I have the feeling that there are as many different answers to this question as there are authors and novels, but I will tell you how (approximately) long it took me to write Sea Glass Memories (Seahaven Sunrise Book 2) which will be sliding onto bookshelves this October.

I sat down at my trusty laptop on November 1, 2022 and put the finishing touches on Draft #6 of Sea Glass Memories on March 23, 2023. That is approximately five months. For most of those five months, I sat myself at my writing desk 1-2 hours a day, 3 - 4 times a week. When I was in Maine on retreat, those hours increased by a lot.

Those five months included a very rough first draft, then many hours of reading and revising, taking sections out, adding things in that I felt were missing . . . for a total of six drafts.

Keep in mind that my timeline from November 2022 through end of March 2023 doesn't include all the hours in 2022 where Sea Glass Memories was spinning around in the back of my mind as I dreamed up names for characters and devised plot points and situations for each of them, before I even sat down to write Chapter 1.

Nor does it include the six months of pre-launch work that will go into getting Sea Glass Memories onto bookshelves. Those months will include working with a copy editor, a book cover designer, and a book layout designer, as well as forming and putting into place a simple marketing plan so that more people will be aware of the beauty of Elana and Aunt Kit's stories.

Even though Sea Glass Memories is coming together fairly quickly, it took me almost six years to finish Dragonflies at Night: More Than a Love Story. And about 18 months to complete Feathers in the Sand (Seahaven Sunrise #1). Keep in mind, too, that I have a full-time job over at KaleidoSoul, so I am not able to focus 100% of my time on my fiction writing!

Many thanks to Karen from Florida, Sherry from Indiana, and Ellen from Pennsylvania for asking this question.

 🏆 March Give-Away Winners 🏆

a paperback copy of The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein.

Caryl from Texas

Marilyn from Ohio

This month I'm giving away TWO HARDCOVER copies of South of the Buttonwood Tree, by Heather Webber.

The main character is Blue Bishop who has a knack for finding lost things. While growing up in charming small-town Buttonwood, Alabama, she's happened across lost wallets, jewelry, pets, her wandering neighbor, and sometimes, trouble. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across an abandoned newborn baby in the woods, just south of a very special buttonwood tree.

And that is just the beginning! There was just the right amount of mystery, magic, and suspense to keep me reading far into the night (I am usually asleep by 11).

To enter, just fill out the short form here and I'll do a random drawing THIS SUNDAY APRIL 16. I'll send you an email notice that you've won, and I'll ask for your snail mail address after that!

(NOTE: I use the random generator at random.org to choose the winners

That's right, just hop on over to this fabulous BookFunnel give-away page and you'll be able to download as many of the 50+ women's fiction books that you want.

Take a look around and see what titles call to you. There's lots of excellent reading there for you, for the picking!

More good news, my novel Feathers in the Sand (Seahaven Sunrise Book 1) is there for you to download too! Be sure to leave a review on Amazon if you enjoy it.

In between newsletters, I'll be posting more often on Instagram, my blog, and/or my Facebook Author page, so please be sure to visit me there too.

I'd love for you to send a reply to this email with any questions about the writing process, or maybe even a good book that you're reading. And don't forget to enter our April fiction give-away, a heartwarming story that will stir your heart and soul.