Happy Friday, my darlings! Rob, Walter and I are home from a sweet ‘lil vacation in Vermont. It looked a lot like this everywhere (which is why we go all the time):
I was in need of the break, since I came back home to dueling writing deadlines for the month of August: a big, meaty revision for my Hot Gay Rival Jewel Thieves romance due on the 17th and a polished draft of my December book to my line editor by early September. It’s going a bit like this:
So baby I am locked downnnnn in this office, panicking and hoping, and juggling two projects at the same time. But I’m feeling good overall. My editor for the Rival Thieves romance is a next-level story genius and together we untangled some of the stickiest plot-knots that had been bugging me. Now I just have to, um, re-write a good chunk of it (😵💫) but that’s always easier when you know where the story is headed.
I did find a graphic on Pinterest that I tweaked (slightly) because it’s a decent plot summary of the book so far — aka it’s a romance about CRIMES but also LOVE!
And here’s a random paragraph that I pulled from the chapter I’m editing right now:
Roman stood, tattooed and brooding, with his stern mouth set at an unforgiving angle. He often looked at me like that when we worked together. Like he wanted to kiss me and was furious about it.
Need a beach read for August?
May I humbly suggest my own OUT OF THE BLUE (I mean…look at that cover!!) which is about a big-wave surfer in California and the bodyguard hired to keep her safe during competitions: her ex-husband. Toss in some sexy danger, corporate espionage, and a metric ton of second-chance-yearning and it’s one hot story to escape into this month:
I’ll see you all next week. Wish me luck!
xoxo
Kathryn
PS. August means Chapter 2 of STAR-CROSSED, plus a round-up of what I read, watched and enjoyed in July! If you’re not a paid subscriber and want access to these goodies, tap that button to upgrade and get 20% off. 🥳
P.P.S. I came back from vacation to find even more baby fish in the mini-pond (so tiny! so precious!) so yeah of course I’m planning an indoor pond build in my office just for them or whatever. 😋 Adorable videos of the babies will come next week.
On the road again
Given our interests and hobbies (hiking, camping, birds, the woods), it’s no surprise that Rob and I have loved visiting Vermont for years. We even lived there for a summer awhile back — I’m basically yearning to be there 24/7 so was stoked when we decided to summer vacay to the Green Mountains again.
After a quick layover in the White Mountains (another favorite) we headed to the northern part of Vermont, which we haven’t explored much of. First stop was Charlie O’s in Montpelier (“a dive bar for nice people”) that’s pretty famous and has been around since 1976. They had a cute, informal tiki-bar-patio thing set-up outside and you know Rob and I are like moths to a fucking flame to something like that. I believe I had the single greatest mocktail margarita of my life there (took a picture of the ingredients if you’re curious: lime, jalapeno agave, orange bitters, soda).
Obviously I had to check out the graffiti/sticker situation in the bathroom, my favorite part of dive bars:
It was iconic. I loved it.
Next, we ended up here which I wasn’t mad about:
We stayed at this campground near Stowe for four days. I actually don’t have many pictures from these days (and I love taking pictures) which is a true testament to how blissed out I was. I took some truly extraordinary naps, read in the hammock, sat on the boat dock and watched the water, read in my camp chair, hiked around.
There was a gorgeous lake and boat dock onsite, hiking trails right off the campground, showers if you wanted and we were spread out enough that we had a lot of privacy at our site. And the wildflowers!!!
Before heading to our final stop — Burlington — I was so fucking stoked to stop at the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury. I couldn’t do the official tour because they didn’t allow dogs (understandably). But I walked around the campus while eating a heavily-melting vegan cookies-and-cream ice cream cone and was on cloud 9. If I could eat their ice cream every day I would (and sometimes have!).
Burlington was such a treat. We biked around Lake Champlain, got more Ben and Jerry’s, visited cool antique stores (where I bought yet another antique camera — I’m a monster!!) and had some truly incredible vegan food. Including a vegan creemee!!
By the end, we were excited to get home — mostly because we missed working in our garden and taking care of the fish pond. But that’s because trips like this are filled with reminders of what we love the most: every tiny wildflower, all the tiny woodland creatures, hummingbirds and butterflies, the grand beauty of the natural world, sleeping beneath the trees and honoring our responsibility to care for all of it.
