There are two types of readers: those who only read one book at a time, devoting all their focus on one single story, and those who nip at books like a charcuterie board, having several open at once and in different mediums. This leads me to believe that writers also fall into these two categories with their novel projects.

As a reader, I’m the second type: I have two to three physical books I read at a time, plus at least one audiobook in progress. Thus, it makes sense that I am also this kind of writer. While I do keep my section of the Current Projects page updated, I wanted to give a more current and detailed look into where I’m at with all of them.

The Silverwing

I started my first novel, The Silverwing, in fall 2023. The whole story of how this came to be is in my “how I became a writer” post from when we first launched Pen & Sword. The first draft took me about a year and a half to complete, and the second draft took a few months. This draft I gave to a few very wonderful beta readers (my dad and my cousin, here’s another shameless plug for Walt), who gave me some incredibly vital feedback that made me go, “Holy shit, I can’t believe I thought this thing was done!”

Seriously, I can’t stress enough how important it is to get feedback on your work from multiple different sources. My dad, with his eagle-eyes finding each piece of inconsistency and clunky language, and my cousin, with his seasoned knowledge on the art of storytelling and its components, made me understand just how narrow our vision can become with our projects.

One thing that I can’t believe I missed was the lack of development in my main character. It’s strange- I was subconsciously avoiding any real conflict between my characters. Yeah, I had cool sword fights and a face-off with the big bad guy, but none of my characters ever disagreed on anything or took more than a page to resolve problems. My main character started, really, with nowhere to go upward. With this understanding in hand, I began draft three.

This consisted of an almost-entire rewrite of the first five or so chapters, and the parts of the beginning that I did keep were all heavily altered to fit my new character, whose conflict with my main character serves as that step up that I desperately needed in draft two. I also added several sections that ramp up the conflict, which inevitably led to some more expanded character moments. An additional 10,000 words later, draft three is now complete and has been sent to some exciting agencies. Fingers crossed!

Project Name: Malthea

This was the second project I conceived, a few months after beginning the first draft of The Silverwing. I had just watched Oculus along with the Doof! Media podcast Flanagan’s Wake, covering all of Mike Flanagan’s film and television works.

The part that really stuck with me about Oculus was that even the audience had no way of trusting what they were seeing, of knowing what was real and what wasn’t. It made for a profoundly disturbing experience, and I thought it was a genius way to scare an audience.

This made me start to think on the use of an object that alters known reality but in a novel setting. It floated in my head for a few days until I randomly (this is how most stuff comes to me) conceived of a drow-like high fantasy race that lives in same-sex family units. Just like that, I had a really interesting genre-bend: a cursed object horror story set in a high fantasy world.

This project is still exciting to me, but in its infancy at only about 15,000 words, as I have since been distracted by other works. I have the general shape of the story in my head, but this one still needs a thorough outlining before I continue.

Project Name: Space Cowboy

This one came to me through a weird sequence. On the previously mentioned Flanagan’s Wake podcast, Scott and Matt were discussing Gerald’s Game while I listened in the shower. There’s a creepy shadowy figure in the room with Jessie at one point, and she internally refers to him as the “space cowboy”, for reasons none of us really know. When the guys were discussing Jessie’s space cowboy, an idea fell into my head.

A space cowboy.

No, really. A cowboy, like, a cattle rancher, in space.

Thus I began my third project. As I continued with my shower, now lost in my thoughts and completely missing the rest of the podcast episode, I built the characters and setting in my head. At some point during this, my diseased brain went “What if it was also horror?”

So now I’ve got a sci-fi western horror story in the works, where cattle ranchers face an alien disease that turns cattle into zombie monsters.

Yeah.

This one is very much a young baby, but I’ve recently completed the full outline and am very excited to take off my bit and run with it.

Project Name: Father Cruz

Even though this one was technically conceived fourth, it’s likely going to be my next completed draft. I talk about its conception in this post, but it was basically just me wondering what would’ve happened if Damien Karras didn’t die at the end of The Exorcist (you don’t need a spoiler warning for something from the 70’s).

Readers of the book will know that Fr. Karras had a questionable sexuality, and I thought that, if the demon had been able to spend some time with Karras, he would’ve used his deeply buried queer tendencies against him. Thus, the birth of Father Cruz- a young Catholic priest who becomes possessed, and whose demon uses his trauma surrounding his repressed sexuality to weaken him and take him over. The whole romance part of it was unintended at the beginning- just one of those things that happen as you go. It’s currently sitting a little over 40,000 words, and I just have to write the big climax at the end.

Project Name: Clown

This one’s also got its own post, so I won’t go into it very much here. I will say that since that post, I haven’t made a ton of progress on this one, but I am still very excited about it. All it needs is an outline, and I’ll be good to really fly with it.

Project Name: Silverwing Sequel

I started this one a little bit before finishing the first draft of The Silverwing- I had the vision for it all at once in a rush and had to get it started. We haven’t passed the 50 page mark on it yet, but my outline goes HARD. The pages I do have so far are some of my favorite writing ever. I really hope it gets the opportunity to shine someday.

Project Name: Harriers

This one hit me randomly while I was on my American Southwest road trip in June. Something had me ruminating on Old West outlaws and where the line was between outlaws and gunslingers. While I only have the opening chapter and a concept, this one will be a fun one to develop once I’ve finished with some of my other open projects.

Project Name: Kaja

This is another one that doesn’t have an interesting conception story- I was just getting ready for work when I thought, “Hm. Gothic story in 1910s Norway. Murder? Sapphic mermaid monster? Sure!”

It’s got some influence from Victorian Psycho, some from The Haar, and it’s been really fun to play with its specific voice. I told my dad the other day that I was making myself laugh being so mean to some unsavory side characters. That’s what’s so fun about the genre- the voice is so unique.

This one’s got a full, very detailed outline and a crazy sequence for its climax.

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This long list might make it sound like I’m bragging or writing constantly, bursting with ideas. The truth is, this list of projects has taken over two years of serious writing to grow to this size, and in all reality, a high number of them remain mostly unwritten. The concepts are strong and mostly built in my head, but several need real planning done.

My recent success in getting some short fiction finally out there in the world has been a really good motivator, and I find I’m spending more time writing these past few weeks than reading (sorry Saige- she’s been waiting for me to finish Gideon the Ninth for weeks at the time of writing this).

And while I do know how I plan to end Father Cruz, I’m currently being intimidated by the idea of reaching the finale. Endings are scary for everyone, and even though I know I can always change it if it’s not quite right, something has been making me hesitate to say goodbye to my characters. I know it will come, though. I’ve always written like a hummingbird in a garden- flitting between different flowers guided entirely by whim and natural urge.

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