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Writer's pictureKaryn Resch Brackney

I’m Finally Going to Publish a Book

I just wrote a book in 23 days.


It was intense. I couldn’t get it out of my head, not even when I was sleeping. I wrote over breakfast. I wrote over lunch. I wrote in coffee shops after work. I wrote in the dark after putting my daughter to bed. It felt like trying to sprint a marathon. On the day that I finally finished, I drifted around the house like a zombie for a few hours, dazed and spacey and unsure of what to do with myself.


(This book also happened to be the second book that I’ve written in the past six months—so my creative life has been intense for a while now. See here and here for some spiritual insights I've gained from writing. But anyways, that’s why this blog has been languishing so badly.)


But this book—the written-in-23-days book—is the first book that I actually intend to publish. So even though it has nothing to do with attachment theory, or parenting, or spirituality, or psychotherapy in general, I am going to tell you the story of how this book was conceived and born.



This is my twelfth manuscript. I began writing books in 2011, the same year I graduated college with my B.A. in Creative Writing.


Since then, with literally only my sister as an audience (she’s pretty much the best sister ever), I’ve written a whole pile of manuscripts—epic fantasy, supernatural fiction, a war story, a memoir, even a trilogy. On my own, I have learned to outline a project from start to finish; to plan each scene around an inciting incident, a climax, and a resolution; to finish a complete rough draft; even to rewrite and create a second draft. I have learned to write when I’m inspired and to write when I’m not inspired, to write when it’s easy and to write when it’s hard. Sometimes, for months on end, I have written a thousand words a day, every day. Sometimes, I have sat down and written ten thousand words in a single day. In 2012, I wrote a trilogy in eleven months. In 2017, when I was on short-term disability and capable only of lying on the couch, I wrote an entire manuscript in two weeks, took a week off, and wrote another one in three weeks. In 2021, I wrote two books (about twelve hundred pages) exclusively during naptimes, typing with one hand while my infant daughter slept in my other arm. It has been hard, hard work, almost all of it quite lonely. It has also been my secret delight.


Unless you’re Stephen King or Elizabeth Gilbert, writing is not a profession where one can earn a living. If you’re lucky, I’ve been told, the royalties from your second or third book might pay for a nice dinner a few times a year. I have learned that the publishing industry is fraught with obstacles that only the very privileged can overcome; the resources—money, time, social support, connections—required to publish and sell books are tremendous. As a single mom with finite resources, I have not been able to justify pursuing publication, and so writing has remained a hobby (and yet still a dream) for all these years.


And then this spring, as I was completing my eleventh manuscript, I felt a shift, like an elbow-nudge from my Higher Power.


I began to consider that perhaps it would be unfaithful of me never to even try to share my stories. Many want to write a book and never begin; many begin writing and never finish. It is tremendously difficult to finish writing a book—and somehow, I’d done it eleven times. Perhaps, I thought, this is a gift I am not meant to keep to myself.


So I got in touch with a friend of mine who works in independent publishing. He put me in contact with a gentleman who worked in the book business for decades, and now, in retirement, offers critical reads for manuscripts by amateur writers. This gentleman has worked with some big, highly recognizable names in the fantasy and fiction genres. In May, I somehow ended up with just enough extra money (almost to the dollar) to pay for a critical read, and so I did something brave and submitted my manuscript.


The positive feedback was far beyond what I was expecting; I felt like my head was floating for days afterwards. At a Starbucks in Lakewood one afternoon, this grandfatherly editor told me that I could publish the book if I wanted, but he suggested that I didn’t. Instead, he said, save it and write something else: two or three short, non-epic works of general fantasy that would hopefully generate a readership for my work and lead to more opportunity in the future. “Write what’s burning in your belly,” he told me. “Your voice, your personality—tell a story like you’re sitting on the couch with someone. Forget form; you don’t need to write that stuff. You have what it takes. Write what you want.”


