Dear Friends,

 Have you ever had a month that was a complete whirlwind…and yet when you try to recap it, you feel like you actually didn’t do that much?

That was July for me. :P

I DID get to finally enjoy a few weeks of not doing much for the first time in over a year. And it was glorious. Card games. Movie nights. Cleaning frenzies where things actually got organized. Evenings outside with the kids (wearing long sleeves and jeans because mosquito playland over here). Summer staycation at its best!

And, of course, lots and lots of writing.



I got hard at work on the second episode of my young adult fairy tale retelling miniseries. In one and a half months, I’ve written 29,443 words (twelve beautiful chapters)! I’m just over the halfway mark and on track to finish it by the end of August. Is that crazy or what?!

I also FINALLY got to introduce the love interest – a teen king – and right now I’m in the middle of writing a royal ball. Let me just say this…I am in love!

But then something happened to my writerly brain. It got hijacked by a shiny new idea.

Okay, technically, it’s two old ideas combined into one new idea that I have been mulling over for a few years now but done nothing with. Well, that all changed last weekend when I suddenly got inspiration to figure out who the villain of the story is. I picked a character from my list of evil-and-antagonistic forces; I gave them a backstory (that may honestly be one of my favorite and quickest-written backstories for a villain); and the rest just started spiraling from there.

I’ll tell more about this project over on my YouTube channel (shameless plug; I’ll leave a link below to the channel; video should be dropping in a day or so).

https://www.youtube.com/@joannag.holden4465

For now, let me just say that it’s in some ways vastly different from any project I’ve actively worked on so far. And in other ways, it’s the exact same kind of project I love working on the best. I'm currently calling it "Project 13". And, of course, I've already made an aesthetic because vibes are always a must.

But Joanna, you may be asking (as my poor husband did), what about the books you’re actually supposed to be writing and publishing?

This project (currently codenamed Project 13) will be going on the backburner as of this coming week. And I’ll be going back to working hard-core on Swan Song Episode 2, as well, as brainstorming for Project Coastlander (the adult high fantasy saga I’m all set to start work on after the fairy tales are done).

Coming up…

 I have been hard at work on a character sketch of Gerda, the female main character from my Middle Grade fairy tale retelling, Snow Dust. It’s still in the sketch stage for now. But, like I said, I’m hard at work on it. And my goal is to have it finished completely by the end of August. And I will be sending it EXCLUSIVELY to you here in the newsletter! I will show snippets of it via social media to let others know it is coming. But it’s only going to be shown fully HERE.

AND…

There will be a coloring page version for anyone with young girls (or boys) who liked the story and want to color Gerda!

As we head into the final stretch of official summer, I’ll be getting back into teaching school to my kiddos. There’s co-op and church ministries; there’s critique group meetings and writer calls. Life is crazy. But God is good.

Until next time,

Joanna