From the archives: What No One Tells You About Editing a Novel
And the Barnes & Noble pre-order sale (April 22-23)
Hello from the bottomless pit of drafting Book 2. It is generative and fun here, but also more stressful than I can fully articulate. Pardon me for sharing an old post from the archives on what happens when editing a novel. It felt appropriate given my current state of busy-ness: end of the semester grading, drafting a novel, family, holidays, and all the other things.
If you are new here, thank you for signing up and agreeing to get the occasional message for me. I won’t spam you (who has the time?!) but emails may pick up closer to the launch of my debut novel, Doll Parts, which comes out on August 26 from Sourcebooks Landmark. It’s a novel of suspense and friendship, full of 90s grunge music, black dresses, and maybe a ghost or two.
And for every reader and friend on the other end of this message, I hope you are doing well. I hope you also know that it is okay to delete this email (we seriously get too many emails) because the newsletter still lives in the Substack app and will still be waiting for you when you’re ready.
Except this one piece is time sensitive: the Barnes & Noble pre-order sale is here! From April 23-April 25, B&N members can get 25% off pre-orders. The great thing about pre-orders is that you get to support authors and bookstores all at once, and then you get surprise book mail.
If you haven’t pre-ordered Doll Parts, now would be the perfect time!
I have also listed some other debut novels at the end of this post that are available for pre-order. These are some of my most anticipated of the year.
Let me also say that I am aware that April 26, the last Saturday of this month, is Independent Booksellers Day. If you prefer to pre-order from your local independent bookstore, please do so! My favorite independent bookstore is M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina. If you’re lucky enough to have a local bookstore, please keep being a customer!
If you don’t have a local indie store, Bookshop.org is the place to order from. You can support independent bookstores, in general, and not even leave your house. And while I am thankful for anyone who pre-orders Doll Parts, no matter they order from, there is a soft spot in my heart for actual bookstores.
Thank you again. I hope to get back to regular posting soon. In the meantime, here’s one from the archives:
“Does the process know we’re trusting it? Is the process in the room with us right now?”—Rebecca Armstrong, Artnest
Hello and good morning (I think it’s still morning).
I have been quiet lately, minding my business, avoiding social media and social life more than usual. It’s the culmination of several things: the end of the semester, Mercury Retrograde, out-of-town guests, and my first round of developmental edits for Doll Parts.
Before I move on, let me be clear that my edits are wonderful and spot-on and very, very exciting. My editor is fabulous and thoughtful, and I am so lucky. So grateful. It is the process of editing that has me in my head.
Here’s what no one tells you about editing a novel (on deadline, with a publisher): you can’t read anything else.
I mean, you can try. But good luck finding the brain power to even read the back of a cereal box. It’s an issue of focus, of all your concentration tunneling somewhere else. You can see how this would be especially difficult for someone who reads student essays, among other things, for a living.
If I’m being honest, it isn’t that I can’t read poetry or even short fiction (Lauren Groff’s collection of short stories, Florida, in small, measured doses, has saved me in the last weeks); it’s that I can’t fully immerse myself in narrative while my heart is inside my own book, teasing out timelines and patching plot holes. I’ve had a bit of luck with nonfiction, but I feel pretty certain that anything I have read in the last two months won’t stick with me by the end of the year.
*Note: I am a Bookshop.org affiliate and use affiliate links. If you purchase through my links, I may one day earn a small commission, or so I’ve been told.*
My recent reading issues started when a friend loaned me a book that is very much up my alley—creepy, suspenseful, full of dark academia vibes—and the voice of the book threatened to make their way into my own writing. Since then, I have started and stopped at least three other novels. Audiobooks aren’t helping either.
This isn’t the same as “book purgatory,” which I wrote about back in November after Hello Beautiful ruined me, at least for a little while, for other reading experiences. Book Purgatory is a state of limbo. My reading paralysis right now feels very temporary, very situational, but also like a means of survival. If I’m going to survive the otherwise fun and generative editing process, I have to make sacrifices. And it’s my reading life that must take the hit.
This problem with reading isn’t mine alone. Writer friends claim a similar ailment when editing. That’s where I got the idea to read poetry, though any reading outside of one’s genre might also help (hence my reliance on nonfiction lately).
So, while I get back to work and focus where I need to focus, I am sharing a post that feels especially timely. It was previously behind a paywall, but is now open for all— “Behind the Scenes: From Stuck to Unstuck.”
See that whale in the image above. You are likely to see him again if you stick around these parts.
Part 2 of this newsletter: A Mosh Pit of Emotions
Love, love, love.—Penny
Thank you again for being here! Subscribe if you haven’t already and look forward to some updates here soon. In the meantime, here are some fantastic, highly anticipated debut novels to pre-order now:
The Once and Future Me by Melissa Pace
Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang
Again, Only More Like You by Catalina Margulis
We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry
The Farmhouse by Chelsea Conradt
Somewhere Past the End by Alexandria Faulkenberry
The Belles by Lacey Dunham
The Housewarming by Kristin Offiler
Violet Thistlewaite is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz
Doll Parts, forthcoming from Sourcebooks on August 26, 2025, is a dual timeline suspense following one woman as she begins to uncover the truth of the death of her estranged best friend and the Sylvia Plath adoring sad girls they attended college with decades ago, all while holding a secret that will slowly unravel her new, suburban dream life.
Order Doll Parts anywhere books are sold
