Last December, I posted the above picture on Facebook and announced that I was done my memoir. Three and a half years of working on the beast–a huge project that was connected to my Masters degree in (MFA in Creative Writing) from The City University of Hong Kong–and I had a first draft ready by December 15th, much to my own surprise.

It’s amazing what deadlines will do. The deadline was generated by an amazing offer that I received from a published author and mentor for whom I have much admiration and respect, both professionally and personally. He offered to read the full memoir if I could get it to him before the holidays.

Robin Hemley kept his promise. I am so grateful to him not only for being my first reader and a clear, wise advisor, but also for being the giver of such a golden gift: a deadline. And reading this was not a small gift. It’s 500 double-spaced digital pages! The prose is sometimes quite dense. It’s a lot.

Again: GRATITUDE.

Many people have asked me about the project. Quite honestly, it sprung off of my “Queer Girl Gets Married” blog and grew from there. I realized that the blog style of writing was limiting and I really wanted to tell the deeper story, so I began writing it. Then the program fit my project and I enrolled at the university. Throughout the process of pursuing my Masters degree, I learned so much about writing and so much of the early writing got a serious re-working.

Here’s the elevator pitch:

This is a memoir built around seven themes. Like a key has seven chords, this book’s themes weave in and out of each other the way the chords weave around each other in a song. Like a song, this is prose that can be played. And, it will stick in your head.

But just because I know you might be curious, here are a few more details:

Ultimately, this is a story about transition whose root is music, but whose most powerful theme is family. From there, dissonance, harmony, sub-dominance, and (the less poetically named) sixths and sevenths themes sound out just as naturally, but take a bit less of the spotlight in the narrative.

Is your curiosity piqued? Sorry, I can’t give it all away now, can I?

All you need to know is that this is an exciting time! I can’t wait to share it with you. But first things first: find a publisher.

I’m on it.

~E