Joseph M Kurtenbach

12/18/2024

The saying, “No news is good news,” comes to mind. That’s my excuse for waiting so long between entries here. Since my last update, I’ve received feedback from three of those beta readers (yes, over a year and a half ago), and additional feedback from other beta readers specifically on my beginning chapters, after making substantial changes to those first pages. I think it’s a fair assessment to say the feedback was substantially positive, along with some valid critiques and lots of comments in the margins. The thoughtful work of those readers gave me a lot of work to do. Granted, not a year and a half’s worth of work—that’s my own doing and can reasonably be chalked up to laziness and unwillingness to impose deadlines on myself when none are set for me. But in my defense, I continue to make progress, albeit slowly. Stay tuned.

04/14/2023

A new page on my site! As the title implies, this is where I plan to add information and goings-on that may be of interest to you. I’m not sure yet how I’ll divide up or duplicate what I post here vs. what I put on my Facebook Author Page, except to say any important career or book news or milestones can always be found here going forward (said in my optimistic voice). I’ll also post such things to Facebook, but over there you’ll also find rambling progress notes, tidbits about my writing process, and other miscellaneous ephemera I feel like sharing.

Just to create a marker of sorts here on this first entry, I currently have what I hope will be my debut novel, THE TWO STAVES, out to four beta readers. While awaiting their feedback over the next several weeks, I’m doing things like creating this new web page along with imagining all the terrible and wonderful things the beta readers might say. When I’m in a positive state of mind, I’m starting some basic planning on the next novel.