It’s Fall. My absolute favorite time of the year. I’m in the South, so it’s not the same Fall that my northern upbringing was giving—boots, sweaters, consistently cool temps, and homemade soups and stews, and most importantly—death to mosquitos. But still, it is somewhat cooler, there are less bugs, and I made chili last week.

On the writing front, I’m a few weeks away from publishing my 10^th book in the Bennett family series, and I will be getting copy edits for my next HarperCollins book in a week or so. I turned in a promotional video for that novel. When does it release? Wait for it…June 11, 2024! The title is Bitter and Sweet. Lastly, my boot camp is going strong.

With respect to my boot camp, I think it’s the most exciting thing right now, because writers are writing. September was a good month. I didn’t keep great notes until the second week of the bootcamp, but our group wrote more than 26,000 words together. That’s a lot to celebrate and we did celebrate some happy moments. There were real tears along the way.

You may say, but Rhonda, 26,000 words is not that many words. It’s barely a good novella. My answer to that is, we are a small group. There are just ten of us, with six attending consistently. We’re also not doing the same things—as in putting words on the page. Some are working on revisions or editing, others are outlining, and sometimes folks are just working on writing-adjacent tasks. But even if all ten of us were putting words on the page, that would be ten people adding ten pages to their manuscript over a two-week period. How many aspiring authors have done that? I guarantee, not many because I know what aspiring can look like, I’ve been there. It’s hoping and wishing, thinking about writing, and doing a lot of talking yourself out of it while reading other people’s books.

We have a few published authors in the group, including yours truly. I got myself out of a writing rut and another one of our authors typed the end, sent her book to her editor, and started writing the next. The productivity was giving—all it had until the end.

I’m looking forward to all October has for us because in September, I think we worked out the kinks, figured out a schedule, and formed relationships that are beginning to look like true writer-buddyships. It won’t be long before we’ll be writer-friends celebrating published books!

What are you doing to make reach your 2023 writing goals?

Note – We’re full right now, but I do have a waiting list. Add your name HERE if you’re interested.