The Measure of Things

Hello, Fellow Wanderers.

Well, it turns out I’ve been writing into the void for a while.

Apparently, a technical issue prevented subscribers from receiving notifications when I published new Fieldnotes. I spent today wandering around Wix and Google, and while I may be a bit savvier, I am also a lot crankier. However, I do believe the issue has been resolved!

There haven’t been too many Fieldnotes this past year, as my creative capacity has primarily been channeled into the ten thousand revisions of my book. But a few thoughts have managed to find their way onto the page, and I hope you'll take a moment to browse the archive and catch up on anything you may have missed.

In the meantime, quite a bit has been happening with my novel.

After two rounds of beta reading, I’ve completed the final revisions of my manuscript. Beta readers are a writer’s first readers, and they offer frank (and often challenging) feedback. Their perspectives have been invaluable—and if YOU are one of my treasured beta readers: THANK YOU!

Now that the manuscript is complete, I have begun the long, slow process of seeking a literary agent to represent my book. Querying requires persistence, patience, and a high tolerance for uncertainty. (It’s a good thing I’m no stranger to uncertainty here in my afterlife.)

And now, there’s something I’ve been looking forward to sharing with you. My novel finally has a title—one that has taken me a very long time to excavate, born out of questions I’ve been asking myself for years:

• How is it so easy to believe that something cruel is also necessary?

• How much harm are we willing to overlook in the name of a greater good?

• When we finally recognize how our deepest convictions have allowed us to justify that harm, what will we choose?

• And what do we do when loyalty to a system demands that we sacrifice the truth?

  
  

For me, these questions are not theoretical. They have been my close companions these past several years as I reckoned with who I used to be and what I did in the name of purpose. I’ve had to confront things I once believed were good and right, acknowledge the harm I accepted in their name, and examine the stories I told myself.

I carried those questions into this novel, arrogantly believing I had already wrestled with them from every conceivable angle. But Sidra, my relentless protagonist, refused to let me off the hook. She challenged me with questions that became increasingly troubling and deeply personal. Each time I thought I’d reached the bottom, Sidra gave me another reason to keep digging.

Somewhere in all that digging, I found far more than the story I’d set out to write. I found the measure of myself. And so, 638 days after I began writing, I am delighted to finally reveal the title:

THE MEASURE OF MAN AND ANGELS

I have no idea what the road to publication will look like or how long that journey will take. But I know one thing for sure: this story deserves to be told. Whatever comes next, I intend to see Sidra’s story into the world.

And while Sidra’s story begins its journey toward publication, I find myself standing at the beginning of another. Next month, I’ll begin outlining my second novel. I’m excited to return to the early, exploratory stages of writing where the possibilities are endless—an exhilarating freedom I have become quite addicted to.

Thank you for joining me on this curious journey. I’m glad you’re here, and I look forward to discovering the unexpected places this afterlife might take us.

Warmly,

Sarah