Happy December, friends!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, if you celebrate (and if you don’t, I hope you had a wonderful random weekend in November)!

I usually send this newsletter about once a month, but for fun ~reasons~, you’ll probably be hearing from me again next week. Maybe for something HERRICK HALL related? Maybe for something that rhymes with lover? Who can say? 😉)

At the top of the year, I shared a lot about a book that was about to head out on submission (when your agent sends your book to editors to consider for publication). Then I got awfully quiet, and then awfully ✨ vague ✨. That’s because some exciting behind the scenes stuff was happening—stuff I can finally scream from the rooftops now!

(Publishing means sometimes having your wildest dreams come true and then having to keep it a secret for 6 months 😂)

My YA fantasy mystery book has a shiny new title AND will be in a bookstore or e-reader near you next year!

Before the announcement, I could only speak super vaguely about my book and the process it took to find its home. But now that I’m (a little more) free, I thought I’d take you on my submission journey.

DEATH IN VERSE’s Submission Journey

February 2025: Emails 📈, Dread 📈

My agent sent our first round of submissions the day before my birthday in February. I bought myself a fancy birthday cake and celebrated in the AirBnb my partner and I were staying at in Porto, Portugal.

Friends, my mental health TANKED during querying, so I actively took precautionary measures to protect myself while going out on submission. I was traveling at the time, so I threw myself into experiencing daily life in Portugal, reading A TON of books (I was averaging 12-14 books a month in the early months of 2025), and drafting my next book (still my ongoing problem child).

The rejections started rolling in a few weeks later. The passes were all very complimentary and nothing very actionable in terms of feedback. I was proud of myself because I actually did a good job of only periodically checking for updates on my agent’s Airtable grid.

March-April: 🦗🦗🦗

March and April came along, and it was CRICKETS. I think I went almost two solid months without any movement. I was knee deep in my current draft, trying to understand the requirements necessary to get my dog from Portugal back into the United States and then up to Canada, so I soldiered on.

(Publishing is really an all or nothing sort of business. There are periods where everything is EXTREMELY quiet that you wonder if that’s concerning. And then there are periods where EVERYTHING is happening, and you need to stay on top of things, and you wish you had your quiet time back for writing—but it’s the good kind of stress you’ve been dreaming of, so it’s all good.)

The most exciting thing that happened in April for us was a mysterious glass explosion in our AirBnb in Canada. A literal freak accident, according to the experts. Which has nothing to do with being on submission, but definitely one of the most memorable moments in 2025.

May: Everything with a Pint of Ice Cream

In May, my partner and I were living our best lives in British Columbia with our pup Kody, staying in the most charming town called Fort Langley (I highly recommend checking it out if you’re ever in the area!).

One day, as I was perusing the local grocery store’s dessert offerings, I impulsively bought a pint of ice cream (those who know me know I’m wayyyyy less likely than my partner to impulsively buy treats for myself, but for some reason, I was like I NEED this ice cream). That night, I got an email from my agent that we got a super close call with an editor but alas, they passed because they had something a little too similar on their slate already.

Welp, I thought. Now I know why I bought the ice cream. It’s a consolation treat.

I ate a few scoops, messaged my agent that getting a close call was a rite of passage, and went to bed.

In the morning, I woke up to a text from my agent asking if I had time to jump on a call. I assumed we were going to discuss the close call and talk strategy for going out on a second round of submissions. I jumped into my workout clothes, put in my earbuds, and went on a walk to phone her.

The first words out of her mouth were, “So an editor read your book and is possibly interested…” I’d been awake for less than ten minutes, and this was not the conversation I thought we were going to have. The emotional whip lash of the past twenty-four hours had my feels all over the place 😂

We discussed some creative feedback this editor had about the story (which I agreed with 100%), and then talked about whether it was a good time to go out on a second round or not (since the editor’s interest in moving forward wasn’t guaranteed). But we agreed the feedback was really spot on, and even if it should end up being another rejection, it was something I wanted to incorporate before sending out any further submissions.

Afterwards, I went back to our AirBnb and pulled out that pint of ice cream again, which was now celebratory ice cream. Yay 🍦

Less than a week later, I had my first call with the interested editor. We hit it off instantly, and I knew she loved my story for all the same reasons I did. My agent was on the call too, so when we got off the call, I texted her, “Did you think it went well?”

“I thought it went very well!” was her response. And then more silence.

I’d never been out on submission before, so I didn’t know whether I was supposed to kick back and wait and see, or whether I was meant to dive into revisions right away and have a new draft for the editor.

Because I did agree with the editor’s feedback so much, I decided I’d start revisions regardless—I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much, so I told myself if it’s a rejection, then I got some actionable feedback to make my draft better for the next round of subs. I pinged my agent, and she told me she’d send me an email with revision notes and a list of potential second round editors asap.

The next morning, I woke up to another text from my agent. (Living on the west coast while mostly everyone in publishing works on the east coast means I’ve gotten news about both my book deals immediately after waking up and looking like a goblin.)

My agent called me right away, before I could even tell my partner, so he came in from taking our pup out to me sitting stunned at the dining table listening to my agent talk about my offer 😂

The offer had an expiration date of about a week, but my agent and I agreed we couldn’t imagine finding an editor whose vision for the book aligned so well with my own and who was as passionate about it. We did our customary nudging, but we ended up accepting the offer early because I knew the fit was right.

One of my biggest dreams had just come true, and then I couldn’t tell you guys for six months! 😂

June-Today: The Good Kind of Stress

Since accepting the offer, I've dived into revisions for both DEATH IN VERSE and my adult horror coming out next May, THE WIVES OF HERRICK HALL. I spent most of June and July being a vegetable and going through the ups and downs of moving. I knew that come autumn, I’d probably be on and off deadline pretty consistently through the rest of the year, juggling two books.

And I have been! I started my first round of revisions the day we moved into our new home, and I think in total, I’ve had probably about two weeks off total (not consecutive days).

But it’s the good kind of stress, I swear! I used to work a very demanding job that felt 24/7, and I’d be on emails from 6am-10pm and never entirely had a weekend to myself. It was honestly such a fun job, but it did exacerbate some extreme burnout and chronic medical issues. These days, I am often up writing to 11pm or midnight most nights, and rarely take a weekend off, but I truly have no complaints. I’m stressing over problems of my own creating, which is a unique and privileged kind of stress, which I hope to never take for granted. And it has made me learn to relax to the fullest on the days I’m not on deadline.

I started writing DEATH IN VERSE in 2023 while on a month-long trip in Mérida, Mexico. I remember pacing around our AirBnb and plotting out the murders (and fell flat on my ass once because I didn’t realize the tiled floors would get slick when it was raining 😂), then curling up in a hammock chair to write its opening chapters. It’s sometimes hard to wrap my head around the fact that the story I made up in my head is going to be an actual book that I get to share with you all next year (and omg next year is almost here, you guys).

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! I will be stuffing myself with cookies and hot chocolate and catching up on my TBR. I’m currently reading some incredible fulls from some RTM mentee applicants, and I’m wowed by the sheer talent of the writing community. ❤️

See you in the new year!

All my love xx

-Julie