Hello, folks! ^^ And a very happy summer to you all!!! (I go on about seasons far too much, don't I...? Ah well.) May has very much been a bit of a scribble-scrabble1 month for me, what with pegging away at my first draft and wrangling villains, but hi, hello, and welcome to my second newsletter! ^^

First off, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to all of you who’ve subscribed to my newsletter! Fifty subscribers! Aah! I hope you’ve all been enjoying my little ramblings here on Substack and that y’all haven’t minded all my messy little writing updates. It’s been wonderful meeting so many fellow writers on here, and I’m truly blessed to have met y’all!

I’d also like to announce that the young writer Q&A I was working on has finally been posted, and it is now up on my YouTube channel! It was truly wonderful getting to share this compilation with everyone, and I loved hearing all of the fantastic answers from all the young writers!! So make sure you go check that out!

Now…

Onto le updates!

writing

I really do think that there is something magical about writing the first draft of a story. Everything is unknown and it’s so very much like you’re stepping onto a twisty, windy path in the woods that leads who knows where. And while some people like to plan, I confess that my writing process is not at all like that.

It is chaotic.

It is messy.

And more often than not, I’ll end up wandering off the path and getting lost in the weeds. (This, I find, either results in a splendid idea I’d never have thought of before or just… being plain lost. Oh well.)

And though I wasn’t able to finish the first draft of my novel in May, I’ve been inching closer to The End, and I finally (finally!!) got to that scene I’d been hoping to write for months now. So far, there’s been a thief and a magical, abandoned library and I’m fairly certain my villain’s plotting something wretched that she won’t tell me about…

I’ve also been slowly adding to my concerningly large Pinterest board for this novel which has been both fun and also terribly time-consuming (any fellow professional procrastinators out there? 😂), but it has given me a great deal of inspiration, especially for the two Libraries!

(the current vibes of the city my characters are in)

I was also thinking over something recently. Something that I wrote a bit about in my previous post: no, writing isn’t easy. yes, that’s okay. And that was discomfort.

Writer’s block, fear of the blank page, perfectionism, whatever you want to call it.

But the fear that I’d been having with writing.

Both with wanting my book to be perfect and also worrying that, what if writing isn’t something I’m meant to do?

Writing is supposed to be fun and carefree, isn’t it? And yet, I’m struggling so much with self-doubt and just getting words down on the page. Does that mean I’m not meant to be a writer? were the thoughts that were going through my head.

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While I’d recommend you go read that post for more details, I think I really realized that… yes, writing is fun and carefree. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. And that most certainly doesn’t mean that writing is going to be fun and carefree all the time.

There is a certain discomfort that we all might get. Because this story is new and this world is so unknown. I truly don’t know if this idea is going to work out or not, and I don’t know if there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.

But we have to soldier on anyway. And maybe the true joy of writing isn’t in having everything be fun and carefree all the time. Maybe the true joy of writing is just writing. Writing regardless of that discomfort you have. Taking joy in creating a story, creating a world, creating these characters.

And that was something I’d been struggling with for a while — just having fun with writing! You don’t need to be perfect or to know everything ahead of time. You just need to have fun with the story. Which is something I think all writers should keep in mind.

I’ve also been working on my Latin, which has been fun! For some reason, I want to try and write poetry in Latin someday…. Not sure how that’s going to go but… a girl can dream. 😆 (I did, however, managed to translate this rather sad story about this farmer who was taught to write and wrote a most lovely letter only nobody read his letter.)

reading

*glances at my pile of books*

*sees all the wonderful books on there*

*cannot decide which books to possibly recommend to you*

I read a lot in May, but some of my absolute favorites were…

The Rise of the Dragon Star by Jess E. Own

This is the start to such a great epic fantasy series with griffons, dragons, and prophecies, and I am utterly in love!!! Ren’s character is brilliant, and I just love how much lore and history there is in the world! (And the prophecy!!) The series isn’t completed yet (and so I’ve just been left on the end of a dreadful cliffhanger), but this is a great book for tweens and teens!

