Writing Update

November 2022

Blog launch! And the start of a novel

Big news this month: on October 12, I launched my Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog. I have always been fascinated by the strange and unusual, and I often get my plot ideas from creepy corners of Wikipedia or lists of haunted places. For example, my story “The Lifeboat” in the magazine Seaside Gothic came from a 1906 San Francisco Call article (“Skeletons Recall Dread Tragedy”) about a lifeboat full of skeletons discovered in a sea cave after the sinking of the SS Valencia. And I wrote about the Enfield Monster for the anthology Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging from Improbable Press.

Because I know I’m not the only one who finds inspiration in the odd, I thought a blog of weird writing prompts might be fun! So far, I’ve profiled the 1920’s ghost ship Carroll A. Deering, the monstrous Spring-Heeled Jack, and a type of deathbed vision called a Peak in Darien experience. Future blog posts will focus on the legend of the Female Stranger, the monster shark Megalodon, and the deadly Dytalov Pass. You can always check out my upcoming releases to see what’s next!

And speaking of what’s to come: I am about to start work on a novel based on a short story I wrote called “Forewarning” (which you can read on Ao3). It’s a queer paranormal romance about a genderfluid psychic prince named Cole and his best friend/bodyguard, Lucas. Cole can see the future in the form of fetches, which are apparitions of a living person carrying out their future actions. You can read amazing stories of fetches in the 1886 work “Phantasms of the Living” Volume 1 and Volume 2, by Edmund Gurney, which is now in the public domain. (Speaking of getting plot ideas from weird sources.)

One hurdle I hope to clear is moving the story into modern times while still keeping the feel of Cole as a “prince.” We shall see! It’s not my first romance novel by far, but I am hoping it will be the first one to be published.

Thanks for reading! I hope you have a wonderful month to come.