Naptime Novelist Newsletter

A break for July and a peek into autumn

If you need to find me, this is (hopefully, more often than not) where I’ll be.

Hello! I have a confession to make.

Since Down in the Holler wrapped up, I’ve been taking a break from fiction writing to replenish my brain cells and enjoy summertime with my kids, which is a very good and worthy thing.

But I’ve also been procrastinating.

I’ve been doing anything and everything to avoid working on a writing project that has long been on the backburner, and if I don’t do something with it soon, that project may stay on the backburner in perpetuity. I started this particular story around the time my oldest was born, so the ebb and flow of working on it has been very much interwoven with the quiet and busy, peaceful and chaotic (mostly chaotic) seasons of motherhood for the past five years. But now I’ve been tinkering with this story for five years, and I need to give myself a little push to stop tinkering with it and start sharing it and figuring out where it will find a home.

A quiet July

So that’s what I’ll be doing while I take a break from publishing fiction for the rest of July - doing one more round of edits on my loitering story before I cut myself off and say enough, working on some projects around the house, swimming and paddle boarding and lake-surfing with my kids, and snuggling up to eat cookies and re-read Little House in the Big Woods and The Magic Tree House with my daughter.

After today, you won’t see me in your inbox for a few weeks, but I’ll be back in August!

What’s in store for August and beyond?

This autumn I’m easing into a homeschooling routine with my oldest, so the pieces I send out in August and September will be shorter, mostly flash fiction and microfiction.

This summer I participated in several prompt-based writing competitions and wound up with some short stories that I’m very excited to share. The prompts were primarily for fairy tale and fantasy stories, which are a little out of my regular wheelhouse and required me to stretch my skills a bit. So you’ll see a few more fantastical stories than usual come August!

More Judith

Judith will be back in October!

I’m in the brainstorming and researching phase of the upcoming mystery, but so far that research has led me down some morbid internet rabbit holes into the world of rigor mortis, lividity, and toxicology. Fair warning: Beasts of the Field likely will contain a bit more forensic jargon than Down in the Holler, but I’ll do my utmost not to get too deep into the weeds.

Teaser for Beasts of the Field¹:

When psychic detective Judith Temple returns to rural Kentucky to help locate a missing college student, she uncovers an insidious web of backwoods drug deals and family feuds in which blood runs much thicker than water.

Have a wonderful rest of your July, and I’ll see you again in August!

1. I reserve the right to change anything and everything about this teaser if the outlining process takes an unexpected turn! 😆