You may have noticed that the subject line of this is not “August Newsletter (yes, I’m late again)”—I have decided that if I am failing to draft a newsletter in the last week of the month consistently, but am getting it out in the early days of the new month, maybe I should switch my planned structure.

Which will work GREAT if I leave all my reminders to be at the end of the month and thus give myself that week’s warning to draft it…

ANYWAY. Life has continued to be chaotic this summer, although at least today I am taking a day of PTO (literally so I can get my hair cut and highlighted, which is a three+ hour process and is only available on Wednesday or Saturday afternoons). Which means that instead of trying to squeeze in drafting time after work and before TKD, I am sitting in my sunroom (oh look, I have WINDOWS) and cats are crawling over me in an attempt to distract me.

For example: Lucy “helping” me do my morning bullet journaling.

Not that I do proper bullet journaling. I do messy journaling. Every day I list out my tasks, color coded by “important to do today/there’s a deadline” or “writing/business” or “crafting” or “general tasks that need done.” Then I have a spot to track time spent on writing/business, and I blather a little bit of notes about life, and I track the media I consume because I have the memory of a goldfish.

My dog is also staring at me. She was outside ten minutes ago and yelled to come back in. I am not playing this game today.

Back to the topic of newsletter reorganization.

Instead of thinking of it as looking back (although yes, I’ll still talk about fun things I’ve been up to), let’s start looking forward. Planning ahead. The newsletter is a beginning, not an ending (much like a black belt, but that’s a different set of musing, isn’t it?).

What I’ve been up to…

August continued our camp life (which goes until mid-October, although it slows down mid-September). I did two paint and sips at camp, with many thanks to the seasonal association for sponsoring the first, and to Lisa from Canvas, Crafts, and Compass for coming in to run those events!

Kevin and I also attended an event that Lisa ran at the newly reopened Goold Hill Estate where we crafted light-up moons! Had a blast at that, and now need to find a place to place our moons somewhere in the house.

Love crafting/art, but am remembering that the hardest part is figuring out where to put the things later. It’s even more difficult at camp! Nothing hangs well in a trailer… which makes it a priority to have outdoor spaces with a permanent roof and walls, right?

In other crafting news, I finally convinced myself to pick up my tank top I’ve been knitting and now I only have the bind-off at the bottom, picking up stitches and knitting a small collar, and then weaving in all the ends to go. Am I hoping for a nice warm day for Rhinebeck so I can wear it? Yes, yes I am.

In terms of life, well, I will be changing my little tagline that appears on many of my fandom pages. It currently says “I am your fandom grandma, but not an actual grandma” because I’ve been in fandom since I was a tween, which means uhhhh well over forty years. Well… gods willing and everything goes perfectly, in several months that last bit will be changing. I’m sure there will be more on that in the coming months, too.

Don’t worry, I will get to writing conversations later. I promise.

What’s been published/put online…

I’ve had brief periods of activity on social media these past weeks, which frankly, has been an improvement over prior months! I posted a few check-ins to Pillowfort and Dreamwidth. I’ve tried to remember to post to Bluesky/Mastodon/Facebook. And I’m reviewing how I handle my social media and how I can better do cross-posting to get things to multiple places at the same time.

If I can cross-post and schedule things, I am more likely to actually DO them. I hate all the time it takes to get things up online. Sometimes I have the time to draft, but not post, and then things sit and are no longer relevant when I DO have time. Whoops.

I am trying to be better about interacting as well, but that depends on time. But I’m trying, I swear. I cannot wait until I retire and all my days will be like today (only not losing 5 hrs in the middle of the day thanks to travel and appointment) and I can DO things. Ah. So nice.

I have not made a lot of progress with my ArtistStore, RedBubble, or reopening my Etsy (although I did decide to do that, since apparently people like to buy stickers there?). So sadly, nothing new to report for those.

And yes, the writing things…

It sounds as if I am going to make some grand announcement about the block breaking, the floodgates opening, and me starting to draft like I used to, as if NaNo were a daily thing, not once a year.

Hah, no.

But.

Inside my head, progress HAS been made. A lot of it is subconscious, trying to restructure how I think about things, so that I CAN move forward.

Some of it has been making notes, and on one memorable day, swiftly drafting a few paragraphs into a notebook because I had an idea for the start of a story (dunno if it’s short or long form).

In the end, what I still need for all the ideas I have, are plots that will sustain interest and work. I have bits and pieces, but nothing fully concrete. Yet.

I received my Novel Navigation Cards recently, from a Kickstarter I backed a while back. I like the idea of pre-printed cards, so I don’t spend all my time trying to figure out how to lay out a card before I start using it. I also loved that I got a PDF to print cards myself, because yes, I cannot convince myself to crack the plastic on the pre-printed deck until I have proven that they will work for me.

So I printed some yesterday and got them cut up. I bought a binder for them, but uh, I think the slots might be the wrong size (I thought they were 3x5 but they appear to be slightly larger after printing, maybe I can trim them). And later today, or this weekend, I hope to USE them.

Because this is how my brain has been talking to me. In snips and phrases, little ideas, and characters, and thoughts about goals and plots without anything definitive. And for like MANY different projects.

But this way I can scribble down what I’ve got, organize them into proper sets, and start looking at them. Digging into those bits of brainstorming and see what else comes out. Maybe some of the separate stories belong to one story. Maybe things need to be more separated than they are. Maybe there’s a plot lurking below the surface. Maybe I can take inspiration from something else and apply it to one of these.

Mostly I want to brainstorm and scribble things down and see where it goes. Time to toss the brain like a salad, I guess.

Where will I be…?

I am continuing to add to my market list! And I have started working on my programming schedule for Philcon, so I’ll announce more about that when it’s settled. I am so looking forward to returning to that convention.

September 5, 2026 - “Yard Sale” at Aquavista Campground

September 12, 2026 - Local Author Fair at the Guilderland NY Library

October 4, 2026 - A Big Gay October Market, Albany NY

October 11, 2026 - Collar City Pride, Troy NY

October 17, 2026 - Goold Vend and Sip in Castleton, NY (applying)

November 1, 2026 - Altamont School Craft Fair in Altamont, NY (applied)

November 20-22, 2026 - Philcon, Cherry Hill NJ

December is very TBD, but I have a few things on my radar to apply to.

And as always…

If you’re curious to see snippets as I work, all levels of my Patreon are treated to early chapters of PHU when it is posting, as well as behind-the-scenes looks at works in progress.

Come find me on social media if you want to chit-chat or just hear me natter on about life, writing, and fandom. I’m tryslora everywhere!