“The beginning is always today.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

First and foremost

I would like to thank you for your support! I’m grateful to have the opportunity to begin or cultivate our friendships, and I can’t wait to see our small community grow.

The Ink-Dipped Trowel will be a quarterly publication, which means I plan to write 3-4 newsletters a year (plus short entries when I

have exciting news or bonus content to share).

I’m thrilled to be writing my first newsletter and to have the chance to connect with you!

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Jamie’s Desk

My historical fantasy novel, Hearts Like Silver, has been professionally edited and is now being proofread. I’m so excited to be releasing it next year—I haven’t set a date yet, but I’m hoping for January. (The next step in getting it published is crafting a cover… I’ve done a few sketches, but I’ve yet to decide on the look and it could take weeks to paint.) You can see the current blurb for HLS on my website in the “Books” tab, although it hasn’t been edited yet so it may change before publication.

This past month, my time has gone toward editing, formatting and making the cover for A Conspiracy of Ravens, drafting the second book in an anthology series (separate from HLS), and lamenting the end of summer, a season I used to dread but have recently fallen in love with. (That being said, I’m still stoked for autumn! 🍂☕️)1

A weather aside: when I got married, I moved to the desert where my husband lived and the summers there were volatile—it was scorching outside and freezing inside (everyone in the desert had great air conditioning!). But I have a new outlook on summer now that I’ve moved back to my hometown; the temperatures here are far milder, the days are long, the farmer’s market’s in session, and it’s nice seeing everyone in their yards/out and about on my walk-jogs (I run in spurts, which makes me feel active without killing me).

Back to the subject of writing, I’m over seventy-thousand words into my Greek-inspired novel (that second book I brought up), but I’ve decided to draft the final book before releasing the first one. So that series won’t see the light of day for at least three years—partly because I want Book Three to be the size of two books, and partly because I might take a break before writing it to draft a different project.

I have a massive, running list of story ideas—too many to see through even if I had ten lifetimes to write—but there’s one that won’t stop badgering me… although I want to put it off because it’s another historical fiction novel, and I know that will take me at least a year and half (and possibly three off my life) to write. It’s crazy how much research goes into writing historically accurate, or as accurate as possible, books. And it doesn’t help that my brain requires breaks between drafting, usually month-long breaks, to stitch together loose plot threads and pick up lost puzzle pieces, otherwise it blocks me from making progress altogether.

But I’ll keep you updated on what story I pick up next after I finish drafting Book Two, which will probably take a few months. I’m an extremely slow writer, but I’ve learned to embrace the slowness and bring joy back into the writing process—maybe I’ll talk about that next time! ☺️

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Field Sketchbook

This section of the newsletter will include a quick sketch of something related to archeology/anthropology and usually a brief examination of the subject.

I thought it would be fun if the first entry centred on a character in my upcoming novel—Robert the Bruce, Scottish warrior and King of Scots. This may look like a rock, but it’s meant to be his heart, now black, shrivelled, and prunelike.

The Bruce intended to go on a crusade to the Holy Land but was unable to due to health issues. So he entrusted Sir James Douglas, the Black Douglas, to carry his heart to the Holy Land after his death. His heart was sawn from his chest, placed in a silver casket, and worn around Douglas’s neck on a chain. Unfortunately, Douglas was felled in Teba. Bruce’s heart was brought back to Scotland and buried beside the Abbey of Melrose, exhumed in 1921, and reburied at Melrose in 1998.

Of course, it’s impossible to say for certain that the exhumed heart belonged to Robert the Bruce, but it’s assumed to be his, for it was the only heart on record to have been buried there.

Here’s an extra painting I did of Robert the Bruce from Braveheart—an historically inaccurate but still great movie.

Click this link if you’d like to learn more or see the final resting place of Robert the Bruce’s heart.

Returning Home

What I’m reading: The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith. I got it as a Christmas gift a few years ago and thought I’d give it a chance. I’m really enjoying the writing style, the vineyard magic system, the revenge plot, and what I believe might be a second chance romance—but I’m only seventy pages in, so we’ll see!

What I’m watching: I’m currently forcing my husband to watch my favourite kdrama with me, Crash Landing on You. If you haven’t seen it, it’s amazing—hilarious, heartfelt, action-packed, cheesy, everything. I love it.

We’re also watching the PBS Masterpiece version of All Creatures Great and Small. I could recommend so many great Masterpiece shows… I guess I might as well list some of them for anyone looking for top-tier TV! Some of my favourites are Sherlock, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Around the World in Eighty Days, Vienna Blood, Sanditon, The Durrells in Corfu, The Miniaturist, and Downton Abbey. Oh, and Magpie Murders is a fun one for writers.

I could list my favourite kdramas too (I just started watching King the Land), but that would take up half the newsletter. This section will be far shorter in the future.

What I’m listening to: I recently discovered this podcast, In Writing with Hattie Crisell, and it’s great—Hattie’s an excellent interviewer. I listened to the Barbara Trapido episode and now I’m on to George Saunders, which is fantastic so far (I especially like that he talks about how facing resistance in writing is a good thing, how your subconscious is working on your story even when you’re not actively thinking about it, and the idea of establishing an author lineage—it’s cool to think about authors you look up to being a part of your literary ancestry).

Complimentary Short Story

When you subscribed, you should have been sent the link to my short story, A Conspiracy of Ravens. Its inspiration came from Louisa Alcott’s Little Women and Jane Austen’s Emma (and maybe, a little bit, Disney’s Aladdin), and it’s meant to be a fairytale with a title that suggests something ominous…

“Marry in the month of May, you will surely rue the day.”

Anyonymous

This old superstition, a line from a longer poem, may have its origins in ancient Rome and is possibly connected to the Maytime festival of Lemuria, in which spirits or spectres called lemures were exorcised from homes. The original title for A Conspiracy of Ravens was Marry in May.

A song for A Conspiracy of Ravens :

I would love to hear what you thought of ACoR if you’re open to sharing. Feel free to comment below, or you can email me at jamiesheehan@substack.com if you don’t feel comfortable commenting!2

You’re also welcome to check out my small Pinterest board for the short story here3, and you might notice I based Lord Cormac’s estate house on Russborough House in County Wicklow in east Ireland—a symmetrical, Roman-inspired building with an intimidating stone facade and an extravagant interior.

(This photo is not of Russborough House)

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1

I’ve noticed I use parentheses all the time to add quick notes but, just so you know, I’ve yet to use them in my books (I won’t limit myself by saying I never will, but I can’t see it happening)—oh look, more parentheses.

2

Please note: only subscribers’ emails will go through to this email address.

3

The board for Hearts Like Silver is also public on my Pinterest!