Category: On Writing

  • The Heroine’s Journey: A Powerful Alternative to the Traditional Hero’s Arc

    From ancient epics like Beowulf to modern myths featuring Link or Luke Skywalker, heroes have long dominated storytelling. You might be familiar with the Hero’s Journey—the classic narrative where a lone hero battles monsters, claims a prize, and returns transformed. But what about stories where victory isn’t about conquest, but about connection, healing, and integration?…

  • Gothic Romance x Genre Romance: Two Takes on the Same Pairing

    So, as I’m working on my current manuscript, a Louisiana Gothic novel tentatively titled The Casquette Rose, it’s come to my attention that I’ve done something similar before… in Carmilla’s Ghost, my second novel in The Adventures of Sam Hain. And what is it that I’ve done? Write Louisiana Gothic in both? No. What I’ve…

  • Soundtracking a Novel

    A lot of authors, especially indie authors, post mood boards and/or soundtracks for each of the novels. I don’t. My brain doesn’t work that way for some reason. Usually, a singular image is all I have in mind when I start working, and I don’t have the patience with myself to go searching for images…

  • From the Archives: The Alchemist’s Rose

    From the Archives: The Alchemist’s Rose

    This has been an interesting week for me, as I’ve been interviewing for university jobs across the country, ranging from teaching posts to administrative positions. I’ve also been quite busy with another Louisiana Gothic novel (more on that in a future post). So, I haven’t posted much to social media. But today, I want to…

  • Destiny’s Gambit: The Book that Almost Was

    Destiny’s Gambit: The Book that Almost Was

    So, today I want to muse about a book I almost wrote as the seventh installment in The Adventures of Sam Hain: Destiny’s Gambit. That’s right, the original plan for the book that became Carmilla’s Gambit was to focus on Destiny’s mental and emotional struggles with her past as she returns to the field to…

  • What Abandoning a Manuscript Taught Me About Writing

    So, in previous posts I talked about working on a cozy gothic fantasy for myself as a brain cleanser after the darkness and heaviness of Carmilla’s Gambit and Wolf in the Sanctuary. After drafting 21,819 words of this manuscript, I abandoned it. And I’m not sad, because the process of deciding to abandon this manuscript…

  • Unexpected Inspiration for Wolf in the Sanctuary

    Wolf in the Sanctuary, my Louisiana Gothic novel about a popular romance novelist seeking a career pivot into gothic fiction, features a lot of expected and unexpected inspiration. Given that there is a Rougarou, many would expect the old Cajun legends surrounding this werewolf-like creature to have been inspiration, and they were. The same goes…

  • Toasting the End and the New Beginnings: Changes to Sam Hain’s Adventures After Carmilla’s Gambit

    Carmilla’s Gambit will bring the first major arc of the Adventures of Sam Hain to an end, for the most part. There is only one loose thread from the promises put forward in Liam’s Doom that needs to be resolved. But we are moving toward two major changes in the world that will impact the…

  • Religious Trauma and Horror: Thoughts and Questions

    File Settings Done Title Description Thumbnail Will be cropped to a 3:2 aspect ratioUpload DraftPreviewContinue Style Button More Help your friends start a Substack Know someone who would be great on Substack? Insert your referral button to get credit for bringing them onboard and expand your network for recommendations, cross posts, and more.Not nowAdd referral…

  • Carmilla’s Gambit: Building a Phantom Strike Team

    Carmilla’s Gambit: Building a Phantom Strike Team

    So, I’ve said before that Carmilla’s Gambit will do some world-building and reveal some secrets and relationships that I’ve had planned for a while. I won’t give too many spoilers, but I will reveal a few tidbits that I hope will pique interest in the novel. Again, yes, this is the seventh book in my…