When I published my third novel, Hey, Roomie!, I intentionally gave myself space before returning to blogging. I needed that breath. That pause. The quiet that follows the storm of creation and the noise of a launch. But part of returning to blog life also meant returning to social media. Facebook, Twitter (and no, I will not call it X), and now Bluesky. These are the old stomping grounds, the places I once turned to…
Always Ametra
There’s a silence that comes after a book is born. Not the kind that brings peace, but the kind that rattles inside your ribs—echoing through the empty corners once filled by characters, conflict, and craft. As writers, we spend months—sometimes years—growing a story. We nurture it, worry over it, rewrite its flaws, and chase perfection like it owes us something. The book takes up residence in our minds and our bones. It whispers when we’re…
I received a (scam) email offering to buy the rights to my second novel and decided, just for funsies, to see what might be said about me in these Google Search streets. What I found is both surprising and hilarious. Vitae: Heirs of the Five—the first novel in my dark fantasy series—has been out in the world since 2020. She’s been through a pandemic, multiple edits, cover glow-ups, and enough character drama to qualify as…
There’s a whispered assumption that fiction writers are always spilling someone’s tea—just dressing it up in fantasy or fog and hoping no one recognizes the teacup. And while I won’t confirm or deny such claims (my legal team and sense of self-preservation would both like a word), I will say this: real life has a way of showing up in fiction whether you invite it or not. Sometimes it starts with a moment. A single…
It started, as most epic tales do, with good intentions and a slightly overstuffed tote. I told myself I’d just do a quick organizing pass—nothing major. Just sort a few things, maybe prep a tote or two for moving. What I didn’t anticipate was stumbling into a time capsule. A spindle of discs. Then another. Then another. Nearly two hundred of them, stacked like ancient scrolls from the early digital age. And oh, the things…
Every story begins as a whisper—an idea tugging at the edge of your thoughts until it’s no longer content to be quiet. That was certainly the case with Hey, Roomie!—though “whisper” might be too soft a word for the way this book barged into my brain. The idea came early. The timing? Complicated. Hey, Roomie! was actually intended to be my second published novel, following Duality. I was already deep into the writing process when…
There’s a moment in every story when a character stops being words on a page and starts breathing. You know it when it happens. Suddenly, they’re making choices you didn’t plan, saying things that aren’t in your notes, dragging the plot in a direction you didn’t intend—but can’t resist following. That’s when you know they’re alive. Creating characters that feel real isn’t about giving them a tragic backstory or a quirky catchphrase. It’s about knowing…
The first draft of a novel is a glorious, chaotic mess. There’s no other way to describe it. You get the idea, you chase it, you lasso it onto the page while it’s still half-feral and snarling, and for a while, it feels like triumph. Like art. Like the great masterpiece has arrived in the form of a blinking cursor and 90,000 words that you just know are at least 87% brilliant. Then you reread…
When I first dipped my toes into the audiobook world, I thought it would be a fairly straightforward process. After all, the book was done. The story was edited, polished, published, and live. What else was there to do? Answer: A lot. I expected to simply sit back and listen to my novel come to life in audio form. What I didn’t expect was that I’d be immediately confronted with every sentence that sounded better…
There’s a certain narrative that floats around the writing community like gospel: Be patient. Wait for the right deal. Don’t rush into publishing. Good things take time. And sure, good things do take time—but how much time is too much? How long are we supposed to sit in limbo, manuscripts in hand, waiting for the elusive green light that signals we’re “worthy” of being read? Because here’s the truth: Some writers wait forever. Some never…