From Email List to Adventure: Welcome to My Substack Journey

How moving an email list turned into a new writing adventure

Hello readers!

It has been six months since the last installment of Missives from Denhaven, but don’t worry, lots of good things have been percolating behind the scenes. I’ve been in the middle of an editing cycle with my manuscript, absorbing all of my extra writing time. And, of course, it’s been a wild and wily kitten season, filling the corners of my brain space with the ever-present desire to save all the cats, which isn’t possible. Tell that to my mewling heart.

This is Jam, and that really is 267g (about 1/2 a pound).

As I wrap up this most recent round of edits (is editing ever done? Asking for a friend), I sucked myself into website updates, which led to a revamp, which led to a desire for a better platform to build community with you, my faithful readers. I like my website; posting new Missives from Denhaven installments online is equally satisfying and terrifying. But I wanted a space to share more than just the finished products with you. I want to show you how I create these tales, let you in on the weird and twisting trail of my imagination, chat with you about the process of finishing the book, ask your thoughts on things from names to titles to what should happen next, and most importantly, share stories of the foster animals that are so often the inspiration for my characters and stories.

Everyone needs more cat pics in their inbox, right?

It seems that synchronicity was in my favor. I have a very talented niece who has been sharing her work on Substack for a while. If you like female empowerment swirled with delightful poetry and topped with a sweet dollop of musings on faith and everyday life, I can’t recommend

The House of Rest

enough.

One lazy morning, as I read her most recent installment from my bed, completely covered in cats, a light switch turned on in my brain. I would move the mailing list to Substack, a platform built for the kind of community I want to build! After excavating myself from purrralysis (you get a -2 for every cat happily sleeping on your person), I got to work.

Three tabbies equal a -6 to get out of bed.

The rest isn’t really history; it’s actually a lot of late nights hyper-focusing on getting all of this set up. Such is the way of things on this side of the keyboard.

Toudie is one of my least helpful writing companions. But he’s awfully cute.

I’m excited to share more with you in the coming days and weeks. Expect to see some foster stories going up right away, followed by some musings on the state of my journey toward publication (oh, querying, you cold, lonely biscuit). I am also working on a special short story just for my subscribers, so stay tuned for that! And Missives from Denhaven will make its glorious return before the New Year. A lot has happened to J in the animal underground since leaving Denhaven and heading west. I can’t wait to catch you up. In the meantime, you can re-read the last Missives here on Substack.

If you are already a subscriber, thank you so much for being part of this journey and loving the secret animal world as much as I do. If you’re not a subscriber, there are reasons to hang out with us. You get all the new Missives from Denhaven hot off the presses before they go live to the rest of the world, along with inside musings, foster stories, and behind-the-scenes peeks at the creation process and publication journey. All subscriptions are currently free, but I’m working on a paid option that will go live next year.

Someone has to feed all these cats.

Of course, I would love it if you shared this with all your cat-loving, writer (or writer-adjacent), hidden animal world enthusiast friends.

Until next time, dear readers,

Julie