Revising, Rethinking and Lots of Rewriting

July 14, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back! It’s a dark and stormy night here in New England and that for me means, lots of reading and writing! I love rainy nights, days, weeks, for just this reason. Plus, it holds the oppressive heat at bay so that’s always a bonus.

I’ve been kind of losing my mind lately with the progress of my book. I wrote myself into a hole of crap that I now am trying to fix. If you’ve been following along for a while, you know that this current novel that I have been working on has been really flowing. I was on a role writing a chapter a night and the story has been going great. And then…

I hit a chapter with a pivotal plot point. One that is taking much more research than I thought it would. As I’m working on that, there is another aspect that I also need to do some follow up on and in the meantime, the rest of the story wants to come out! Yes folks, I’ve hit that point where I yell at my screen at least once an evening now.

I’ve rewritten full chapters, cutting scenes that I really thought would work but now see that they would be better in future pages. Lots of cutting and pasting to rework what’s already been written which, by the way, is another reason why I save each chapter separately. This way I can rework them individually without having to scroll through the entire manuscript. Still, it’s been hard to change what I thought were great pages.

Like others who write, this book has become such a part of me. I dream about it. I work scenes in my head like a movie and even as I talk to people, the next chapter is playing out in my mind over and over again until I can get it written. I feel like I owe it to these characters to give them my best and damned if I’m not going to give it to them!

Is this a public pep talk to myself? Maybe. But when it’s now been months and reams of paper have been printed with chapter after edited chapter, I need to keep myself on track. I lost several days of writing last week when I was stuck, blocked and basically up against a wall. Plus, I was reading a book that I never wanted to put down and once it was over, it stuck with me deeply and I couldn’t get my own story back in my head for two days. So here I am, putting this out there…all creatives will get to this point. That time where there is a pause in the flow of our work. Where there will be a blip in how we think and a time where we constantly curse at ourselves while we try to get it back.

For me, stepping back last week was good. I had been taking the book in the wrong direction. Not saying it wouldn’t have worked the way it was going, but it wasn’t where I wanted this story to go. It was like writing an alternative universe for these characters. Sure it would have been a bit spicier, but I’m writing a romcom not a Fifty Shades kind of book and that’s when I knew stepping back was needed. (However, if I do decide to write something steamier in the future? I’ve kept those scenes in another document, just in case. Throw nothing away.)

Maybe the Summer is affecting me, who knows. As I sit here and type this, waiting for Fall and my first PSL of the season, my characters are trying to keep me in the moment. It’s really a good thing I have no life or else this wouldn’t get written at all! 😂

Anywhoo, this is where I’m going to leave you for today. I hope this resonates with you on some level. If it doesn’t, that means I’m just losing it. But hey, thank you for letting me lose it here!

Until next time…keep enjoying your Summers!

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For my socials, including my new #booktok you can find all of my links:

linktr.ee/promosocially

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To read one of the best books I’ve ever written, The Things We Left Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros: click HERE

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I’m happy to announce that I’m now a PangoBooks ambassador! Use my link to get $5 off of your your first purchase and get some great books at super low prices! My first order with them, I found two brand new books for less than $1.50 each! Click my link to get started: https://pangobooks.com/NEWCHAPTERCOVE

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If you’ve gotten this far, thanks so much. You guys rock!! 🙂

Rereading, Spice and Tone Change

July 8, 2025July 8, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / 2 Comments

Hey guys, welcome back! I hope you all had a great weekend. It was an interesting one around here with fireworks and a brief blackout, but hey, that’s Summer, amiright?

Quick update, I have added a new page to the site: 2025 On the Bookshelf If you missed the Summer reading post, it contains the books I mentioned there and more and will be updated as I continue to add those that I’m reading throughout the year. Hope you’ll check it out if you are looking for reading recs or Prime Day goodies. (Remember that Prime Days have now begun and run from July 8th-11th. You can find my associate links around the site and on the bookshelf page as well.)

So now that’s out of the way, let’s get to this!

I’m once again rereading my manuscript because somewhere in the last two weeks, the tone of the story has really gone off the rails. What started out as a romcom that I’d hoped the legendary Nora Ephron would approve of, suddenly went to a more serious and darker place I wasn’t expecting. Not to mention, it also got a bit, let’s say, ‘spicier’ than I was going for.

So it was time to take a major step back. I tried rewriting chapters and found that I kept ending up in the same place. I’m chalking it up to the Summer heat finally frying my brain and a few juicy books I’ve read in the past few months. However, for this particular book, I had never planned on it going in that direction.

I’ve decided to put those new chapters aside, maybe rework them for a future project that is leaning more towards that particular genre, but for this book? I want to keep it lighter, funnier, more romance and less smut. Not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of spice, but seriously, my mind went to a place that even I didn’t know it could go. So maybe this whole therapy thing needs to be looked at again? Who knows. At least I started to see the shift change before I wrote any more so I could put a stop to it.

Thus, the rereading.

Going back to my earlier chapters has been great for me. Not only am I finding editing errors, I’m also finding where I can combine my much shorter chapters into larger ones. So numerically, I’m not as far along as I thought I once was, but flow wise, it will read much better. I’m also finding the humor again which is what I really needed to do.

This particular story does have a deeper backstory and one that I think needs a voice. So I have no issues with having a slight bit of a darker reality behind it. However, when the entire story started to take a more dramatic route, I knew it needed to be changed. When you as the author winces at your own work? It’s time to take a step back.

I’ll be honest, I have trouble with criticism. Of any kind. But with my writing? I get instantly defensive and either get angry or curl up into a ball…it’s just a reflex. Reading and rereading my own work these past two weeks, I’ve been criticizing myself like crazy. How could I let the story go this way? What the hell made me go to the dark side? Why would I ever have a character do that when I have never established any such behavior from them during their development? As harsh as I have been on myself, I can at least look at my writing through fresh eyes as I reread these chapters. Why? Because as I read them, they don’t even read as if I wrote them! So I feel like I am critiquing someone else’s work.

By the way, this is a reason why I don’t do reviews. I hate getting anything of mine reviewed, so I won’t do it to someone else. I will only share what I like. If I don’t like something? You won’t see it. Anywhere. Here, my social media, whatever. But if I like something, I’ll throw a post onto my #booktok or add it to my bookshelf page. Artists of all kinds from sculptors to musicians to writers and beyond put their hearts and souls into their work. To criticize them to me, (and me only here), can feel very personal. So I try to keep it more positive by sharing the stuff I really enjoy.

Anywhoo, back to my book for a quick moment…I am now halfway through the reread and it has really been helping me get the story back on track. I’ve taken more notes in the past week of new story ideas than I have in a month, so hey, maybe I’m onto something here! After all, this project has certainly been going faster than I would have thought. It’s a story I have been excited about getting out there. I’ve also been waiting for the other shoe to drop. One that will slow me down, block me from moving forward and lo and behold, I hit it.

Whatever you are working on, take the time to go over it constantly. Then go over it again to keep the flow going, the continuity, the voice. Make sure you are keeping with the vision that you’ve had for it all along. Sure there is room for change, maybe your vision has also been altered. Just make sure you are doing it in a way that will make YOU proud. I’m not saying that the darker stuff I wrote wasn’t going to work. In fact, in some ways, this book could totally go in that direction. It’s just not what I wanted for these characters, so I’m going to stick with the original plan. It’s what’s best for myself and for this work. (Then maybe, I’ll add the spicier stuff to the next one.) 😉

And that is where I’m going to leave you for today! Thanks as always for following along my strange journey and hope that you are getting something out of my rambles.

Be sure to check out my links below and on the site and until next time…cheers all!

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You can find the new 2025 On the Bookshelf page in the main menu or click here.

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To follow me on social, including my new #booktok account, click: linktr.ee/promosocially

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To subscribe to this site with your email, be sure to hit the ‘Follow NewChapterCove’ button on this page.

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If you’ve gotten this far, thanks again and see you soon!! ☺️

No Sleep, Character Obsession and Just Kept Writing

June 26, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back! I hope you all got to see the bonus post I did filled with Summer Reading ideas. If not, it can be found in the ‘new posts’ tab, I’l also link it below this post. I am planning to put it up as part of the On the Bookshelf page as well as I’ve been really neglecting the rest of the site this year as far as updated pages. Also, please note that my links show up on this site in a darker color. They are (unfortunately?) not as defined as other sites.

Anywhoo, let’s get the post at hand, shall we?

Just going to say it, I haven’t been sleeping. Part of it is because it’s hotter than the sun here in the Northeast these days (and other places as well) and my AC is struggling to keep things cool. I mean, 90 degrees inside isn’t exactly cooling things off. I did treat myself to some Gatorade so hey, living the dream!

The lack of sleep has had me writing a whole lot. I have the house to myself this week and with my odd sleep schedule of staying up and night and sleeping during the day, I decided the other day to see how long I could go just writing.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve developed a pretty regular routine. To give you an idea (read:recap) of how screwed up my schedule is: I always start by reading the previous night’s work and editing as I go. This usually begins around 4am. At 5am I’m most likely done and then I write the new stuff until about 7:30-8am or until I finish a chapter. I type very quickly, so a chapter can sometimes only take me two hours or a little more. For a little perspective though, some of my chapters are short at only 11 pages or so. I take a lot of meds because of medical issues and I need stuff to help me sleep. Sometimes I will take something about an hour into writing so that I can fall asleep by 9-10am. (Boring you yet? Sorry)

The problem with this a lot of times, is that I’m just getting into the story or getting more ideas for where the story can go just as the sleep stuff kicks in. Then I’m stuck replaying it all in my head making it hard to get any actual sleep. Again, I have the place to myself and had nowhere to go the other day. So I decided to try something and not to take anything. To see how long I could keep going with the story. To just keep writing.

When I finished what is a very pivotal chapter, I went to do a page count and I had typed out 31 pages! I started at around 5am and went until 1pm. I just kept writing.

Will I keep a lot of it? Will the chapter be broken up into two? Is any of it good? Well, that’s what editing is for! But to know that I could keep going like that proved to me that I’d like to try doing this more often. That stifling the creativity just as it gets rolling may not be the way to go. And yes, I have tried starting earlier than 4am. It didn’t stick.

This story has really consumed me. Suddenly, scenes I hadn’t really planned on putting in, are taking over and I’ve been surprised at how they fit into the story as a whole. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this new book is being written in the first person. The main character has invaded my thoughts and when I put everything away at ‘bedtime’, the story continues in my head like a movie. I will lay there trying to clear my head, only to sit back up and write stuff in the notebook I keep near my bed so I don’t forget anything later on. Yet still, the storyline keeps playing in my head like this week’s Netflix trailers.

There’s also a few things I keep going over, especially now that I’m 36 chapters in. Do I change things up? Do I throw in a major surprise? Is it time to start thinking of this as a series rather than a standalone book? I’ve created some characters and a location that has become so real to me now and that has become a great escape for me that frankly, I don’t want to leave it. But that’s me. What will readers think?

These are the things that are now starting to keep me up at night. That and a whole lot of heat.

And that is where I will leave you for today. I’m sorry if this one wasn’t too exciting but as I’ve said before, sometimes I just need to get out the thoughts so I can move on with my life. 😂

I very much appreciate your hanging out with me for a little bit. I hope you are staying cool and hydrated and that if you like it here, you’ll share this site with your friends.

Thanks again and until next time…

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It’s Summer Reading Time! <—Summer reading inspiration by yours truly.

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Thank you for getting this far and see you next time!! 🥰

Personal Space, Automatic Writing and The Plot Thickens

June 17, 2025June 17, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey all, welcome back! It’s been quite a week and while I meant to post on Friday, life happens. But here we are and happy to see you all!

