My mother-in-law stayed with us for a while around the 4th of July. Nobody tell my kids I threw shots of them in my newsletter or I'll never be allowed to again. (You know who you are, J...!) In theory, my oldest reads my newsletter and will notify me of her outrage directly, but I don't think she actually opens it. We shall see. 😁

Not much to update. Book 2 is still with the structural editor. I made a few paragraphs of headway on Book 3. I cobbled together a first pass of a storyline for that other opportunity I mentioned regarding a book which will be set in a game world, but there's been no updates on nailing down a contract (though I wasn't expecting to hear anything yet either). I don't want to spend more time on it until we have a contract, but I find it distracts me from Book 3 of Thaumatropic Roots. I know many writers juggle multiple storylines at the same time, but it's new for me.

I've been reading more of Lindsay Buroker's books in what has proved to be a bit of a down time for me in writing. It's amazing how many of the same paradigms we chose, where I thought I was being original. It still amuses me that I stumbled onto her books by looking at the Amazon "Also Bought" of my books.

I had a group unfollow my newsletter after I included a bunch of writing stats a few weeks ago, but I also had several folks who liked and commented on the info. So I decided to kick off a separate newsletter thread with more focus on marketing and all the work that goes beyond writing your book. You can see the first email here: https://pages.sjmorriswrites.com/posts/writer-s-corner-july-7-2024. If you're interested in getting these, send me a reply and I'll add you. (I'll use a tag in ConvertKit).

Results from last week's survey: More people like the book collections than dislike them. In fact, only one person disliked them. Sorry, you-know-who-you-are, and I know you get inundated with books and mostly look for my family updates, but the book and book collection blurbs will continue. :)