October/November/December 2022 Update

Books signing and celebration for Hawthorn Creek in mid-November.

The last quarter of 2022 flew by, which explains the delay in reaching out to you with this update. I generally shoot for a bi-monthly update, but I’ll explain the reason for this delay.

The new anthology was being finalized in October, and then we had a great release party in mid-November to celebrate. November was also National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I participated and helped lead a group of participants throughout the month with write-ins, both in person and virtual.

Book 2, The Blighter’s Shadow, is quickly reaching its first full draft. It is going to be as long as the first book and likely slightly longer. Book 1 had a large cast, and that cast continues with the addition of a few more. At this point, I am debating on how to best divide it up. Longer books are sometimes divided into Part I, Part II, etc., so I may tackle it that way. The great thing about writing is that it can be handled so many ways. If you have a preference, let me know – I’m open to suggestions on helping your experience be as rewarding as possible.  

Early in September, my daughter decided to finish high school early. Meg and I were very supportive, and Kylie was able to reach that goal. When she made that decision, she also decided to re-locate for the spring semester to attend college virtually while living with her mom in Pennsylvania. Kylie will also be working to save up additional funds for college. Fortunately, her hard work in high school helped her accumulate scholarships and grants. By early spring, Kylie will decide on which college she will attend full time in August 2023. With all that in mind, I tried to spend as much time with Kylie before her departure. In late December, Caleb, who had joined the Air Force early in 2022, finally received leave. Starting this month, he’ll be attending a training session that will last until October 2023. For the last two weeks of December, I enjoyed some blissful and relaxing time with family.
Writing Highlights:

• Progress on the first draft of The Blighter’s Shadow continues.
  • Final chapters are being written and editing continues.
  • The cover and interior art are being finalized. There will be some additional art for the interior that I am excited to share.
  • A late-winter 2023 publication is still in the works, but it could be mid-spring by the time its completed.
    • Important: I am looking at scheduling Beta Readers to assist with reading the entire book prior to its final publication. I’m looking for at least five willing folks to read the full book so that I can get an overall impression of the book. Plus, you get a free e-book for helping! If you are interested, please let me know via email. I’ll get you details on the next steps.
• Writers of Warrensburg finished its short story collection. It is called “Hawthorn Creek: A Collection of Secrets” and you can find it here. 
  • You may have already read the anthology. That is great! If you have a moment, I encourage you to fill out a review at Amazon, BookBub, and/or Goodreads. A simple one-line review is great – you don’t need to write much at all. And reviews help a great deal!
• I completed an interview about the anthology, writing, and my inspirations. The interview was posted in October and is here if you are interested.
• I helped lead local participants for NaNoWriMo. We had numerous write-ins, through which several folks reached their goal of 50,000 words. I did not reach that amount, but I had set 20,000 words for my goal. I was pleased to exceed that amount.

Inspiration: Making Good Habits
This will be a short inspiration, but it ties into something that many of us struggle with: how to create and maintain good habits. Late in December, I read a relatively new book titled Atomic Habits. James Clear, the author, published the book in 2018, and it has gone on to have 10 million copies printed. Yes, 10,000,000. 😊 To have that many copies printed is a huge accomplishment, given that it was published less than 5 years ago.

I won’t spoil anything about the book for you, but I will say I’ve seen immediate benefits for myself from my first reading. Given its worth, I’ll revisit the book to help refresh on habit building and restoration.

James Clear offers excellent and intuitive suggestions on how to create good habits. Some of the suggestions I had already been following, which was refreshing, and they helped embolden me on some habits that I had been taking for granted. And some of the suggestions were completely new to me, but Clear explains the methods in such easily understood ways that implementing them will be fun.

I’ve always been inspired by other folks who are able to stick to good habits. And I’ve been inspired by folks who have permanently kicked bad habits. Guess what? Clear offers suggestions and methods on how to break the bad habits, too.
Sometimes, self-help books can seem like little more than temporary hits that fall to the wayside as time passes. This is not one of those. Atomic Habits can help anyone seeking to better themselves with creating good habits—habits that will benefit you throughout life.

James Clear’s website also offers a wealth of knowledge and information about habits. Check out his site here. 

Awesome visit at the end of 2022.