Welcome to the atlas of Neely Spencer

in which I explain, kind of badly, what this project is

Hello! Welcome to my newest hairbrained project — a book released serially via Substack.

I’m not going to get into the inspiration behind Neely Spencer (saving that for another post), but more of what this project is, why I’m doing it, and what you can expect (lots of chaos, all the feels, and epic kisses — maybe. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

I’m coming out of a couple of years of really bad burnout. For two years, I had been writing all the words for all the projects that seemed to be going nowhere, parted ways with my agent, and struggled with an adult debut swirling the proverbial toilet in sales. All these compounding factors, plus working a full-time job, homeschooling, and barely finding the time to write for the book I had a contract on (which felt like its own dumpster fire of issues), made me question everything. I started to question if maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be an author.

I had lost the joy of writing. I had forgotten why I started writing in the first place. Writing became this drudgery. A job that I no longer looked forward to going to.

Above all, I had forgotten what it was like to dream.

But somehow, for some reason, I wasn’t going down easily. I was fighting tooth and nail to figure out how to make it fun again. To remember my love for creating with my Creator.

And then I had a spark of inspiration that bloomed into Neely Spencer (I’ll tell you more about that spark soon.)

Riding on the wave of this spark, I did what I always do when I have an idea… I messaged my critique partner, praying she loved this idea as much as I did (because, remember, I have no confidence in any thing I’m doing at this point, and sometimes you just need someone else who you look up to to tell you that you aren’t as crazy as you’re pretty sure you are.)

My critique partner took it a step further. She loved the idea, but she proposed that I do something a little bigger than my original idea. She wanted me to bring my readers along for the journey. She first suggested I release this story serially on Substack.

At first I hesistated. I could never do that. I could never stay consistent enough. I didn’t have enough of the plot. No one would read it. The excuses came easily (they always do).

Until I finally decided to stop with the excuses and just play and have fun.

So that’s what this project is. My attempt to play and have fun. I’m releasing serially because there would be a chance that if I don’t just put it out there, I would make excuses and never work on it. This is completely different from what I publish on the daily (sweet romance and rom-com for adults and YA). If you are one of my regular readers, I hope you will allow me this indulgence and come along for the ride. I think you’ll like it.

Because I’m jumping with a leap and a prayer, I don’t have the entire story mapped out from the beginning. I have the first chapter and the very last scene — everything in between is just a sparkle of an idea. But here is what I do know:

The year is 1925. Neely Spencer’s mother wants nothing more than for her three daughters to marry well. While her sisters are more than happy to conform to the expectations of society, nineteen-year-old Neely craves more. She wants adventure. For years, she, along with her father and older brother, have been researching an ancient lost city in the Amazon. When her brother goes missing while searching for this lost city, Neely, with the help of a handsome stranger, embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. But, if she’s not careful, there’s a chance she might lose her heart in the process.

That’s all I know. Oh, and there’s a talking cat named Sanderson.

My plan is to try and post two chapters a month (more if I’m able to get to them). I’m really excited about introducing you to Neely and Sanderson and … well, I’ll leave his introduction for later *wink*. I hope you fall in love with them as much as I did.

I’ll be putting up some “what should happen next” polls on my Discord channel. If voting on something like that sounds fun, you can join here. Or if you’d rather, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Either way, I’m so excited to take you on this journey with me.