Unfinished Business: A Novel Left Behind

I once wrote a novel about a college graduate trapped in a dead-end job. She staved off an eventual emotional breakdown by self-diagnosing with every mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

They say, “Write what you know.”

It wasn’t entirely autobiographical. For one thing, the main character didn’t have a husband, and I didn’t have a dog. The main character had a degree in psychology and a lifelong commitment to vegetarianism. I graduated with an English Journalism degree, and my foray into vegetarianism lasted only long enough for me to forget most of what I’d read in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. (That’s a lie. I still remember the meat packer who fell overboard into the rendering vats, but turns out my love for a slightly-pink hamburger overshadows my fear of cannibalism.)

I titled the novel A Self Diagnosis and spent months querying every agent listed in The Writer’s Market. Some responses were encouraging, and I even received positive feedback. Donald Maass, agent and author of Writing the Breakout Novel, wrote me a personal letter describing my writing as promising but lacking sufficient conflict for publication.

He was right.

I took his advice to heart, rewrote the book with his ideas in mind, and thought for sure that an agent and a publishing deal were just around the corner.

But the rejections kept coming. Over and over, I heard the same thing: “It’s not right for us.” One agent described my book as too caustic for the Christian book market and too Christian for the secular market. Apparently, the world wasn’t ready for a sarcastic, self-deprecating Christian who didn’t have her act together.

I’ve thought about my main character a lot over the years. She and I were the same age when I last left her on the page. What is she up to now? Did she marry the guy I made her fall for? Did they have kids? Did those kids turn out cynical and mistake-prone like their mother?

A Self Diagnosis is stuck in the early 2000s, but I’ve thought about resurrecting it, setting it twenty-five years later. With the freedom of independent publishing, I no longer have to work within the constraints of traditional publishing.

But I’ve changed so much over the last quarter-century. I wonder if I can still relate to my main character. I don’t need to diagnose my mental disorders anymore. I turned that over to the professionals as soon as we could afford health insurance. Now, I mostly Google normal things—like best restaurants in the area, cheap airplane tickets, and whether that lump on my back is fat or a cancerous tumor. (The doctor assures me it’s just a lump of fat. Did she really think that would make me feel better?)

Whether or not I return to A Self Diagnosis remains to be seen. For now, though, I’m excited about my new projects. There’s The Ding Dong Altar Boy, written with my brother, Donald Osborn, and Chameleon Flowers, which I’m also working on. My goal is to release The Ding Dong Altar Boy by summer 2025, and I’m not setting a timeline for Chameleon Flowers just yet—but I’ll keep you updated.

Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll come back to that original novel. For now, I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my writing journey—and, as always, I appreciate you following along.