The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli

I positively love this book! I’ve read some of Karina Yan Glaser’s other books before, and I loved A Duet for Home and her newest book does not disappoint at all! ^^ This tale is so beautifully written (two MCs!! dual timelines!! POETRY!) and I loved all of the themes of friendship, as well as the Chinese poetry that was included!

I’ve also been enjoying Secrets at Sparhawk Point by Anna Rose Johnson! This is an upcoming middle-grade novel that I was lucky enough to get an ARC of! So far, I’m loving the characters and Anna Rose Johnson’s writing style and this book is also just so well-written and the world somehow cozy despite the WWII setting, and I cannot wait for its release!!

miscellaneous

I didn’t do much art this month (hence this section being titled miscellaneous instead of art), but I did make my own bookmark, which was most fun! I’ve been running out of bookmarks and I thought that perhaps making my own bookmarks would be good practice for my watercolor!

Also, we saw a cute kitten, and for some reason, I feel as though this is something important that needs to be in the newsletter.

Look!! Cute kitten! Isn’t she2 adorable?

Alright, I suppose that’s enough kitten photos for now. XD

~ ~ ~

And that’s where my May went, folks! :)) Writing, kittens, and libraries! Do let me know down in the comments how your own May went! I love hearing from y’all! Till then, I must crawl back into my writing cave and finish up this first draft.

Till next time!

-Isabelle

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other fun stuff

The Rabbit Room is hosting a reading challenge! Young readers can complete challenges and read books to earn 250 points and win a prize! 👀

Leigh Bardugo also has a fantastic TED talk where she discusses discomfort in art and how to keep going!

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” -Ernest Hemingway

Dear Reader,

Right now, as I’m writing this, I am curled up in my little spinning chair in my writing shed. It is 9 pm. My journal is open before me. My desk is a chaotic array of pens, notes, and for some reason, I have a rock on my notebook. There is also the sound of a siren outside, and I’ve no clue why.

As I am writing this, I have not written much today.

In fact, if I were to be entirely honest, the only thing I’ve written today is three paragraphs.

And one of those paragraphs is only one word: “Light.”

Now where am I getting to with all this rambling?

I am telling all of this just to say this. No, writing is not easy. And yes, that is okay.

For those who haven’t met me, my name is Isabelle Knight. I’m a teen writer and my debut novel, Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir was independently published in August 2024, and I have been writing ever since that boring summer when I randomly decided I would write a book, as I had nothing else to do — a book that later became the first book in a middle-grade fantasy series.

Since then, writing has become so very important to me. It has become a way for me to express myself. It’s been a place where I can make myself both cry from tragic character deaths, laugh from absurd lore I’ve written, and feel truly at home with my imagination and creativity.

But at the same time, it’s left me wallowing in self doubt for over a year. It’s led me to crying into my pillow or banging my head into a wall.1 And ever since I finished the final book of that series, I was left feeling… very much lost.

Lost because these were characters I’d spent countless nights with, I’d spent so many days just happily scribbling in my notebook with messy ideas, I loved this world so darn much, what do you mean I had to let it go and give it to readers?

What happened next was me spending a year furiously trying to wrangle a new book, my room covered in sticky notes, my notebook looking like a madman had written in it (or a madwoman, if you will), before finally giving up in desperation to give myself a break.

But ever since then, whenever I started a new story, I’d always just have this uncomfortable feeling in me. Like this just wasn’t right. It just wasn’t. That I didn’t know what I was doing.

And because of that, I’d start to doubt.

Writing didn’t feel half as carefree and fun as it did when I was writing the Enchantria series.

Maybe this just wasn’t working.

Maybe I just needed to put the book down and find something else.

Some other story, some other idea, some other thing that I wouldn’t end up failing at.

And, you know, I think it’s not always a bad thing to put down a project. If a book really isn’t working out for you, then it is okay to put it down. It is okay to spend a while not writing. It is okay to just give yourself a break. It’s what I had to do, after all, with my previous project, Island Keepers.

But at the same time… I think it’s so important to keep in mind that struggling with a book does not mean you’re a bad writer. Nor does it mean you should put down a project.

I think all of us have felt this before. That discomfort. That fear. Because when you’re writing, the truth is, you don’t know if what you’re doing will work or not. You don’t know if this plot twist will make any sense or if everything will tie up nicely.

