in, the agent was a little flabbergasted by the scale.

4. The First Agency Draft (Gut)

THE THRILLS DRAFT

This first querying period is best characterized by what I fondly call Schrödinger's Manuscript. I rarely queried the manuscript because I was essentially terrified of an end result. Sending letters was like pulling teeth for me, so my process was much slower than it needed to be. (Some recent books on finitude, paralysis, and decision avoidance have helped me resolve this paradox psychologically, as I've always considered myself an extremely "active" person—but have always known I have commitment issues.)

Over the course of my twenties, I've gotten better about recognizing the value in rejection and redirection anyways—so not self-sabotaging by not turning it in. But as my sister can attest, I still struggle with the perfectionism of hitting SEND.

A note on my mirror I kept up for months.

After signing, my agents gave me a broad edit letter, and I absolutely unraveled the book again. They didn't ask me to do so that entirely, but it felt necessary to be effective. They wanted me to shift the ending earlier and basically lean into thriller pacing.

This one took me about six months total? I also had the privilege of visiting the town that inspired the book: Brevard, North Carolina. For the first time, I felt comfortable writing off my travel as book-related i.e. a tax write-off. (I think a lot about the business of creativity, so have been pretty transparent in my newsletter about the financial and opportunity costs I feel comfortable shouldering.) Being there and being immersed was so helpful in crystallizing that "final" version, especially rooted in what my main character loves.

Ultimately, my agency and I ended up significantly and meaningfully diverging on the direction we wanted to take the book in, so I parted ways.

A snap in Brevard, NC.

5. The Re-Querying Draft

THE BACKTRACKED DRAFT

November 2023—January 2024

I did end up removing and unraveling some of the changes then because I wanted to query the book back in a direction that felt more like me and my initial vision.

The collaboration and synthesis of multiple editorial visions is always fascinating to explain to others because Mountain Sounds never stops feeling like my own, but I do make compromises on angling and direction based on other fingerprints.

When a book is roughly 90K words, you have a lot of room to accommodate, even when difficult to balance. So I have no qualms about editing for salability, another's vision, etc,. This, again, is a moment where my studio art background felt crucial to my understanding of critique, packaging, and what comprises the integrity of a given work.

Generally don't love putting an (unflattering) photo of myself crying on the Internet (or admitting to emotion at all), but this is so funny that I have to share.

Even when someone gives you precise edits, you can apply each of them in a thousand ways, so you're in charge of the decisions and execution—which is a perfect example of why you might get an R&R instead of an offer (or why you pitch fiction with a completed manuscript as a debut rather than on proposal.) The same idea looks different on everybody!

If an edit didn't feel right, I'd ask the agent/editor/other party about various other ways to achieve the same effect, and have had that discussion before on certain moments I wanted to keep in the manuscript. By then, I had such a vivid picture of what I at least wanted the look and feel to be, even if we changed some plot details.

Fundamentally, I'm a line-level writer so all about the details and nuances, but I never lose sight of overall reader experience. I've always liked Maggie Stiefvater's advice that if someone's slowed enough to be picky about something, that's a sign you haven't gripped them enough. The goal is to make someone love it enough that they don't even register what might otherwise be a pet peeve or risk (and I feel that way about books I love too.)

from a friend in publishing

6. The WME Draft One (Gut)

THE DARK NIGHT DRAFT

March 2024—August 2024

I was thrilled in March 2024 to sign with William Morris Endeavor, and part of why I signed with them was that edits felt spot-on. Between leaving my first agency and signing with my second, I decided I wanted to change one major aspect of the book I suspected would be the riskiest part of submission (related to my psychological depictions—backed by endless research, personal experience, and sensitivity readers, but still.) So on each offer call I had, I asked the potential agents their opinion to make sure we'd be on the same page.

From a backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail.

While I care so intensely much about the surface-level craft for commercial alignment—plot, readability, prose, what makes a book obsession-worthy—I also have a deep attachment to the undercurrent of Mountain Sounds. What I consider the symbolism, themes, existentialism, etc,. Roughly "the point" of everything, both said and unsaid. I would love Mountain Sounds to be high-level enough to align with literary standards of quality, but consumable enough to engage even the most reluctant of readers.

My art direction, neuroaesthetics interest, and multidisciplinary side considers deeply what I want Mountain Sounds to do, create, catalyze, etc,. as an entity or experience. I'm a rereader myself, and factors like expectation, personal experience, memory, similar books, whatever fundamentally alter my experience revisiting a given book; a book can serve a dozen purposes to me over the course of a lifetime, and "right book, right time" is so real for me.

