Summer switch-up

You'll be seeing a little less of me this summer, and here's why.

Over the past two weeks, I shared some lessons I’ve learned from my years as a magazine journalist, that have benefited my fiction-writing life as well. Here’s the post I wrote about making every word count, and here’s the post about interviewing sources to gain information. If you’re a writer, I hope one or both might be helpful to you!

I also mentioned that I’ve had my ongoing work as a dance-writer on the brain lately, and this week I can finally share why:

I’ll be filling in as a staff member for Dance Teacher/DanceTeacher+ all summer long, while the publication’s primary editor is out on leave! For the next sixteen weeks, I’ll be editing articles and uploading them to the website, assigning new pieces, writing copy for email newsletters, and more. In short, I will be busy.

This week, I got a sense of just how busy, as I’ve been meeting daily with the editor who will be out. She’s been sharing all of the responsibilities of the role, as well as the various pathways and processes to get everything done. It’s been fascinating (and a bit overwhelming!) because, as I’ve mentioned previously, I did a version of this job…over fifteen years ago. There are certain aspects of the gig that I’m quite familiar with: the angle of the magazine, what topics it covers, how articles should read, etc. Other things are quite different: for starters, it’s a digital-only publication these days, whereas I worked on a print magazine.

In addition to getting onboarded to the editorial job, this week I thought a lot about how I will need to structure the rest of my life this summer. I am still working hard on the first draft of my adult novel, and I’m eager to finish it and get it into some readers’ (and my agent’s) hands this summer. So, while I’ll have fewer daily hours to devote to that task, I’ll keep plugging away. Finishing that draft is non-negotiable.

This Substack on the other hand, will become monthly in June, July, and August.

I’m taking next week off from Substack, as it will be my first full week in the new job—and I’m going on a short writing retreat, which was scheduled before I was offered this editorial opportunity. In two weeks, I’ll share my usual Roundup of things I’ve enjoyed in May (and I’ve read quite a few wonderful books that I can’t wait to tell you about!). Then, in June, July, and August, I’ll do one post each month that will be both open-topic and Roundup. I’m planning to keep it on the last Friday of the month.

I’ll miss you!

But this summer is going to be jam-packed. I want to be able to give each responsibility and project my best effort, and that means paring back a little. Then, in September, hopefully I’ll be able to be more present here. I’m sure I’ll have stored up a lot of ideas to write about. :)

For today, I’ll leave you with this sketch by my daughter. She is currently working on drawing different facial expressions (inspired by cartoonist Raina Telgemeier, who she says is her favorite author other than me). This is a picture of me, surprised. (It’s also approximately how I looked after three straight hours on Google Meet on Wednesday afternoon…) Enjoy!

See you in two weeks,

~Kathryn