Tell Me, It'll Be Okay

because the story of my heart is in its prophecy era

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. This story, the book of my heart, is well and truly in its prophecy era.

The ones who get it, get it. And those who don’t, oh how I wish I could be you, listening to “The Prophecy” by Taylor Swift for the first time. If, like me, you’re in a spot on the map where the rain refuses to ease and the gloom pervades even the most well-lit spaces today, you’ll have the perfect setting to be potentially gutted by this song.

But, I digress, as I’m known to do every now and again.

Too often, I think we, as creatives, feel compelled to glamorize our process. And sure, it’s easy enough to say it’s for the ‘gram or the grid or the guise of perfection that we’ve been conditioned to seek. Maybe it’s easier to hide behind the finished thing than to expose all the messy bits of ourselves along the way; i.e. the fear, the struggle, the frustration, the disappointment, all this trying without any guarantee.

I’ve tried in the past to be candid about my rejections, depicting “failure,” however defined that day, as a requirement. I’ve taken the harder hits in stride, I’ve continued honing my craft. I’m out here scream-quoting another Taylor Swift song: “everybody moved on…HELP, I’m still at the restaurant.” Because while many writers and creatives may have given up on this project at the first sign of floundering, I’ve continued ever onward.

Is this stubborn? Absolutely. Is this wise? Who knows? Do I love this book any less than I did at the start? No. In fact, I think I love it more now. And I’ve always said that’s the important thing. And it is. I’m not negating that fact. But creeping up on almost eleven years with this story, I’m allowing myself the space to feel everything. I’m a vicious self-editor, the harshest of critics when it comes to the idea that I’ve been working on the same project for the last decade with “nothing” to show for it.

This is silly, I know. I’ve built an entire world out of nothing. I’ve had short stories published from this same world that I crafted from scratch. I’ve gotten to know my characters. I’ve gotten to know myself, every version I’ve been since then. I like and love all of us so much.

However, finding email correspondence that I once printed from my 2015 era of life was the thing that did me in, turning me into this statue that Taylor sings about. I, too, have crumbled beneath the weight of waiting. Perhaps, that’s where this desperate, pleading, frayed sense of self, thought-spiral notion that this book will never happen has come from. I’ll leave the recipient of those emails unnamed. Through revisiting those words, I found feedback on some of my original chapters that was thoughtful and kind and nuanced and encouraging. I’ve trained myself to hate that time because it hurts less.

But to vilify the people in those emails means discrediting the important seedlings that were planted in the early days. From those, strong roots have grown, still tethering this story today. One of those chapters still exists as an almost perfect reflection of what it once was. This story may feel “unstable” as Taylor puts it, but the foundations have yet to fracture. And that feels important to remember as my story fades to “shades of greige,” as I find it “spending my last coin for someone to tell me, it’ll be okay.”

I think that someone is me. As creatives, sometimes we get lost in the art, unable to stand still for one moment more, to appreciate the doing, the becoming, even if we’ve yet to reach the end. But I’m starting to recognize this prophecy era for what it is, and in turn, I’m trying find solid ground, something to keep me in one spot long enough to enjoy this process.

And so, I’ve spent the last two days rereading the latest version of this novel, all 115,000 words, finding relics of chapters with characters I’ve cut, places I’ve renamed, storylines that have faded to give way to something new. This has been both a brightness and a shadow.

That last draft is proof that there is a functioning narrative somewhere beneath these plot holes and a reminder that something was missing.

That something was Niles. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I shouldn’t choose favorite characters, but he’s mine. Forever. With no end. And so, this next draft will have two points-of-view now: Camryn AND Niles.

At the start of this year, I set a goal for myself, that I would be ready to write when my creativity returned in full, as it does every year come June. It felt so far away as I took time to try wintering. But I made myself a promise that I would have answers to the following questions before first of June (details redacted to avoid spoilers):

• When was X built? Why? Who designed and built it? How have they kept it a secret?

• When did P and C meet? What are key moments from their friendship / relationship? How did they feel about M and L? About A and Camryn?

• When did Gram write her books? When did she add footnotes? When did she start X in these books?

• Why does Camryn start working with Niles on the X project?

• What is the history between the other five characters? How did they end up in the trials? When?

• What happened to Niles’ parents?

• What is I and B’s involvement in the trials now?

• How did B figure out Camryn can X? When? What is her theory?

• What epigraphs are being used in BOOK ONE?

• How to incorporate Gram’s poem? When?

• What myths apply to which characters?

• What are some X clues, both fact and fake? Where are they hidden? When were they hidden?

And these have all been explored at length. They’ve even opened up some new possibilities for the larger narrative beyond this first book, which I keep reminding myself is thrilling before this concept of captured lightning disappears in that way Taylor sings about in “The Prophecy.”

Yes, I know how to bring things back full circle.

The thing about eras is that they don’t exist forever. They can’t. Just as we start to get a grasp on who we are in that moment, we change again. We keep growing. We enter the next era.

Perhaps the way to move this book from its prophecy era to the you’re on your own kid or I can do it with a broken heart or the manuscript era is accepting that this is not the same book I started eleven years ago. It never was. It never could be. This will be the twentieth draft. This is a BRAND. NEW. BOOK.

But before I get there, I’m taking a moment to remember just how far this story has come in the last ten years and then some.

• Draft #1: July 2014-October 2014: Original idea + first submission

• Draft #2: October 2014-June 2015: Changed from 1st to 3rd person POV

• Draft #3: June 2015-October 2015: Changed from dreams as currency to disease

• Draft #4: January 2016-June 2016: Finished manuscript after graduating with 100 pages for MFA thesis

• Draft #5: August 2016-January 2017: Editing and drafting to fill holes in narrative

• Draft #6: January 2017-March 2017: Editing for BETA readers

• Draft #7: March 2017-July 2017: Editing to prep for first query round (85K words)

• Draft #8: August 2017: Editing to send for first FULL REQUEST from agent (93K)

• Draft #9: September 2017-November 2017: Editing for next query round (98K)

• Draft #10: December 2017-May 2018: Editing for next query round + first critique partner

• Draft #11: July 2018: Editing from query feedback

• Draft #12: October 2018-November 2018: Editing for next query round

• Draft #13: April 2019-February 2020: Editing with writing group feedback

• Draft #14: March 2020-July 2021: Editing with LK6 feedback (178K = longest draft)

• Draft #15: July 2021-April 2023: Split from 3 parts to 9 sections + new critique partner

• Draft #16: April 2023-June 2024: Removing K (96K)

• Draft #17: June 2024-September 2024: Moving T to Section #6

• Draft #18: September 2024-October 2024: First chapter from Niles’ POV (115K)

• Draft #19: October 2024-December 2024: Age characters from 17 to 20 and move T to BOOK TWO.

• Draft #20: June 2025: After taking a much needed break to reinvent this story, I will now be focusing on characters that are 23 with dual narration woven throughout 6 sections instead of 9!

If you find that your own projects, no matter the medium, are in this same place, I hope you know you’re not alone. Believe that your work is important. Enjoy the process of becoming. Celebrate your bravery for making something out of nothing. You can do this, even if you, too, are “feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen,” i.e. worn out, obsoleted, fated to fail in usefulness. None of that is true so long as you keep creating.

Life is full of uncertainties, and this goes for art as well. There is no guarantee that this book will get me an agent or a book deal. But as Taylor sings: “I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope. A greater woman wouldn't beg. But I looked to the sky and said, "Please…"

All best,

Kayla King