Going Live in ONE Hour, Daydreaming on the Page, and... 💖⚙️📚

Fun library news!! 🎉

Happy almost-Friday! This is a rare two newsletters week because I’m going live on YouTube in one hour and I’d love for you to join us! At 5 pm Central time, I’m joining S.D. Huston on her YouTube channel for Charmed Chats & Happily Ever After Sprints! We’ll be discussing writing craft, romantasy, play games, and spend some time writing.

If you’re not a writer, you can always use the writing portion of the live for other productive tasks. As for me, I might be scribbling scenes for a book idea that won’t leave me alone (more on that in a bit) so that when I’m through with revisions for existing projects, I have notes ready to go.

You can join us live here!

Graphics courtesy of S.D. Huston. I'm so excited for today’s live!

There’s always a chance one or both of my cats will make an appearance during the live. As you can see, Hazel takes her office cat duties very seriously. 😂💖 (Her daughter, Willow, is a little more camera shy, but she will probably be resting by my desk.)

Find my books at the library!

Today, I received the notification that Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast is now available on Hoopla! If your library uses Hoopla, OverDrive, or Palace Market Place to loan ebooks, you check out Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast. Monsters and Machines is on both OverDrive and Palace Market Place, but hasn’t updated yet on Hoopla (the upload time is notoriously slow!)

I’ve written before about how to request books at your local library. If your library doesn’t have my books in stock yet, you can follow the steps to ask. I’ve also signed books for libraries before because readers and librarians have brought copies with them (with permission) to conventions when I’m in their area. 💖

99c Sale Ends on Monday!

In case you missed it, the ebook for Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast is on sale for 99c until Monday.

Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast will be on sale until February 9th!

Daydreaming on the Page

One of my favorite parts of the writing process is daydreaming on the page. I usually start off by putting on a record or stream instrumental music and handwrite my ideas in one of several journals. It’s freeing to jot down anything and everything that comes to mind without the pressure of deadlines or wondering if a concept works. Not everything will make it into the outline, but it’s important for my process to explore the possibilities.

Over the last several days, I’ve been writing down snippets for a possible book idea that refuses to let me go. When I’m deep in revisions, I can’t dedicate much time to drafting the shiny new idea (or I’ll never finish anything), but writing down ideas as they come to me helps make sure that I don’t lose the story when I’m ready to commit to it.

I do the same thing for my panel ideas, which I’ll also be working on more in the coming days. Many of the conventions I’m attending later this year have panel pitch submissions due soon. If you’re going to any of these events and have something you’d like for me to talk about, please let me know! I’ve given presentations on everything from the 1893 World’s Fair to Monstrous Women and fairy tales.

For DemiCon, the Outpost theme is all about the influence of Westerns on modern sci-fi and fantasy. I’m considering doing a panel about weird westerns or maybe the influence of westerns on the Gothic (Quincey Morris, the American cowboy in Dracula, comes to mind.) I’m still thinking about exactly what I’d like to present about (and I need to make sure I’m on theme with the Gothic direction I’m thinking about.)

Right now, the new book idea only exists in this traveler’s notebook, along with other ideas, snippets, and musings.

Happy reading! (And see you live in an hour!)

Kelsey