Newsletter - August 16, 2022

Our oldest girl turned 16 last week! She's super-sensitive about pics showing up on the web, but we took her and her friends to one of those places where they can bowl, laser tag, play games... in theory rock wall climb, but it turned out to be closed... and we had family in town for the weekend to celebrate. My oldest is a great basketball player, but she bowled a 6 in her second game (not shown in the pic). Not that I did much better. Still, we had fun. In a snafu typical of our summer schedule, we forgot to pick up the cake... but that just netted her two cakes, one rather impromptu, and one a day late.

I completely (almost completely) turned off work on Sunday, and had a rare-of-late good day of writing--Elliah is officially off on her first adventure. We are about 14k words deep at this point, and I think the pacing is a little off. Hard to say exactly, because I suspect this book will have to be a tad longer than the previous ones to contain her adventure. She has to hit a lot of places, go through a lot of teen angst, and there's a good bit of info to unpack.

They wanted to head into the Heartland? He’d stopped in E’anashys to speak with our High Elf teacher, but a Warder wouldn't leave the Contentious just to seek out the last tiny town we’d called home. He’d been heading into the Heartland all along, looking for answers amidst the High Elves.

As though reading my thoughts, Hughelas continued his explanation. “My father thinks the trolls are up to something big. And he’s got this idea in his head…” I glanced over at Hughelas—his light skin made the blush of his cheeks all the more apparent.

Familiar with the feeling of parental embarrassment, I threw Hughelas a rope. “Why does he think that about the trolls?”

“Because they scarcely fight us any more. ‘Peace and prosperity have broken out like a plague,’” he said, imitating his father, pulling a giggle from me.

“So…” I said, laughing despite myself. “You are on a quest to halt a ne’er-before-seen level of peace?”

“Quite so,” he chuckled back.

Finding/Growing my audience -- I could use some help. I don't spend a ton of time on finding and growing my audience, and it shows. I'm still under a hundred reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for Book 1, and a tenth of that for each of the later books. I have some efforts underway, including a podcast book review that is trending to the end of the year or beginning of next year, some contests I entered, and some weird deal with Amazon that never quite seems to materialize. But for the most part, I'm stagnating. I'd love some ideas that don't involve my constant presence on social media. But also a shout out to Briana Briggs for releasing several posts of my books into the wild over the last couple of weeks for one of those day-of-the-month photo challenges. That's kept me from sinking into total oblivion.

I look forward to more brew & book events--even if I tapped out my friend-network in the first go. 🍻

Okay, time to dive back into work... hopefully I don't completely lose momentum from Sunday's writing.

o To-Do list for writing last week: