Welcome to the reboot of Meri's Monthly Musings! After taking a hiatus for 2019 and the start of 2020, I'm back to working on the Unexpected Inspiration series and that means it's time for the monthly update again-- well, tri-monthly, because this includes June and July, as well as my plans for August. So let's get started!

You might notice from these pictures that I get a lot of "help" from Aries, my furball assistant. I write everything by hand, so he takes every opportunity to sit on any project. I think he's telling me that Adair's cat needs more screen time, so maybe I'll get around to writing the story from the cat's point of view that I've been knocking around in my head for ages, if just to get him off my notebooks for a few minutes.

June/July Projects:

• Biggest news: My quartet is back to being a trilogy! I've felt for a while that books 1 and 2 weren't working, but after something like four drafts of each, I was stumped on why. I finally realized this year that it's because they belong together as one book. So a big portion of my attention has gone to outlining this new book to readjust events, as well as working out a timeline for the events leading up to Colorweaver (book 1)-- that's the picture at the very top of this collage. Aries is sitting on the previous outline I was in the midst of changing.
• This means new book info. Eep! Since I went from having 1/2 of this sub-series planned to having only 1/3, this means the next two books are that much closer. Instead of diving right into rewriting new book 1, I need to figure out sooner than expected what actually happens in the next two. I'm gradually making progress with this. Remind me again why I thought time travel and parallel universes were a good idea? Book 2 finally got a name (Flashover), though, and you can find the blurbs about what's in each book here. I'm really looking forward to working on these!
• New character info. Well, "new" in terms of updated. Surprisingly I only added one new character to the series amidst all these changes. He's a mischievous teenage ghost who's rapidly becoming one of my favorites, so I'll be introducing him soon. So far I've updated Adair's bio moodboard, Camille's, and Rosalie's if you want to learn more about three of my main characters. I also shared a drawing I did of Dray and Sol being the adorable dorks that they are.
• Character backstories. These have also changed as I've worked out what happens in this trilogy and what the events were leading up to it. So far I've shared Adair's, updated Camille and Rosalie's, as well as updating Dray's first backstory post and writing them up a second one specifically about their life as a teenager. (Dray has a lot of past and most of it was filled with abandonment and not-so-petty crime.)
• Worldbuilding. I've also been working on info about the different locations in the series. I recently shared one about Concordia's carnival performers. If you'd like a recap of the worldbuilding thus far, check out the Cultures & Locations tag.
• New short story. This is also a case of "new" because I wrote it shortly before my hiatus, but didn't have a chance to share it before now. That one is called "Roasted" and you can find it here. The premise is an insult contest gets wildly out of hand, like it normally does for these characters!

Let's just say that there's a reason I buy notebooks on back to school sale this time of year! I can get super cute ones and by this time next year, I will have gone through most of them. Pictured are my new ones and I can't wait to use that one in the middle. It's got three sections, one lined, one grid, one blank, and that would be perfect for worldbuilding since I can draw in the same notebook I'm writing notes in. I recently filled up my last worldbuilding notebook, so this was a well-timed find.

August Plans:

• Keep brainstorming the trilogy. I know it's unlikely that I'll have the new books 2 or 3 outlined in the next month, but I would like to have the general idea of what's in each book. If I do get book 2 outlined, though, that would be great! It's likely that will be my NaNoWriMo project this year, so it definitely needs to be outlined by November.
• Moodboards. I'd like to finish up the character backstories for Blythe, Sol, and Etri, as well as update the character bio boards/posts with any changes.
• Drawing. I had started chibis of the dorks and I'd like to get more of those finished. I've also been itching to get back into drawing maps.
• Short stories. I have a bunch that are started that I could finish and a few new ideas bouncing around inside my head, so we'll see if any of those make their way from my head to my fingertips.

If you'd like to follow me for regular updates about what I'm working on as I share them, I'd love it if you followed me on Twitter, Instagram, or my author page on Facebook. You can also sign up for two kinds of email alerts-- one will give you a post like this as a monthly newsletter (at least until I decide how I want to do the newsletter moving forward), the other will send you an email every time I share content to this site.

I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe this summer!
~Meri