Summer has hit us… a couple of days over one hundred degrees, and I can feel myself melting when my feet hit the pavement. So I sludge back inside, wishing my air conditioner would have superhero powers and cool the house like an air-conditioned car. But alas, such is not the case.

What’s been happening?

I’ve got into the groove of clicking out 2k words on average every morning this month. I make my way onto my writing couch, throw my feet up, and read the last paragraph from the day before. I contemplate and consider, daydream and decipher. Then I lose myself to the moment and write until that time where I really can’t write anymore for fear of being late for work.

One of my favorite lines written this month:

The blinding darkness made the feeling of her elbow touching his all the more confusing, his mind festering with risqué ideas. To the point where he became uncomfortable and started fidgeting, earning a pinch and a hiss to keep still.

What have I read this month?

• How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger

  • I listened to this one as an audiobook during my commute to and from work. What a dense piece of work! The refreshing thing was the amount of scientific references rather than opinions.

• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

  • A true classic that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while. It was a delightful read and the reason behind me allocating time to writing every morning.

• The Dark God Series by John D. Brown

  • My fiction read for the month. I’ve raced through the first two books, Servant and Curse, and am now wrapping up the series with Raveler. The magic system in this series is highly captivating and unique. Definitely worth a read!

What are you reading? I’m looking for some new fun stories to lose myself in! Send me a message!

Finally, the status chart:

Only a few blooms are peeking out of my garden beds, but the Mile High City sprouted a few tornadoes this month. It reminded me of a time when I was a teenager driving along in Denver and looked up to see a twister in the distance, judged the distance, then resumed driving and jamming out to the radio.

What’s been happening?

Editing. Editing. And more editing. But actual editing this time, rather than just proofreading and burning sentences containing poor English. I’ve been trekking through the first novel, highlighting, adding comments, and contemplating arcs. Not rewriting anything yet so I can keep a laser focus on the overlying forest rather than the individual trees.

Anything new?

I’ve discovered more about myself when it comes to writing this month. And it’s that I’m not a huge fan of plotting. With these novels, I went through and wrote down a comprehensive outline of all the arcs, then for each chapter I would create an outline of what would happen. Then when I’d sit down to write, I would fill in the fluff. But the story was already written. So the passion wasn’t there. And I was bored.

So I’ve flipped the script and switched back to discovery writing with the second novel, and lo and behold, two more characters immediately arrived on the scene. And now I’m holding on by my fingertips as the story speeds off, excited to see where it goes and what I’m going to discover along the way.

Finally, the status chart:

Ahhh. The sweet smell of victory with finishing my first draft. And this one was a long time in the making, especially since I scrapped my last novel that strayed too far from the realm of fantasy.

Just to whet your appetite, here is the first paragraph of the first draft of the first novel (whew - what a lot of firsts!):

The Fog Isle lay smothered beneath a fog so dense it devoured everything. For weeks each year, neighbors became phantoms, swallowed whole by the pearled gloom. Tonight, as the clock tower tolled midnight, the village exhaled in unison—a symphony of snores and the plink-plink of fog-drip pooling into glass jars. Yet beneath the quiet hum of routine, a ragged rhythm pulsed: the scrape of boots on cobblestone, the rasp of a rope tether trembling in a drunkard’s grip. Without it, he would have lost his way, unable to see his own hands.

What’s next?

I start writing the second novel tomorrow, allowing for the remaining plot pieces to fall where they will. When I’m not drumming away on the keyboard for that, I’ll be editing the first novel, ensuring all the pieces make sense and there aren’t any characters with magically color-changing hair — those that are supposed to have only one type of hair color that is…

Anything new?

Spring has snuck up, and the last snow of the season decided it would rather not visit. With the warming weather, I spent the weekend hiking, enjoying the new vegetation in the Rocky Mountains, and prepping the garden and flowerbeds. Time to get out and enjoy the wonderful weather!

And oh my, how the kitten has grown! This little feline of cuddles is almost a year old and still joins me for a snooze whenever I can escape long enough to write on my couch.

