Hi beloved readers, it’s Stephanie Ahn here! Not only am I not dead (though I came close this last year), I’m really chugging along trying to make 2025 the year I finally publish HARRIETTA LEE: CUTTHROAT. I’d like to give a little bit of context as to what I’ve been doing for the five freaking years since I published FLYTRAP, as well as give a little editing behind-the-scenes for those of you who are interested in the process of writing my books.
So, what happened since 2020? Apart from what we all know about, I mean. Personally, I graduated college, got secret-married, got caught being secret-married by my parents, and lost their support at the same time I lost my work-from-home job. Booo. My spouse and I moved states to start over, and since then I’ve been working as a fry cook and occasional nursing assistant. I actually managed to finish and send a rough draft of CUTTHROAT to my editor, Amanda, in 2023 (check her out at https://alsoabear.wixsite.com/bearedits/about), but from that point I was so overwhelmed by how much rehauling the book needed–as well as ongoing familial spats, sheer physical exhaustion, chemical imbalances in the brain, and other juicy details only my therapists get to know about–that I kind of hid from my own book for damn near a year.
And then some wannabe cowboy assholes started a gunfight at my workplace, and I actually had to hide under a sink behind some cardboard boxes.
That incident didn’t materially change my life–I’m still frying chicken eight hours a day, my parents still want me to get divorced, I’m still a mentally ill, kinky lesbian with too many cats and too much credit card debt–but it reminded me that I actually fucking love writing, and given the choice it’s all I want to do. So I’m gonna good and goddamn do it.
In that spirit, I’d like to share what Chapter One looked like in 2023 VS. what it looks like now. The 2023 version (the shorter one) was certainly passable, but I felt it lacked an emotional core–it was like one of the plays I wrote in high school, where I tried to make up for my inadequate understanding of characters’ emotions by exaggerating their stage directions. That, and I don’t think I fully understood what the book, as a whole, was about. But I think I get it now, and I hope that’s reflected in the newer version of the work.
Back to editing and chicken for me–goodbye for now!
Signed,
Steph Ahn
2023, old version:
2025, new/current version:
P.S. Oh, I’m on Bluesky instead of Twitter now! If you’re on there too, come follow me at https://bsky.app/profile/ahnwriting.bsky.social !
Also, I’m not kidding about having too many cats–here’s acquisitions No. 7 and 8, Pollux (gray/orange tabby) and Paulie (white calico), our Long Floof Gorls. I swear they were supposed to be fosters but they just found their place in our family so quick, the little stinkers.
