All About Relationships
In which I share some book news, and talk about how friendships factor into my writing practice.
Welcome back to Out of Practice! Thanks for being here.
In case you missed it, my book sold! My debut novel WASP’S NEST is going to be published by Celadon Books in 2026. I am so excited to be working with Faith Tomlin and the rest of the Celadon team, and I can’t wait to introduce Peter, Tess, and Mitch to the world.
WASP’S NEST was inspired by my love for The Philadelphia Story,1 and I’m delighted that made it into the announcement. During the initial call, I discovered my editor is a big fan of the movie too.
In related news, I saw Challengers last weekend and I cannot think of another movie that so purely encapsulates my taste. It’s just 10/10 all the way down for me—script, performances, direction, soundtrack, everything. It’s a gorgeous sexy fun time, I highly recommend it.
TPS and Challengers have a similar appeal (to me, anyway) in that they both hinge on a three-way relationship. By that I mean: when it comes to the three central characters, you can’t examine the relationship between any two of them without taking into account the third character. The dynamics are rich and layered and full of possibilities from any angle. That’s part of the reason I enjoy writing three protagonists—there’s so much room for drama and development. It’s a challenge to dig into, and a bigger challenge to convey, but it’s also hugely satisfying and fun.
I’m generally inspired by dynamics between characters first and foremost. Everything else (setting, voice, plot, timeline, structure, etc) follows, but it’s the relationships that really get my writer brain going. Relationships indicate what situations I can put my characters in, and I am all about those situations.
When writing WASP’S NEST, I started with the idea of two exes and a random hanger-on (who’s intrigued by both of them) being thrown together into a high-pressure situation—the wedding of one of the aforementioned exes. With Sibling WIP, I’m writing from the point of view of an educator, the parent of a student, and her estranged brother, whose lives become intertwined over the course of a year. I won’t share too much about the situations I’m throwing them into yet, but once I knew their relationship to each other on all sides, the story really began to take shape. The timeline, plot, and structure emerged naturally from the aspects of each relationship I was curious to explore.
More on relationships (real, not fictional) further down…
Reading List
What I read in April:
fiction: Our Wives Under the Sea, The Plot, If We’re Being Honest, People We Meet on Vacation
nonfiction: Conflict Is Not Abuse
Our Wives Under the Sea absolutely wrecked me (complimentary) btw. I’m super excited to read Julia Armfield’s short story collection and I cannot WAIT for her second novel (a speculative reimagining of King Lear) to come out later this year.
April Writing Progress
Last month my main writing goal was to finish big picture edits on the first section of Sibling WIP, and…I’m still working on that. I got a little distracted by the book deal stuff (which, for the record, my agent has told me is totally allowed), so I’m aiming to have those edits wrapped up in May.
May Writing Goals
I know I’ll begin another round of revisions on WASP’S NEST later this month, and I’m excited to hop back into that once I get notes from my editor. Until that point, I’m focusing on Sibling WIP.
Sibling WIP is structured in four parts, one part per season. My plan is to send a draft of the first part (Fall) to my agent, both so that she has a better sense of the project and so that I have something solid to return to when I have a break in editorial revisions on WASP’S NEST.
I also want to do 1000 Words of Summer in June even though I won’t be actively drafting a specific project. I may play around with some flash fiction prompts for that two week period, but I’m open to ideas!
Practice Chats
Now, back to relationships. I chose this topic for May before I knew I’d have a book deal to announce, and it’s fitting because I 100% would not have arrived at this point on my own. Of course, I owe a lot to the wonderful creative writing teachers I’ve had and my family (shoutout to my partner and my parents for everything they do to support me and my writing), but today I want to talk about writing friendships specifically.
I do love the solitary nature of writing—it’s part of why it appealed to me back when it was just a hobby. But when I started taking my writing more seriously, I started searching for connection with other writers. If you’re part of a writing group, you know that accountability can be a huge asset to productivity. On an emotional level, connecting with someone who’s passionate about the same things is really validating and encouraging. And there’s nothing like the pure delight of reading fresh work from writers you admire.
By sheer luck I found a few writer friends organically in online spaces—shoutout to my bestie Fern, who I connected with when we were both writing fiction about the same obscure historical figure. She’s become one of my major artistic inspirations (you can buy her incredible2 debut album here!) as well as one of the only people I trust with my early drafts—oh, the vulnerability!
I started actively looking for people interested in a regular critique swap during early Covid. It took some trial and error to find the right fit. If you haven’t located your writing folks yet, you will likely find some duds first. Some groups I checked out were hardly active at all, some were TOO active with too many members, some were just…not the vibe. Eventually, I decided to start a group of my own.
I posted to Reddit, sharing a little about my taste, my current writing practice and works-in-progress, and my goals for a writing group—regular meetings for accountability with fiction writers who took their work seriously, whether or not they were pursuing traditional publication. To my delight, three people responded! Eventually two of those folks stepped back due to life getting in the way (relatable!), but Ce and I are still going strong almost two years later.
Ce and I share work on the first and third weeks of the month, and we meet over Zoom on the second and fourth weeks. Rather than giving detailed feedback live, we leave notes in shared documents, and talk about any bigger picture stuff/questions/problems we’re having during the Zoom sessions. After every meeting, we set goals and check in with each other about how we plan to achieve those goals.3 This structure has done so much to keep me engaged with my practice and excited about my work. Also, since I have a truly abysmal memory, it helps to keep a record of what I’m working on and learning.
The Zoom meetings are more casual than they were when we first started, but it really works for us. With only two of us, we can afford to be more easy-breezy—it’s not like we’re crunched for time the way we were with more members. Brainstorming out loud and talking things through is a really productive way to work through issues in our works-in-progress. I realized I was starting my book with the wrong POV after a suggestion from Ce during one of our Zoom sessions, and the subsequent revision made the version of the book I queried so much stronger.
I’ve also been fortunate enough to connect with some amazing writers more recently via The Cabins retreat I attended last summer. Spending time with Ariane and Kasia and talking about our creative processes was restorative and energizing. They were both generous enough to provide feedback on the opening of WASP’S NEST before I began querying, and those insights helped me whip those pages into shape.
This is not an exhaustive list of all the writing community folks I’m grateful to have connected with, but I’ve already gone over my intended word count. Long story short, I would be nowhere without my friends. If you haven’t located your writing people yet, I’m sending you all the positive energy—you deserve to have people in your corner who will cheer you on and engage with your work genuinely and graciously, who want to help you make your stories the best they can be.
Before You Go
Have you been reading anything that’s totally gripped you? Are you part of a writing group or book club that you love, or are you still looking for your people? Do you have any writing group horror stories? Drop a line in the comments!
Thanks for reading! Until next time,
K
If it feels like I never shut up about TPS, that’s correct, I don’t.
Ce and I actually use a discord server for this—it’s kinda funny to have a server with only two members, but it works well for us! We’re both busy with work and family, so it’s nice to have distinct channels to drop links and trade book recs and respond to different conversations whenever is convenient for us.
Huge congratulations! Can't wait to read your novel!