A few things in case you are new here…first, welcome to the site. Hope you like your visit and that you’ll check out the ‘new posts’ tab to catch up to see what has been going on around here. Also, I don’t like to add links to the posts themselves, so be sure to check the bottom of the posts to find any relevant links. I was never one for inundating a post with external links. For me, they take away from what the post is about and is distracting, again this is just me. (If that makes any sense.) You can also find my social, shops and more on the right hand side of the page (or under the post if you scroll on the phone). Hope you will check them out while you’re here and be sure to hit the subscribe bar to the right or the pop up at the bottom to add your email so you can get updates on new posts. 🙂

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

If you know me here, you know I read a lot. Like a lot. One of the things I have taken to doing is carrying a book with me a la Rory Gilmore. For those who may not know the reference, in the old show Gilmore Girls, the daughter Rory famously carried a book with her wherever she went, including her junior dance. While I’m not that over the top, (and way past my junior dance years), I do carry a book to all of my medical appointments. Today included. I knew I’d have a lot of wait time, so instead of playing on the phone, I pulled out my book. It’s always a stress reliever. Let’s face it, going to the doctor or going for medical tests can be stressful. Why not ease that stress by diving into a good story?

I’m not a kindle or ereader person, I’m strictly a paperback girl, well, woman. While I was at one of the medical buildings in town today, I went to a nice, quiet spot in their cafe that was closed at the time, made myself comfy and got back into the story. And then…

Please picture the scene: an open area with tables and chairs, where the staff and visitors there can eat, grab coffee, maybe have a little meeting. But the cafe closes right after lunch, yet they keep the seats available for anyone who would like to use them until the building closes. I found a nice spot near the windows where I’d be able to see when my ride showed up, let out a big contented sigh and thought about how nice it was to just be by myself with my book.

A gentleman walked in and out of all the empty tables in the place, he decides to sit one away from me. At first I thought he was just going to sit there. However, he seemed a little high strung, not being able to sit still and getting up and down and scraping his chair along the floor each time. Again, this was a medical building, all kinds of tests and procedures are done there so I can sympathize if the guy was nervous about something. Then a friend of his shows up. Turns out, they were just meeting there to catch up on some things. They were loud, they kept jumping up and walking around and very loud. In my head I’m thinking, ’I was there first and just keeping to myself.’ The old me? I would have sat there, too embarrassed to get up and end up reading the same sentence over and over again not being able to concentrate. Now? I grabbed my book and the rest of my stuff, got up and as I walked past them, thanked them for ruining a nice moment of my day.

I will never understand why people do such things. The speakerphone calls in the store so we can all hear them. (Heard all about someone’s hemorrhoid surgery in cvs one time.), coming up right next to you when standing in line (I miss the 6ft rule from the covid days) or sitting right next to a person when there are a hundred empty seats in a movie theater or a cafe. I wasn’t bothering anyone, just sitting and reading a rather moving scene in my book and honestly, trying not to tear up as I did so because I was in public and yet, I was the one who moved. I’m thinking of carrying an air horn with me so the next time this happens? I just hit it and make the others move along. Just something to think about.

Anywhoo, enough of that. Sorry for the vent but this therapy, sorry, blog, helps me work stuff out before I get to my writing sessions! 😬

Speaking of, I’ve finally gotten off the second edits of the chapters I’ve written so far. I’m now 32 chapters in and still going strong. As I said in my last post, some of these chapters are short and may end up being combined with others, so don’t let the number fool you just yet.

However, I hit the scenes I’ve been dying to get to for about two weeks. I knew they were coming up, knew the general way they were going to go and yet even I was surprised with how they’ve been writing themselves!

If you’ve ever heard the term ‘automatic writing’, when someone puts pen to paper (or fingers on a keyboard) and just lets the writing go where it will? That is how I tend to write. I know how I want to start the scene, I know the locations and then I just go. Last night in particular, I came up with something I wasn’t expecting and it fit so perfectly into the whole dynamic of the story that it invaded my dreams while I slept and has been on a constant replay in my head all day. I have no idea where this part of the story came from but I am so glad it did. It really helped me tie in a character that has been giving me a lot of trouble incorporating into the storyline.

