- Notes from the harbor
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- Covering a lot of ground
Covering a lot of ground
A cover reveal, drafting updates, and the invaluable art of brackets
News
Hello all! The last month or so has had a lot of exciting news!
First and most importantly, the update you’re definitely reading this for: I got a kitten! Our household menagerie is now up to three. Please welcome my new rescue baby Cricket, who is just over three months old, loves demands cuddles, and enjoys “helping” me read by hitting the screen of my kindle. (He hasn’t quite gotten the idea that I want to finish the page before turning it yet, or that kindles aren’t for biting, but we’ll get there.)
Okay, book news now! ICYMI, the cover for BEHOOVED is officially revealed! I’m completely in love with it—not only is it stunning, but it captures the vibes of the book so well. The artist is the amazing Kelly Chong, who also did some of my favorite covers like The Hurricane Wars and the recently revealed Mistress of Bones (a fellow 2025 debut book).
The US edition will be a paperback release with pink sprayed edges! If you’d like to have this gorgeous art grace your shelf, you can preorder the book here! (For UK folks, the official cover isn’t revealed yet but preorder links are live from Blackwell’s and Waterstones!).
In personal updates, I’ve been thrilled to see some amazing astronomical phenomena—I caught both the aurora borealis (a lifetime bucket list item) and the Oort Cloud comet. Clear skies in the Finger Lakes are a rarity, so I feel extra lucky to have seen them both!
Writing updates
I’ve been very busy drafting the second book in my contract—another standalone adult fantasy rom com. It’s been rough, y’all. This is the thirteenth book I’ve drafted to completion, and it might be my roughest first draft yet.
But it’s finally done! I’ve been struggling my way through this draft since July, and it’s a huge relief to have the drafting done—that’s usually the hardest part of the book for me. Now I have until December to get it into shape before turning it in to my editors (because trust me, no one wants to read it in its current state. Not even me).
Additionally, I’ve just finished pass pages for BEHOOVED! For those who don’t know, pass pages are where I proofread the manuscript before it goes to print. It’s basically my last chance to change anything (no pressure!). The typesetting is gorgeous—here’s a sneak peek of the interior of the book!
Crafty Corner
This month, since I’ve just gotten out of the thick of finishing a highly challenging draft, I thought I would talk about one of my lifesaving drafting aids: brackets. As mentioned, drafting can be very rough for me, and here’s one of the tools I use to make it a little easier.
When I’m drafting, I use square brackets in the manuscript in three different ways.
The first is to put a placeholder for something I need to figure out later—for instance, the name of a person or town—so that I don’t get derailed and lose my momentum in-scene by scrambling to do a bunch of research. Here’s an example from the draft I just finished:
“I almost didn’t believe [butler name] when she announced you. I didn’t think you had the guts to show your face around my house again, to be honest.”
Second, I’ll use brackets to leave notes about a scene to myself, so that when I go back to revise it I have those on page for easy reference, like so (again from my just-finished draft):
[revisit this scene later—probably revise so this stays as a kissing scene but the more intimate part is saved for later]
And third, I keep a running set of notes about what I’m going to do next at the bottom of the page. I update this every time I pause my drafting, so then when I’m ready to start again I have detailed notes right on the page capturing what I was planning to do. I’m going to make up an example here because now that I’ve finished the draft I’ve deleted the bracket summary (plus it would be spoilery):
[A realizes someone else is in the room with her. She decides to confront them and turns on the lights, thinking it’s B, who she thought was following her earlier. Surprise—it’s C! Unknown to A, C has a crush on her and wanted to leave her a romantic surprise.]
*note that these aren’t all things that the POV character would know—the notes include what I need to know, which is totally fine since the bracketed stuff doesn’t make it into the book!
The nice thing about the brackets, in addition to helping me not get stuck, is that since they don’t appear in the book otherwise it’s quite easy to search for them later. If you also use brackets, feel free to comment or reply and let me know your methods!
Book recommendations
I have two recommendations for books that released recently—I highly advise picking up these both!
Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris is a historical mystery with supernatural creatures and a sapphic romance, in which the daughters of Jonathan Harker and Dr. Moriarty team up to find a killer in turn-of-the-century Paris. I adored both the main characters and the lush setting details!
The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew is a YA dystopian novel set in a future Boston where Liv, the main character, is a “proxy” who sells memories in a corporate world where people don’t have time for anything but work. There’s a lovely romance and a lot of action. If you loved The Hunger Games, you absolutely must pick this one up!
Until next time,
Marina