I get to revise my book!

Hello my loves 😅 

It is summer in Brooklyn and my AC is broken. I’ve spent the past few days with all the lights off and the fan on its highest setting blasting DIRECTLY on me. And I’ve been sweaty. So, so, grossly sweaty.

In other news, I’m going to drop yesterday’s Instagram post and just…move on to the meat of the newsletter 😉 Here’s a Google form, too.

From the heart 💗

On revisions and perfectionism

Early this week, I got an edit letter from my agent for my adult romance, REVENGE. For those of you who’ve been suffering through my DMs and Discord crash-outs over the wait, this was GREAT news, lol. For me, it was also great news, but tinged with a touch of melancholy, because, well…there was an edit letter.

This means the book wasn’t already perfect. And I’m a perfectionist who thinks that my worth lies in my ability to write well and tell good stories, so, like, you can see where my conundrum is, can’t you? 😂 

Luckily, I spent most of the week around other authors and bookish people — and my therapist — who reminded me that storytelling is an art that takes time. Books unfold in layers, plot lines, characters, scenes coming in a slow unfurl that takes time to uncover.

Yes, the draft that I sent my agent was already a third draft. And what of it? It was a solid draft, but there were areas that needed strengthening, new storylines and motivations suggested that tickled my brain and made me light up and go OH FUCK YES. And isn’t that…one of the reasons we seek out agents in the first place? To push us to write a better book, the BEST book we can put out without an editor?

I’m reframing my earlier crash-out. Instead of thinking, “My agent had a lot of notes which means my book was bad and he hates it,” I’m going to think, “My agent read my book and was inspired to imagine ways to make it even better.” And what a gift that is! Writing a tale that gets someone else’s imagination going? That’s the gift.

From the question box ❓

Is it better to write under your name or a pseudonym when you're coming from a different writing background than the one you are currently in?

Alright, a friend submitted this question for the week, and I’m going to answer it with the caveat that this is just my opinion as an author, and that I don’t know everyone’s individual situations. Your individual privacy concerns, agent, editor, etc, might mean that you WANT to use a pseudonym regardless!

For me, though, I’m kind of living this question. I got my start with public writing in journalism; the Internet is littered with articles I’ve written, whether they’re personal essays I penned for Bustle, author interviews I conducted for We Need Diverse Books, or one of the many articles I’ve written about book bans and why we should fight them since 2021. I have made my mark on the world wide web in nonfiction, not fiction.

But it’s because of that mark that I don’t want to use a pseudonym when I start my authorial career. I have really great SEO under my own name, lol, and I’ve built up a (small, but engaged) audience with my newsletter, my articles, my interviews, my podcast, etc…

Again — some people have privacy concerns for which they NEED to use a pseudonym. Some agents or editors might recommend changing your name depending on how different your writing experience is, or whether it was successful. Hell, I may sell a book and learn my editor thinks it’s best to not be aligned with the Karis Rogerson who did all that writing online! But for now, I’m sticking with my name, because I want to capitalize on the 10 years of work I’ve already done.

Hope that helps!

From the shelf 📚

Kiss Me, Maybe by Gabrielle Gamez

I promise I planned to write about this book BEFORE I made my Threads post and 12 million people were like “Hey this sounds like Kiss Me, Maybe!” I had read an ARC of this book and looooved it a few months ago, and didn’t even realize I was pretty much doing the same thing the main character, Angel, does in the book. Whoops!

Angela is an asexual lesbian who goes viral on TikTok and decides to use that new fame to get her first kiss. She’s helped along by her favorite bartender/maybe crush Krystal, except the fireworks keep happening between the two of them and maybe Angela doesn’t want to kiss anyone else?

This book! Was so sexy. So swoony. So delicious. I ate it UP. I loved Angela’s storyline involving her cousins and the cyberbullying and her best friend and just…ugh!!! It was so good. I HIGHLY recommend this sweet and spicy sapphic romance!

Alla prossima 👋

This weekend, Greta Thunberg is on her way to Gaza on the Madleen, bringing aid and food to the Palestinian people who are trapped and starving and being bombed. And they’re in danger, threatened by Israel. And my heart is with them, because they’re doing it — they’re putting their bodies on the line to live out their values. It is admirable and scary and I wish for them safety and success.

Palestinians deserve to LIVE, and to live well, to thrive. This escalation of the genocide that we’ve been watching for nearly two years now? It’s horrifying. Children are being vaporized, y’all. This is unconscionable.

At the same time as my thoughts are with Greta and in Gaza, they’re in LA, where Americans are also putting their lives on the line to protect their neighbors against an invasion of ICE, LAPD, and the military. Power to the people. We have no king.

— Karis xoxo