Fall 2024: Lester Release
Happy Halloween!
It’s been quite a while since my last update. I hope you enjoyed Lester’s sneak peek back in June, but it wasn’t much of an update.
I do enjoy the ability to speak directly to my readers but also find that I struggle with the marketing aspect of my burgeoning writing career. Producing new content is a difficult process and can be wholly unrewarding. Sometimes, I would prefer to be notoriously reclusive like Harper Lee. I guess I will have to write a bestseller. In order to give 100% of my focus to completing my second novel, Lester, I have stepped away from social media these last few months, and that choice included this newsletter. My apologies. I had intended to provide monthly updates but decided, going forward, a quarterly format for long-form updates like this would be more appropriate. I will send periodic, short updates if there is news or upcoming events for my readers.
As for today’s big news: Lester is live! My second novel Lester released on October 29th, and it is free to download on Kindle today! Lester is my first horror novel about the very real ghost town of Lester and the paranormal research team that travels there to investigate it. Talia Michaels has a connection to Lester. When she is confronted with its dark secret, she is left with the choice to escape her fate or face it.
I originally had the idea for Lester while hiking the Snoquera Falls Trail on a gloomy PNW day in November 2021. I was working on my manuscript of Wonderland at the time, but my journals quickly filled with notes. It’s exciting to finally bring this idea into existence and see the final form it has taken. I started work in January of 2023. While my beta-readers had Wonderland, I wrote out Talia’s childhood experiences, and the first six chapters of the main narrative. I took a brief break while completing, and releasing, Wonderland and have been working on Lester ever since.
My next event will be at the Enumclaw Wine Walk on November 16th. I will be at The Dusty Shelf, along with a number of other local authors. You don’t have to participate in the Wine Walk to stop by and peruse the available books. Lester will be available exclusively on Amazon or from The Dusty Shelf until after November 23rd when it will be available to order from all bookstores.
Lester will be free to download on Kindle on November 16th and 17th if you miss today’s free day and will be available again before the season is out. I will be holding another event at The Dusty Shelf, and hopefully others, in the months to come.
This book was a learning experience. First, I understand now how important it is to protect my peace. Emotional upheaval is destructive to my creative process, and I will continue to put measures in place to ensure I prioritize myself, my family, and my passion. Second, I will never again work to a deadline unless I am under contract. I decided I wanted to release Lester by Halloween and although I achieved that goal, I will never do that again. While there were some tangible reasons why I wanted to release my novel before the end of the year, some were based on my own arbitrary expectations of myself. I started 2024 with the ambitious goal of completing two novels, and in hindsight, it is completely laughable how unrealistic that goal was. Good works take time and I expect this year, with so many exciting things coming, I will need to give my process the room and space it needs to breathe.
Which brings me to my last and final piece of news: I am set to complete the first draft of my third novel, Beartooth, before the year is out. I have a very tentative goal to release by the end of 2025, preferably by Thanksgiving, but there is also the very real possibility I will shop this novel with an agent to see if traditional publishing is my future direction. We shall see.
I hope you all enjoy the holidays. My next update will be January 31st! I hope to see some of your face in the weeks to come.
Happy Trails!
Kimberly Wheelock