On Editing: When the house is full of bees.

Editing is hard, but it'll get better.

This is going to be a short update because I am in the deadline cave, which has honestly started to resemble more of a “deadline hovel.”

A few years ago, I was living in Astoria with my cousin. We’d accidentally rented out an apartment in a house that started to break down about 50 days into us moving in. I will always think about this house because there were a couple of coincidences. One of the neighbors was my friend’s ex. One of the other neighbors worked in publishing and we kept almost taking each other’s packages. I was writing CONVERGENCE at the time, and when it came to doing edits, I—of course—get covid leading up to the big deadline.

The day the house started to fall apart was around 2AM on by birthday. I didn’t want to do anything to celebrate because I was in editing hell, but my friends got together and sent me gifts to make it all better. So while I was working, I’m woken up by banging on the door. I realize there’s a fire truck, all spinning lights and everything, parked outside the house. Surprise it was the fireman I didn’t remember ordering. There was a carbon monoxide leak. I don’t remember if I asked for an extension, since at that point I hadn’t slept properly in days (deadline and being sick were not a good mix). In the morning we didn’t have hot water because of a dumb long story that can summarized with: my landlord cut corners. A few weeks later, they start construction, which runs these ugly pipes throughout the entire place. We have no stove. No heat (which didn’t matter until the the fall/winter months). And then one day my cousin texts me and was like, “we have bees.”

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

I was like, “are you sure? are the windows open?”

We call pest control, and find out the bees have been tunneling into the side of the house, into her wall. The animal control guy said there was nothing he could do unless the landlord wanted to literally gut the wall and get the bees out. He did not. So they sealed any crack where the bees could come in through. (They missed my head though.)

I think is related to publishing in general. Maybe I search for meaning in something that is, at the end, meaningless. This is a hilarious thing to admit while I’m editing a book about angels and demons causing havoc in New York City. But back to my metaphor.

So there’s this house that’s falling apart. There’s the tenant. There’s the landlord. There’s the animal control. Then there’s the bees. The book is the house, naturally. Sometimes it needs a bigger lift. Things break that weren’t supposed to be broken. Wiring (see: plot points) that doesn’t make sense, but sometimes the lights still turn on. I started writing this thinking that the landlord is the editor, or the publishing machine. They’re the people who have invested in the work, after all. But I think the landlord is the writer. We have to make the decisions that open up the walls to expose whatever is inside, even if that is a giant fucking bee hive. Honey is good, so, also make of that what you will.

I feel pretty frustrated with the publishing industry. Over the course of thirteen years, my edit letters have gotten shorter (across publishers). My turn around times have gotten shorter, too, which doesn’t help while I job hunt, work freelance, and am in the middle of finishing my degree. So when do I actually get to think deeply and write? Why do publishers take so long, and then expect the authors to make up the time difference? How do I write about rebellion and love when most of my brain cells are consumed with anxiety over the state of the world, rent and bills, still being a good book friend to the community, donating another book to another fundraiser, fight off the demons that have a permanent resident in my head, keeping up with socials so the algorithm doesn’t forget you, etc.

I am overworked and burned out by this industry. But I’m still trying. And I am certain everyone at every level feels this to varying degrees.

I’m in the middle of rewriting half of this book from scratch because I don’t know what else to do and my house is full of bees. {Metaphorically this time.} I am still working hard on this, moving ahead because there is no rest for the wicked. I’m the only one who can get the work done for me, and though I wish the circumstances were different, I have to take this bird by bird. Or bee by bee. I just have to cry in the shower a little bit. It’ll be all right, angel, don’t worry.

And because I have to pause some other writing while I finish up Rebel Angel Book this month, I would like to share the first couple of pages with my monthly fiction subscribers! My monster wills will return SHORTLY.

🐝

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From The Fall of Rebel Angels (2026)

by Zoraida Córdova

PROLOGUE

New York City, November 2022 C.E.

Rio Villalobos had stopped praying long ago, though not out of spite or anything like that. She was simply certain that among every bent and crooked soul crying out for mercy, she wouldn’t be heard in time. If there was some All-Mighty in the celestial shit-stain that was the Milky Way, then God was a kindergarten teacher trying to wrangle everyone else’s kids on a field trip; one inevitably got lost. Rio understood the improbability of a heavenly lifeline. She was too far down the queue and besides, miracles were for good girls, and she’d stopped being good so long ago.