Leading up to Pitch Wars, I had the opportunity to read all about the mentors taking part this year, so I thought it only fair to put together a brief (maybe) blog post about myself and the journey that made my submission, Aiko’s Dive, possible. Also…I have some ‘splainin’ to do about why it’s been over a year since my last post.

So…here goes nothin’…

I’ve always been a writer, though I didn’t really start writing until 2013 when I needed a cathartic outlet for an especially difficult time in my life. I’m the type of person that believes everything happens for a reason, and while that year might have sucked, it was the catalyst that made me realize writing was more than something I wished I could be good at. It was – is – my calling.

Since 2013, I’ve written 8 novels – an almost-finished trilogy, a terrible murder mystery, an overworked space opera, a promising cyberpunk thriller, a twisty AI novel, and…Aiko’s Dive.

I started the first draft of Aiko’s Dive in late 2016, shortly after writing a piece of flash fiction called The Octavius Job. The story was popular on the site where it was originally posted, which gave me the idea to expand on the nub of a universe I’d created.

The original version of the novel was…okay. At the time, I thought it was a great work of fiction, and a lot of feedback from contest submissions were generally positive. So…after some editing, beta reading, and tweaking, I decided the novel was ready for prime time.

I was so, so wrong.

I know, right? I’m (still) cringing too…

Moving on was hard. And even after the next novel – the cyberpunk – I was still thinking about Aiko’s Dive. But…the above picture haunted me. How could I fix it? How could I keep working on it after so many agents had said no? So, I turned my attention back to the space opera, which was a disaster.

An agent took a look at the manuscript and said it was “fine”. Even though I already kinda knew what the agent said was true, the words cut deeper than any other criticism I’d ever received thus far. And for a month or so, I couldn’t bring myself to write. Instead, I thought long and hard about whether writing was really for me. Whether I wanted to continue. Could continue. After all, I didn’t want to be just “fine”. I wanted to be better than fine. Much, much better.

It took a while, but conviction conquered despair, and I eventually managed to start – and start, and start, and… – on the twisty AI novel. I stumbled for months before hitting a stride, eventually managing to turn out 90,000 words in six months. But even though that manuscript was better than any of the others I’d written before, my thoughts drifted back to the manuscript I still hadn’t given up on; the one I was supposed to write: Aiko’s Dive.

At the beginning of 2020, I returned to the same agent whose harsh criticism had galvanized my resolve the previous year. The agent said the same thing about Aiko’s Dive, but offered a tiny bit more; words that would push me past a precipice I’d been avoiding for years; a point of no return that was worth every second of effort.

“Why not start from scratch?”

I’d considered rewriting Aiko’s Dive at multiple points, but had never been able to commit to the idea. Maybe I needed the nudge, because that’s all it took for me to start again…

Eight months later, Aiko’s Dive is brand new. Every. Single. Word.

The entire story pivoted from a flat monster-in-the-deep narrative – a la Alien or Leviathan – to a story about loss, found family, identity, and choice. Aiko morphed from a meek participant in the events around her to master of her own destiny; a champion worth rooting for across (hopefully) multiple novels.

So…there you have it: the trails and tribulations of me and the years of blood, sweat, and tears it took to make the current version of Aiko’s Dive a reality. Is it good enough for Pitch Wars? I think so. For publication? I hope so. But what’s most important is that I did the damn thing. And even if I get passed over this year, I’m going to keep doing the damn thing, whether I get published or not. Because I’m a writer. That’s who I am. And that’s who I’ll always be.

If you’re one of the agents I subbed to and made it this far, thanks so much for reading. I’m insanely excited to have had the opportunity to share Aiko’s Dive with you, and I hope you enjoy reading my submission materials as much as I enjoyed writing them!

For everyone else, thanks for taking the time to stop by! And best of luck to everyone who submitted this year!