empty-nest syndrome

a.k.a finishing Draft Zero after three years

Let the record show: I despise the lonely, broody, exhausted writer aesthetic. But when I completed Draft One of my YA historical fantasy, I was all three.

3^rd of September. 9.03 pm.

I sent off my little file (84,000 words) to my agent and editor.

Up ‘till that point, I was surviving off of takeouts and my partners’ meal preps. My “exercise” consisted of shifting my butt to an angle where it hurt less to sit. My work days ballooned to ten, fourteen hours and sleep meant closing my eyes to untangle finicky plot points until I was jolted awake by my alarm. Or anxiety.

So, no, I didn’t leap off my couch to dance in my living room at 9.04 pm like a tampon ad girlie. I texted my close friends who replied with !!!MESSAGES!!!, called my partner who said, “I’m proud of you,” and ate pasta sent via UberEats by my sister.

For the next two weeks, however, I couldn’t shake this feeling that I’d finished my project… wrongly. Treat yourself! Do something to celebrate! echoed those around me. Sure, there were things on my wish list: a new pair of sneakers, a hand-me-down film camera I’d been stalking on eBay for months, good ol’ manga. It wasn’t that I thought I didn’t deserve them—I knew I did—but I was waiting for relief and euphoria to kick in before going full-on Rebecca Bloomwood.

On a random lunch with my TV writer friend, she told me she’d just wrapped her season finale. We’d started our projects around the same time.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, a soft hand on my lap.

“I don’t know. Numb? I feel kind of hollow inside which I know sounds ungrateful.”

She shook her head. “Honey, you’re grieving.”

I blinked at her.

“You’ve spent your free time for the last three years, and almost every day of the last six months with these characters. On paper. In your mind. When you shower, sleep, commute, heck, probably when you’re around other people. Now these characters have up and left and you’re here all alone.”

“Oh my god...”

Bubbles of oil congealed with spring onions and bamboo shoots in our untouched ramen bowls.

“…I have empty nest syndrome.”

We laughed. An apt phrase since my main cast is made up of murderous twelve-to-eighteen-year-olds.

She proceeded to tell me about how she’d gone through a similar period of grief. The feelings were so intense that she and her co-writer ended up writing a eulogy for their show—the highs, lows, everything the project taught them, and how it brought them closer together. They printed three seasons’ worth of scripts, read out their eulogy, and burned everything.

It’s not as dramatic but this is my funeral pyre.

*

8 November 2019: Preliminary research. I went to Baillieu Library with my arm in a sling, high on painkillers. My dad had to pick me up because I couldn’t physically carry all the borrowed books. It rained that day.

20 January 2020: Novel-writing-people know once a mood board is made, there’s no going back. The commitment level here is on par with a marriage proposal (for non-novel-writing-people present.)

22 July 2020: I signed with my agent. I thought, how funny would it be if I only had this atrocious picture to commemorate one of the most pivotal moments in my writing career? Ha-fucking-ha.

28 April 2021: The Hot Desk Fellowship Era/Imposter Syndrome Era. I wrote 10,000 words and outlined the first half of the novel here. I was too nervous to write around people, so I snuck into the building on weekends or after 9 pm. The security guard often came running because I’d go ARGHHHH and bang my head on the table around midnight.

8 August 2022: I enrolled in a 6-month combat and weaponry course to learn how to write fight scenes. Now I can do that and stab people with swords. Nice.

12 February 2023: I lived in Jogjakarta for a month to familiarise myself with the setting, architecture, history, and food. To access public library archives, interview people, and take a gazillion reference photos and videos. I figured out the book’s finale after holing up in the hotel for two days watching Fleabag. Phoebe-Waller-Bridge truly is the patron saint of writing.

3 September 2023: And… send.

*

It's December now. I’m writing this on the same laptop, from the same couch where I hit Send.

Shortly after that ramen-fuelled epiphany, I journaled my highs, lows, and reflections privately. I did feel better. I got the Solomons, the 10-year-old Contax T2 with a faulty (but fixable!) reload, Ichigo Takano’s Orange. I wrapped up my first semester of teaching, went on a trip with my partner.

Lo and behold, editorial notes from my agent and editor dropped into my Gmail two days ago. My revision plan was approved just this morning. Hearing the names of my murderous children from someone else feels unsettling. They’re real real now. Not mood-board real. Alive-in-others’-brains real.

All this to say, if you need me in the next seven months, I’ll be here, writing.

Again.

*BONUS*

For those who asked, what was the book-writing experience like?

It can be summed up by this meme which that made my editor cackle.