I’m sending out my first ever newsletter this month!!!

My plan is to send out my newsletter four times a year, at the solstices and equinoxes, because who doesn’t enjoy celebrating pagan holidays and/or astronomical events? Depending on how you like to look at things. 🙂 The first issue will be out by the end of April; the next one will be around the summer solstice, which is on June 20th this year.

I’ve set up a page on my website where I’ll put fun and exciting content for my newsletter subscribers; the super secret password will be in the newsletter. If you’re interested, click here to sign up!

I spent the last few days working on a short story set in Colorado in the early 1880s. I wrote the first draft last year. It was about 1,800 words, and my target for the final draft was 3k. It needed more description and sensory details, which of course required a lot of research to make sure I captured the time and place as best I could. This meant looking at lots of images, like this one from the March 1880 Godey’s Lady’s Book.

I had to research what one might wear to a summer ball, how a lady’s hair might be arranged, what shoes would be worn (which I didn’t end up using in this story – but hey, now I know), and so on. And because this is historical fiction, I had to think about the language and vocabulary of the characters. All of this was really fun, but it took forever. I felt sorry for my characters because I made them dance while wearing corsets. But hey, at least that was historically accurate. 🙂

Every time I write a western I learn something new – and I often learn new things with my fantasy stories as well. I’m using TiddlyWiki to store and organize notes so I don’t have to look things up more than once. This works really well, but it does take time to put everything into my wiki. Right now I have 30+ browser tabs open from all the things I looked up over the weekend, and I need to go through them all and save whatever information I think is worth saving. Needless to say I’m procrastinating…

Another new project I’m working on is curating a short story bundle through BundleRabbit. Check out their cute bunny logo!

BundleRabbit allows multiple authors to put their novels, short stories, etc. together in one bundle which goes on sale for a limited time. This is a really neat way to collaborate on marketing with other authors. For example, someone who purchases a bundle because they like one author might discover another author who has a story in the same bundle. I’ve purchased a few bundles myself, and it’s been a fun way to find new authors that I like.

The bundle I’m curating is called Fantasy in the City, and the theme is about hidden magic in everyday life. There are, of course, many ways to interpret that, so the stories will be quite varied. I’ll post more about this as it comes together!