☀️ For me, Summer 2025 has had some small ups and downs. So, in this (my first) seasonal update, I decided to share some of them. I would love to hear back on how your summer is going!
How I’m doing
🩹 I have been taking my relatively good health for granted and spending too much time on the computer and am now dealing with the fallout (sciatica and rotator cuff).
I’ve made changes—more walking with Luna, less sugar, a break from writing, a new standing desk—but am not where I want to be yet.
Putting my writing on hold was especially hard. An artist I follow posted about how our bodies try to warn us when things are out of balance. It was interesting to me just how much pain I was willing to endure before I made a change.
Book stuff
🩸 My vampire story ~ Trancing Miranda, is finished, though the cover is still with the artist. I have found other things to work on as I wait—including sending scenes 1-7 out through the newsletter. (Book 2 will publish next year.)
If you missed any scenes, you can read them on the website. There is an easy index at the top of each installment. Just start here 👇
As soon as the ebook is on Amazon, I’ll be doing a free promo so you can keep on reading!
💕 New second change romance ~ I’m progressing with the first draft of my second-chance romance. It features my first-ever autistic FMC. Or—if all my FMCs are autistic and I just didn’t realize it—this is the first who is identified as autistic in the text.
The book, tentatively titled Madison Revisited, is based on a short story I wrote several years ago. I’ll be sharing the more about this project plus the full short story in the newsletter (and on the website) beginning next week.
👉 Dream memoir ~ I'm still working on the dream memoir and will be sharing bits of it here in the fall. This is the intro: The Story of a Dream.
About the newsletter
💻 I’m keeping my focus on genre romance, autism related content and short nonfiction. Future posts will go out about once a week.
You can now choose what content you want to get. Just go to www.substack.com/settings, find Writing After Dark in the “subscription” section and toggle notifications on or off.
Your choices are:
Writing After Dark: My main newsletter. Genre romance stories and excerpts, book reviews, nonfiction, related book content, autism and writing.
Autistic POV: Podcast only. Receive my Autistic POV podcast episodes about my journey as a late-diagnosed autistic only.
Updates Only: Seasonal updates (like this one) and occasional publication updates for those who want less email (about 6 emails a year).
I’m going to be doing more book reviews going forward!
Other media
🎉 My metaphysical blog The Mystic Review turns 15 years old this month and received its millionth page view last week. Like most bloggers these days, I get a fair amount of bot traffic, but it’s still a milestone I never expected to see.
While I'm less active in The Mystic Review than I once was, I still blog there about once a month (and share most posts to Writing After Dark as features).
🔊 In July, I moved my podcast, Autistic POV, to Substack (though you can find it on most popular podcast platforms as well). I’ll be podcasting once a month going forward instead of twice, with a focus on my experience as an autistic writer. The old Podbean version of Autistic POV is still out there, so look for my new rainy-day rainbow logo (below).
Thank you
💖 Thank you all for reading. Your support means more than you know!
Enjoy the summer sunshine ☀️
Barbara
Oh, Luna, what a beauty that canine friend is and how well behaved when she appeared during Dream Group. Congrat's for getting on the taking-better-care-of your health trail. I never stay on it easily and I've fallen off but having it on your mind is important. That's a mighty fine standing desk you have, Barbara. Wishing you hours of pleasure as you write.
I'm glad this summer is coming to an end. Whew...
Love the desk! (And the pup!)