As you may have heard, I have begun work on my new novel which is tentatively called Feathers in the Sand. For the last few months I’ve been devoting my scheduled writing time to creating characters, doing research, imagining settings, and dreaming up plot points.

On Monday of last week, I began what is called “Fast Drafting,” as taught by Jessica Brody, an award winning author of over twenty novels. I have been learning a lot from her about crafting a good novel, and am eager to work with her teachings as I move forward.

I've committed to writing the first draft, also known as the "Discovery Draft" or the "Messy Draft" for 12 weeks, 4 days a week, 2 hours at a time. As I have discovered with many writing projects over the years, a heck of a LOT can be accomplished in small bites like this.

And I'm happy to report that last week I wrote 10,431 words! That's a little less than 1/10 of the actual novel, and I'm excited and proud and looking forward to more story telling this week. It's been a while since I've sat down and written fiction intentionally and I have to say, it feels really, really GOOD!

Heather Martin and Wendy Botsford!

I did a random drawing of my newsletter readers and these are the two names that came up. They each won a paperback copy (or e-book version if preferred) of my soul-stirring women's contemporary novel, Dragonflies at Night: More Than a Love Story.

Each month I'll use random.org to choose two winners. You'll either receive Dragonflies at Night, or another soul-stirring novel that I highly recommend. So stay tuned... and keep on reading! Next month it might be YOU!

If YOU are a give-away recipient this month, please send me a quick email so I can say hello and find out where to mail your special gift.

The Garden of Happy Endings, by Barbara O'Neal. This extraordinary novel focuses on a female Seattle minister who is having a crisis of faith. She moves to Colorado to live near her sister.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my writing process and progress! In between newsletters, I'll be posting more often on Instagram, my blog, and/or my Facebook Author page, so I hope to see you there.