In fact, rarely, when you’re writing the first (or second. Or third. Or fourth. Or even fifth!) draft, will everything weave together nicely.

But you have to do it regardless. You have to write. You have to keep going. You have to keep going through the tunnel, trusting that there is a light at the end of the darkness.

Writing isn’t easy.

It really, really isn’t.

That carefree feeling? That is only part of being a writer. The other part is being riddled with self doubt and to keep writing anyway.

Which is hard. Especially when it feels like everywhere on social media, everyone looks like they are succeeding. Someone’s publishing her new book this year. Someone just won a book award. Someone just wrote 10,000 words in a single day.

But the parts that nobody does show are when you’re staring blankly at a piece of paper not knowing what to write. The afternoons spent wishing to bang your head into a wall because your characters aren’t cooperating.

And another thing I realized. There is always a sort of fear, a sort of discomfort, whenever I start a new story. Maybe you feel the same, or maybe you don’t. Either way, I certainly have.

And I think that is because there is a sort of fear we all have, whenever we’re starting anything new, be it a new skill or a new story.

I don’t know whether this idea is going to work. I don’t know if that plot twist is going to make sense. I don’t know if all these plot threads will weave together or not.

But I have to keep going anyway. Despite the discomfort. Despite the little nagging thing inside my head saying, “What if this doesn’t work out?”

But I won’t know if it works out or not unless I keep going.

And maybe that’s the true joy of writing. Just writing. No, you don’t have to be all happy and carefree during every writing session (I rarely am. Most of the time, I’m wretchedly cranky.) But being able to write anyway. And being able to get past that fear and just have fun in creating.

Because the truth is, despite all the self doubt, at some point, you need to get up from the couch, get back in your chair, and start writing — writing just because you enjoy it, without expecting perfection.

So no, writing isn’t easy.

And yes, that’s okay.

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other news:

Writing: I’ve been working hard on the first draft of my next book,2 which is a cozy middle-grade fantasy! It’s going well so far, and I’m knee-deep in Act Two! I have also taken to writing the book out on paper these past few days which has been fun! I’ve also got a really chaotic Pinterest board for it. So that’s nice! XD

Currently reading: The Girl with the Dragon Heart by Stephanie Burgis! This is such a fun MG fantasy! I loved the first book in the series (dragons and chocolate? Sign me up!), and I’m loving Silke’s story just as much (perhaps even more than) as Aventurine’s!

Other miscellaneous: I found this lovely speech (tis only four minutes!) given by the one and only Frederik Backman that I must simply beg you to check out. It is ludicrously funny and filled with so many writerly truths! I’ve re-watched this twice now and it never fails to crack me up.

welcome aboard
here’s your ticket
to get to the train
just head through the thicket.

dance over the bridge
shake of your burdens
and laugh with delight
as they fall to the current.

reach the tunnel gate
where a guard stands still
and he’ll ask for a bundle
of sorrows to kill.

give them up lightly
there’s no need to fear
for what you will leave
is nothing you need.

then onward you’ll go
light as a breeze
you’ll waltz through the tunnel
and out into the trees.

feel better now?
well, that is good.
for very soon at
the end of the wood

you’ll see the old train
laughing with smoke as she stops
she’ll ask for the ticket
you bought at the shop.
(she will not mind
ifi it’s a little crumpled up.)

then out and up,
through the rusty gates you’ll leap
onto the train where your tears
will feel like a far away sleep.

the train will carry you
aware from here
to a place where anger
and sorrow will not be near.

so have no fear,
no need to mourn
the world that you hold dear.
for this is your ticket
to happiness, dear.

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Hello, friends!! And a very Happy May to you all! <3 May is such a beautiful month, I think. I don’t know why, but it just is. The rain from April starts to fade. The sun starts to peek out of his hiding place in the clouds. The flowers are all blooming and spring is in the air. (With a hint of summer as well!) And I think the name is just lovely too. May.