I also came up with a plot twist that I’ve been trying to figure out and it has also been a problem trying to work into the whole book. All of a sudden it came to me and I was able to introduce the beginning of it last night and now it’s a matter of weaving into the rest of the story and seeing how it will work itself out. This, my friends, is the fun part for me.

After all of the research I’ve been doing for this and all of the build up to get to this point, now is when it gets interesting. I can’t wait to see how this story will develop further and where this automatic writing will take me tonight. Of course all this being said, when I go into what I wrote last night to edit and refresh my memory to get me back into it so I can write the next chapter, it may turn out to be pure crap. It’s happened before it will happen again. I get excited that the story flowed effortlessly and then when I reread it the next night, I wonder if I was on to something to come up with such nonsense. What I love though are the days when I go back in and find that I’ve actually written something that is worth reading. Worth the time it took. Worth the pain of typing as my fingers fly across my beloved keyboard. (For those new here, I have a strange attachment to my keyboard.)

Sometimes the blocks disappear. Sometimes the words come when you least expect it. And sometimes you have to hold your tone when someone invades your personal space. But you know what it can add up to? A new blog post! Ha!

And that is where I will leave you for today. Thanks so much for joining me along for this crazy ride and again, I’m going to throw some links below for you to check out.

Until next time my friends…

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Click on my linktree to follow me on social, shop my linktree shop and find gifts designed by me for readers and writers alike: linktr.ee/promosocially

(you’ll find my keyboard linked in the shop as well)

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Current book: On Second Thought by Kristan Higgins (click on the title to see)

If you don’t know her books, you can start out with If You Only Knew and Good Luck With That. While not technically a series, these books take place in the same town and involve characters from all of them. I found this out by accident and love when I discover that a new find is related to this town. (They are also based in an area near where I grew up so makes them that much more special to me.) Again, click on the titles to check them out.

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If you’ve made it this far, I thank you and will see you next time. 🙂

Storyline, Re-Editing and Chapter Length Issues

June 10, 2025 / ccsocialcreative / Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back! Hope everyone is doing well out there. So happy to see this blog growing a larger audience. I’m hoping that means that what I talk about here is resonating with you all and that means so much.

Let’s get to it shall we?

Ok so, yesterday I finished re-editing the first 28 chapters of the current book that I’m working on. Boy was I happy I did it! First of all, I read the first 10 with fresh eyes as it’s been a while since I revisited what I had written. I’ll admit, (and yes I’m sure there is extreme bias here) but I am loving this story. I am currently in my romcom era in reading, so to be able to surprise myself with writing my first one and making myself laugh in places, has been a nice surprise. It is the first time I’m attempting this genre and I think I may have a new calling. Do I sound a bit too overconfident? Absolutely! I have never talked this way about anything I’ve ever written before and I’ll admit, a lot of it is out of pure fear. I think because I have a lot riding on this book. After all, I’ve been talking about it here since the beginning! If I don’t do well with it, I’ll have more than egg on my face (and with egg prices being what they are, that’s a pretty expensive embarrassment). I think the fact that I’m writing characters from my heart is helping. There’s a little reality in many of the character traits of the group involved and let’s face it, don’t we all write what we know? I mean, isn’t that rule #1?!

So maybe it’s not the book itself I’m excited about, but rather the characters because I’ve been spending so much time with them. Annnnd I really need to get out of the house more.

While doing the edits, I have discovered a few other things…number one is that I found that I wrote something twice but in two very different ways.

I’ve discussed being a ‘pantser’ writer, (one who writes by the seat of their pants letting the story flow, rather than using an outline), this can cause overlapping scenes sometimes. I wrote a very meaningful scene early on and then later in the book, did the same thing but in a more lighthearted way. So I had to rewrite and cut a whole bunch out there and choose which I liked better. I won’t give it away, but I think how I resolved it fit perfectly with the tone of the character development.