So, in querying the second time around, I was much more specific about the sensations, priorities, and overall ecosystem of the book rather than only the literal plot and hook.

At this time (and still), I was gunning for partners to talk to about what I called themes of corrupted nostalgia and the places we return to. Rikki and Eve got this so entirely that I had such a moment of "yes, exactly!" euphoria—which reminds me of studies on listening and the satisfaction of when your brain waves are literally in sync with another (such a pleasure on a creative project.)

I talked to other lovely agents who had similar editorial visions, but Rikki and Eve clicked for a host of reasons, including the manuscript as fundamentally cinematic, as WME is especially known for its ability to leverage film/TV adaptations. Longevity—both for this book and within my career—is important to me, so I've always thought about long-term strategy.

straight all-nighters for pretty much all of June

Anyway, I had to gut and reorder the entire book again to make this change. This time, I hit wall after wall after wall. I'd try something, get a week into a completely new re-execution, and hit a snag that made me realize it wasn't effective. I devoted my entire spring and summer to this and worked nonstop—but still got knocked flat on my back repeatedly.

"But Grace, why don't you outline?"

I did!

But tragically, the types of problems I encountered were those only made clear by being in the thick of the work. You can't solve them until you're there. For example, I made all the plot changes perfectly, aligning so neatly and making me convinced I'd have it done in May. But that version shifted the balance and made it overall too dark and dim, which didn't fit the inherent giddiness and earned contrast that's necessary to the tone of the book and how I wanted to position it, especially considering Tatum's reconciliation of the lightness of kiddos and the shadows of forced adulthood, etc,.

Everything for the kids.

Loving something you no longer recognize—and relearning it—is a different feeling than hardening into cynicism over it. That would be too easy. If we went solely dark-and-stormy in tone with a given imprint, sure, that version might work—but not now.

I despaired, and fully called this the Dark Night of the Soul revision. It felt like that for me. I have a habit of popping and labeling a champagne bottle for each significant book milestone and this one was called "revision that killed me." (I laughed, later, because it wasn't nearly as bad as the ones that followed. It did get me to go to therapy though! Which was great for me as a person.)

This revision had probably thousands of thousands of "wasted" words, which shoved me into the brutal fatigue of the fall.

7. The WME Draft Two (Fall)

THE ANXIOUS DRAFT

September—October 2024

When you change something fundamental to a book's core, you have to restabilize the entire thing. (Again, a reason why my curiosity and psychological research on identity/sense of self is so helpful to my writing process too; it's helpful for me to think of a book as something essentialist—as having its own DNA.)

Anyway, I wasn't surprised to have cleanup to do. In a revision this big, I first wanted to make sure the overall execution of my edits aligned with what Rikki and Eve had in mind.

So when I turned it in, I expected the broad fabric of my choices to resonate, but for them to have now made other aspects of the book change and need rebalancing. In a book, so much of the difficulty is in balancing it properly—and for me, I wanted to walk a near-perfect line of tension and contradiction: darkness and giddiness, satisfaction and realism, sweeping but intimate, etc,. That's also where I realized how much I needed to trust my agents' vision, and how grateful I was to be in sync.

(Related: I, of course, struggle to call something final or finished. A helpful line for me has been when I have gotten a draft physically as far as I possibly can alone. I'd exhausted every possible hypothetical for myself, but I now knew external POV would catch what I hadn't or make me look at a specific change differently.)

No surprises there: they gave me a shorter edit letter with areas to address now that my hunch had worked. This was a difficult revision for me circumstantially because I'd spent over a year saving up for a solo travel excursion—my first time spending any time in Europe—and ended up buckling down to write instead of fully engaging in my travels. Worth it.

What I hated about this revision was that it seemed to put me into a very…anxious version of myself? I felt way twitchier and much more neurotic than normal, which doesn’t feel “like me,” but I think I was just destabilized by how my instincts had sanded down so much by now. Everyone has a point where they lose the ability to trust themselves as thoroughly, and nobody likes feeling off-balance. But yeah—I did not like the subtle insecurity of this draft and how that rippled into my personal life. It felt like a very distinctive, not entirely accurate (or preferred) version of myself.

toting the binder around Amsterdam like a poseur

Midway through, a hurricane wrecked Asheville (cue plug to donate to Hurricane Helene relief, please) and looked like it would absolutely decimate my hometown. Thematically, questions of permanence, home, and what it means to return to shifts and changes were massive and emotional, and the fear we felt was visceral. Moments like those also show me where real-life experience and layers bleed into my lenses and revisions.

