Baby Got Draft! Reading, Writing, and Randomness for May 2025

That’s the big news with me and it pretty much defines the Reading and Writing sections this month, so let’s get down to it!

Reading

✨ = Five Stars | 🎧️ = audiobook | 📖 = Book Club

• The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson 🎧️ 

• ✨ The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren

• ✨ Electric Idol by Katee Robert

• ✨ Single Player by Tara Tai 🎧️ 

• Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert

• ✨ Let’s Call a Truce by Amy Buchanan 🎧️

• ✨ Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver 📖

• Back After This by Linda Holmes 🎧️ 

• ✨ Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon 🎧️ 

It was a great month of reading, truly. So many excellent books including one that features my home state of Florida (that’s Let’s Call a Truce) and one that features my current home state of Colorado (that’s Single Player).

The True Love Experiment was a little bit of a surprise. I didn’t realize until a decent way through that it was actually a follow up to a previous Christina Lauren book. Its primary setting is a reality dating show, which isn’t generally my jam (see more in the Randomness section), but the novel’s take on reality dating was so unique and targeted toward romance fans that it won me over.

Writing

Big news on the writing front: THE RACING LINE is DONE!!!! 🙌 🎉 

Well… draft 1.5 is done. Final word count came in at 88.7K. I got it out to a group of folks who agreed to be beta readers and I’ve been getting the feedback in for the last week or so. It’s all SO helpful. In general, the story has been received really well… folks are enjoying it, including the last chapter and epilogue (which I felt like I half-assed to just get it finished), and having given so much valuable feedback for what the weak areas are. I’ve let the manuscript sit while it’s been out there, but I’m about ready to get back to it soon.

What have I been doing in the meantime?

• I’ve been doing some structure review. My critique group has noted that there are a couple big stretches where they’re at races, but there are no actual racing scenes and the pacing is off as a result. I went through and identified a handful of races that I plan on writing out. I won’t necessarily include them all, but having them all written lets me look at the whole picture of the pacing and then cut from there. Plus - built in bonus content!

• I’ve been reading! As you can probably tell from the fact that I made it through 9 books in April. The biggest thing is that I’ve finally let myself start reading some of the other F1 romances out there. Now that my story is done, I’m not as worried about being influenced by other writing. But it’s very interesting to see how other authors approach similar topics.

• I’ve been starting on book 2 AND book 3 in my F1 world. While I was writing THE RACING LINE, secondary characters started popping out to me, wanting their own stories. I’ve got book 2 loosely outlined and I have an idea of the overall story and some tropes for book 3. There’s a 4th and 5th that are in the baby idea stages, so I’ll see where those end up as I keep on writing.

• I’ve been researching. Getting a headstart on my query letter and doing some agent research.

• I’ve been engaging! A month or so ago, an author I connected with a while back posted about a new Discord specifically for authors who are or are seeking traditional publishing. I’ve been getting more involved there, asking for help with the query letter and giving help by doing a focused beta review for an author who switched from 3P to 1P POV and needed a set of eyes to review. Also in this group, I found out about a Twitter/Blue Sky pitch event called #PosterPit. The idea was that you designed a movie poster for your novel. I had a lot of fun with this, so enjoy this little glimpse at Maeve and Jill, the main couple in THE RACING LINE. Now that it’s done, I’ll probably start sharing more snippets and sneak peek at it in future newsletters, so keep an eye out!

… and Randomness

• I am way behind on podcasts because I’ve been in an audiobook phase, but I’ve been popping on the YouTube broadcasts of some podcasts as background noise while doing dishes and whatnot in the evenings. Las Culturistas has had a killer line up of guests recently and Amy Poehler’s new podcast Good Hang is worth watching (rather than listening) if only for the opening segment where she videos with someone who’s friends with her guest to get advice on what to ask them.

• It’s Tony Award season so there’s an anundance of great content. Sunset BLVD and Gypsy both did Tiny Desk Concerts and there are some great Variety Actors on Actors with Broadway stars.

• A couple years back, my partner and I discovered Beauty and the Geek Australia on Prime Video. I was skeptical at first — I don’t really tend to like reality dating shows — but the ultimate wholesomeness of the show won me over in the end. The eighth season recently dropped on Prime and somehow it manages to be one of the sweetest, most uplifting, comfort watches ever. Highly recommend.

Question for you before I go: would you rather see excerpt and sneak peeks at THE RACING LINE in their own emails or as part of these monthly emails? Click through to comment or reply to this email to let me know what you think!