I had such an amazing chat with Niko from 10:00 to 12:05… he read the manuscript (and by read, I mean he ate it, he consumed every quirk and felt the ebbs and the flows) and for the first time I felt truly understood, especially when he saw that the story actually centers on death and absence, like a donut where everything exists only to define the hole in the middle. He told me about this documentary where two families live on opposite sides of a shared door but they never know what lies behind it, which mirrored the second door in Mona’s memory so perfectly… that memory that reoccurs and plays out again and again where we get so close but never actually show what is back there. It means a lot to have those things seen. After talking to him I suddenly realized how I want to change the ending and how I should drop more clues and hints here and there to guide the reader through the shadows. He saw how the characters are making a leap to change something even if it doesn’t happen in a single week in summer, and how the acts of remembering and forgetting and confessing just play around with the timeline… he said my syntax is poetic and the chapters work like standalone vignettes, that is what I’ve been thinking: chapters. I’m rethinking the name and format of my chapters too. That’s the nice part about having someone who understands and appreciates your writing read your work, but also having them tell you what was confusing and hearing how they misread a scene that I thought was quite clear. It felt incredibly good and satisfying to finally have a conversation about my novel after a journey that has been so solo and invisible… I never had the habit of talking about my work or myself to anyone so it felt really good, truly very good, and now I am so keen to have a few more people read it and just start the revision.