August 2023: Mossheart preorder campaign reveal! I'm writing for Neopets! event tonight in ann arbor!
A very update-y newsletter as we reach the end of summer + an exclusive preview of Mossheart!
Hi, and happy August! Summer has flown by and I have begun to vibrate with neuroticism now that we’re less than a month to go before my middlegrade debut, The Mossheart’s Promise, hits the shelves. It’s been a minute since I sent out a proper newsletter, so let’s get into it. If this newsletter looks a little different, it’s because I finally gave it a little bit of a makeover (meaning, I opened up canva and attempted to make an actual logo and section breaks.)
Full disclosure — I started writing a piece of this newsletter about The Point Of Making Art and perfectionism and publishing, but it’s ballooned into it’s own beast, to the point where I don’t know that it’ll fit nicely in here with all the updates. So, keep an eye out for that in your inboxes in the next few weeks.
Let’s get into it!
What’s in this newsletter?
Mossheart preorder campaign reveal
Book deal announcement (neo..pets..?!)
Upcoming events (including one tonight, August 7, in Ann Arbor at 6:30pm!)
Patreon updates
What I’m loving lately
A sneak peek of something
Mossheart preorder campaign!
First, the news! This morning I unveiled the preorder incentive offered to anyone who preorders a copy of The Mossheart’s Promise through Sidetrack Bookshop! All preorders will be signed and will receive an exclusive sticker sheet, and I’m happy to personalize to your hearts content (I’ve done cat doodles, quotes from the book, Taylor swift lyrics…you name it!)
Here they are!
An extra fun part (I think) of this preorder offer is that the stickers were drawn by yours truly! I’ll level with you: preorder stuff gets expensive, and for both of my books, the cost has been totally on me. I spent well over $1,000 on preorder goodies for TOWB once you factor in the cost of art and printing. And while I don’t regret it, I also know middlegrade tends to be less preorder-focused than YA, and it didn’t make as much sense as me to drop as much money on a book that will hopefully find its audience over time once its in the hands of librarians, teachers, and kids! So, rather than offer nothing, I went ahead and drew the stickers myself.
I’m really pleased with how they turned out. I’m also mortified, in the most comical way, to admit I realized the moment I announced that I somehow left a major detail out of one of the stickers, which I’m certain some astute reader is going to catch right away. Ah, well! Maybe I can figure out a prize for the first person that notices what I messed up …
I’m writing for Neopets!
In case you missed it, I’m writing officially licensed graphic novels for Neopets! Yes, that Neopets. This is so hilariously perfect I keep calling it a bucket-list item I didn’t even know to want. I’ve been keeping this a secret since January 2021, so please admire my iron-clad restraint. These books have been sheer joy to work on, and twelve-year-old me would be freaking out.
It also just feels so full-circle it’s almost too perfect. I’ve had a Neopets account for nearly twenty years now (lord, I feel old) and the Neoboards are where I first cut my teeth as a writer, creating terrible self-insert roleplays about Pokemon, wolves, warrior cats, and all kinds of weird, magical creatures. I sometimes joke that I have an iron skin because no book reviewer could be meaner than anonymous eleven year olds on the Neopets boards…but I’m not entirely joking. Those kids were brutal. (Also, this is not a challenge. If you’re reading this and thinking, I bet I can be meaner, I believe you, and I promise you that I do not need you to prove it.)
Book one focuses on the Giant Omelette, and I actually just turned in the outline for Book 2 which centers around another much-loved Neopian daily. Both are tentatively slated for next year, meaning I might have three books out next year (good lord, Becca.)
We’ll hopefully have a cover for book 1 and news soon. Until then, if you’re on Neopets, neofriend me @ mixbecca. (No, really. Do it.)
Upcoming Events
I’ve got a bunch of events coming up in the fall around Mossheart I’ll get to share soon, but two I want to let you guys know about!
