From 2020 to 2021
Cheers! This novel exists in reality!
In 2009, I started posting an annual review on my blog, rounding up what I did in the previous year and what I’m looking forward to in the next.
Well. As you may have guessed, 2020 was not your average year. I’m one of the lucky ones who had no issues with working from home (I’ve worked from home since 2006), so the transition into quarantine back in March didn’t feel like much of a transition for me. I kept doing what I was doing—at least I thought I was. But it turned out that the quarantine did have a major effect on me: I found it extremely hard to write.
I started the year with the goal to revise my next WIP within a few months (in January I thought it would be done by April), but things kept happening. Not only the coronavirus, but a family health situation that took a lot of time away from work (we are fine now!), and the more I didn’t write, the harder it became. Finally, at the end of June I took a social media break for the rest of the summer, and that’s when I managed to revise that WIP.
Those two months away from social media genuinely helped me to refocus, and last fall, I also managed to write a short story which will be in the anthology Fools in Love, coming out at the end of this year.
I also wrote 24 issues of my newsletter, Lo & Behold. Moving it to Substack and starting paid subscriptions was an experiment for me at the beginning of 2020, one that I’m happy to report has been a success—at least on my terms. Lo & Behold is not a blockbuster moneymaker, but I’ve been honored and thrilled that many readers have valued my writing enough to pay for it on a subscription basis. Thank you to everyone who has supported Lo & Behold financially in the last year! You truly are the reason I’m convinced that I should keep writing them.
I really enjoyed writing my seven-issue series on Craft last fall (and if you want to catch up, you can read them all here), and I’m excited to launch a new series this month. Inspired by my new novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, I’ll be taking readers on a tour of the 1950s, diving into queer and Asian American history and San Francisco and Chinese New Year food and so much more! Just like always, I’m planning to release an issue every other week, although with a book launch there may be an extra issue or two with news.
Speaking of which, Last Night at the Telegraph Club will finally be published in two weeks! Lemme tellya: I’m a little nervous.
Recently, I listened to the latest episode of author Sara Zarr’s podcast, This Creative Life (which I highly recommend!), in which she talked with her agent, Michael Bourret (he also happens to be my agent), about how 2020 affected publishing. At one point in the episode, Michael says this:
“In a publishing career, you have control of maybe like—I’m going to be really generous and say 20% of what happens, and then 80% is just not in your control. So let’s do what we can about that 20% that we can control, and try to let go of the 80% that we can’t.”
He goes on to add: “We cannot make people buy books. We can suggest it to them but we can’t make them.”
This means that even though I spent three years working on this novel, and even though I firmly believe it is the best thing I’ve ever written, I have basically no control over whether it’s a “success.”
Obviously, “success” means different things to different people. If I focus on my creative goals, then Last Night at the Telegraph Club is already a success. I accomplished things in this novel that I never thought I could do. I pushed myself a lot, and I’m very proud of the book I’ve written.
But there are many other elements of success when it comes to the business end, including sales figures, reviews, award nominations, end-of-year lists, and that general, indefinable-but-recognizable aura that people call buzz. I can’t control any of that stuff, some of which can seriously impact the future of my career as an author.
Therefore: nerves.
So, for 2021, my authorial plans are the following:
Launch Last Night at the Telegraph Club at long last!
Finish (for real this time) my WIP. No, I didn’t finish it completely in 2020, but I’m hoping to do so this year, maybe by June. Hopefully I didn’t jinx myself by writing that down.
Write a short story, a fairy tale retelling for the anthology At the Stroke of Midnight edited by Dahlia Adler.
Start my next next novel, which I’ve been thinking about since 2006.
My non-authorial plans for 2021 include:
Giving myself a break when I’m not perfect. (Sadly, this sometimes happens.)
Read a lot more novels about queer women. I’ve discovered lately that I simply enjoy a book more if it’s about queer women. Not that there’s anything wrong with straight people, but after four-plus decades of reading books predominantly about straight people, I think we’ve finally reached a point in publishing where there are so many queer books being published that I could actually predominantly read those instead. So I’m going to try that!
Continuing to prioritize my mental health, which means maintaining my meditation and exercise practices, eating well and sleeping enough, and taking periodic social media breaks.
Meanwhile, I have a book launch to orchestrate!
I leave you with this amazing blurb from New York Times bestselling author Marie Rutkoski, who also wrote one of my favorite novels of 2020, The Midnight Lie:
“Lily is my favorite kind of heroine: observant, loving, and startlingly brave. Malinda Lo is my favorite kind of writer, one who can bring a scene to life with exquisite detail and nuance. Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a triumph. It is the queer novel I wish I had read as a teenager, and feel lucky to have read now.”
—Marie Rutkoski, New York Times bestselling author of The Winner's Trilogy
Happy new year!
If there’s a silver lining to Michael’s theory that we can only control about 20% of what happens, it’s that this means I can give up trying to control the other 80%. That’s a lot! Think of all the time I’ll have to read novels and watch TV and cook dumplings while I’m not stressing about 80% of the publishing experience! 😂