I decided to address my reader's (and writer's) block during the pandemic by going back to school! While my kids were still learning from home, I joined them and started Stonecoast's low-residency MFA program. I loved that experience so much and managed to keep up with my regular writing pace in addition to the reading and writing I did for the program. I graduated in 2023, added adjunct writing instructor to my resumé, and am still writing.
Since the novel that got me my first agent, I've completed two other novels and am in the middle of a third. Obviously, I'm very excited by the project I'm working on at the moment: Ali Hazelwood meets a modern-day Lessons in Chemistry with a murder-mystery twist. I'm having a blast with this one and have enjoyed learning a lot of physics!
Meanwhile, I'm back in the query trenches looking for a new agent for the aforementioned two complete manuscripts. I'm still meeting with my weekly critique group and have added week-long annual destination workshop events with some of my former Stonecoast classmates. Every spring, we send each other what we've been working on over the past year. Then in June, we rent a house for a week and meet up for some intense workshopping of each others' novels/novellas/scripts/projects. We also put together PowerPoint presentations to share with the group: submissions to various short-story markets, how to query your completed novel, building dread, worldbuilding, etc. And of course I'm still active in local writers' groups. I can't overstate the significance of building a community of writers for yourself (as a writer).
And now it's time to close the browser window and hop back into the short story I'm writing for an anthology.
(I'm 53 books into my 2025 reading year. Reddit is still a problem, but I'm doing okay.)
