On Pens and Needles: June/July 2026 Newsletter
Happy summer, friends –
Hard to believe the year is half over. Here in Tennessee we’re sweltering. In the mornings I bolt out the door at first light so I can walk while a vestige of the evening’s cool still lingers. Once the thermometer gets into the mid-80s I’m done with outdoor exertion until after sundown.
There’s plenty of indoor exertion to keep me busy. I got my manuscript of Soldier’s Joy back from the copy editor. It’s remarkable how you can miss things in a book you’ve gone through countless times; I’m grateful to Deborah Dove for catching these! Though I had a career as a professional editor, as a writer I’m too close to the material to see it clearly—for instance, assuming the reader is familiar with information I cut from an earlier draft. Way to tick readers off and get bad reviews!
As a last step before having the book formatted, I’m listening to it straight through, all 335 pages, using the “Read Aloud” function in Word. The robotic voice has zero expression, but already it’s enabled me to catch some words or phrases that I want to improve. I’ll never again omit this step. The eye glides over things that the ear snags on; I’ve heard it many times in audiobooks. Since I’ll be recording my audiobook starting in August, I want to be sure I have as clean a script as possible so I won’t waste studio time fixing stylistic glitches.
Writing and producing my books is incredibly fulfilling -- but it’s a lot of work, and when it all gets to be overwhelming, I turn to knitting. My latest project, a summer sweater, is coming along, though not without its own challenges. I had to redo the ribbing around the bottom, ripping out several rows of 260 stitches each and then putting the stitches back onto a smaller needle to knit the cable pattern more tightly. The end result was well worth the trouble. And I made a large deposit into my “patience account,” which started out in the single digits but is growing with every knitting mistake I fix, as well as every writing knot I untangle.
My sweater in progress — another sleeve to do, cabled ribbing to add around the neckline, block it, and start the next project!
Whatever work you’re doing, I hope it’s rewarding. And – reminder to self, as well -- don’t forget to enjoy the ease and beauty of summer! Here’s a good book recommendation to while away the hammock or beach hours: Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club. I’m listening to it and can’t wait to see how the interactions between spinster Birdie, abandoned 11-year-old Meg, and her birth mother Charlie play out. The Southern-accented narrators are excellent. Well worth the 10-year wait since Stockett’s The Help.
Happy reading!
Mimi
P.S. I got my first royalty payment for Stones River. Although the sum was not exorbitant (to say the least!) I was happy to have proof that actual readers had paid actual money for my book. Connecting with readers has always been my overarching goal. If you’ve read or listened to Stones River and liked it, a rating or comment on Amazon, Audible, or Goodreads would mean a lot to me. If you’d like to get a copy in ebook, print, or audio form, or to pre-order the ebook of Soldier’s Joy at a big discount before its pub date on 9/27/26, here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/author/mimijo575
