Hello all! It’s been a crazy year so far, and amid all the chaos there are still some exciting things happening in my life. So go ahead and pull up a warm coffee (if you’re in the Pacific Northwest where it’s cloudy and rainy), or a cold beer if you’re one of the lucky ones with tons of heat right now. Seriously… PNW needs to get with the program.
In May I got a wonderful surprise. My book BLOODFLOWER was picked by Carly Hayward of Book Light Editorial as a RevPit winner. She fell in love with my science fantasy novel that blends a medieval-style jungle setting with futuristic technology and shifters who had transform between plant and human. At the root of it all is a broken heroine out of time and searching for her reincarnated lover. In the last ten weeks I’ve rewritten at least half the book, sloughed off some errant plot elements, and made connections to the larger series as I continue to plot out my heroine’s origin story and her next adventure. If you want to see the query and first five pages for BLOODFLOWER, check out my RevPit showcase piece.
In July I attended The Writer’s Lodge Virtual Retreat hosted by the lovely Jeni Chappelle of Jeni Chappelle Editorial. The workshop was absolutely amazing. Framing each lecture around self-revision techniques, she dove into strategies for writers from goals to characterization to employing a reverse outline. It didn’t matter what genre each person wrote, the methods she talked about were accessible and easy to apply to our stories for each of the writing sessions. I highly recommend this workshop when it comes again!
With August just around the corner, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to prepare for Writer In Motion, a five week blog project to create flash fiction from prompt to polished. I’m one of the co-creators and the project director for Writer In Motion, and I’m so excited to start our third season. Check out the Twitter hashtag #WriterInMotion, or you can follow @WriterMotion on Twitter or @writerinmotionproject on Instagram. I’ve got a few ideas percolating already for my next story, but it will all depend on the prompt image, which goes live August 1st!
And finally… I’m all caught up on client work. This summer has been a ton of fun with some wonderful development and design projects. Some I still can’t talk about yet, but others are already in action:
- In the spring I worked with author Justine Manzano on her website and designing book swag. She is an absolute blast to work, so if you don’t follow her on social media, do it and go make a new friend. Plus her debut novel, The Order of the Key, is fantastic.
- This winter and spring I worked with editor Jeni Chappelle designing elements for The Writer’s Lodge Virtual Retreat. This is another wonderful woman I absolutely love working with. She has wonderful editorial insight and shares my love of writer communities. While her retreat is over for the year, be sure to follow her blog and keep an eye out for news of next year’s retreats or other seminars.
- And for the trifecta, I’ve been working the past month with fantasy author S. M. Roffey and her gorgeous new website. I can’t share the details just yet as we’ve just gone into testing, but keep an eye out next week as she gets ready to launch it to the world.
I have a few more small projects in the works, but today I officially opened my fall calendar. I still have some summer slots available as well, so if you’re looking for design work, a new website, or just want to chat with a professional about book launches, marketing, and where to go next in the digital world, we can schedule a consult. Take a peek at what services I offer, or you can view my professional portfolio and image blends.
That’s it for today! Next week starts Writer In Motion so I’ll be blogging about that again. Hope to see you all there! 🙂
