Help Moniquill pay for developmental editing

My novel, Nampeshiweisit, has been flagged as 'of great interest' to a literary agency. However, they say that I need significant developmental editing to improve the central conflict arc and make the voice of the protagonist clearer. I'm trying to raise money to pay a developmental editor.


Anequs has never been away from her isolated island community, one of the few indigenous enclaves that has largely been ignored by colonizers. But Anequs has just bonded with a baby dragon, and thus become the first Nampeshiweisit - dragon rider - that the island has seen in more than two hundred years. That’s something that does not go unnoticed by the colonizing powers that be.


Now, in accordance with the colonizers’ laws, Anequs must attend an academy on the mainland and prove her competence in dragon husbandry and magic. If she can’t or won’t perform to their expectations, her dragon will be put to death.


The odds are stacked against her, as the ministry of dragon affairs strongly disapproves of dragons being bonded to anyone other than young men of the colonial gentry. She finds that there are people in power - teachers, ministry officials, fellow students and their families - who are eager for her to fail. But she also makes friends and allies in this strange place far from home. She and the other outcasts of the school - the only other female student, the only other indigenous student, and the only autistic student - band together in solidarity.


Anequs must navigate two cultures’ worth of traditions and wisdom, trying to fill a role no one has held in two hundred years. There are no mentors who can teach her precisely what she needs to be, so she must find her own path. She rekindles lost traditions, pieces together new ways of doing ancient things and traditional ways of doing new things. She must comply with the laws and regulations imposed on her by colonizers, while also staying true to her people's values and beliefs.