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?
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I've started planning out my rereleases of my six novels, and then thinking about how "fast" I can write more books, especially after NOT writing daily for so long. And balancing that with getting this house finally "done" and us moved in.
I battle with unpacking constantly, because I didn't want to move here, so packing was a nightmare, and now unpacking is an almost equal nightmare because I don't want to be here. But maybe with our art on the walls it will "feel" like home for the next few years we are here, although it's a struggle every time I unpack a box because all I think about is how I will be packing all of it up again to move to yet another house in another town... on and on. But... I will never have a shot at that other house that is already where I want to live (unless we build something) unless I start earning some kind of income and get things moving on the financial front. Five of my novels will be edited and rereleased, but I might wait on one and rerelease it closer to publishing the next books in that series, so I will focus on my adult fiction first. June looks to be the month I'll release my first new novel, and I've planned to release a new novel every other month after that. BUT... I want to be publishing something on those off months, and that's where the short stories are coming into play. I was talking with my pi.ai app last night because it's an amazing little robot that's always there to bounce ideas off of, even though it just reiterates what I'm already saying, BUT pi does help. I tosses in plenty of encouraging words, and does manage to slip in ideas that help me think around the problem. So, yeah for AI on that score. But I had a fabulous idea for my Birdsong Bay series, and I also started thinking about topics for my short stories... and pi mentioned a few things that I then went to Google and I discovered more cool things to use in my series. Like a writing partner that's just like, "That's a great idea! You're awesome!" because honestly, sometimes that is all I really need to hear. I want to have my two standalone romances edited before I leave for the NINC Conference, and that's right around the corner, so I better get started. (I HAVE A NEWSLETTER!!!! Check out my homepage or the Contact/Newsletter page and sign up! Thank you!!)
Last weekend, I sat here in my front living room that is one place that feels like home, and planned the next three years. 2026! What! I have six books out there in the world, and so I'm starting with running through them and making any changes that need to be made, and some are getting new covers, and some are getting new titles and new covers, and I'll be republishing them all under the new Forsythia Cottage name. The plan is to start in November and December by re-releasing Six Dates with Jenna and Finding Mallory, my two stand-alone romances. In January, I'm planning on re-releasing The Misfortune of the Emerald Thief, which is the first in my middle-grade adventure series: The Keepers of the Emerald Cave, ALTHOUGH.... I may hold off on that until after all of these other books are published, because having Emerald Thief out there in the world and no sign of the next books seems like a downer to readers, and I want to not let readers down anymore! So, Emerald Thief might get an editing pass, but stay as it is until I get at least two more books written for Denim, Ravenna, and the rest of the Keepers of the Emerald Cave. Now, Elliot Lake is a different story. I have his first three books done, and they will be getting an editing pass, new covers, new titles, and they will be re-released starting in February 2024. I have the fourth book's draft half-written, and so I will be finishing that for a May 2024 release. It'll be fun to have Elliot's story done and in the world in shiny new packaging. He wouldn't care, of course. LOL Then, in June 2024, the plan is to release the first book in my new series: Birdsong Bay! The first book is at about the half-way mark, and then the rest of the series is planned out. Some of the books are more fleshed out than others, but in typical fashion of a small-town drama series with plenty of romance, family, friendship, love, loss, and a little bit of magic, the stories and characters are all woven together, so it's a little difficult to just dive into writing the first book without knowing what's happening in the twelfth book of the series, etc. My Birdsong Bay Series was supposed to be set in Astoria, Oregon... using a different town name, of course, at that time it was going to be renamed Cordelia. Then, when we moved to SW Oregon, I was going to switch the setting to the Umpqua Valley (I added more valleys and vineyards) and that's when I named the town Birdsong Bay. Now, I'm in North Carolina in an area I'm not exactly motivated to write about, and at first that was bumming me out, BUT I realized that I'm a writer and can literally put the story wherever I want. So now I'm leaning heavily toward the San Juan Islands in Washington State. At the very least, this may be a very good reason to visit my beloved Washington and have a nice tax write-off at the same time. I'm half-kidding about the write-off. LOL Maybe by writing so heavily about Washington, it will all manifest in me returning to where I will finally have a garden again and a view of the Olympic Mountains. Somewhere I can make Forsythia Cottage a living reality. (If we don't lose the