Dear Readers and Friends,

I told myself I was going to take a break. From writing. Definitely from supervillains. (And if I needed a break from them, I figured you probably did too.)

So... A real break. No writing. No plotting. Just exist like a normal human for a minute.

I lasted… about two hours.

Which leads us to…

📖 Inside the Lair / Writing Update

I took a couple weeks after finishing Mayhem to reset… and accidentally wrote two new stories instead. To be fair, both stories were laying in my "Ideas" pile for years. Finally took the time to give them life.

One is a romantasy novelette—dark(ish) story about a horse. (It's always about the horse, right?) The other is a near-future sci-fi romantic suspense novella (because apparently I relax by putting characters in danger).

Short. Fun. Different.

I’m still deciding what to do with them, but they’ll find their way to you in the next few months—one way or another. And as always, if you want to beta read, just hit reply. A free early copy is yours.

👀 Classified Intel / Exclusive Content

IT Intern Update:

My IT intern (also known as my oldest child, paid exclusively in food and vague promises of “experience”) has been busy.

The homepage is officially updated—and there’s now a chart to help you figure out which of my 30+ books you might actually like.

Which felt like a great idea… until fixing one page somehow created ten more pages. I’m pretty sure that’s how websites reproduce.

If you want to see what we’ve been up to: http://www.joynellschultz.com

Freebie Alert (not at all a trap):

Dragons are a Girl’s Best Friend is free for the next five days. If you don’t have it yet, now’s your moment.

You can grab the link on my website. (Yes, this is absolutely a strategic attempt to get you to look at the redesign. I’m not even pretending otherwise.) Click the image to be taken to the Quarter Witch Chronicles Page. Or, here is a direct link.

🌏 Through the Portal / Lets have Fun

Last newsletter, we played Two Truths and a Lie.

The twist? They all had some truth, but the third one also had a lie. (Which feels a little unfair now that I say it out loud.)

Quick recap:

• Blood & Holy Water really is my favorite—mostly because I lived with those characters for years.
• Tales of the Fairy Godmothers is my worst-selling series. (We don’t talk about Love, Lies & Clones.)
• And yes, I grew up at a zoo and bottle-fed a ridiculous number of animals… just not monkeys.

So. Mild chaos. On brand.

This time - Author Q&A

(Also known as: my IT intern told me to make an FAQ page for my website, and I would prefer not to guess what goes on it.)

Ask me anything:

• Writing process
• RV life
• How I went from pharmacisst to… this
• My books, characters, or what I regret putting certain characters through

Or honestly—ask me something weird. Those are usually better.

Easy mode (if you don’t feel like thinking today):

Reply with the number(s) you want answers to:

1. How I actually write books (chaos vs. outline)
2. How RV/travel life + writing even works
3. What a normal writing day looks like (it’s not normal)
4. How I keep track of 30+ books without losing my mind
5. Where my characters come from
6. My biggest writing mistake(s)
7. How publishing actually works behind the scenes

Or ignore all of these and ask me something better.

(I fully expect at least one of you to do that.)

I’ll answer your questions in the next newsletter—and yes, probably turn some of them into fun blog posts, because apparently I still do that even though it's way out of date. (Intern's words. Not mine.)

More soon 🖤

— Joy (aka Joynell Schultz)

Otherworldly stories, always with heart.

[Website] · [Facebook] · [Instagram] · [Goodreads] · [Bookbub]

P.S. I’m doing a cross-promo with other indie authors—if you like discovering new books in Kindle Unlimited, it’s worth a browse.