Take a trip with me

Star Wars and a cemetery

💻 what I'm up to 💻
Whew April has been a month! A very good one, to be clear. I spent most of the first two weeks in London for Star Wars Celebration, followed by a little work, then a little fun. I came home and unpacked and rested and then it was tax day, which is a special kind of hell for anyone who receives 1099s (I sent my stuff to our accountant in March but she got behind and anyway, we filed at like 10pm on the due date, it happens). Now April is nearly over.

But let’s go back to London, shall we? Star Wars Celebration was a whirlwind of panels and prep and signings and seeing so many friends and meeting new ones! If I saw you at the convention, I’m so happy I did! If I missed you, I’m bummed and I hope our paths cross soon. If you bought one of my books and came to a signing, thank you so much! If you came to any of the panels I hosted and said nice things, also thank you! Preparing for Celebration is a lot and it gives me stress dreams for weeks, so it’s always lovely to hear kind words. I have a lot of fun nerding out about Star Wars with fun interviewees, and it ends up all working out.

After a day of sleeping in after Celebration ended and moving hotels and then doing a lot of sitting and reading and sipping hot chocolate, I saw The Ocean at the End of the Lane with some pals and the play was as odd, enchanting, and creepy as you would hope. Then we did some exploring around Brompton Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven gothic garden cemeteries around London. It sprawled, headstones of all shapes in sizes in every direction in various stages of falling apart or being maintained. The combination of care and benign neglect made for a few hours of dream-like rambling between stopping to examine headstones that caught our attention, winding around demanding squirrels that were way too friendly with humans, and ducking under flocks of pigeons and ravens.

It was one of those utterly perfect days of being in the moment. Time had no meaning. There was just the path, the gravestones, and friendship.

📘 my book things 📘
Being away for two weeks in London this month threw my schedule a curveball, but here's where things stand. I have a lot going on. Or at least the potential for a lot. And that potential will dictate where most of my writing time will go in the next few months.

• I’m deep into revising my middle grade fantasy and should be sending it to my alpha readers early next week.

  • Related! If any of you would be up for beta reading this book in the coming weeks, please let me know. You should be someone who likes to read middle grade stories and fantasy stories and can read a draft of roughly 60,000 words(240ish pages) as a Word doc or PDF and provide general big picture feedback about characters, pacing, and the like within a month. If that sounds like you, please let me know! I would appreciate it.

• Once that draft is off to my agent, I’ll be fully outlining my adult cozy backpack fantasy and drafting if time and schedule permits.

• I have some IP projects in various early stages right now. We’ll see what shakes out into actual contracts and when.

And my theme park romcom… stay tuned!!

Next weekend I will be a guest of honor at AtomaCon in Charleston, SC. I’ll be on some panels and doing at least one signing. I hope to see you there. (Also if anyone has food recs for Charleston, please let me know).

📺 what I'm watching 📺

 Up Here
A musical romcom with Carlos Valdes (a.k.a. my favorite person in The Flash TV series) and Mae Whitman set in New York. Yep. It’s silly and sweet, and while it is somewhat too up and down, the pure moments are so pure and they are both so much fun in their roles. Bonus points for realistic depiction of a New York living space for someone new to the city trying to be a writer and working in a bookstore.

 Mrs. Davis
Okay for more silliness in the most unexpected way, Mrs. Davis. This one is about a nun on a quest to find the Holy Grail for an algorithm that basically runs the world and the algorithm is called Mrs. Davis. I’m three episodes in and utterly delighted–especially as I’ve needed something lighter in my current watchlist.

📚 what I'm reading 📚
Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni
Sorry, Bro is a story of queer love, rediscovering and embracing roots, and not settling for anything that's just fine in love or life. Nareh's journey here is all about being proudly and authentically herself, down to fighting against getting assigned only fluff stories at her job and exploring her bisexuality. I devoured this one on the flight to Celebration!

The Stand-In by Lily Chu
Okay I love a doppelganger story. Here, Gracie Reed, who just got fired and has a lot of personal Things going on, is a lookalike for famous actress Wei Fangli. Fangli needs a break. She pays Gracie to be her stand-in for events and then Gracie gains many more Things to deal with, including an enemies to lovers relationship with Fangli's BFF Sam. It also features great threads about building a business (the perfect planning and scheduling tool, be still my heart!) and mental health.

I’ve also been rereading The Hobbit for the vibes. It makes me happy.

🐳 something whalesome 🐳
I like wholesome things and the whale emoji is cute so: whalesome!

My husband and I have been plotting ways to make our backyard more welcoming for birds, critters, bees, everything this summer. One part is letting the lawn do its thing and scattering some native wildflower seeds. One of the little things is making bee watering stations. It brought me joy. So far I’ve seen a squirrel use one and found evidence of a raccoon picking bits out of the other one, but hey, all creatures are welcome. Though I hope the bees find them.

🍃 creativity corner 🍃
Here I’ll share tips and tricks that are helping me write, imagine, and/or stay productive.

My writing journey post-school started on the internet. On LiveJournal, then on Blogger, and then for various websites. Double-spacing, indents, headers–a lot of things that apply to manuscript formatting are not part of my day-to-day writing or even some of my non-fiction work. And like an unaware goof, it wasn’t something I thought about until I sent some pages to my agent last summer and he gently was like, so… (and he fixed those pages, like the patient, kind human he is).

I was very rightly embarrassed. Things still come up that I’m not sure about but I’ve found this site all about Shunn manuscript formatting with nice visual, clear examples to be a vital resource.

📃 quote of the month 📃
"It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life." - J.R.R. Tolkien

I think about this one a lot when I’m being more of a homebody than usual and delighting in the little things. You can be a hobbit and still be connected with the world.

If you feel so inclined to drop by Ko-fi, I have signed bookplates and also a mail option in my shop (I have so many postcards and notecards!).

If you have any backyard critter pictures, lawn rewilding tips, or just want to say hi, comment or reply. I appreciate you.