Finally, the status chart:

There it is. The full plot of my next novel, the first in a trilogy. This picture is the first of its kind and was created using Obsidian, a wonderful app that has permeated every corner of my life. From keeping track of items at work to world building at home. The picture above was created with the Canvas feature, allowing me to graphically map out different arcs of the story.

For my first novel, there was zero plot. I had an idea and then put fingers to keyboard and let the story unfold for me. Which was a good storyline, but there was little character development and foreshadowing. Then I wrote another novel (never to see the light of day) and there was a loose outline of what I thought was a great story. Then I rewrote that plot at least five times and ended the journey with no story.

So here is my third stab at deciphering my brain and what it needs to create spell-binding stories. I spent almost two months ironing out the journey of our new hero and the hardships he is going to face along the way. So now when I sit down to write, I already know what I’m writing and can focus on elements of writing more than the story.

We shall see if the effort was worth the story…

Writing The Heist was a great journey for me. I learned through it what it felt like to create a side character, Erica, that was much more interesting than the main character, Julian. So I pulled Erica into a main character position like she deserved, but doing so turned it into a book with two main characters who both viewed the world from a first-person perspective. A truly difficult feat to accomplish effectively and was out of my current skill set. 

Another major learning curve was plotting. For my first novel, August Fairview, I did absolutely zero plotting. I took an idea and ran with it, letting emotions and ideas pop into existence wherever I wanted. I then didn't address the plot holes before publishing because, to be frank, I was quite done with August and wanted to move on to my next book. Which is why August Fairview won't remain on the shelves forever. For this novel, The Heist, there was an outline. A humble attempt at a plot, and that outline changed even when I was writing the book, so I can't say I held true to it. So once the book was done, I looked back and saw many holes that would take quite a lot of patching to fix. This weekend, I started writing my third novel, which will be the first in a trilogy, and I have spent two months plotting the story. So I know everything that will happen; the world has been built, and lives have been fixed. But I will let the characters’ personalities remain unknown so that they can build authentically as I write. 

My best discovery from writing is that of learning more about myself. Writing over a hundred thousand words in ten months has taught me that I love reworking stories numerous times, and that rework is much easier in a true multi-tiered plot rather than paragraphs. So I bid that work adieu and wish for you to hang tight because my next novel should be much quicker coming to you.

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I wouldn’t have known if not for my inside man at the police dispatch center. As soon as the alarm triggered, a text message buzzed across my phone from an unknown number. 5-0 notified. A simple text, only two words. But enough to cause my heart to miss a beat. I couldn’t accelerate the plan, I could only pray it would play out before things escalated. My plan was to leave the hired thugs behind anyways. They shouldn’t know who I was, I’d never met any of them before, and would like nothing more than to see none of them again.

From the first time the leader of the Russian gang blew his fruit loop-flavored vape cloud, I should have taken that splendid indicator for the street sign it was. These guys turned a difficult situation into a downright disastrous one. So much meticulous planning went into this heist, planning that was torn to pieces once they started behaving like gangsters shooting up a club.

Twenty. I need to leave in the next ten seconds. If I left when the timer hit one, it would be too late and the building would be surrounded. There were no police cruisers outside yet, only pedestrians walking past the wall of one-way glass, unaware of the bodies painting the ceramic floor only feet from them. They could see the armed security guards loading up the armored cash van idling by the curb, but there was nothing unusual about that.

My heavy breathing had built up a layer of moisture inside the ski mask pulled on over my face. Its sticky moisture clinging to my cheeks, threatening me with an early heart attack induced by claustrophobia. I ached to rip it off, but the wide-eyed woman staring at me from where she lay prone on the floor was a sharp reminder I needed to keep my anonymity.

I’ve learned a chunk about myself and the way that I think through the many revisions I went through. There’s nothing that brings a deeper understanding of how the mind is wired than putting it on a blank page and critiquing it multiple times!

And now to set sail into uncharted waters with pushing the book out there for all to see! Nerve wracking! But thrilling! A true dream come true, and I am already scribbling through a different story that I am aiming to publish in early 2025.

So here it is: August Fairview and the Crescent Moon Staff. It is steeply discounted for the time being so that readers far and wide can check it out. The only request I have is for you to leave a review so I can know what you think.