Hello, First name / my friend!
 

I went on quite the adventure this week and by adventure, I mean visiting a local school to talk about how I follow the voices in m head. Or, as others prefer to describe it, my career as a full-time author. 

 

I went in with a suuuuuper loose outline of what I'd discuss and a load of props simply because it's really difficult to talk about the transfiguration of wispy ideas into structures and tropes and words. 

Image Description: the aftermath of messily unpacking a totebag filled with notebooks, paperback books, and assorted outline notes and calendars in sheet protectors

So, here's what I brought along to explain how the noise in my head turns into something less….noisy:

These also helped me explain the no-headlight drive through the dark that is writing books. 

 

They had lots of great questions for me, especially around getting stuck, getting overwhelmed, getting ideas at inconvenient times. They also asked about my favorite books and what I'm reading, and I'll admit I was not prepared to address that. I scrambled pretty hard to remember what I'd enjoyed reading when I was younger because--ahem--it was not the right age group to discuss obsession with Kennedy Ryan's Before I Let Go or Tessa Bailey's Wreck the Halls, both of which will be top-tier, hands-down favorites of the year for me. I will talk more about both in the future but both are shining examples of why those authors are just so damn good at what they do. I am feverishly awaiting the next books in both series. FEVERISHLY, I say. 

 

I hope you're doing well, my friend!

 

★ Please enjoy this gift of Most Likely to Fall In Love by Tracey Livesay, who wrote the unparalleled American Royalty series and just released Have Yourself a Billionaire for Christmas, a just-one-cabin, snowed-in story featuring a Scrooge-y CEO and the homesteading humanitarian who ghosted him months ago. I can't wait to dig into this one.

 

★ In case you missed last week's Halloween visit with Noah, Shay, and Gennie, you can read it here. 

★ I will be at the Sweetgrass Author Event in Charleston, South Carolina on March 23. I'll have a limited preorder coming later this month/early December. Let me know if I'll be seeing you there!

★ In a Jam merch is available for a limited time through Novel Grounds (Naked Provisions to come, I swear!)

 

★ Shucked will be narrated by Jason Clarke and Christine Lakin (dream cast!) although recording will not start until 2024 (sob).