At any rate, before I go off rambling about spring to no end, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the people who have subscribed (40 people!! Which is so very wild to me, that anyone has found this Substack and is even remotely interested in my ramblings) and have supported my writing! ^^ I am so grateful to every single one of you and I look forward to seeing where this journey takes us next! 💜

A little while ago, it was my blogoversary.

Officially two years since I’d started my blog and began to share my writing journey with y’all.

Since then, I have had the truly amazing opportunity to meet so many incredible folks and share my journey, and it’s just been so wonderful! And seeing as it’s been two years, I thought why not do a Q&A for this blogoversary? I have not decided whether this Q&A shall be posted on my blog or YouTube channel (perhaps YouTube since I’ve abandoned my poor channel for the last month or so.), but I thought this would be fun to do!

(Of course, there is also the chance that nobody shall ask any questions. *awkward laugh* That won’t happen. Maybe. I hope. It might. Oh well. I’m doing this anyway.)

So if any of you have had any questions you’ve wanted to ask me — be it about writing, blogging, or random non-writing related things — do feel free to leave one (or a few!) below!! I love hearing from you! <3 I shall make an attempt to answer as many questions as I possibly can in the Q&A!

Till next time, and wishing y’all a wonderful month ahead!

-Isabelle

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Dear Reader,

Time really does fly, doesn’t it? Already, it’s the end of April and the start of a new month. April has been such an eventful month for me, and yet it’s somehow been peaceful at the same time. Which, as an author, is a most welcome combination, in my opinion!!

A great deal of things have happened in April that I am most grateful for — making progress on my book, writing some more poetry (National Poetry Month!!), starting this newsletter, and meeting a lot of new writer friends!

The weather has also been quite lovely around here, with both sunny warm days and cool rainy ones! I’m hoping to start planting flowers a little later this season (or perhaps in early summer), as well as hopefully finish my book!! :))

But anyway, yeah. Hello, hi, and welcome to my first newsletter! Hope you enjoy!

writing

I’ve been working on my next book (I say next book, but I technically have two projects in the works — my WIP and a previous project that’s been set down for the time being till I finish the first draft of my WIP), and I’ve been having a lot of fun with writing it!

I’m very much a writer who works best in secret, and I don’t often share what I’m writing before the first or second draft is complete. I will say though that this book is a cozy middle-grade fantasy with pixies, magical forests, and random arguments over bread! It’s somewhat akin to Beyond Mulberry Glen by Millie Florence and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis.

I’ve been writing this book ever since January, and consistency is something that I’ve been struggling with for a while. But now that we’ve finally settled in back home after our traveling in Thailand, I’ll hopefully be able to work on this a bit more every day! Even if I’m not writing 2,000 words a day, every little bit still counts!

My word count is currently sitting at 53K. I’ve no clue what the finished word count will be (somewhere in the 90K to 100K range, I suppose…) because I tend to overwrite a great deal. But as it’s the first draft, I honestly don’t mind and I actually enjoy overwriting, as it tells me a lot more about the characters, their backstory, and it gives me time to work out the plot threads as everything’s unfolding!

I’ve also been dabbling a bit in short stories and poetry! I’m very much hoping to start submitting short stories and poems to magazines this year (fingers crossed!!) as well!1 I don’t know how it’s going to go, but I think I’d like to give it a shot!

Of course, my short stories always end up ballooning up into either novellas, novels, or whole trilogies, and so I’m not sure how I’ll do… 😆 But perhaps this will be good practice for writing them. :)) I do have this short story that ballooned up into a whole novella idea, and I’m very much hoping to work on this summer and turn into a serial here in Substack!

And speaking of poetry, it was National Poetry Month this April, which means…

a poem each day for the month of april!

I found out about this from and on Substack (who both have some wonderful poems, by the way), and as a budding poet, I thought it would be great fun if I tried my hand at this!

As someone who loves poetry, I’ve always wanted to write some of my own! And I have written a few, though not a whole lot, and practice makes perfect, as they say. And it’s been so much fun participating in this challenge! I did start late, since I only found out about National Poetry Month sometime around mid-April, but I still wrote a lot of poems and had a lot of fun with it!