I printed the book because a longhand review felt necessary, and it took up basically my entire backpack; I was grateful for the backdrop though, and the binder itself was an object of fascination for those I encountered (hahaha.) I finally turned it in when I returned.

got bribed with fondue to show off the binder to others! I'm a simple girl!

8. The WME Draft Three (Final)

THE DISTILLED DRAFT

November 2024—February 2025

The week I got assigned this revision was a rough one in which I encountered a lot of personal devastation at once. When it rains, it pours.

Getting that "actually" email absolutely wrecked me, because at that point, I felt absolutely flattened. I'd been working, wanting, waiting, breaking for so long, and I'd told myself I'd exorcised that multiple times. The news reminded me of the current epigraph to Mountain Sounds, which I love. One more sprint.

“The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. — Jane Hirshfield, The Weighing.”

When you think you're at your limit, you're not, etc,. (It also catalyzed a deep-dive on the reading side for me into topics of physical and mental endurance, frying your fight-or-flight, the cost of isolating yourself in pursuit of greater meaning, etc,. which strengthened the core emotional arcs within the book.) The process was even more of a mirror this time.

It wasn't a huge edit, in technicality, but it was high-pressure because of my soul-deep exhaustion and weariness, and the toll of pushing past something that—at this point—had broken me and rebuilt me multiple times. Sisyphean, baby. Wanted to disappear, felt too intense to be palatable to others, cyclical and repetitive in my misery, etc,. etc,.

I could no longer trust my gut or my instinct to signal anything for me, which meant I was relying solely on my muscle memory, training, and supposed expertise by now to do it alone. Very parallel, thematically.

brain go [BLANK] / words go [MUSH] / me being ever-so-slightly illiterate past 3 p.m.

Who are you at your worst? When you are repetitive and people have given up on you, and you still have to truck forward? What about the fear of a Pyrrhic victory?

Writing as a reader has always been important to me—write the book you want to read, etc,. etc,.—and it's been curious that I've usually ended up going down one particular rabbit-hole of specific books at a given time.

One revision, I was all-in on dark-and-stormy YA, which aligned with the cinematic, atmospheric flavor of the book; for another, I'd been on a huge poetry kick, which benefited my rhythms and musicality. Thrillers, another. This time, I was absolutely devouring philosophy and classics, which framed my writing in a helpful way to consider how to nestle the universal within the specific, what about a story affects you and endures, etc,.

I thought about Mountain Sounds now in the context of relationships rather than singular characters, which strengthened the nuances of my web. In a future revision, I'd do one pass for individuals and go over the story again to specifically map the spheres of collective identity; in this case, learning about attachment styles was actually an enormously helpful framework for understanding how someone's psychology changed when they were alone vs. in the grip of a particular relationship. For my characters, that knowledge made everyone's dynamic fully click.

I also had a newfound grip on the effects of trauma, and even a lot of personal thoughts on baseline versions of the self I'd developed (in tandem with Tatum) after a brief season of experimenting with psychological medication that my psychiatrist—who I see for ADHD—thought would help relieve some of the perfectionism. It had really reached another level. Relaxing some of that deep, almost obsessive need for control was absolutely paralyzing; this point in the book process does not play well with others.

The combinations I tried only had the effect of making me feel "not like myself," which sparked some inner conflict—and ultimately strengthened the book's discussion of the same. Ultimately not the right call for me, but I'm all for meds getting others to the versions of themselves that help them most. I've appreciated the POV from various craft books about fiction being the arena through which we exercise our need for control. Reading it? Definitely true. Writing it? Even worse.

a favorite work spot

I read about fear inoculation and avoidance and self-reliance. What do you blank about most because it matters? I thought a lot about this idea I bring up in the prologue about how we almost tempt fate into making our worst fears come true via self-fulfilling prophecy—and how I've always thought you have to save up your prayers for what you really need, which meant I have always saved them for this book deal.

Unfortunately, effort isn't 1:1. You don't always get what you deserve, what you've worked for, etc,. I know what happens to Tatum, but I'm not sure what will happen to me. A big question of the book this time around: how much hope is healthy?

