Like most writers, I have a bunch of manuscripts in the proverbial drawer. There’s my first book, the X-rated dystopian thriller Screw Your Courage, which (rightfully) got rejected over 100 times. There are the partially-written sequels to that book (I know, I know).
There’s an attempt at an erotic romance, about a female bass player, a bad boy rock star (also with the surname Mercer; I definitely borrowed heavily from him when writing Malcolm in Temper), and the cinnamon roll videographer entangled with them both.
There’s a sort of women’s fiction-y story about an author obsessed with the actor playing the lead role in a movie adaptation of her bestselling novel, which is definitely not an elaborate fantasy involving me and Oscar Isaac, no not at all, why do you ask.
Then there are a few Drawer Books I’m actually quite fond of, which aren’t so much locked away as patiently waiting their turn. I worked on a modern-day gender-swapped Dorian Gray adaptation for well over a year between my first book and Temper, and every so often I take it out of the drawer and attempt to revive it. There’s something there, something that keeps drawing me back, I just don’t know how to make it work quite yet. Maybe when I’m older. Until then, I’ll just keep on rocking out to the epic playlist I made for that project.
And finally, there’s one book in the drawer that I absolutely intend to go back to: The Thorndales, my Gothic family drama about a woman with chronic pain and the two broody bisexual stepbrothers who love her (and, sometimes, each other). At one point, I thought that was going to be my second book, but it wasn’t the right follow-up to Temper. It’s time will come, though. I miss those dark and stormy weirdos too much to leave them shut up in a drawer forever.