First, I’ll be at Literati Bookstore today, August 7, at 6:30pm ET in conversation with Andrea Hannah & Meriam Metoui to talk all things eerie YA
Second, I’m launching Mossheart at Sidetrack Bookshop on September 5 at 6:30pm ET, in conversation with my dear friend Andrea Hannah. Please come! There will be stickers. And possibly cupcakes.
Deadline dashes
Very excited to share that for the month of August, every Monday and Wednesday morning from 8am-10am ET, I’ll be running deadline dashes through my Patreon! These will be low-stakes writing sprints on zoom. Pop in with your camera off or on, slam that mute button, and get some work done. We did our very first one this morning and I am embarrassed to admit that just knowing other people were working alongside with me meant I had the most productive Monday I’ve had in ages — I created graphics for the Mossheart preorder, revamped my newsletter graphics, and finally wrote this post, which may not seem like a lot for two hours, but all of which have been on my to-do list for forever. Our next dash will be this Wednesday, August 9th, at 8am ET. Join us!
Some other Patreon highlights from the last few months:
A pitch post! How pitching books to my agent works, and what comes after
Refinding the spark: what to do when you've looked at your book for so long you've started to kind of hate it and also yourself and everyone who has written a book, ever
I’m back on deadline, which means I’m beginning to empty the creative well I have been trying to refill — and man, have I had the joy of consuming some wonderful art.
Some recent reads I adored were Yellowface, Clytemnestra, Chatter, A Guide to the Dark, Cutting Teeth, and Personal Effects.
I also started watching The Bear, which I am really loving, and have been diving into a game called Terraria that has been scratching my I-want-to-play-Stardew-valley-but-I-don’t-actually-want-to-play-Stardew-Valley itch.
And while I realize the Things I Love section is usually about media, I had the opportunity in July to visit two beautiful places — the first being Charlevoix in northern Michigan, and the second being the Rock Glen falls.
(A very nice lady named Cathy gave me those Petoskey stones. Despite being a proud Michigander I have yet to ever find a Petoskey stone on my own. Someday!!)
I was actually up in Charlevoix for a writing retreat, but I had hurt my back the week before and, unable to write, spend a lot of time wandering, staring at water, and thinking about the edits I need to figure out for Mossheart 2. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. It’s easy to forget that sometimes the best thing I can do for my art is to close my computer, table the plot problems, and go stare at birds — and easier to forget that that, too, is a part of the work. Not just the research, the writing, the rewriting, but the living. It doesn’t matter how many books I read about waterfalls; nothing comes close to the experience of swimming under one (and praying some freakishly large catfish isn’t lying in wait at the bottom of the waterfall pool with a craving for Author.) I also don’t think it’s an accident that in both instances, forcing my brain to totally and entirely unplug for the day meant the next day I got infinitely more work done. Now, if only I can make future Becca remember this…
A fun sneak peek
I shared on Tiktok recently that a reader let me know they are so anti-prologue they intend to cut the prologue out of their copy of Mossheart. While some people were mortified by this, I mostly just found it very funny. This is terrible to admit, but from my perspective as an author, if you own a book, you can do whatever you please with it. As someone who used to scribble, annotate, and dog-ear the life out of her favorite books as a kid, I have a fairly '“meh” reaction to the pearl-clutching people love to do about books being Holy Perfect Objects. (Note: Notice I say if you own a book. Please do not defile a library book or a book someone lent to you! That’s not very nice.)
That reader aside, I mostly love prologues, and I’m proud of the one that I wrote for Mossheart. When I wrote it, I wanted to write a prologue that was short enough to fit in a single screenshot — and while I didn’t quite achieve that (I forgot that when books are typeset, the pages are much, much smaller than my Scrivener screen) I did manage to accomplish it in three.
So if you’ve read this far, and since we’re a month out of Mossheart, I figured — why not share the prologue in its entirety? If you are anti-prologue, or you don’t want spoilers, look away!
That’s all for this newsletter! Thanks for sticking with me — and if you’ve preordered Mossheart, thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart. It means the world.
Until next time!
xo,
becca
That prologue was futzing fire, my goodness.
Also, today i relearned how neofriending works!