Behind the Scenes Update #2

I wanted to share a few details about what I'm working on right now in the Margaret-verse (and there seems to be quite the Margaret-verse). In fact, I keep staying up past midnight getting story ideas and scenes typed out before I fall asleep, on my phone. I've spent hours and I now have over 9,000 notes in my iPhone (I've been coming up with stories to tell going on fifteen years now), and many hours spent listening to my voice notes (with transcript, thank you Apple) trying to figure out what I'm whispering in a four am voice note because I had a dream I wanted to remember and write a story about.

There are just so many stories from a moment in time where I had the youth, energy, freedom, and ability to say "yes" to all adventures as life offered them, it's hard to know what to share as a narration of events or what might be more interesting to explain during the unfolding of a story. I'm delighting in remembering them and imagining alternate scenarios and outcomes, I think you will too.

Life Updates

I got thoroughly derailed the last few weeks from my writing process (such as it is, since I'm still figuring out what that looks like—it's like learning how to adult all over again and I'm not super exceptional at that). My dear sweet baby angel Angie crossed the Rainbow Bridge just over a week ago, and I'm still getting hit with those feelings of grief and longing several times a day. She was almost 17, and had a wonderful retirement with us (we adopted her and her brother, Bernie, at 10 years old after their previous owner died). There's a ragged wound in my heart where these kitties will always live.

On top of that, I sprained my foot badly, and then my mother in law broke her hip and went to the hospital and surgery. In between everything else, I have been sulking about the weather changing here in the Pacific Northwest. I bought some new throw blankets (from Costco!), which did help a little bit with one of those things.

Upcoming Travel

I'm traveling to:

• MSP for the first weekend of October.
• CDG sometime in mid- to late-October.
• PVR for the holiday at the end of November.

Writing Updates

I have just finished the first (rough) draft of the second book in the Margaret the Flight Attendant series: Irregular Operations in Omaha is now heading into the first of several rounds of editing I will do, and if you're interested in being a beta reader, please let me know in a comment, or send me an email (actually, email is best so I can reply easily). It won't be ready for review for at least a month or two, but I'm already very excited about the progress!

Side note: This story was SO MUCH HARDER than the rom-com/mystery of Rome. It started based on a real layover in Omaha in winter (Christmas 2008, to be exact), and a real interaction with a charming man who swapped seats to allow his disabled mother to sit in first class...but from there, I got a little "over my skis" as my former boss would say. I challenged myself to focus on writing a mystery story like Agatha Christie (no rom-com this time), and had to really stretch my knowledge and memory of current events in 2008 (and then went a little too deep in a doomscrolling click hole on Wikipedia a few times). No spoilers, but I think I threaded the needle of plausible and entertaining.

My goal with this second book is to do all the editing and refining before recording the audiobook and publishing all versions (ebook, audiobook, paperback) all at the same time. I'm going to be looking into Ingram Spark and some other platforms to make distribution outside of Amazon's walled garden easier. I'd like to be able to make the book available on Kobo, Nook, and Bookshop.org, and—ideally—even at libraries (a literal dream come true for teenage Maigen).

The Wrong Colosseum Audiobook

I'm currently recording The Wrong Colosseum as an audiobook, and finding that it's WAY harder than I thought in different ways than I expected. I need to find a good tea that I enjoy with honey to keep my throat soothed and my voice consistent (I'm open to suggestions). Next up: recording Chapter 12. I'm discovering a few errors I missed before publishing. As a result, I'm making minor updates to the book. Those updates will also trickle down to the paperback version, which will be released with the audiobook later this year.

Other Margaret-verse Stories

I'm also a little slower at getting the Margaret story done because I've been inspired by so many other stories I have to tell, and I want to write them all!

side note: I really appreciate Y'all for reading what I'm writing and exploring genres with me

Last week's post about Courtney (not her real name) was a chance to dig into the sexy, salacious details about what some people get up to on layover, and I'd like to take another run at that story and add some of the more smutty details. I'm blushing just to write that sentence, but I've never attempted something like this, and who knows? Maybe it will be awesome and fun! I'm going to follow the advice of Diana Gabaldon (author of Outlande).

Another side quest I've been getting some notes written about is the idea of Susan, the Serial Killer Flight Attendant. There's a lot of international discourse around sexual exploitation of women in my feed, and while I was ruminating on how Margaret could evolve I explored a fantasy of her going on a killing spree of Bad People Who Deserve It. But, that's not really Margaret's vibe. She's more of a 'seeks justice, wants to see the bad guy locked up' kinda girl, right?But then I thought about a new character in this Margaret-verse: "what if Dexter were a 55-year-old flight attendant who only killed bad men who prey on women—and thirty years of being unremarkable made her exceptionally well-suited to getting away with it?"

So I've been sketching out some of my ideas in notes, and I realize that I'm not "married" to any particular type of storytelling, I just love asking "what if?" and following the trail of ideas. I'm still figuring out what kind of writer I am. You're here for the stories. I'd be interested in knowing what you'd be most excited to see next (after Irregular Operations in Omaha):

• Margaret's next romcom/mystery adventure
• Courtney's next sexy layover romp
• Susan's first kill story
• Something else?

Writing Battle Short Story

I'll share a short story next week that I submitted to a Writing Battle, and if you have never participated in a battle, and think you would enjoy the challenge, let me know. I have ONE gift token allowing a new user to sign up for a battle for free. The next one starts in 17 days, and it will be a 500-word battle that is judged by professional writers.

So much love, and thank you!