Author Kate Maclean

I’ve been quiet on this space, but working hard behind the scenes. If you want to hear more from me, I’m more active on Instagram than I am here, and my newsletter is the best place to get all my writing updates. A new one is going out this week with a cover reveal for my next release!

Last Thursday I took my first ice skating lesson because my book club read THE FAVORITES. Thinking a lot about the impact of fiction on readers’ lives. Also thinking a lot about how to get my left leg to cooperate during my swizzles.

Ken and I have been doing more regular Friday date nights outside the house and less takeout. It has been A++. This week I had maybe the second best brussels of my life.

The weekend also included journaling and gardening and pastries from the farmers market and feeling out of place among tweens in Sephora and accidentally adding a new character when trying to tweak *one little thing* in my book. It was a very good weekend!

After I released GARROTED IN THE GALLERY last November, I wrote ~75% of a draft of my next book. It’s a mystery, but not a cozy, and I dove in without planning it out at all.

After the first 15,000 words I had to stop and figure out some plans, at least through the midpoint so I knew where I was going. Then at the midpoint I stopped and did some more plotting. Then I got to a big twist where things start to hurtle toward the finale and it got hard and messy and we got kittens and new reasons to procrastinate.

As I’ve been digging back into it, I decided to go back and read through what I have so far. It’s been long enough since I wrote the beginning that I wanted to revisit it. And today I finished reading the draft as far as I’ve written it so far.

My plan was to write the finale and then start my edit passes, but with the notes I took during this read through I’m thinking I’ll go back to the beginning with some pretty extensive rewrites, then go into the usual edit passes for character and prose. Since I had no plan when I started this book, I figured out a LOT as I wrote it, and I’m excited to re-write it with all of this information from the get-go.

I won’t lie, it is daunting! But at the same time, it’s exciting. As I read, I took notes of quotes and bits of the story I really liked. And I know I can make everything that is good about this story even better this time around (and fix the parts where I was just like, “uhhh what is happening here” - ha!).

Life lately. 🌸

My whole camera roll since getting back from vacation is cats and this tree in our front yard. We left when the buds were all still closed up and came back to flowers and leaves. Normally there’s a period of flowers before the leaves come out, but they seem to have burst forth in concert this year.

Pants got neutered, so we spent several days fussing over his cone while he learned that if he walked over to his food and looked extra sad we’d take the cone off so he could eat. He’d then immediately flop down and try to groom the incision site, and then when the cone went back on he’d pretend to want food again.

And now I’m off to the library to work on this book - something that has still been happening but not nearly as much as I want it to. So we’re kicking things back into gear and getting back into it.

Katie’s rules for ski trips: eat tacos, drink cocktails, dance in the lift line, and go with the best people. Check, check, check, and check - it was a great week in Telluride!

THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD.

Gillian McAllister is an inspiration to me as an author and this book is my favorite of hers yet. I loved every bit of it.

My devastation when I saw my book club friend’s (whose taste I generally share) three star review (“2.5 rounded up”) cut deep! So I guess it’s not for everyone? But it was ABSOLUTELY for me. Five stars without question.

The best part of a new week is resetting my planners.☺️ Stickers and highlighters optional, true crime podcast in the background mandatory, refreshed motivation guaranteed.

This week my top priority is getting through this tough spot in my draft and into the grand finale so I can finish the draft and send it to alpha readers next week (eeee!). Also on the list is getting a newsletter out to my subscribers (maybe with a poll to help me title this book?) and starting seeds for broccoli, onions, and peppers over the weekend!

What’s on your list this week?

Both of the new babies love to help out with the novel writing. Unfortunately neither of them is great and helping me get more words faster, so they’re usually locked out when I’m writing. But sometimes the snuggles are worth the slower pace.😸

Ken got a free cupcake for his birthday month at our fav venue and my awkward, “uh, do you also have any available to sell to people whose birthday it is not?” was met with a “yeah, six bucks,” so I got one, too. Soccer Mommy was good, cupcake was great, and now I am utterly baffled that it’s only Tuesday. What do you mean yesterday was Monday? That’s impossible! We went to a concert, therefore it must have been at least Thursday! Send coffee.