Nevertheless, I persisted

News from Crowhill Cove

A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: heatwave defiance; Scrivener update; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.

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I survived the heatwave of 2026

This one, anyway! There are more coming, which sucks, but hey. I managed to hit on a very decent way of surviving the heatwave (outlined in Operaton Published, below) by heading to a local pub that secretly had A/C only in one small downstairs room and wasn’t telling anyone this. Thus, I wrote not only in cool air but also mostly in solitude, which was fun. I even edited a couple of videos for TikTok since there was no one else around to be bothered by the sound of my voice repeating the same thing three times in a row as I played it, cut it, replayed it to check I’d cut it correctly.

Anyway, I now have a great strategy for the next one, and what’s more, I got far enough ahead on my wordcount goals that I was able to spend some time on Project Library (more below).

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Upcoming topics for this newsletter include current thoughts on Best Picture watches from yesteryear (several posts underway, one about BPs I didn’t ‘get’ queued); something about Love, Simon’s structure; trees in Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Jane Eyre (25% done); a series of essays about The 100, continuing the show’s exploration of ecocriticism (queued); an essay about walking; a critical essay about my essay about walking (lol); and an essay about gender in walking (I’ve been studying a module about walking).

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Scrivener updates, so far

I had some time this weekend to put quite a few hours into Scrivener for Project Library and so far, it’s working fantastically.

The only thing was that I didn’t want to go through all my scattered notes, which often start with me noting down something about book 2’s plot and then jump to something from the opening scene and then how that links into the end of book 1 and then back to an idea for book 3, to find everything I’d written about each character. For example, I did write a whole plot outline from start to finish, but as I was importing this into Scrivener to make chapter outlines, I realised I’d changed one big scene and couldn’t remember what my new idea was, only that it was better. So, I gave up on organising myself, put all my various notes documents from different sources into Claude, and asked it to fill out character profiles based on what it found as well as giving me a plot outline.

So, hurray, I have a working plot outline that actually contains all of my ideas now, as well as full character profiles for everyone I can refer to properly, and I didn’t have to type them up myself. None of this will ever be in the actual book - it’s all background material just for my own reference - and it’s a usage I’m happy to rely on AI for: non-creative, non-interfering, just telling me what I already wrote down in a way that allows my logical fact and list-based side of my brain to communicate with my scattered, madcap, anything goes creative side of my brain. The project is now ready to begin writing, basically (in about 100 years after I’ve finished Project Emergency Crime, then Project Survivor, then Project Darling, then hopefully embarked on marketing sprees for each of those books, etc etc etc).

The bottom line is, I’m enjoying Scrivener. The final test (whether it’s actually easier to write a huge complicated project like this with the help of the software, or whether all the shiny details get in the way) remains to be completed.

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Each week, I share the latest update from Operation Published! If you’re looking for the best bits from the week, please do follow me on TikTok instead.

All of these videos are available on TikTok for free, but if you’re a) not a TikTok user or b) just want the highlights, this is a convenient place to see it.

This week’s post was, in fact, a carousel, so I’ll link to the post here if you want to interact on TikTok, but share the photos separately below:

This gallery layout thing sucks but so does uploading individual images and constanly crashing the page, so TikTok is definitely better for viewing

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Note: Changes are in bold, comments in italics.

TOTAL SALES:

• Crowhill Cove series (Don’t Move Out, Don’t Go Outside, Don’t Fly Home, Don’t Leave Town, Don’t Check Out, the 1-5 boxset, and Don’t Move Your Desk): ebook - 1,288, paperback/hardback - 60, KU pages read - 885,280, free downloads - 6,304

• Crowhill Kitchen series (Kiss The Cook, Cook Up A Storm, Too Many Cooks, What’s Cooking, Good Looking, Cooking on Gas): ebook - 73, paperback - 10, KU pages read - 39,756

• Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 693, paperback/hardback - 120, KU pages read - 535,775, free downloads - 4,825

WRITING:

• Project Darling: cover design bought, research underway, idea ready

• Project Survivor: First submission rejected, chapter 11 done

• Project Emergency Crime: 30k words done

• Project Library: Plot outline done, playlist made, Scrivener project ready

• Project Hydropower: Hiatus, new plot done in detail

• Project Dark Romance: cover design bought, initial ideas started

• Serial Investigations: Hiatus, books 13-20 loosely planned

• Crowhill Club: Hiatus, all covers and titles done, characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up

• Client status: Free!

SUBSTACK:

• Subscribers: free - 104, paid - 1

• Followers: 669

CONSUMING:

• Read: The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (uni book), The Other Twin by Shalini Boland (PR book)

• Reading: These Days by Lucy Caldwell, Contraposto by Dave Eggers (PR book)

• Watched and watching: Fear the Walking Dead s5, Survivor Australia S7/5, Monthly Magazine House, Kung Fu Panda 3 rewatch, Rise of the Guardians

By the way, please like this post if you enjoyed it and would like to see more! This helps me decide what to do for future content.

XO Rhiannon