Welcoming Summer

and taking an unexpected and unwelcome writing break

Hello dear readers,

I was so excited to begin summer break and my favorite season of the year. The school year nicely ended with all of its festivities on the last day of May, but unfortunately for me, June dawned with a pretty debilitating injury that has had me spending all my days managing pain and going to appointments. To make a long story short, I have cervical radiculopathy (a fancy name for a pinched nerve), it has caused great pain and very minimal ability to use my right arm.

If you’re the praying sort, I covet your prayers for a quick and minimally invasive recovery, so that I can get back to all of my passions and hobbies that require my dominant arm (like writing, journaling, cooking/baking, holding a real book, sitting on the couch/at a desk comfortably, etc).

ahhhh, short hair is so light! (knitted arm sleeve because my hand/arm is always cold right now 😜)

The one fun thing to come out of this so far is that I chopped my hair off to lessen the weight on my neck and I really like my shorter ‘do. 😉 My sprits are also rising with warmer temperatures (and sun!) and with the start of some treatment.

For now, my Substack, and all of my writing, is on hiatus, as I can only handle so much voice-to-text dictation. I was really looking forward to finishing revisions on my middle grade manuscript to prepare for querying it, so hopefully I can still get to that by the end of the summer break. I'm still checking in on Instagram as I can and I'm keeping my current reads up to date on StoryGraph.

I'll be back to this little corner of the Internet soon as I'm able; I hope you'll all still be around then. Special note to paid subscribers: I'm so sorry to have left you hanging with only about four chapters left of Timing is Everything. I totally understand if you need to pause your subscription. Finishing those chapters is my top writing priority and I will get to it is soon as I can.

Happy summer reading to all of you!

xo,

Nicole