I'm forcing myself to push through the edits on my three Elliot Lake books, because the faster I go over those books, the faster I can finish book 4, and have all of them ready to re-publish and publish... because THEN I can get onto my new novels!

The way my brain works is, it doesn't want to work on the known... it wants to work on the new and unknown. It wants to create extensive name banks to name new characters from, design the cities the new stories will take place in, create the systems of magic the characters will use and rely on to keep balance in their lives... it doesn't want to edit. 

So, today I created a schedule to have the Elliot edits done, have the fourth book finished, and even time to work on their new covers so the Elliot Lake series will be ready to go in 2025. The carrot is working on my new series... and the faster I get Elliot put to bed, the sooner I can jump into Birdsong Bay and create those new novels. 

I've given myself a week to do the edits on the first three books, and then until the end of November to finish writing the fourth book. And I should finish early. Then, covers, front and back matter, bios, and book descriptions for Amazon, and then we're off! 

Birdsong Bay has already tossed off a spin-off series, and so my brain, of course, only wants to work on THAT now too... so, that's what I'll do. Write books, make art, and take care of my family.

It's Surgery Season, so this will be an interesting Christmas. Our youngest just had her 11th surgery at Shriner's in Portland, Oregon... a rhinoplasty that went really well, and she is now recovering. I need surgery on my foot, and two of our cats need dentals and teeth removed. All before Christmas. But, we have no travel plans. And Miss Finn is still battling kidney disease, which means I can't go anywhere anyway with her needing her therapies (fluids and drugs) every other day. 

But getting back into doing the research and brainstorming for my new novels has been a breath of fresh air. So, until further notice, you can find my at the dining table, building worlds between loads of laundry. 

And the funny thing about researching magic and witches and ways to find balance in the universe, I was reminded that whatever you put out into the world comes back to you threefold. Some people need to remember that. 

I am not going to be able to attend any in-person conferences this year, mainly because my kitty, Miss Finn, is battling kidney disease and leaving her longer than a daytime length of time is impossible. She needs meds, care, and fluids every day or every other day... and I have no one to help me do any of that. 

But, I am attending online conferences this year that will help me build my business this year. 

The first was Sarra Cannon's Your Path Forward, which was a one-day seminar, sort of a crash-course in planning 2024, focusing on what you really want... because everyone's path in publishing is different. 

The second is also from Sarra Cannon, and it's her amazing Publish & Thrive! I am really excited that I finally joined onto this one, though, because she is a wealth of information, and now she will be setting up the files as a live index, which means that as an alumni, I will be able to always access her files, and she will be updating her files as things change in the publishing world. That right there is worth the cost of the course. 

Sarra Cannon's world exists on Heart Breathings and you can find her courses and YouTube channel and links there. 

Third is the Indie Inspiration Conference 2024 from Elana Johnson. That is all about our author business and will have a ton of speakers on this topic, and so I am psyched to dig into that too. 

Elana Johnson can be found here, on the Indie Inspiration Conference sign-up page, or on her publishing website, Feel-Good Fiction. 

I'm planning on blogging more, and building my online presence outside of Facebook... every day is a challenge to remember what to do and to cover all the bases, but I am going to try. ​

About two weeks ago I googled "writing associations in North Carolina" and FINALLY hit something--the North Carolina Writer's Network (NCWN) is a nonprofit association for writers based in North Carolina and they are BUSY. Their website (NCWriters.org) is packed with all kinds of activities and help for authors, and I saw they were having a fall conference--this past weekend! 

I was too late to sign up for any masterclasses and I was too late for the conference room rate, but it was only two nights, so I didn't worry about that and booked it anyway after signing up to go. 

Charlotte is only 3.5 hours from the house, so I knew that was no problem, we just had to figure out if anyone was coming with me. Charley could take off Friday, the girls were ready to see something different, our trusty cat sitters were engaged, and so we were all set.

THE CONFERENCE

Oh my goooddddddd..... this writing conference, even only being two quick days, was so incredibly different than every other writing conference I'd ever been to, my head was exploding after the first class. 

