I haven’t blogged in a while because not much has been going on. The three beta readers who planned to do a full read couldn’t meet my deadline so I had to scrap that extra read after a few weeks and turn the manuscript over to my sister for editing. We fell a little behind schedule as I got the pages to her later than expected and as I only allowed four weeks for my sister to get through the manuscript and she needed a couple weeks more as she has a stressful day job just like I do. But I received the manuscript back and accepted most of the revisions. I then gave the manuscript to my mother, who has been dying to read it, for one last proofreading, which she finished on Friday. Today, I finished writing the Thank You page. So after I post this, I’ll turn the final version over to my interior designer to complete the typesetting and layout. I’ll also be ready to send it to my audiobook narrator, Laura Bannister. If everything goes well, I think the print book and audiobook will release in November.

rtomoguchi TikTok page
Don’t be too blown away by the size of my following.

As far as my marketing effort goes, I didn’t make much progress with all the time I had while waiting to get the manuscript back. My efforts on Instagram fizzled and I’m making more of an effort on TikTok, but even that’s inconsistent as I have a hard time coming up with content. I had some pins made using the design from my favorite tattoo—a scribbled heart with a banner that has the names Yelena and Orly on it. I’ve sent a few of them out to readers hoping it’ll be a nice surprise. I’m also having bookmarks made, but I don’t have much visual sense so I’m hoping my designer can make something nice out of my ideas.

I hired a programmer to move my author website from tomoguchi.com to rtomoguchi.com. I did this to better match my social media handles.

I didn’t pick up any new hobbies during my time off from writing either. Instead, I’ve been reading and watching reality TV. I fell in love with this show called Ainori Love Wagon, but already watched all the available episodes. I hope it comes back for more seasons.

I’m stalling from posting this. Part of that is because I’m hoping I’ve forgotten something that I can mention to make my life sound more interesting. The other part is because I feel nervous to send off the manuscript for production. To assert that I am absolutely done with it, after three years of work, feels so final. I wish the moment was more unique, but here I am, sitting in my usual seat, at my usual Starbucks, on my second drink.

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I got a tattoo of Audrey Hepburn

What can I say? I didn’t recover like I hoped. If I was coming out of my depression, I never fully got there. I’m not at my worst, but

I’m still depressed, and I keep thinking suicide…When you’re done with this book, it’ll be okay to let go. My shrinks know that’s what I’m feeling and we’re working on it, hoping to find something to occupy me after I’m done.

I’m moving forward in the book, but at a snail’s pace. I reverted to handwriting on notecards to try to map out Chapter Eighteen. It feels different, not staring at a computer. I don’t know why this chapter is so difficult and I have no idea when I’ll finish it. My daily post-it note goals are far from ambitious; if they were, I know I’d be setting myself up for certain failure; I’m failing more often than not as it is.

Yesterday, I told my psychologist that sometimes thinking of suicide feels like a relief. Sometimes I even feel excited about it. She asked me what I’d be relieving myself from. I said, “Depression and loneliness.” I think it made sense to her. She nodded. I’m going to be installing an app she recommended that will help me remember our plan if I ever get close—who to contact and such. It’s in my to-do list to install today.

I don’t know if anyone reads these things. If anyone does, posts like these are not cries for help. I have therapists who are very good to me, and I have a small but strong network of friends I can reach out to. I guess I’m just writing things down for those who are wondering when the hell the book will be finished and what led up to my own ending if indeed, I end up having one.

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It’s been over a month since I posted. It’s not that I’d forgotten, I’ve been waiting to have something happy to post. But the truth is, I’m writing about suicide while feeling suicidal. I haven’t mentioned it here, but I’ve talked about it in my personal (private) blog how in sync Orly and I have been emotionally while working on her final book. Loneliness. Isolation. Despair.

Yesterday I woke thinking about the James Joyce quote I have tattooed on my stomach:

“One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”

For decades, I always saw the full glory of some passion anchored in my youth—when I loved more intensely and my daydreams were larger. But it occurred to me yesterday that it is right now that I am in the full glory of some passion with Orly, as I’ve never felt so invested in something I was writing. On the one hand, this felt great and redemptive. The pinnacle of my life had not happened twenty-seven years ago as I had thought; it’s happening now. But on the other hand, it’s telling me to, or at least making me feel okay with letting go of my life when I finish writing her story. I told my shrink, two sessions ago, that I need to find something to occupy myself with when I finish this book, and I need to find it now so that it’s there waiting for me, because I don’t see what my purpose will be when I lose Orly to her story being over.

There’s a stage play I’m considering writing, but I don’t feel strongly about it, and I don’t know how to create passion. I wonder if the passion I feel right now is the result of writing Orly for so many years or because there is so much of me in her final installment. Throughout Scribbles of the Empress, I find myself offering Orly reasons to live and at the same time I’m panicking to find my reasons after it’s finished.

This isn’t a cry for help. If I want to convey anything, it’s that I hate feeling like this. The last sentence of the opening paragraph of Chapter Four is: Wanting to die hurts in a way that no other pain does. Orly and I are saying that in chorus. We hate feeling like this.

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