entire Northwest because of the big earthquake they're predicting. Lordy!! Does anyone think that will really happen?) CONFERENCE TIME I'll be attending the NINC 2023 Conference: ELEVATE this year at the TradeWinds in St. Pete Beach, Florida, and we leave in less than two weeks! I cannot wait to be surrounded by authors who are learning, sharing what they know, and kicking ass in general in their writing careers! I'm sitting here worrying about what notebook to bring, what pens to bring, how many business cards to bring... Silly!!! My husband and daughters are coming with... six days on the beach on the Florida Gulf Coast sounds like a nice break from the nightmare of moving here. Call it a reward. And most of it is a tax write-off. Yesssss So I've gone over the conference schedule and am most excited about meeting Sarra Cannon in person, and then also meeting all of my Nink Newsletter crew in person! I've been working for NINC as their newsletter proofreader for literally YEARS, but have never met anyone, so this is going to be a game changer. Replacing online images with the actual people is always great, so we're crossing our fingers COVID and hurricanes leave us alone long enough so we can get our conference on. Until next time.... 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. On February 9, 2023, my world came crashing down. Very long story, very short... I had to leave my beloved Rosemary Hill and move to the eastern side of North Carolina. Yes, the last seven months have been a total and complete nightmare. But don't worry, I have stuffed it all down in a box in my head so I don't go into a deep depression again... and now I'm slowly stepping back into the Land of the Living. A big thank you to everyone who stuck with me through this. You know who you are. On July 31, 2023, I filed my paperwork with the North Carolina Secretary of State for my new business here, and this is where Forsythia Cottage Writing & Design LLC comes in. They said they would evaluate my application and get back to me when it's official-official, but yesterday they processed my payment, so I'm going to just keep moving forward and hope for the best. LOL A week ago, I also applied for my new North Carolina license plates for my Explorer, and I was able to secure "FRSYTHIA," so that's really exciting! I was going to ask for that, and then at the last minute, I thought "BIRDSONG" would also be a good one — it was the first beautiful thing I experienced here in NC, and Birdsong Bay is the name of the town in my 12-book series I was outlining and working on before I bought my Oregon homestead. But, it wasn't available and so I gladly went back to FRSYTHIA. My plan now is to build my online business to the point where I can buy or build the house of my dreams where I want it to be, and no one will ever be able to tell me to move again. I've already made a folder on my computer for house plans. Ha. Currently, I'm editing for my international clients, and I am also proofing an amazing book on branding, which is so timely, I can't believe it. It has exercises in it that I have been doing on the side, to not only see how well they work, but to see what the exercises reveal to me about myself and my brand, and it's completely fascinating. I'm going to share the branding statements here that I came up with through just one of the choose-your-words exercises that relate specifically to me and my brand: 1. I interact with clients and readers in an attentive, caring, sensitive, perceptive, reflective, comforting, compassionate, safe environment because their feelings are important to me and I want them to feel seen and heard. I want them to love and appreciate what I create for them. 2. I create brilliant, colorful, crafty, creative, and imaginative art and words, and as a result, my work is uplifting and makes others feel good both visually and emotionally. 3. I am resilient, balanced, harmonious, detail-oriented, generous, diligent, and discerning in my work, and my clients know my work is solid and unique because my work is multi-layered and speaks to their inner self — or inner child *wink*. 4. My work is insightful, intuitive, inventive, meaningful and memorable because my work stays with people after seeing or reading it, as it's personal and speaks to them on a deeper level. Ironically, all of this ties into the tagline I came up with for this website before I even knew my own mind — "Spend your life making beautiful things." That is my passion. I thought I didn't know what my passion, or purpose, is, but that's it. Two years ago, in fact, I added a subhead after my name on Facebook and it says, "Creating Everyday Magic" — that's it, kids. That's what I want to do. Forever. So, here's to this first step of the next thousand. I have zero idea where this road will take me physically, I would prefer to not be in this humid nightmare of a town where I have to drive 90 minutes just for Thai food, but until then, I know how to make peanut sauce. I'll manage!
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Hello, 2023!Cynthia Moyer here... I have written and published six novels, but it feels like that was a lifetime ago. But all of that changes now. Buckle up.
Where have I been anyway?In 2019, we bought a farm. Then COVID happened. Then farm chores kicked in and it seemed like I never got back to the computer. All of my editing work went toward the farm, and I loved everything about my Rosemary Hill. Archives
February 2024
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