The sessions were 90 minutes instead of just shy of an hour, and they were taught by professors and faculty from creative writing programs from local universities! WRITING TEACHERS. WHAT. 

Every other conference I've ever been to have been taught by either really popular authors (trad or indie), really successful indie authors, people who are known for the author organization systems, or those in the industry with a system or product to sell to indie authors. All of that is tremendously helpful, don't get me wrong, BUT to find a collection of teachers in one conference who are actually teaching ABOUT WRITING was magical. 

I felt like my ancient English literature degree was waking from a sleeping curse.

I had a list of things to look up in my spare moments: braided essays, the "pantoum" poetry structure, and "naive narrator." Not to mention the seven values of Buddhism, more on writing memoir, and from the one session I took from a social media entrepreneur... I had so many ideas for my own branding, I was writing that down when I should have been taking notes on what she was saying! 

The speakers and panels were amazing. Journalist turned author Tommy Tomlinson was Friday night, the Saturday morning panel was Patrice Gopo, Jay Ward, and Kimmery Martin. There was a panel on Sunday morning of agents and editors, but I have to confess I didn't pay attention to that because I will never, ever, ever even consider traditional publishing. So I used that time to get some notes together from the day before. 

My courses, for the record:
1. Objects May be Closer: Activating Story Settings, with Bryn Chancellor
2. Greater than the Sum of the Parts, with Patrice Gopo
3. Making Messes: How Character & Plot Thrive on Mistakes, with Amber Wheeler Bacon
4. We Know Your Why, Tell Your WHO, with Jennifer Moxley
​5. Write Your Values, with Misha Lazzara 

I'm busy today getting all of my notes into my Notion, but I'm trying to be better at updating this website, even though no one's coming here yet! BUT -- that okay. I am starting and getting shit down so it's here for the future, and that's all that matters. 

I also have some exercises from this weekend some of the instructors suggested and they're all amazing, so I need to get to those too. 

One thing I did get to do before the conference started was go to the MacTabby Cat Cafe!!! They had two slots available when we were there, so the girls went in the cat room to play with the 12 kittehs in there while I enjoyed my amazing latte and took photos of all of the art and cat things in the cafe. 

All of the kitties are available for adoption, and there was one young man there who had come by himself to play with the cats, just because he loves cats. He said he'd been wanting to get one for a while, and when I told him they were available for adoption, his whole attitude changed. He perked up and went and looked through the windows... then waited until he could go inside. I hope he found a friend. 

We went to Curio after, which was an awesome little juju magic bullshit store (MY FAVORITE) and I found a great little book on being a witch I didn't have by Julia Diaz: Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within, because I'm definitely needing to tap into something to get through this next year, and why not do it with some rockin' candles, herbs, delicious tea, and a new-found relationship with the natural world around me? 

Last week, after we'd had a few days to recover from our week in Florida, the girls and I drove up to the historical town of Petersburg, which is a half an hour south of Richmond.

We made it to a new coffee shop for is, the Restored Cup, and it was so wonderful. They're moving to a new location over the month of October, so in November we'll have to find them again.

This little area is so beautiful. They've kept as much of the old buildings as they could, so the downtown area is this aesthetically pleasing mix of old brick, painted brick, a rainbow of window trims, and plenty of gorgeous doors. Flowers, pretty flags and signs, and murals!

We found a needlepoint store, a tea shop, another little bakery/coffee shop (all of the coffee shops or here are SO SMALL... WHY), and, of course, I took plenty of photos.

I began working for NINC (Novelists, Inc.), seven years ago when I took up the monthly job of editing their newsletter: Nink. I am still not a member of NINC, because the majority of my money still comes from all of my copyediting clients and not my novels, BUT times are changing. 

I still LOVE proofing the newsletter, though, because I get that insider info in the publishing world, advice, tips and tricks from some of the most successful authors in the world today. And that has always included the yearly reports from the annual NINC Conferences that always take place at the TradeWinds in St. Pete Beach, FL. 

