Hopeful and Happy Campers
The path of one client's manuscript
July 4th, one client’s chapter revisions are due. She’ll hand them over today so that I can further revise them.
Meanwhile, another client and I are in the midst of the massively exciting wait: an acquisitions editor at a small press has taken her manuscript on, saying she finds it “powerful and really well written.” She loves “how things are woven together” and how the story is "pointing to a more evolved way of being human."
For me, a ghostwriter, the “really well written” and "how things are woven together” are SQUEEEEE!!!
For my client, a therapist/spiritual director, swoon, “a more evolved way of being human” is her raison d'être.
We are two happy campers.
The manuscript will now go to the editorial board of the press for approval. As long as we get more than half the members to say “YAY,” likely sometime between October and December, the manuscript will become a full-fledged book in mid-to-late 2026.
There are of course many different paths and timelines when it comes to completing a manuscript and getting it published, but here's the skinny on this one.
My client “T” and I were first introduced in November 2022. She sent me a variety of materials to review, we went back and forth talking them through (with me asking further questions to elicit more insight and details), and then we drafted a rough manuscript outline (outline = scaffolding that can be—and often is—rearranged during the writing process). In March 2023, we took a deep breath, dove in, and started writing.
We wrote, talked, revised, wrote more, talked more, revised more. We travelled, vacationed, and took the occasional breather until we reached "The End" of a first full manuscript draft in July 2024.
In August 2024, we hired a brilliant, trusted outside manuscript evaluator (because when you've been neck deep in your own words for more than a year, a pair of outside eyes is crucial). T and I then spent eight more months honing the final draft of roughly 80k words.
Now, in June 2025, we are on the brink of landing this small press publishing deal.
So please, do SEND ALL GOOD VIBES, prayers, whatever you do, towards this manuscript we have been living in together for a good while. Writing a book and having it published is an ultra-marathon, an investment, a labor of love… and it takes a village.
