A few of my favorite things 🎄

Whiskers on puppies, bright electric kettles, and my final newsletter of 2023!

Hello hello, my sweet neglected newsletter subscribers! I last wrote to you with the Wild About You cover reveal in early October and wheeewww, so much has happened since then! Take, for instance, that I am starting to type this out with only my left hand because the right is occupied with petting my darling, sleeping puppy who wakes up and looks at me with great offense if I dare to stop those attentions. This brings us to, as the subject line suggests, my most favorite thing of 2023—we got a dog!!!

Happy Pawlidayz! 🐾

Jolene is a two year-old rescue believed to be some sort of, spaniel/terrier mix¹. She’s the sweetest girl who loves to cuddle and play and basically get any attention and love she can! My days since we got her have been consumed by doing everything I can to make the fur baby happy, and I feel very good about this. If you follow me on social media (especially my instagram stories), you’re up to date on everything about Jolene’s life, but for everyone else, here’s an assortment of pictures of my precious child!

My other baby, a.k.a. book #3, Wild About You

As you may have noticed from our very formal virtual holiday card above, there have also been some exciting updates on the Wild About You front—advance review copies (ARCs) are going out into the world!! This is the first time I’ve gotten print ARCs (not just ebooks) which has been a really cool change 🥹 Librarians, booksellers, and others who review early copies of books will start to receive these, and less importantly, I have a few copies that I can stare at lovingly (and maybe use in a giveaway or two in the new year?? 👀) until the final versions of WAY arrive. I love this book cover even more in its printed form, and all the little details on the spine, the back cover, etc are perfect and make me so so happy!

It hasn’t really hit me yet that others beyond my publishing team are beginning to read my third book. I’m prouder of this one than anything I’ve written yet, and with that comes a little extra anxiety about how it’ll be received, but I’m trying to hold onto how much I’ve loved it while it’s been mostly mine for as long as I’m able to do so.

Also! If print ARCs aren’t a thing you normally get access to but you’d still like a chance to read an early version of WAY, eARCs are available to request on Edelweiss and NetGalley for anyone with an account. If you get your hands on one, I hope you enjoy the Wild Adventure!

The final thing I’ll say about this book for now—until 2024, at which point I’ll be saying a lot more about this book, loudly and constantly—is that the very best Christmas present you could give me is pre-ordering Wild About You! I think it’s a fun time and I KNOW that even if you hate it, it will look really really cute on your shelf 😊 This is a good marketing message, right? Take pity on me and—

Floating on down the stream of consciousness…

The end of the year is naturally a reflective time for us all, and just as naturally, I get overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to ~reflect~ on the most meaningful parts of the year in one tidy post. So, in the spirit of Maria von Trapp², I’m just going to present you with

A Non-Exhaustive List of My (Non-Jolene) Favorite Things This Holiday Season

• Mindless entertainment—the word “mindless” is used in the most complimentary sense possible. About two days after we got Jolene, my friend Margaret gave me the last push I needed to start the show Vanderpump Rules, so it is entirely her fault that it has taken over my brain and free time. I am 10+ years late to this absurd show but now I shall never stop. Jolene and I (and sometimes my poor husband, who comes in and out of watching with us whenever he’s not, you know, going to work and being an adult) are at the end of season 7, and it’s hard to sum up all our³ thoughts on the absolute saga we go through with this group of coworkers/friends/enemies episode after episode. But a few, for any other VPR viewers:

  • The main things these people have in common are that they work at the same restaurant and they are Bad

  • We’re watching this while already knowing everything about the Scandoval coming in season 10 and that’s been fascinating, in a writing-on-the-aggressively-straightened-hair-wall sort of way

  • Their lives are truly so different from mine, it’s like watching a wildlife documentary if the wildlife were always cheating on each other and going on lavish vacations on a waiter/waitress budget

  Other shows we’ve enjoyed lately include The Golden Bachelor (better than normal Bachelor/ette, they need to make more seasons, Leslie for Golden Bachelorette), FBoy Island (I really can’t justify this), and The Gilded Age (very Downton Abbey in late-1800s New York, in a way like a scripted-period-piece Vanderpump Rules⁴).

• Mindful hobbies—while watching my shows and/or listening to my steady stream of romance novel audiobooks, I’ve been rediscovering the joy of cross-stitching! I’ve never been good at meditating, but I think the peaceful repetition of making little x’s out of thread is the closest I get to the mindfulness/meditation zone. Even if I’m sometimes doing that while hot people yell at each other on my TV. This also goes for “painting” little pictures on my paint by numbers app, Happy Color. I’ve gotten several friends⁵ addicted to this app and we talk about our favorite pictures to color and it brings me joy. Currently, I’m cross-stitching the first of three patterns I made out of my book covers! It looks so cool and will also possibly take me a million years to complete! But as long as I’m having a great time and reality TV and romance novels exist, who cares!

• Perspective and the people who help me find it—yeah okay, so this is the bullet point where we get a little more serious and rambly. Classic Kaitlyn’s Stream of Consciousness! Another little end-of-year update on my writing life is that I’ve gone back to the drawing board for my fourth YA novel. After months of tinkering with a draft that never quite felt like it was working, and draining my own mental/emotional energy in the process, I broke down and went to my agent and editor with my sorrowful email confession that I was a faaaaiiilluuuure. Said email probably could’ve used a couple editing rounds to cut some of the sadsack tone⁶, but fortunately, my publishing team is made up of kind and non-judgmental souls! As such, they’ve been nothing but supportive and encouraging as I’ve regrouped and worked with them to figure out a new plan for YA #4. They’ve also been very helpful in reminding me of the long game that is publishing, like many creative careers. They (along with my friends and family, but it’s easy for me to hear their supportive words and be like “you have to say that!!!” Bless their hearts) have reinforced that this is a normal thing that everyone goes through at some point, that I will still have a career after one individual book idea didn’t pan out, that I’m not a talentless hack—not that I’d ever be so dramatic as to feel like that after one (1) scrapped book under contract. I’m so grateful to have people in my corner who give me the opportunity to get back up and try again when the first attempt isn’t going so well, and who keep cheering me on at every stage. I know how lucky I am to be in this place in my career and don’t take it for granted, and I hope I get to play this particular long game for a long time yet. ❤️

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That’s it for me today, as I settle in for a long winter’s nap and lots of fun holiday travels these next couple weeks. Thank you so much for your ongoing support and love this year, and I hope the rest of 2023 treats you well!

xoxo,

Kaitlyn

P.S. Need any last minute holiday gifts?

in the words of Muppet Tiny Tim in particular, “god bless us, everyone”

1. Don’t worry, I’ve asked for a doggy DNA test for Christmas so I can learn everything possible about this perfect creature

2. Why is The Sound of Music associated with Christmas? There is nothing related to Christmas in the movie but I know a lot of people watch it this time of year, it usually airs on basic cable at some point, etc. Is it Santa’s favorite film?

3. We share all the same opinions on everything

4. Somewhere a shiver just rolled down Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes’ spine

5. Literally as I’m writing this, I just received Anita Kelly’s newsletter in which they talk about Happy Color 💀 #INFLUENCED

6. Not unlike many editions of this newsletter, am I RITE