That all sounds far too complicated, but this was my last shot (hopefully) at making sure I'd nailed the book exactly, so I did feel like I had to check absolutely every big, overarching thought or thread of mine and make sure it had landed where it was supposed to. I go wide in building out a book and then boil it down to the core—and then hopefully perfect it.

A few months ago, I encountered Krista Tippet's SIMPLE | COMPLEX | SIMPLE framework in Becoming Wise, which basically made my entire life and writing process make sense, so that helped me realize that I was distilling down to simple again. I'd always used the word distillation as a synonym for writing (and, within a narrative, for the goal of a character refining who they are and their locus of control) and it was satisfying to see that unfold in practice.

I also had the pleasure of layering certain lines, moments, motifs that had unconsciously come together, and making them obvious—or playful, if I wanted. I love line-level edits and language most, and there's no better feeling than when the book starts feeling really, really tight.

It took longer because of the exhaustion. So reading about physical endurance and the work of creativity helped; I heavily vibe with Haruki Murakami's insistence in Novelist as Vocation that physical strength helps here, which is why exercise is a good outlet for me during this (see: soft-processing and what boosts creativity) which is supported by studies showing that mental fatigue drains us just as much. Every day felt like an actual marathon, but there's also something gratifying about being so in the zone that you are pushing past your limits every time.

A selection of sorts.

I turned it in at the end of February. One of my closest friends on island—who I used to see every day—and I realized that we haven't seen each other in 2.5 months. I was tunnel-visioned (again) into whatever possible worked for my book and my rhythms (more of a night owl this time than I wanted.) Whatever got me to the next day, next line, next chapter.

I rewarded myself for turning it in by going to the doctor the next day and (still) getting extensive tests done for the cause of this ridiculous muscle tension and nerve pain I've been experiencing throughout the course of this last revision; the body keeps the score, y'all.

(Reading about embodiment, suppression vs. articulation, and the mind-body connection of emotion also helped on a body-language level within my revision to show not tell, and I think Mountain Sounds thrives on the unsaid, unspoken, and in making you feel the effects of emotion. A word that came up a lot this time around was tactile, which fit.)

What I'm Doing Now

I have many, many thoughts that will not make it here articulately. I don't feel any abrupt difference like I was expecting—it's more of a slow lift because our nervous system fucks us up when you're convinced cycles never end—but. I could tell it was different because during sunset, I forgot it was March and had such a visceral sense that it was finally summer.

I don't quite have that finished-finals body-unwind (and in fact, the muscle thing flared up over the weekend, which is annoying because I've been so good about conscious stress reduction.) But I do feel refreshed and together.

Sometimes when I tell people that I was not always this intense, or that there is a version of myself that's light and easy, I'm not sure they actually believe me.

I've been carrying this swelling, undercurrent hum, one that seemed to radiate more near the tail end of last year. Fever, right? And I feel it leaving.

I am, fundamentally, a different Grace now in a different season, or at least now have the capacity to tap into another side of myself even just in little details. I am different than I was while writing this, and I was a different person in each draft. Should I be lucky enough to see this book through a post-acquisition round of edits someday, I would feel marked and changed and grounded by the way Mountain Sounds measures, shifts, and stabilizes me in turn.

Baby Grace would be very proud.

For now though, it feels like summer for the first time in months—which, if you know my book, is wildly ironic. I was nearly brought to tears the other night for the pure, simple beauty of reading a favorite book (Small Damages by Beth Kephart) in my hammock at sunset. Half-melted ramekin of mint-chocolate chip ice cream, listening to the neighbors blast motown first dance options for their wedding.

Similarly, the post-revision house clean hits like you wouldn't believe—like a Sunday reset on steroids. I couldn't have duplicated that genuine freshness during the thick of a revision; I could get it to that exact same level of polish, sure, but never channeled that exact feeling. So the fog is lifting in ways like that. Such a mindset shift.

some Mary Oliver wisdom to close it out

I'm working and writing and have other behind-the-scenes aspects to work on before the next stage of the process so will just stick to chatting craft and all rather than providing updates, but I'm enormously grateful to all the excited readers, blog followers, and loved ones who have seen me through this entire process.

The literal act of writing is something I have to do entirely alone, fueled by my own self-sufficiency and drive—isolation that looks often like relief but sometimes like punishment. But after being locked in my own brain for so long, it always feels good to emerge and be welcomed back. I hope Mountain Sounds is—soon enough—a project that exists visibly beyond my own consciousness.

And of course: now for the next. You'll either be awed or horrified (perhaps both) in seeing how I put together a first draft.