Hello from Peaks Island, Maine.

 

I have news from my writer's cottage. I typed “The End!” 

 

Though it's a mess in the middle, my work-in-progress really came together for the climax and ending. I've been roaring through at warp speed. In fact, last I wrote about it on July 17th, I was at 84k words. Eleven days later, I'm at 120k, which is oddly where most of my books end up. Kind of magic, right? 3k is a wonderful day for me, but I had 5k and 6k days to wrap this baby up. I can't even tell you how wonderful that feeling of flow is when it's all coming together, the last of loose ends being tied up without me even trying, the adrenaline pumping hard, a marathon runner with the end in sight. 

 

Not that I'm even close to done. The August 11th deadline is still scaring the heck out of me. What I have is a pile of unorganized words that may have buried within them a few diamonds. Now I have to go sort through the mess, delete grand chunks of hogwash, find those diamonds, and try to polish them into something worth sharing.

 

I might have mentioned the name of the new book over on my Substack. You'll have to subscribe if you're interested in looking more deeply under the literary hood of my machine. Whoa, that sounded weird. I'm keeping it anyway. I'm so grateful to everyone who has joined so far on this new platform. All you have to do is click right here. You'll find some other recommended Substacks to follow, but you can avoid all of it and just follow me if you like!

 

On the Substack note, I'll be hosting a couple of giveaways of Before We Say Goodbye in the next few days for my subscribers. Seriously, find me over there. The water is warm! Think the best of Facebook and LinkedIn but sans politics and with more exciting writing. I'll definitely be hosting a release party there on September 16th. Who amongst you doesn't want to follow the madness of my mind as I try to wrangle words for a living? It's a car crash that happens several days a week.

Veering in a different direction, I thought I might share a couple of newsletters (not Substack-related) that I follow religiously.

 

Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, has become a wisdom whisperer for me, touching on topics circling around making the best of our time on earth. I absolutely adore everything he has to say. Click here for his newsletter.

 

If you're a jazz fan, the other one that I came upon recently provides wonderful stories about the jazz greats and always includes new recommendations along with listening links. Click here to subscribe to JazzWax; I just can't get enough.

 

What newsletters are grabbing you right now?

 

That's it from me, maybe I should go do some editing.

P.S. Please forgive me if I don't respond to your emails. Know that I joyfully read each one. In fact, your notes keep me going. It's just that I best put my energy into meeting the next deadline. Thanks for understanding.

Catch up on old newsletters here.