Devon Eriksen@Devon_Eriksen_
"Where's the sequel?"
Any time this question gets asked nowdays, we are conversing by the flickering light of George Martin's spectacular self-immolation.
George Martin is an asshole.
We can't just brush off the question like he does. Authors might not owe you another book, as Neil Gaiman pointed out while he wasn't busy being a sex pest, but... so what?
I don't conduct relationships with my fans via double entry bookkeeping, in the same way that if I have a headache, Sara doesn't check the balance sheet before giving me a scalp massage. Readers pay my bills, they want a sequel, I want to deliver one, or least a transparent explanation of why it's taking a while.
It's the obfuscations, false promises, and outright lies that make fans so angry.
So here's what happened.
I never expected Theft of Fire to hit as hard as it did. Debut novels don't do this, and if you think they do, that's not the first novel, just the first one that you heard of.
I also never expected to take off on Twitter like I did.
So, there were a lot of demands for attention. Appearing on podcasts, at conventions, that sort of thing. And that was, indeed, slowing down the writing. Handling a public presence was new to me.
But had it been that alone, you'd have Box Of Trouble in your hands right now. It would have been later than a year, but not this late.
But then I had to drive Sara to the ER at 5am in the morning, with the worst headache of her life, probably a fair description of what it feels like when you have a 5cm stage 4 cancer bleeding into your brain.
The next day, I read her the comments from people hoping and praying for her, as they wheeled her for brain surgery.
That was the beginning of a very long year, full of more surgeries, radiation therapy, immunological infusions that made her sicker than the cancer itself, two hour drives to the treatment center, sometimes every other day.
I tried to write.
I tried.
Not just because I was later than I wanted to be. Not because you asked me where the sequel was. Because I needed something I could do. Something I had control over. Something that felt like progress, instead of sitting around waiting to see if I was going to lose...
Well, you know what it's like to love someone. We give hostages to fate when we love.
Trying to work was a mistake. Brains work by association. For the meager payoff of what little progress I could make, I cross-linked my writing process with hospital waiting rooms, infusion centers, and that soft, empty feeling of waiting for death in blank rooms with old magazines and inoffensive white walls.
When we were luckier than most, when our battle with cancer ended in triumph, I didn't feel triumphant. I didn't even feel relieved.
I didn't feel anything.
Something quiet and vital and nameless had switched off inside me, and because of that, I could keep marching forward.
But the color had drained out of the world.
I could rest now. Sleep. Sort of. A little bit.
But I couldn't write. Whatever part of me had juggled ideas, tossing them up in the air with a laugh to see what came down, or whether they turned into birds and flew off and didn't down at all, well... that part wasn't laughing. It was curled up in the corner, tucked in a little ball with its arms around its knees, tunelessly humming a song I didn't like the lyrics of.
I tried.
So many authors, successful authors, far more experienced than I, talk about discipline and forming good habits and not waiting for inspiration. So I tried. I was late already, and it was eating at me.
People were understanding, but I understand all too well that even a good excuse is not a result.
I was... different. Angry. Snapping at people. Using my writing gifts to snarl at people over politics instead of play with fun ideas, saying things that were just expressions of frustration rather than insight.
I lost some friends.
I don't think I'll get all of them back.
There are treatments for cancer. There aren't any treatments for the people in the splash zone.
At the end of last November, the two-year mark since I published Theft of Fire, I realized I wasn't going to finish. Not like this.
I had 85% of a complete manuscript, but you can't crawl across the finish line if you can't crawl.
I had to stop and fix... everything.
I sat down, stared at a wall, and thought about what I needed to do. Since I wasn't stupid enough to involve anyone who calls herself a "therapist", there were no lectures about intersectional feminism and toxic masculinity.
Then I played video games for a month. And not much else.
That doesn't sound like a great vacation. It sounds like laziness. But that's what it needed to be. I needed to not be responsible.
If it were my job to build walls or dig ditches or fight wars or design aircraft parts or write software, I could have knuckled up and just done it. But telling stories isn't something that you can just work at. You have to play at it, too.
And to do that, you have to remember what it feels like to play.
So I had to ignore the advice that I'm sure was great for other people who aren't me, and I had to be lazy and play video games for a month, and then go scuba diving in the Florida keys, and then get sick and attend a convention as guest of honor while so drugged up that I barely remember anything I said.
I had to realize that I was injured. And I had to put myself on the injured list.
What do you do with a lifting injury? How do you rehab a damaged muscle?
Well, you rest it until you can move it through the full range of motion, weakly. And then you lift weights again, but light ones. Only as much as you can handle without pain.
So I sat down each day and wrote, just a little. A sentence or two, sometimes, if I couldn't get more. Never pushing myself, quitting when there wasn't any more in the tank, not nagging myself over deadlines long vanished in my rearview mirror.
It started out as just 100 or 200 words, here and there. Then it started to feel okay again. Well, okayish.
It wasn't enough. It wasn't the pace of a man trying to finish a race, or deliver on a delayed promise. But it was all I had to give.
But yesterday, I wrote 1000 words. Today, 1100.
And I didn't hate them.
I'm still not 100%. I'm... diminished. Mentally and emotionally. Angry a lot of the time. Sometimes ashamed of myself over all this. A lot of things that used to bring me joy now bring... nothing.
But I know what I have to do for myself so I can do this at all. And it's working enough to let me move forward.
I have 132,000 words now. They're good. I don't hate them. They're better than Theft of Fire.
I don't know where the finish line is, but I know it's somewhere out there. It feels closer now.
I can't promise a date. I'm sorry. Things are still bad, even if they're better now, and I have to just do what I can, and not hate myself for it.
There's a printed page taped to my wall. Above the monitors. Something I said to someone else once. Sometimes you have to be the person you wish you had.
Cast your eyes down.
You cannot see Samarkand from here, but the road is before you.
Look to the road, see the footprints in the dust. Others have walked this way. Take one step, and then another, and then a third. Rest in the cool of the evening, and walk when the sun rises, when the muezzin calls the faithful at dawn. Take one step, and then another, and then a third. Others have walked this way. Look to the road, see the footprints in the dust.
The road is before you, though you cannot see Samarkand from here.
Cast your eyes down.
And walk.
