So, the news is out! My trilogy, beginning with Bone Shard Daughter, will be out starting Fall 2020 with Orbit Books! I couldn't be more thrilled (understatement).
https://www.tor.com/2019/12/05/orbit-books-acquires-debut-fantasy-trilogy-from-author-andrea-stewart
Those friends who know me know this has been a really long road. I commandeered one of my dad's old computers and started writing in WordPerfect for DOS when I was in fifth grade. I submitted my first story to a magazine in high school. I joined...just about every writing group I could find, online and in-person. I'm 37 now. I've had a lot of setbacks and failures. After talking about my latest rejections, I always used to laugh and tell my friends, "Hey, at least when it finally happens, I'll have an inspiring story to tell, right?"
Yes. I am one of THOSE annoying, relentlessly cheerful people.
But I'll be honest. I did give up hope.
I've written seven completed manuscripts, queried three, went out on sub with three. I sold short stories, I stopped writing short stories, I focused on novels. For a long time, I sold nothing, and I felt a lot like a fake writer. I stopped asking to be put on panels at cons or to do readings, because who was I, anyways?
I think it became a lot like this: I took up long-distance swimming recently. Miles in the pool, lap after lap of the same two walls, nothing but me and my breathing. At first I'd be excited about being in the pool, after a while I'd start to be annoyed with myself that I'd taken on such a long swim, and eventually I'd just drift into that space where I'd accepted that I was doing this, that it hurt, and that I'd be doing it for a long time still.
Except there was no clear endpoint with the novels. I was writing book after book and not knowing where land was, or even if there was land at all. It was maddening. But eventually, by the time we sent Bone Shard Daughter on submission, I'd accepted that I was doing this, that sometimes it hurt, and that I'd be doing it for as long as it took to find land. I started writing yet another book. I didn’t have hope that Bone Shard Daughter would sell.
This doesn't mean I was just doing things by rote. People told me it was just bad luck, or bad timing. That publishing is not a meritocracy, and that good books fail to make it all the time. And this is so, so true! There's a lot you can't control. At the same time, I thought--if I could just keep getting better...I'd be giving myself the best shot I could. From a logical standpoint, if I kept writing better books, I'd eventually reach a point where it would be harder and harder for people to say "no."
After my second book on submission failed to sell, I took a long, hard look at my writing. I sussed out the places where I thought I was weak and figured out how to stop making the same mistakes. I did a lot of reading and analyzing other people's work (if there's one piece of advice I have, it's to read and critique widely! If you can articulate what you like/don't like and why, you can apply that to your own writing.). I thought about the books I loved and what things really tickled me. How was that done?
And I did my best to put all those lessons to practical use in Bone Shard Daughter.
So. Here it is.
I can't wait to share this world with you.