The Process of Writing and Designing my MFA Thesis, Under Water: Stories

Under Water: Stories was published May 10, 2025 by Elizabeth Publications

What goes into making a book? A lot. Actually, more like a crazy amount. 

Under Water: Stories made its debut in May 2025, but several things happened behind-the-scenes of this fiction collection. Not only was this book my first publication as an author, but it was also my MFA thesis. And with that, came some drama and a whole lot of stress.

The MFA Timeline

I knew when entering my MFA program I was going to walk away as an author of a book. But what I could have never anticipated was how quickly the book had to come together and how fast the publishing process was. 

I received an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore in only three years. You may think that is a huge amount of time to develop a book. In theory, yes it is. But surprisingly, 75% of my thesis was written within the last four months of the program. And I was one of the lucky ones. Many of my peers had 100% new material for their thesis manuscript. 

My MFA program left me breadcrumbs throughout the first two years to build my thesis, but majority of the work was done during the last semester. In this semester, I worked closely with my genre editorial group for rewrites and revisions (and some gutting) of my manuscript. However, what makes this particular MFA program a bit chaotic is that during the editorial process you are simultaneously designing the book.

Traditionally, book design is one of the last steps in the publishing process. First, you have editorial where you fine tune the heck out of the manuscript before the designer gets their hands dirty. But I was knee-deep in the dirt that was typesetting, margins, and typography while I was still waiting for manuscript feedback from my editorial group and mentor. This resulted in a total of 4 book covers being designed with a title that never went to print and a chapter fully typeset that was later rewritten and needed new typesetting.

Overall, the timing was not ideal. In fact, the schedule caused several moments of panic as design professors expected decisions to be made before editorial professors looked at my manuscript. During thesis, a lot of things felt to be done backwards: design first, editorial second…oh but wait editorial changed the book so redo the design. It was, to put it plainly, mayhem.

But, by the end, I had a beautiful book coated in my blood, sweat, tears, and dreams. And this book, I can truly say, is one of my best pieces of work and is something to be proud of. 

The Creativity Before The Book

Despite a big chunk of the thesis manuscript being new writing, there were several pieces of the book developed early within the MFA program. 

During the first semester of the program, in 2022, I had a TikTok series of a Creativity Art Journal. This journal consisted of class prompts and my own inspiration. Each week, I would do a new piece of artwork (whether it be painting, sketching, or collage) that paired with a prose or poetry free write.

Many of the entries are random (such as a nude self-portrait that helped me get out of my comfort zone or a collage of paint plates that created a flock of birds), but a few of the entries contained special pieces that I recycled to publish in my MFA thesis. 

To make my book special and uniquely me, I wanted original artwork for every story in the collection. Some were illustrations specially for the thesis, but others were repurposed Creativity Art Journal entries. “Under Water” and “She’s a Bluebottle,” which are linked stories within the collection, are examples.

These two drawings were sketched in the creativity art journal. With some photo manipulation magic, I turned the journal pencil sketches into the artwork printed inside the book. The sketches were originally created to pair with a lyric essay about what it means to be a woman. Now, they live to represent the story of sisters reconnecting with each other while dealing with grief.

Even though I didn’t know it then, the random art I did just for fun in 2022 would be used to create a beautiful book in 2025. 

Book Development: The Full Process

Making a book means making decisions. But the first choice any author has to make is the what. What kind of book are you writing? And what do you want your book to be?

Early within my MFA program, I knew I wanted to center my book around bluebottle jellyfish. 

The discovery, much like some of the development of this book, was random. While playing with my poetry in N+7 (replacing a word with the 7th word down in the dictionary), a line in my poem read “bluebottle fairytales.” I had no clue what a bluebottle was, but after some quick research I was invested. 

A bluebottle jellyfish is a sea creature that cannot survive on its own. It’s reliant on other bluebottles to live. I instantly saw a metaphor there and knew that was what my book was going to be about. 

But taking that idea and getting to the final product was a whirlwind of a journey. 

The Writing Process

Believe it or not, but Under Water: Stories was originally a collection of fairytales titled Bluebottle Fairytales. You may be wondering why the title was changed, despite it being used in previous blog posts and book marketing. Let’s just say, my MFA professors wanted changes that ultimately made the book better. 

The first version of the manuscript was rough, to say the least, because the writing was forced. The theme was disconnected from story to story, which made the book crumble. Why? I tried to make the stories fairytales when they shouldn’t be. Instead of rewriting everything to force the fairytale theme and justify the title, I was advised to retitle the book and let the stories stand as they were. My stories, by themselves, were literary fiction with a mixing of fantasy. They were women narratives about connecting and disconnecting with family, struggling alone, and finding support in others. These stories were the essence of a bluebottle on their own, and I realized I didn’t need the title Bluebottle for the theme to be there. And I certainly didn’t need the title Fairytales for the whimsical nature to stay alive. The writing did everything I needed it to do, and forcing in a title that was not right for the book was a bad idea. 

But where did the title Under Water come from? You can thank my characters Penelope and Robin for that. 

During the major rewrite of the manuscript, where I scrapped the fairytale idea and focused more on the literary, I put a lot more emphasis on my linked stories “Under Water” and “She’s a Bluebottle.” I used my character Robin, who is a marine biologist, as the catalyst to educate readers on the meaning of a bluebottle. To accomplish this, I wrote a prologue letter written in Robin’s voice. And then there is Penelope, whose story in “Under Water” showcases the emotional turmoil of a bluebottle left alone. Penelope and Robin are the stars of the show. Henceforth, the book is the title of their story. 

