Greetings !

This email contains a couple of really important announcements, so I hope you'll stick with me through the end.

Write with Me

Unfortunately, I need to cancel tomorrow's meetup. Everything is fine, but I have a family obligation that came up and there's a strong chance I'll be en route at the time I'd intended for us to meet.

I really do want to connect with you, regardless of time zone though, so...

I’m shaking things up a bit! Instead of weekly live sessions, we’ll now have quarterly live sessions: a chance to chat, do some live coaching, and write together. I’ll record these so you can catch up if you can’t make it.

In between, I’ll post a quick check-in every Friday in the new Teachable community I'm building. It’ll be a flexible way to stay connected and keep writing, so writers in all time zones can join in whenever it works for them.

I’m excited to keep building our community this way and can’t wait to see you at the next live session!

I'll be in touch again when the community and next live session are ready/scheduled! In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely weekend full of writing opportunities.

For Writers

As I'm gearing up to launch my workshop in 2026, I've been rethinking other offerings of mine. Going forward, instead of offering a $500 Plan Your Novel program, I'm going to offer a $100 Inside Outline program. You can learn more about it here.

I'd love to get some feedback from you about something. Would you find it more useful, once you've written a novel, to:

1. Get it analyzed by AI or a digital tool of your choosing, bring that analysis to me, and together we create a revision plan and I could help you stay on track, or,
2. Have me do a quick review of your manuscript (I'd read the first 3 chapters, 2 random middle chapters, and the 2 final chapters; this is a service I offered in the past that was popular, and it's often about the same amount agents will read when they first request a full manuscript) and then provide feedback and we have a coaching session

You can go ahead and hit the reply button to let me know which service you'd like best. Being on my newsletter, you get to help me decide how best to help writers like you!

All of this is in service of the workshop I'm planning for 2026, which will run 6 weeks at a time, several times throughout the year. It will include asynchronous content, a community, a weekly live Q&A with hot-seat coaching, and personalized feedback from yours truly. I'm really excited about it, and I'll keep telling you more about it as I prepare for launch.

Here's a writing exercise for you:

Head over to 16personalities and take the quiz as your protagonist (or another character if you're trying to figure them out). It's a lot of fun, and you might learn something new about your character and their arc of change for your story!

For Readers

I'm having a lot of fun stepping into Alys's story again. Liberty of the Realm is a book I always planned to write, but I initially had different plans for it and kept getting stuck, because it was going to fast forward 20 years... but what I discovered is there are things in that time frame I want to explore in story.

It all comes down to deciding where to start the story and what to make it about. What began as something focused on the signing of the Magna Carta turned into a more of a suspense/thriller (I know those are different but I say this because the community can participate over on my Substack) vibe.

And, I'm still working on Letty's story in my Regency romance world. It's shaping up as more of a long novella than a novel, which I think will be perfect for the holiday season as everyone is so busy.

It's looking like it will come out sometime in November, and I'll make sure to share with you all the exciting developments as that story steps out into the world.

Until next time, yours in story,

Margaret