Hello 2024!
I’m claiming February 1st as my official start to this year.
January was honestly a little rough; from a cold that knocked me out for the first week and a half and some news that threw off all my plans, I wasn’t ready to tackle the new year with the fresh blank page feeling I wanted to. So, I’m claiming February 1st as my official start to 2024.
Now, according to my own personal revisionist calendar, my 2024 starts today. So happy New Year!
Now, to one of the disappointments that rattled me in January: my second novel won’t be coming out this year. To be honest, you might not have known that I was supposed to have a book coming out in 2024. I hadn’t talked much about it yet. I was still too busy reveling in the release of No Child of Mine. We hadn’t even shared the title yet. (We have one. I just can’t tell you yet. It’s fun. You’ll like it, I promise.)
Typically, books need about nine months between the time they’re “finished” and the time they actually are released. Because even when I’ve finished telling the story I want to write, there’s still so much that needs to be done on the production side of things. Publishing books is genuinely such a team effort, and I’m so incredibly grateful for every single person (and there are countless) who touches my work before it lands in your hands!
All that to say, books take time to produce. If my second novel were coming out this year, it would need to be done like now-ish. And it’s just not quite ready yet.
I need more time with it. As much as I’m disappointed that I didn’t meet the original timeline, I love this story and want to take the time it needs to ensure that I’m telling it in the best way I can.
I’ve been calling this one my Spooky Woods book. It’s a story about woods that, get this, is kind of spooky, but it's mostly a book about sisters and mothers and beauty. The Spooky Woods book will likely be out in 2025 and will be well worth the wait. I can’t wait to tell you more!
I would be remiss not to include a specific thank you to everyone who read and bought No Child of Mine in 2023. Publishing a book was one of the most weirdly vulnerable and coolest things I’ve ever done. I cried many times about it (like a lot), but it was also such a joyful, beautiful experience. I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten to share my little haunted house story with you. I love Essie and the ghostie girls from No Child of Mine, and I hope you did, too.
-Nichelle