The writing choices that lead to the final product were all thanks to the decision to cut the fairytale idea and have the bluebottle theme be less on the nose in the book presentation. Bluebottles are still embedded in the book, but the book doesn’t have to scream it on the outside. The fun is discovering it on the inside. 

The Book Design Process

The design process is the most exciting part of the book development. There are no limits and you can get as crazy as you want. Sometimes the crazy works, and sometimes the crazy doesn’t. You never know what works until you try it, for both writing and design. 

But what makes the design process different from writing is that you can visually see your ideas grow in front of you. Writing is still growth, but it’s not staring you in the face the way design does. Designing a book helps you imagine what your writing will look like on a shelf. It takes a fantasy and makes it real. 

Yet, with design, there is a lot of trial and error. You make mistakes to the point of wanting to pull your hair out and time gets away from you as you stare at the computer screen burning your retinas. 

For my book, the trial was jellyfish tentacles. I love book covers where the artwork interacts with the title. And when the book was still titled Bluebottle Fairytales, I imagined jellyfish tentacles strangling the title. But let me tell you…jellyfish tentacles are the hardest thing for an artist to hand draw. I tried, way more times than I like to admit. I went from an octopus impersonating a jellyfish to a dehydrated and nearly dead jellyfish. None were good options.

Now, I knew I wanted interior artwork and thought an ocean scape would be a nice touch inside the book. I had no clue if I could successfully paint an ocean, because despite years of practice I still doubt my capabilities as an artist. But for this book, I went in full force with the mentality of, “Why not just try it?” And so, I did. I tried to paint an ocean with the idea that if it works, maybe it could be my book cover too. 

And let me tell you, it worked! While painting, I thought I was carelessly stamping the brush around and aimlessly using colors. Maybe the secret to being an artist is being thoughtless because it worked for me. And now, I have a beautiful acrylic painting of a coral reef for my cover.

Once I knew the book cover and branding was the painting, things started to click from there. And I still got my interweaving effect with the ‘S’ in Stories strangling the ‘A’ in Water.  

After the cover design process, I learned that simplicity is the better approach. The more complicated covers were messy, not enticing, and wouldn’t sell. And that was primarily because they were complicated. 

Even though the cover is the most crucial part of the book design, it wasn’t where my most grueling design choices were. For the cover, I had one choice. Jellyfish or Corral. I chose corral. But on the interior, I had several choices that were hard to make:

• Black and white printing or color printing for interior artwork

• Full bleed artwork or bordered artwork

• Large outside margin or small outside margin

• Drop cap or no drop cap to begin a chapter

• Garamond or Minion Pro typesetting

• Pages numbers centered or in the right corner

The list can go on, but you get the idea. 

After way too many test prints of various margins, typefaces, and layouts I finally had the book set up to make the fun choices. These choices were the groundbreaking ones. The ones that change the rules of literature and start new conventions. 

Overall, my book is rather conventional in terms of typesetting. My margins are consistent on every page—except for one story. 

“Must See The Bones” is a letter from a ballerina explaining to her sister what led to her death. To fully immerse the readers, I increased the outside margins with each page turn. The margin increase is small and so subtle that you don’t notice it at first. 

But once the story intensifies and you start to understand why she died, the margin increase is too large to ignore. The text is tightened on the page as the protagonist suffers from anorexia. Readers experience her weight loss for themselves and by the end, the text is so small it barely fits on the page. 

Changing the margin size on each page is certainly not the norm, but that’s why I did it.  The best stories of the ones that make you feel you’ve lived it. 

In terms of artwork, I originally had 9 colored artwork for the 9 stories. One was a stained-glass window for the story “Sunlight in Her Hands,” with bright colors that glistened. 

It wasn’t until I received the price quote from the printer that I realized colored artwork was not an option. With only two months before my book release date, I recreated all of the artwork to work in grayscale. Luckily, I was able to work smarter and tweaked the current artwork. There were only 3 pieces of art that needed brand new black and white illustrations.

For the stained-glass window art, with the colors removed it was best to also remove the background. It was too chaotic with all the shapes and lines without colors to contrast. Now, the stained-glass is still there, but only with what I wanted to reader to focus on anyway: the woman and the sun. Although at first I thought not printing in color was a loss, I now see it as a gain. Again, simplicity is better.

Overview

All in all, to make a book you want to be simple. Once the simplicity works, then you can get crazy. But starting crazy only hurts you. 

The writing and design process includes a lot of decisions and some tricky choices. You don’t find the problems until after investing hours, days, or months on the idea. But that is to be expected. Books aren’t meant to be made in a day or even a few months. Yet, mine was. 

Four months. I had four months to rewrite a manuscript, finish edits, and design a book. I am grateful for my MFA program because I love the people I worked with and value the skills I learned, but the timeline was its downfall.

The books coming out of the program are fantastic, but that’s not without an overwhelming amount of panic and rushed decisions.

But as authors, we learn to survive the mayhem of publishing and get our books to the printer in time. Because by the end of the day, you have a book you can be proud of. 

Under Water: Stories is available at the Elizabeth Publications Store and other book retailers. Learn more about this book and see where you can get your own copy at elizabethpublications.com/under-water.