Fountain pen sales are buoyant amongst collectors and enthusiasts today, as people like myself discover the joy of working with fountain pen and ink.  Perhaps the baby boomer generation holds some nostalgia for the pens of our youth and can now slow down and strive to learn to write beautifully with a pen.
The art of penmanship is in revival.

I'm happy.
Today, I'm thirty-one-thousand words into book one, "What the Caged Bird Knows," in a new cosy, soft-boiled "A View From The Balcony Mystery" series, I started on November 1st.
Given the interruptions associated with the community living environment I am in, I didn't know if I'd be able to do this. Everyday is a battle to find a quiet minute to myself. Mostly I write in the middle of the night behind my locked door.
I'm plotting the other three books in the series as I write book one. The release is preset for 1st August 2022.
I hope there will be fountain pen illustrations as chapter headings, but it's really too early to see that far ahead.

Day nine, and it's been a day of amazing progress. I have been reminded of the generosity of spirit of authors, and how many network and assist each other.

Today I made contact with other ethical authors and bloggers.

I chose a launch date for my cozy mystery novel series of the 1st of August and booked that date with a fellow blogger for an interview and online book launch tour. I'll reciprocate and assist in promoting her books as I can see that people who would enjoy my work will also love her writing. That's cross-promotion, and it is how people can succeed by helping each other in an ethical non-spam manner.

My second venture into assisting fellow authors who will in turn assist me is by becoming a beta reader. That is, I am about to read someone's 75,000-word cozy mystery manuscript and comment constructively on it in a way that I hope will assist the work be as successful as possible at the book launch. She will reciprocate when I have my manuscript ready. That's an ideal way to work in business, assisting each other. I love that. Meeting these people was more important to me today than my word count. 

If this cozy mystery novel hoomumma is writing works, you know it will be 100% because of my critical eye on the whole process.
Tess.

736 words completed today. Some is better than none. A total of 14,058 words written by the end of Day 6 NaNoWriMo 2021.

There are many picture programs where you can do photo editing. My favourites are Pixer and Canva.  Today I spent a satisfying morning revamping all my website banners to reflect the importance of my cozy mystery series and art journaling and caricature art more in my future creative life and the fine art and historical fiction set in Australia more reflecting my past than my future. I do enjoy manipulating images in these programs, and I loved the resulting banners I created for my Patreon, YouTube and the pages in this website.  No writing was done though. We cannot do everything.  Then, life happened, and no writing was done in the afternoon and early evening. It looks as if a writing sprint, just before midnight is on the cards for tonight.

I, Tess the therapy puppy, had a wonderful morning. I went to Daylesford Lake, with Robyn from the kitchen staff, played ball on the bowling lawn at the aged care home with the physiotherapist, and napped while hoomumma, Ryn, wrote the murderer reveal scene reaching 9,564 words by day 5 #NaNoWriMo21

How important it is for the reader to read in order, or would the book still be a good read if read randomly out of order? I have numbered each book in a series, on the front cover, with my historical fiction. written as Ryn Shell
I won't do it for my cozy mysteries written under a the Kathryn Shell pen name.

wrote until 3AM to reach my word count target for NaNoWriMo day 4, so it's proving to be difficult, writing novels from within an aged care setting—with all its interruptions, but I'm still keen to try to do this. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated.

Today I bought four book covers for the new series I've begun. I'll do an early cover reveal for my Patreon's. 

Tess reports she got two walks, ball play, and afternoon tea in the garden. That's more impawtant than Ryn being slightly behind schedule with the #NaNoWriMo novel.
Ryn simplified her Patreon to one tier at one low price and added more rewards.
Have a pawfect evening furends.