Scary Good Things 🫦

Do you ever feel super-excited about what you hope will be your next great thing (a project, a lesson plan, an event, whatever that is for you) but equally nervous, too, like anxiety ninjas are nun-chucking your giddy vibes?🥷 😬 That’s me. Right now. Scary good things went down this weekend.

A website makeover, again (but it looks lovely, you guys 😊)

Yes No Maybe’s professional editing and first cover designs (Coming this spring 😍 Cover reveal coming soon). Click HERE to read the first three chapters for FREE.

One Thing Better is now FREE to subscribers 😲 (I still can’t believe we’re doing this 🤦🏻‍♀️).

AND scariest of all…

Every Good Thing, the standalone sequel to One Thing Better, is now available for preorder! 👀

Why are these scary good things? Well, change is always scary. So is putting yourself out there. The closer we get to releasing a new book, the higher my anxiety. And giving another book away for FREE is risky.

Even riskier…

Giving away One Thing Better means I must have the preorder for its standalone sequel, Every Good Thing, set up to funnel readers into a book they might buy. The scary thing is—I’m now selling a book I haven’t written yet. 😨 Eek!

Well-organized career authors do it all the time, but it’s a first for me. On one hand, I feel like I’ve finally grown up and become a real author. Not only have I become a badass at strategic planning, but I finally feel confident enough to do it. On the other hand, ahhhhhhhhhh! How can I sell a book that doesn’t exist yet? Promising an unwritten novel by the end of the year ranks high on my list of scary good things, especially since I’m a professional what-if thinker. What if I can’t do it?

Under this extensive planning, a saving grace is more planning. (More on goal-setting here). I have a solid outline, and, for once, I wrote the blurb before the book. Check it out! Organizing the story I want to write beforehand means better focus and getting from once-upon-a-time to happily-ever-after quicker. Subscribers to The List will get the behind-the-scenes play-by-play as I pen Every Good Thing starting in March. 👩🏻‍💻 😬

Another saving grace to bold plans—staying mega-positive about everything. Not just the work but how I fill my time. Focusing on the good stuff thwarts the anxiety ninjas 🤺.

Other good things this week that aren’t so scary:

📺 Watching Disney’s Elemental. Animated movies aren’t my typical go-to’s for entertainment, but OMG, I totally fell for Ember and Wade! It was an emotional wave full of sparks—ha! It’s seriously the most romantic thing I’ve seen on-screen for a long time.

🩷 Speaking of intriguing love stories, here’s a real-life one that’ll have you saying awwwwwww. These strangers met on an app only to discover they were born in the same hospital on the same day, and their lives intersected in other cute ways before they found each other. Serendipitous.

🐙 More than a hundred never-before-seen sea creatures have been discovered off Chili’s coast. Check out these cool critters if you’re a beach lover like me and Delilah Duffy. Stories like this make me want to write more of her beachy mysteries. 🤔

📚I love hunting for great books in thrift stores. Here’s a story about discovering a proof copy of the first Harry Potter that turned $.15 into an estimated $15,000!

🌼 Ah, it feels like spring. Finally, we can shake off the winter blues, take our books outside, and read in the sunshine. Yeah, spring reading!