November Reflections

The image above is a line from my debut novel, All We Have is Time, publishing in the Spring of 2026, which doesn’t seem so far away, sitting here at my desk wondering how it is already November, again. I re-read it a few days ago, while I was working on my edits, and it stuck with me this past week. It’s hard (maybe impossible) to write a book about a time traveler and an immortal without thinking about how time—life—passes. 

My last blog post was on June 10^th. The summer (and then the fall) got away from me. There was band camp and family vacation and preparing two kids for high school. Then there was back to school and marching band season and keeping up with all the cooking and cleaning and appointments, working on my new book and editing my debut. In other words, trying to stay afloat in normal, everyday life. Something had to give (something always has to give) and the blog and social media fell by the wayside.

Now, it’s almost Thanksgiving (in America), which will race into Christmas and the New Year in a blur. It will be a time for planning and goals and resolutions and dreams for the next new year, a time for thinking about the future, about looking and moving forward. But for me (and completely by accident), November has become a way to mark time in my writer life. 

Three years ago, in the weeks before I packed my bags to hop on a plane home to surprise my mom for her 70^th birthday and celebrate Thanksgiving, I sent my very first query letter. It was for a different book, a young adult fantasy that I have since shelved, but it taught me a lot about writing and querying and trying to become an author along the way. 

Two years ago, I was querying my new book, an adult speculative fiction, All We Have is Time. I had a good feeling about it. I thought I might have something. I tried not to get my hopes up. On a November night, I found a manuscript wishlist that sounded too good to be true, and I sent a letter to the person who would become my agent. 

One year ago today, that agent called me. I couldn’t pick up. I was at the pediatrician’s office with my daughter for a well-check up. She texted me to call her when I got the chance. The longest ten minutes of my life later, I slid into the driver’s seat of my car and called my agent from the parking lot. We had an offer.

A lot has happened for my book in that year. We sold rights in the UK too, and foreign translations around the world. I have three fabulous editors and entire teams of professional book people rooting for this story. I still don’t think it’s properly hit me that readers around the globe will be reading my words, but I am so thrilled to know that Beatrix and Oliver’s love story will be out there, with all of you. I can’t wait!

But I will. That’s the thing about time. Another November will come and go. Maybe it will be another November to mark something exciting for my book, maybe it won’t. Life will still be happening. Time will still be passing. But I will pause and reflect on my good fortune so far. I will marvel that my words will be scattered across the globe, that you will get to know Beatrix and Oliver, too. I hope you love them as much as I do.