Usually, new stories marinate on odd scraps of paper or stream-of-consciousness notes in my phone for weeks, and then slowly come together in Word documents—outlines, notes, lists of character names, ideas for scenes.


But this time, the plot was conceived and birthed—whole and complete, scene by scene by scene—in only forty-eight hours.


I started writing a couple of days later, and for the next 23 days, the words were flying off my fingers almost faster than I could type. Close friends (and a few friends of friends) read chapters as I finished them and cheered me on from near and far. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. No one—other than my faithful, loving, angelic sister—has ever cared about my stories before. And now, I’m discovering enough of an audience to bring this book to publication.


The obstacles are all still there—the need for money, time, social support, and connections that I just don’t have yet. But a way forward is beginning to fall into place. And thankfully, through social media and crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, there is opportunity to construct a ladder that can get me and this book over some of those obstacles and out to all of you. I have a few options when it comes to publication, and I’m still considering, with long-term goals in mind, what will be the best strategy for this little book. I’m excited to see where this journey will take me.


We all have dreams when we’re kids. But as adulthood takes over, many of us end up having the dreams stomped out of us.


It’s not that we’re not capable of those things anymore; it’s that we’ve forgotten what we’re capable of. Sometimes, dreams do come true—but, it turns out, not the way I always imagined. There is no miracle. There is no discovery on a street corner by some magical figure who makes you a star. There is no planets-align-and-the-universe-rolls-out-the-red-carpet moment. Most of what it takes for a dream to come true is simply a lot of hard work, discipline, and some calculated risk-taking—and perhaps a little bit of luck at just the right time.


I guess there’s one other ingredient worth mentioning: Hope. Hope is what kept me writing, hour after hour, year after year—hope that my passion wasn’t for nothing, that someday, somebody might read what I’ve written and feel moved by it. I’m not there yet—in fact, there is quite a long way left to go, with no guarantee of success—but I’m more hopeful today than I’ve ever been.


If you enjoy fantasy of the feminist variety, or if you like watching dreams come true, or even if you’re just curious, feel free to reach out on social media or shoot me your email address (karyn@karynreschcounseling.com), and I’ll include you in the process with updates along the way.


If you want to know more about the book, here is what I can say right now:


I am sick and tired of all the female characters in fantasy stories being young, beautiful, able-bodied, and straight, because I identify with none of those things. I like to write about women I recognize—women who are raising children, women with soft bellies and tired bodies, queer women, plain women, middle-aged women, women who are smart and sassy, women who are not defined by their conformity to either feminine or masculine stereotypes (the whore or the virgin; the warrior or the rebel), women who love deeply, women who find meaning in life apart from romance. So this story is about a woman like that, and how the world does not want to make room for her. There’s also a witch hunt, some action, and a light smattering of magic.


Funny thing about stories, though—they have minds of their own. Initially, I set out to write a book about love and authenticity: How hard it is to love if we are living out of a false self, and how authenticity frees us to love more fully. (Sounds like something a therapist would write, doesn’t it?) About halfway through writing it, though, I realized what it was really about: This story was about my fears as a mother who is raising a daughter in a world still dominated by patriarchy. It was my attempt to answer the core question, “Do I teach her to cope, the way I was taught, or do I teach her to resist?” Because, I have realized, there is no way for any of us—no matter your gender identity or sexual orientation—to stay safe. If you stay small and follow the rules, you lose parts of yourself, and that leads to pain; if you fight back and break the rules, you live with a target on your back, and that, too, leads to pain.


So what do we do? How do we raise our children? Which cost are we more willing to pay? I think, in writing this book, I found my answer. I hope those who read it get a chance to consider their own answers.


So we’ll see what happens next for this little book. I can’t wait to find out myself! And I already have plans for my second book; it’s going to be about a therapist with superpowers, and how healing from our traumas is the only way we can save the world. (I know, that really sounds like something a therapist would write…)

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1 Comment


I read your blog post. ;) I hope you keep telling stories like you're sitting on the couch with someone. And I hope you keep this post. Cheering you on.<3


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