This year, I was offered a comp ticket to the fall conference from my team at NINC. They wanted to offer it to me so I could see the inside scoop for myself, and we would all be able to meet in person... I just had to get there and swing the hotel for the week. 

Since I was no longer putting all of my earnings into my farm, I had the money for us all to drive down to Florida in September from North Carolina and stay for five glorious nights. My family played on the beach while I attended all the sessions I could and I got to fangirl all over Sarra Cannon and Elana Johnson. (That's another story.) 

I knew this conference would help me in many ways, and it definitely did. I had to flex my I'm In Public Now, Look At My Girl Clothes! muscles... and I learned a ton of things from all of the presenters: a little craft, a lot of business, BookFunnel, how to pull a story bible together, just everything. It was exhausting and my head felt like it weighed 50 pounds at the end. 

I came home with a renewed sense of I CAN DO THIS and I dug into my plans for my novels. I was really jazzed to make goals that I hope to see come true before our next trip to St. Pete Beach, because Charley and the girls all loved our time at the beach!! 

Look at me, getting my ducks in a row. 

In the last month, I bought a MacBook Air and Vellum, Apple's amazing formatting software to make all the pretty, pretty books I want; I opened my business bank account, and also took out a post office box so I have a fun address to have things sent to all official-like. I have some more paperwork to do, but I'll get to it. 

I imported my first Elliot Lake novel into Vellum just to play with it and it's freaking amazing! So now I will go through all six of my novels and clean them up, fix the front and back matter to reflect my new business name, pop on new covers for the Elliot Lake series at least (I may dive into new covers for the other three too), and then figure out my republishing plan.

I'm official-official with the state of North Carolina and the federal side of things — I have an EIN and everything, and I'm also setting up my books: financial, series bibles, and then future works. Everything is spread out through my various laptops and cloud storage, so I want to clean all of that up and get everything in one place... because I have more books to write. 

I read accounts from other authors out there and it seems like the authorpreneur landscape is as still goofy as ever. You can work your ass off and never make a dime, or you can come in with three books that take off and then Netflix is calling. There doesn't seem to be an in between. But, I know plenty of authors who do this for a living and are tripping down their own paths and still sending kids to college, and so that's my goal — to find my own path to trip down. 

I'm still getting this house together, though, which is sort of slowing things down. I'm still faced with painting a few rooms, hanging ALL the art, lamps, plants, and unpacking. I really want to renovate the kitchen, but no idea when that might happen. So, one day at a time. 

Today, it's the dentist and some editing, and I want to unpack more of our art. And repotting plants that are already thriving in this house. (Hopefully, the next time we move, I will not have to give them all away, because the plan is to move, just not 3,000 miles.)

My fourth Elliot Lake book is halfway written. I want to go through the first three with an eagle eye, make any corrections before republishing, and then zoom through the fourth. That series will have new names and new covers, and I'm changing the publisher from Treetangle Publishing to Forsythia Cottage Writing & Design LLC, which is killing me, because I loved my Treetangle Publishing name and branding materials. But, life sometimes kicks you in the ass and you have to just pick up the pieces and move forward. 

And my new license plate came. It is AWESOME. 

The weather here is still atrocious, but the girls and I have been busying ourselves at the Halifax Art Studio once or twice a week, painting pottery for gifts (which is why I can't post photos), and that has helped a lot.

We also attended a fun little weekend in Halifax where they were celebrating late 1700s, focusing on the occupations of the day... we visited a little print shop, met a woodworker who was demonstrating all the hand tools of the day, an old lawyer's office, a graveyard with headstones dating back centuries (crazy to think about!), and we met some wonderful horses. Then, we were melting (and we weren't the ones wearing the multi-layered wool costumes!) so we headed to the art studio to paint for a few hours before heading home. Lunch that day was amazing pizza from Two Doors Down, one of the two restaurants in Halifax. Dee-lish. We'll definitely get that again.