Between the Pages: Third Edition

September 2024 | Quarterly Update

Prologue

Welcome, readers, to this third edition of the quarterly updates. Since its been three months since the last update, we’ve got some ground to cover.

For those who are new, this newsletter is intended to summarize my recent writing projects, what I’ve been up to, and what I’m planning for the next quarter – both with writing and non-writing related activities.

Without further adieu, lets get into things.

On the Page: A Progress Report

Followers from Instagram will be familiar with some of what’s in this segment, as its generally what I talk about the most over there, but I like to present it all nicely in one place for the purposes of this newsletter. Additionally, I’ve been a bit quiet on social media the last month plus, as I’ve been focused on the thing I like to do most: writing.

Since the last edition of the newsletter, I’ve embarked on several new drafts. In the last three months, I’ve written around 200,000 words between the various projects I’ve worked on, which is a lot. After spending so much of the spring working on various edits and revisions, it was really nice to have a bit of a pace change and just write.

At the start of June, I sent another batch of queries for HotP. I’ve heard back from some of them, all in the negative/no thank you category, though I still have a handful of outstanding/no response queries.

From about mid-June to the first week of August, my focus was almost exclusively on drafting HotP’s sequel, referenced at this time at HotF. I had very lofty goals for this draft and ended up coming up a tad short on some of them. A large cause of that was the fact that I needed about a week away from working on the project around the midway point, as burnout is very much a thing and I kept hitting a wall in terms of where the story was going as well as dealing with motivational challenges. In total, HotF is sitting at a complete rough draft of 100k words.

After not writing for a week following finished HotF, I sat down and outlined three future novels. And then, mid-August, because apparently I’m a bit insane, I started drafting one of them. Bunnies, Beds & Breakfast (or BB&B) took me less than three weeks, start to finish, to draft. Thirteen writing days, plus the day when I was outlining both it and two other potential novels.

Here’s some things about BB&B. Its a cozy fantasy. The idea came to me on a Thursday evening as I was finishing The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst and was telling my husband that cozy fantasies just make me so happy sometimes. And he told me I should write one and that it had to have a bunny in it (because of our bunny, Blue). A bunny and a bed and breakfast. So, I jotted down a couple notes.

The next day, while I was working out the plot of the other two novels I’ve been thinking of drafting the last several months, I started a document with a rough outline for BB&B. I truly didn’t think a whole lot about it. The idea was quick and it consumed my attention more than I anticipated. Its because of that, I think, that when Monday came around and I was itching to write that I started drafting it.

Another thing about my work on BB&B. I found myself writing it both in the morning as per my usual writing schedule as well as in the afternoons on most days. Spending between three and five hours or more working on it, which I don’t think I’ve ever done with consistency on any writing project before. I felt, for the first time since my husband and I decided I should give a go at this author thing as my primary ‘job’ like I was a full-time writer.

BB&B still needs some work with editing and revising, seeing as I’ve only just finished the first draft. But when I think she’s ready for it, she’ll enter the querying trenches.

On the Page: Upcoming Projects

For the next several months and really through the end of the year (which is wild to think about), I’m going to turn my hat back toward editing with a little less focus on drafting. However, amid these next (and last) months of the year will be National Novel Writing Month in November, and I do intend to participate as I have for over a decade now by writing a new draft of a novel during the thirty-day challenge.

Between now and then, I’m going to endeavor to work on my query package for HotP some more, with especial focus on the first 5-10 pages of the manuscript, before likely sending another batch of 5-10 queries. It’s wild to think that, come January, it’ll have been one uear since I first began to query for this novel.

Its not an oddity by any means that I’ve been doing it so long, especially when I do it in relatively small batches with rather long gaps between them. Querying is typically a long process unless you’re extremely lucky. Responses are very subjective, which I can understand but also feel some frustration by. An agent isn’t going to say yes or express interest in a project unless they think they can sell it to a publisher. Which is fair! At the same time, repeatedly seeing a “this doesn’t seem like the right project for me” email in the inbox can be a bit disheartening. I have begun to consider indie/self publishing, though that involves a whole boat of other processes I don’t currently feel well-enough versed in to be comfortable approaching. That is always subject to change, depending on how I feel after some more research as well as how things proceed with querying in general.

Aside from preparations for National Novel Writing Month and querying, I’m considering editing either HotF or BB&B. Part of me wants to hold off on HotF for now until I make a bit more progress on the querying front with HotP, seeing as it is the sequel, but we’ll see what happens or if the motivation strikes. Because I did just wrap up BB&B’s first draft, I do want to give myself at least a couple weeks away from it before diving into any form of editing and revising.

Off the Page: Books, Music & Games

Let’s start first, as usual, with my recent reads.

As you may note, I have dived into the Cosmere via the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve read a number of his other books (Mistborn, Skyward, Elantris, etc.) but I’ve been putting Stormlight off for a good two to three years now, simply because they are each a brick and a very daunting process. They each took me two plus weeks to read, which isn’t surprising when a) they’re over a thousand pages a piece and b) I was actively writing during the periods I was reading them. I did find that taking a break between each to read a couple of other books helped significantly to fend off some burnout, and I will be reading a couple other titles between now and the next book.

Additionally, I’ve begun receiving Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) for some books, which I’ve noted above, courtesy of NetGalley and the respective publishers of the indicated books. For those unfamiliar with the process of ARCs, the publisher makes a select number of copies of a book available to selected readers and reviewers ahead of the book’s publication date. This helps get early ratings for a book, build some excitement for it by having reviewers talk about them, and get an idea of the interest in it.

For music, I’ve been fairly consistent with instrumental and soundtrack albums as the primary background to my writing. Outside of the normal, I haven’t found myself connecting with any new releases lately. Which is both unfortunate and not – I am fond of listening to familiar tunes, though the discovery of a new song that just clicks is something special.

In terms of video games, I’ve started to drop off of consistently playing any for more than a couple days at a time. Seeing as we are approaching fall, I anticipate going into my annual Stardew Valley phase. Its something about the vibes of autumn, with leaves changing colors and the cooler weather that really just gets me in the mood for the (relative) coziness of the game.

Off the Page: “Extracurricular”

As always, I’d like to report some of the non-book and media related activities I’ve partaken in as my life admittedly doesn’t resolve entirely around books.

Running has been going exceptionally well considering the injury I’d been dealing with earlier this year. I had a half marathon at the end of July, though the course was at least a half a mile too long, much to my displeasure. I ended up finishing first in my age group (yay!), though we didn’t end up sticking around for awards as we had other places to be and they were delaying them until all the races had been run (over an hour and a half after I was finished with my individual race).

I have another race I’m planning to do at the end of September, an 8 miler that I’ve done the last two years and really enjoyed. After that I’ll be running another half marathon at the Detroit Free Press Marathon in October. I ran the full marathon last year and didn’t super love it, so I’m sticking with the half distance this year.

Ending the Chapter

That wraps up this third edition of the updates. Continue to follow along for more regular updates on my Instagram (@kennedycutlerwrites). If you have any questions, want to talk books or writing, or if there is something you want to see in the updates here (I promise I’ll get around to making a ‘contact me’ page set up eventually), feel free to send me a DM on Instagram!

Until December,

Kennedy