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Pre-S: If you’re in the St. Louis or Metro East area on Saturday, Oct. 5, I’ll have a table at the Metro East Pride Festival in Belleville, Illinois. Join me and my fellow Bold Strokes Books author Heather O’Malley selling our books as well as a few from other BSB writers. Stop by and say hi and check out the festival.

Music to write by. Sort of.

This newsletter is a little late—although maybe you didn’t notice. I try to send this out the first Monday of every month, and with the long holiday weekend, time got away from me. Plus, I’m getting over a bout of something and was wheezier than Louise Jefferson for a bit (I’m totally dating myself with that reference, but if you recognize it, so are you!).

And August was a busy month, slipping away like a moment in time, sipped away like a bottle of wine. Before I knew it, it was over.

I’ve been making great headway on revising the novel. Finally I’ve made my way through the sections where I left bigger gaps than I’d realized in my first draft, so I spent a lot of the previous fourteen chapters not just refining, but filling in with new scenes. The story’s now reached the point where things really hit the fan for the main character, and where (I think/hope) I knew what I was doing when I got to here in the first draft. I feel like all the changes and additions I’ve been making have been building up to this.

The nod to Taylor Swift in that previous paragraph about August is relevant. When I’m working on a novel, I tend to listen to music that helps orient me to the emotions I’m trying to convey in both the characters I write about and the story I’m telling. A song will come on the radio (does anyone still listen to the radio? Maybe I mean shuffle play) and I’ll find myself listening to it repeatedly. Then I’ll gravitate toward the keyboard or a notebook and soon I’m writing.

At that point, though, I turn off the music. I have a hard time writing if there’s sound to draw my attention. I’m so easily distracted, it’s not funny.

If you’re on Apple Music, I’ve included the playlist below for the novel in progress. (I don’t use Spotify, sorry.) Even if you’re not, it should take you to the playlist in your web browser. See any songs you recognize? Do they give you any clues what the book is going to feel like?

I should probably mention that this playlist is constantly a work in progress, much like the novel. Songs get added and dropped as I go, so until I finish the last word, the list’s subject to change.

And that’s it from me for this month. See you in October!