I posted two of the poems over here on Substack and the rest on my blog which you can find over here: https://springfallschronicle.com/category/poetry/

My favorite ones by far were, I think, “spring” and “willow tree” as I loved writing the imagery and those were two of my favorite topics.

reading

Didn’t read as much as I’d hoped this April, but I did re-read a few of my favorite classics, as well as Emily of New Moon by L.M Montgomery (a new favorite of mine!). I also read The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien for the first time!! (Which I am most ecstatic about!) It is a brilliant fantasy novel, and just how well-built and fleshed out the world is… it is just a marvelous book. Would definitely recommend!! ^^

Charlotte is hooked on this series, but I’ve been trying to convince Izzy for a while now… Alas.

(Even as I write this, she is staring at me over the top of the book….)

art

I confess to not having been too consistent with art recently.

It’s very some something I’m dabbling in on the side (like with poetry), and I fear I do have a tendency to fall out of practicing it. However, I did do a few paintings and sketches this month, shown down below!

(I am particularly fond of the pink house. And the hobbit hole. I desperately want a hobbit hole of my own.)

~ ~ ~

So yeah, that is where my April went! ^^ It was a month full of writing, poetry (which isn’t as easy as it looks! Especially rhyming poems.), and art! Thank you all so much for reading this (and for supporting my writing!! It truly means the world to me.), and I hope you found this interesting! Do let me know down in the comments how your own April has been going and if you have any plans for May!

Till next time and wishing y’all a fantastic May!

-Isabelle

P.S. For those wondering what the caption (subtitle??) of my newsletter is, tis in Latin and tis a reference to my WIP. ;)

But soft is the light

Of the pretty, full-grown moon.

Her eye it shines down

Her light is a crown

In the shadow of the sky.

Her gown is silver

Her voice is a whisper

That only the wind may hear.

And when she peers out

Behind her cloak of clouds

All the stars dance to see

The pretty face that is she.

I’m late.

Very very late.

In fact, over a third of the month has gone by…

😶

However, I’ve been seeing this lovely thing going around on Substack, in which my fellow Substackers (including the wonderful ) have been writing and posting a poem every day during the month of April for National Poetry Month.

I myself am a budding poet, though I’m not splendidly good at poems. So, I thought, why not try my hand at this?? Surely it can’t go wrong! Right?

Ahem. Anyway. Without further rambling, I present to you, a rather long, rather sad poem I wrote: dancing girl in my dream.

~ ~ ~

i see a dancing girl

laughing in my dream

her dress is white,

her eyes are bright,

i watch her as she twirls.

across marble floors

and gilded halls,

i hear her when she sings

of fallen stars and long lost kin

of times when Wind would venture in

and whisper to her of riddles of old

stories, long-forgotten, that once were told

oh, her step is light,

her eyes are bright,

her hair is the color of the night

and in her arms she holds

a bunch of flowers: daisies, bluebells, marigolds,

she turns to me, with the sweetest smile

oh, how i’d like to know her for a while

but alas, her footsteps fade,

like the Wind in the glade,

for like the wind, the sun, and stars,

she is gone, like many things that no longer are,

oh i see a dancing girl in my dream

but that is all — it is but a dream.

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I also share more poetry, short stories, and ramblings of a middle-grade author over at my blog! :) https://springfallschronicle.com/

Truth be told, I’ve been debating. On what I should write.

I’ve had… well, not so much writer’s block, but just… more of an uncertainty. Of what to write. I’ve started and scrapped a great deal of post ideas that I left half-written at midnight.

But, after much pondering over cups of tea, I decided I might share a bit about my writing. Or rather, why I write. Why I choose to tell stories. And why I decided to write my debut novel, Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir.

This post will probably be a tad rambly. But… I hope y’all shall stick around. :)

I wasn’t much of a reader when I was younger. If you’d asked seven-year-old me at the time, she would’ve told you that books were boring, that she’d much rather go off gallivanting off into adventures than sit down and read a book.1

However, that wasn’t quite true.

