Last October, I finished a novel.

It had been through multiple rounds of edits and revisions. A cover was designed. The Library of Congress issued a catalog number. Physical proof copies arrived at my door—those final editions you hold in your hands, checking margins and fonts, preparing to approve what will become the real thing.

And then it sat.

I had other novels ahead of it in the queue, so I let it marinate. But honestly? Something about it felt off. Not bad. Just... off.

The story was sound. The characters were vetted. The premise interested me. The mechanics had been honed through all those revision rounds. So why couldn't I shake the feeling that something wasn't landing?

I've published eleven novels since I started putting my stories together a couple of years ago. Looking back, most share a constellation of themes I've found myself returning to: chosen family, unexpected feelings for another, inner reflection, justice, acceptance, living by example.

Good themes, I thought. A fantasy I've carried for years, really—pieces of myself, my friends, the people I've surrounded myself with, all woven into how we wished we had lived. Or tried to.

But I think I've told that story. Or versions of it.

This "new" novel was more of the same. I don't believe it would have been boring or repetitive—not exactly. But it was another version. Another telling of a tale I'd already explored from multiple angles.

A few weeks ago, I circled back. Reread it. And decided I liked the premise. Liked the main characters.

I threw out the rest.

What I'm doing now is burrowing deeper—into feelings, events, and places that were only referenced before. Moments given a sentence and then forgotten. I'm pulling on threads I'd left dangling and asking: What's actually here?

It's difficult. It's like knowing someone's story by heart and then trying to break out from the trunk of that tree, climbing toward the canopy where things can finally blossom. Staying close to the trunk feels stable. Familiar. But edging out onto these branches—that's where it gets interesting. Also more precarious.

I'm allowing myself to ask: And who are they, really? Why do they matter?

What's emerging is less of a "typical" story of mine. Less boy meets boy in a world that's often hostile to articulating that and more boy is part of a world filled with interesting, unexpected, and occasionally frightening moments—who happens to have met a boy, who brings his own journey.

The story is becoming about the journey they find themselves on. About characters and events that have little to do with coming out, yet are no less frightening. No less fascinating.

I hope to finish this first re-draft within the next month or so. I'm eager to see where it ends—at least in this version. That's a good sign, I think: when I want to know how it turns out myself.

Maybe that's what this whole "two-novels-in-one" approach has been teaching me. I needed to write their first story to understand them well enough to write the actual one.