I’d be lying if I said writing in the month of May was easy.

As a beginner, the Regency voice came naturally to me—formal, structured, everything I wished I was. But switching to contemporary made it clear how different the tone needed to be. I overcorrected at first, simplifying my writing so much it stopped being enjoyable—for me or for beta readers.

Dating/Investigating, my modern Northanger Abbey retelling, has been especially tough. I usually average twenty chapters a month, but in May, I managed just six.

Six.

I would’ve had more, but I had to go back and rewrite the first four chapters to raise the quality for an adult audience. Thankfully, I’m finally hitting my stride. I know where the story is going—my Isabella Thorpe character is shaping up to be a scene-stealer—and I’m falling in love with my leads.

My goal? To tell you by July that I’m working on Chapter 26.

Part of the slow pace is that I’m also working on Annalise Auclair, my standalone Regency/Napoleonic romance. That book is already half-written, so right now I’m focused on strengthening Annalise’s relationship with her love interest and refining the structure. You may recognize parts if you read the free version last year.

It’s been easier—writing mostly from Percival Tyson’s POV and sliding right back into that Regency rhythm. I’ve edited the full original draft, written five new chapters, deepened the villain’s role, and added new subplots. It’s been nice.

The real challenge is switching gears. From Sunday night Regency to Monday morning Contemporary. How do I go from writing a passage like this:

"The door creaked on underused hinges. An ominous groan to remind him that this was a room of ghosts. Objects that had lost their purpose. Memories that faded into the air like intangible vapor. He moved to a bedside table and looked at his reflection in the looking glass. He used to stand here all the time as a younger man, peering into it with an optimistic grin. But today, his skin was pale, his eyes were bloodshot from his nightly binge, and his heart was cleaved in twain.

Here is where I first looked at myself and knew I was undone.

The rogue thought struck him like a hammer striking the nail of a coffin. Resolute. Final. Percival scowled into the mirror, his future laid bare before him through the looking glass. This was where he’d suffered, and it would be where he died.

Alone. Forever alone."

To something like this:

"Everything Shane had just said would play on a loop in my mind until I integrated it into my identity. I’d carry the baggage of our short conversation this morning with me for the next five years, until whoever came next added something worse, and then that would be my new baggage.

How did I know this about myself? Because numbers never lie. I’d behaved this way all my life, with my Daddy and Mommy issues, the disintegration of my first crush, the absolute heartbreak of my first love, the friendships lost, the death of my closest friend in high school, and now with Shane.

But when I considered it, I’d experienced far worse loss than Shane, hadn’t I?

Her face arose in my memory abruptly, like always. Hair as gold as the sun, eyes a steely grey, like low-hanging storm clouds. That smile that was perfectly straight and pearly white, accentuated by rosy-pink lips. Her laughter had been magic, her soul, fire.

But as we all know, fire can be snuffed out."

It’s tough—but I’m getting there. Slowly, yet surely.