I still remember the way I poured over my favorite books when I was younger. Maybe I didn’t have many of them, and maybe I didn’t read as often as I did now. But I still remember how I had my favorite stories, most of them fairytales — Snow White, The Fish and the Ring, The Children of Lir, The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

Those were the stories that I read and told to myself, over and over again. And I still have a very battered copy of an old favorite of mine: The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. Its pages are yellowed and crinkled, and the only reason the cover isn’t flying off and fraying is because I’ve stuck it beneath two remarkably heavy books in an attempt to flatten it out before the pages combust.2 It does not look so very battered in this picture, but trust me when I say that this book is very well-loved.

And so though I never considered myself much of a reader, I still had that love that I think everyone has, whether they consider themselves a bookworm or not: a love for stories.

I’ve sometimes wonder why. What is it about these stories that draws us in? What is it about fairytales and novels that have captured the hearts of so many people, both children and adults alike?

Truth be told, I don’t think there is any one answer to this question.

There are a great many things that have stood out to me about stories.

For one, they let us know we are not alone.

I feel like I say this all the time, but it is something I have found to be so very true. Whenever I was feeling sad or down, I could always crack open a book and find myself no longer alone in my little corner, but with characters as dear to me as friends, going on wild adventures or riding pegasi or battling evil wizards.

If I was ever struggling with anything in life, be it my own inner demons or some sadness in the real world, stories let me know that I was not the only one. That I wasn’t the only one battling this. That there were other people out there in the world, and it wasn’t just me, all alone in my writing shed. And that was strangely enough, a huge comfort to me, at the time.

And secondly, nothing is ever impossible in a story.

I think this was the main thing I loved about storytelling. In stories, fantasy especially, nothing was ever really impossible. There were dragons and magic and spells and prophecies and all sorts of things that shouldn’t be possible in real life, but are in that world. There were different worlds, worlds that seemed to abide by their own laws and rules, worlds that weren’t confined to the rules and logic of the real world.

And thirdly, they bring hope.

I heard someone say this once (I fear I cannot remember where though), that stories can and do show darkness and evil. They show that there are dragons. But they also show that the dragons can be vanquished. That evil can be overcome. They show that, even in the darkest of moments, hope can be found.

And I think that is so very important, especially today, when it feels like everyone is talking about impending doom, news articles are all showcasing hopelessness and war, and it feels like nothing good is happening.

And that is why I tell stories, I think.

To spread hope. To show people that there is light, even through all the dark. And to reach other kids. Kids like me. Kids who might feel as though they don’t belong. And to, hopefully, give them what stories gave me when I was younger: hope.

And that is very much why I wrote the Enchantria series. Both as an escape for myself in a world that felt so dark at times and also as an escape for anyone else who might need it. It is a series that is full of everything I loved at the time: humor, magic, stars, and a ludicrous amount of crystals, and it is a series that I hope will find its way into the hearts of other younger readers. :)

So yeah. If you stuck around to the end of my rather rambly post, I thank you! And I look forward to seeing where my writing takes me next! Right now, I am currently working on a cozy middle-grade fantasy, full of pixies and forests and dreams and am knee-deep in writing the first draft of it. 🙃

Do comment and let me know what you’re working on at the moment and also why you write. I love hearing from y’all!

Till next time and wishing y’all a fantastic month ahead! Oh yes, and a very happy National Poetry Month!!

-isabelle

A spellbinding, middle-grade fantasy from debut author, Isabelle Knight. Perfect for fans of Gail Carson Levine and Deva Fagan, as well as readers of Wilderlore and the Starfell series.

In a land of magic, secrets, and stars, one girl must fulfill a prophecy and save them all.

Elena Ramirez’s mother vanished eleven years ago, leaving behind only a golden key that unlocks… absolutely nothing. Or so she thought. On her sixteenth birthday, Elena discovers the key holds a magical secret, and she’s pulled in through a portal into the kingdom of Enchantria.

But not all is as it seems. As an ancient prophecy unfolds, Elena is forced to become on of the guardians of the land and she and her friends will have to embark on a perilous quest to seek the Tribe – an ancient group of people who may not even exist. And if she fails Enchantria will fall to its greatest enemy – a sorceress of shadows and ravens who has waited centuries for her chance to rule.

Available in ebook and paperback.

https://springfallschronicle.com/books/