Greetings Readers!
A quick ‘what am I reading?’: Priory of an Orange Tree. My goal is to have it finished before my next newsletter though. Maybe I should start a slow-reading online book club for all the other slow readers out there.
To business!
I’m back into the swing of writing Death and Rest (draft 3). I was very excited the other day when I deleted my “rewrite the beginning” note. My second draft notes are exceptionally easier to read than my first draft notes. Those notes still haunt me. I feel like THIS draft and the following one are going to really set the tone for how I want for DNR and the story I want to tell with the three books that will follow it.
I am, however, super nervous about DNR’s release because once it’s out my timeline is LOCKED IN and until now, I could play with it as much as I liked.
My character’s personalities are really starting to blossom and the friends who I have been living with for over a decade are really coming into who I imagined them to be. There’s still a lot between me and the book releasing next year, however if Time, Swords, and Blood taught me anything it’s that I can get my story where I want it to be -even if there’s a lot of trial and error. As I type this, I am less than 3000 words away from my word count goal, and since I’m not even half way through this draft, I’m getting the feelings he’s gonna grow bigger.
I’m happy to say I reached 100 followers on Instagram this month and 200 on Tikok. That is not a lot of people in the world of content creation, but I like to imagine that many people in my house. That’s still a lot of people. How many more can fit in my house though?
Content creation is still a fickle mistress to me. I’m trying to find what works and what doesn’t. I’m trying to curate exactly how I want my online presence to look. Right now, my Instagram profile is a lot less unhinged than my Tiktok, but I’m having fun with both and that’s what matters. I’m presently using good ol’ Pinterest as inspiration on how I want my Instagram to look and I’m basically just throwing ideas into the wind and hoping they stick to someone when it comes to Tiktok. I’ll get there. Good things take time right? Tuesday’s are my content creation days and I spent five hours doing everything from taking photos to editing and it honestly blew me away that it took that long. I also almost forgot about posting this blog, so at least I remembered that too (haha).
At the beginning of July I went through a huge writing fest where I spit out around 50 000 words in one week for an idea I had about isolation and horror (and yes it is the same universe as Time, Swords, and Blood AND Death and Rest). I originally thought I might be able to word vomit 40 000 more words before the end of the month so I could have a first draft (or what I lovingly call Draft Zero) of a novel sitting in my court if I want to venture away from DNR on a more casual basis. I want this project (we’ll call them Project 6) to be a shorter novel so I can practice restraint while writing. Since that writing spree I have not returned to it, but I still have two and a half days left of the month so maybe I will return to it between chapters of DNR and spit out a whole novel for me to work on in time for the end of August. I’m really excited about it, since I’m also dipping my toes into a different genre.
July has been a very creative month for me. In addition to Project 6, Projects 7-9 have also entered the chat. I keep thinking my brain will calm down with ideas, but here we are.
I remember that writing a 2500-word essay in high school was the hardest thing I was ever presented as a teenager, yet here I was with Project 6 cranking out 3-7000 words a day.
In other author news a brand new indie bookshop opened in Oshawa which I immediately had to check out! If you follow me on Instagram or Tiktok you might have seen my little video about it. I asked the owner if she would consign some copies of Time, Swords, and Blood and was THRILLED when she said yes. Book Dragons Den is owned by Samm, who I have had the pleasure of getting to know. She created a truly beautiful shop that I hope flourishes in the coming months and years. It is incredibly exciting to see an indie shop in the area and you should definitely check it out if you’re in the GTA (and beyond). You can also check her website out here: https://www.bookdragonsdenshop.com/
Continuing on the bookshop train, this is your reminder that I have a book signing at Indigo Oshawa on August 9th! I’ll be there at Noon and will be sticking around for a couple hours. Tell your friends! Come say hi! I’m really excited and I can’t believe how fast it has snuck up on me. I love a good chat and it will be good for me because maybe I’ll get used to talking about my book to people outside of the internet.
ANYWAY, that’s all I have to say for this month. Remember to enter my contests, if you feel like winning free stuff and get your friends to subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on the socials, etc.. As you know, I usually only send an email out once a month so no spam from me!
Chat again in August!
HAM
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