The second thing I’ve found is that some of the chapters seem very short. I’ve found this to be a fast read and that can be both good and bad. So the question now becomes, do I combine chapters to make them longer or not?

Right now, I personally like the way each chapter ends. I’d almost rather leave them the length they are as they have a natural progression to their ending. Small chapters are not necessarily bad, of course. Ironically, as I discovered this in my own work, I started reading a new book which has, and I am not joking here, chapters that are literally 3 pages long. So here I am re-editing and discovering that many of my own chapter’s are 11 pages in length and I’m thinking, well, maybe they should be longer. But if this already published book that is in my hands has MANY chapters of maybe 3 pages, why am I so worried? Every day it’s something new to think about.

After doing these edits, I’m finally back into the writing stage. This story that has been flowing out of me for months, is now finding it hard to resurface. I think I just need to get back into the routine of actually writing, although I did do a lot of REwriting during the second edit phase. However, picking the story back up is proving to be a challenge.

Where do I want it to go now? Is the conflict enough? Will it build to something completely different? Inquiring minds want to know!

This book, while a romcom, is also one with heart. There are issues in it that are near and dear to my heart and have some edge to it as well. (No not smut, I’m not at that point, well…yet. lol) I address an issue in this that I feel needs a voice. So while it has its sweet and funny moments, there are others to remind us all that no matter what, real life can rear its ugly head and bring us back to reality while in a ‘happy bubble.’

After all, even Disney princess movies have their turmoil to overcome before the happy ending and tiaras are dolled out, right?

I’ve also been surprised at the amount of research I’m doing for this book. Now, I’m a research junkie. I love it. I’ve used that particular talent for both my own endeavors as well as helping others. Especially when it came to writing my history pieces (see menu bar above for those links). But creating authenticity with some of this storyline has had me Googling things that, well, make a lot of writing memes what they are. I also value Google Earth for helping figure out some locations and distances, etc. There is a lot more to writing a story than just writing it and I don’t think a lot of people get that. While yes, a lot can be made up, if you are using real life places or issues, the research must be done.

Anywhoo, this process has been cathartic. Both writing the book and documenting the process here. By blogging about it, it is keeping me grounded as far as keeping me on track and it also helps when I go to write the next chapter later on. As I write here, my mind either figures out my next move or suddenly discovers that I need to go back and redo something I’ve previously written. The old ‘distraction’ move as it were. Quick example, with my health issues, I have twitches in my hands. (Sucks when typing.) My neurologist gave me an exercise to stop them…when my left hand twitches badly, I do finger movements with my right hand and the twitching stops. The brain is so focused on the conscious hand movements that it lets go of my twitches. Same thing applies here. When I’m writing about writing, I get more story ideas. Crazy? Yes. Helpful? Also yes! So I thank you for letting me vent a lot of this out here, it’s been great for the process all around.

One more thing to add to this post…I officially announce that I’ve added a TikTok for this site. Will I post every day? Hell no. I post when it moves me, just like I do with my other accounts for my jewelry and Etsy businesses. I just wanted to have something fun that I could add, connect with other readers, #booktok-ers as well as other authors. Those who get it. The link is in my linktree which I always add below my posts. 🙂

So that is where I will leave you today. I thank you as always for joining me here and I really hope you connect with what I’m writing about and if you do, I hope you’ll share this site. It would be so great to have this keep growing. (and growing)

Until next time…Cheers All! 🙂

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For my social links, shops and more: linktr.ee/promosocially

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Be sure to check out the links on the right side of the site. You’ll find my shop with fun merch for the writers and readers as well as my blank journals on Amazon…all of these are designed by me!

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For my jewelry and other business links, all can be found: linktr.ee/stuffwefind and linktr.ee/stuffwemade hope you’ll check them out!

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Follow me by email (upper right side blue button) to get notified of new posts and updates.

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If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much and I’ll see you next time! 🙂