Happy Friday!
It's one week since I returned from Illinois and the inaugural Working Draft Summer Camp organized (a feeble word for the monumental effort involved in putting together that kind of creative enterprise) by Gregory Ashe.
A few words about the retreat. I thought it was well worth the price of admission. It really is a writing retreat versus a conference, with plenty of built-in blocks of writing time as well as daily lectures on topics including improving craft, optimizing social media, and managing the stages of your career. VERY REFRESHING. I came home energized and inspired--that's not an exaggeration.
Would I go again? Absolutely. Not every year--not next year--but yes, I would go again. So yes, RECOMMENDED.
While I was away, the SO phoned to say the library ceiling had fallen in -- pretty tense conversation because I kept saying ARE THE DOGS OKAY??, and he kept talking about the flipping drywall, and finally I screamed at him and he yelled back "Yes, the dogs are fine!" NOW YOU TELL ME WHO WAS IN THE WRONG THERE?
Now I'm back and operating at full capacity again.
If you are a member of Patreon, this month you'll be receiving the previously promised I Spy coda and the character interview with Adam Darling and Rob Haskell from Winter Kill, and perhaps a couple of other little things, but my main focus will be on finishing The 12.2 Per-Cent Solution so that we can then dive into The Haunted Heart: Spring as well as Jack's POV on Body at Buccaneer's Bay.
(I'll also be working on the logistics for putting together some kind of writing seminar--that would ideally be in the fall, although if it starts to feel super complicated, we might be looking at early next year.)
And, like everyone else, I'm working on my little author direct shop.
Once I've got Kit and JX safely stowed away, the plan is to jump into The Medicine Man Murders. Will it be completed by the end of the year? That's the goal, but as we've all seen, life has a way of crashing through those fragile barriers.
Hope you're enjoying these last weeks of summer!
I think my heart just stopped at the words "new FBI trilogy". I'm glad you had a great experience at the retreat and are feeling energized.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I've had the idea for the FBI trilogy for years, but kept coming up with reasons not to move forward. But the truth is this is something I really *want* to write.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI recently stumbled over the Art of Murder series and read it in a few days – the kind of "finishing the one, in disbelief about how deep I fell for the characters in the shortest amount of time, super excited about the next, feeling a certain amount of anxiety around book 3 because I 'only' had two more to go, and then taking actual reading breaks to not finish the fifth one too quickly"-way of reading… and now actually, I re-read the first one and now am half-way through the second a second time. I fell hard.
And I just wanted to tell you that. That it's a lovely series and that I absolutely fell for the characters and that I'm a sucker for the pining and the hope and the way you make us, the readers, realize how much Kennedy loves Jason without Jason fully grasping it. I adore them.
Thank you for writing this series, it found me at a time where I absolutely needed it. It has been the most perfect escape and I'll be re-reading and re-loving this for a while. These two and their on-and-off-pining-loving-insecure-determined-happy-unsure-everything romance are an absolute joy. Lots of love!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write! That's lovely to hear. I admit that Sam and Jason are two of my all-time personal favorites.
ReplyDelete