I keep hoping to get back into monthly blog updates, but so far just haven’t had the capacity to keep up a blog. I’ve been working away at my WIP, Wilderlands, in the background. I decided to apply for the same arts grant through the Minnesota State Arts Board for 2027 that I did in 2025, to get funding to continue working on the series and replace my laptop which is really starting to fall apart. That means getting my novel to where I need it to be to complete the work I proposed for the grant, which means most of my spare time is once again dedicated to editing.

On top of that, I’m planning on doing more classes with my local community ed! This time instead of a single hour long class, I’m planning a series of four working with middle schoolers. So prep for that has taken what other spare time I have.

And, of course, I’m still volunteering with my local animal rescue, doing marketing for them and helping out with the digital side of animal management.

Still, I don’t want to go radio silent for a six month span again, even if I’m having trouble coming up with ideas for formal blog posts. Instead, I decided to start sharing little snippets from what I’ve been working on novel-wise. This way I can combine the editing process with blog posts, and hopefully make the management a little easier.

To start off, I wanted to share a snippet I’ve just removed from Wilderlands. It’s an aside that was extraneous in an already too-long chapter, but a bit of world building that I really like.

This small bit of reflection was originally placed to contrast my main character Willow’s experience growing up in a small farming community with her new life at the elite magic school. It’s meant to show the reader a little more of the disparities between the classes of her world.

Without further adieu, here is that snippet:

One of Willow’s favorite things about living at the Chaparral was the indoor plumbing. Even the newly imposed buddy system wasn’t enough to ruin her time luxuriating in the convenience.

Chance Hollow, like many homesteads, had very limited plumbing. They had shared spigots with running water at various places across their town, which then had to be carried back to the house in large pots. And while the village council assured them the water was safe to drink, Willow’s parents always insisted on boiling it before use, something that in the dog days of summer felt more like torture than a chore.

“The pipes are old,” her mother would say whenever she complained. “Even if our groundwater is clean, if any of the pipes are damaged, who knows what might be leaking in.”

No one had ever gotten sick from drinking the water in Willow’s lifetime, but when her parents were children, a nearby homestead had been wiped off the map by blue fever. It spread through contaminated drinking water, coming on fast and killing even faster. The fever spread through sewage, which had gotten into the water due to some damaged pipes too near an outhouse. By the time the village council identified the cause, their homestead had already been decimated. There weren’t enough resources to repair the problem, and the survivors had been forced to abandon their homes and their fields to seek refuge elsewhere.

Once, her father took her through the remains of that homestead on their way to pick up supplies in a nearby town. Only a generation had passed since it was a flourishing homestead, but already the buildings were almost entirely reclaimed by the wilds. Something about the place had disturbed her. She could still feel death hanging in the air.

“So much loss, all because they didn’t boil their water,” he’d said as they look at the crumbled houses and abandoned fields.

And so they boiled their water.

But, here at the Chaparral, she didn’t have to worry about any of this. There was no hauling or boiling of water. In fact, they had a whole building devoted to it, with showers, faucets, and even toilets. Not only that, but it was spelled to give out both hot and cold water, all that the flick of a handle. An indoor shower was luxury enough for Willow, after a lifetime of bathing beneath an outdoor, gravity-fed shower in the summer and in a large copper tub in the winter. To have all of this water and convenience whenever she wanted it—at the top of a tree no less—boggled her mind.

Her excitement was only tempered by the embarrassing first encounter she had with this new technology. Sister Trillium had assured her it was not uncommon for girls from the homesteads or fisher villages to need some guidance at first, but Willow’s cheeks still burned anytime she remembered that particular lesson. She had avoided eye contact with her instructor for nearly a sennight after that.