The Colors That Haunt Us is finally published, and I'm somewhere between relieved, proud, and terrified. From three proof copies to wondering who's reading it, here's what life looks like on the other side of my first book release.

For months, there was always another task between me and finished. Now The Colors That Haunt Us is almost out of my hands, and I’m learning that being ready to publish a book feels very different from being ready for other people to have it.

I do not know a story is finished because I can no longer find anything to change. I know I am getting close when the changes I can still make are no longer making the story more itself—and when the urge to keep editing starts sounding more like fear than craft.

What I want most from a reader is not one specific emotion or interpretation. I want a story to give them enough room to feel something of their own, see themselves somewhere unexpected, and close the book with an opinion worth carrying with them.

Transformation in my work is not about reaching one perfect, final version of yourself. It is about becoming someone you did not know you could be, living with what changed, and discovering that there is still more becoming ahead.

Balancing the writing life does not mean giving drafting, revising, and promotion equal attention every day. Here is how I use creative seasons, flexible plans, short writing sessions, and scheduled content to keep several projects moving.

Disabled characters deserve agency, desire, adventure, rest, and help—not stories that erase their needs when they become inconvenient. I write about consistency, accessibility, magical healing, and allowing disabled characters to remain complicated.

A personal reflection on writing queer stories for queer readers, representation, acearo identity, complicated characters, and making room for queer lives that are strange, messy, beautiful, and fully alive.

Atmosphere is more than beautiful description. It can create tension, show interiority, make place feel alive, and let the reader feel the truth of a scene before the characters can say it directly.

For me, a character starts feeling real when they stop behaving like an idea and start behaving like themselves. That sounds obvious, but it is usually the clearest dividing line. An idea can be interesting for a while. A role in the story can be useful for a while. A trope can even be compelling for a while. But none of those things are the same as a person. A character becomes real to me when they develop enough voice, want, contradiction, interiority, and emotional specifi

Revision is where the real story starts to emerge for me. I do not think of it as a stage of “fixing mistakes,” at least not primarily. Revision is where I figure out what the draft is actually trying to be, what it is already doing well, what it is failing to do, and how to help it become more fully itself. Drafting gets the material onto the page. Revision is where I discover what shape that material was always reaching toward. When I first come back to a draft, the things

A reflection on the kinds of ideas that refuse to leave me alone, and how a line, an image, or a question slowly becomes a real story.

Different stories need different shapes, and I’ve learned to follow them there. I write across genres because I rarely begin with genre at all. Most of the time, I start with a concept, a character, an atmosphere, a piece of worldbuilding, or the beginning shape of a plot. Sometimes that concept is clearly fantasy or clearly science fiction from the start. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes I think I am beginning in one place and the story has other ideas. I can set out to write

A core part of my life has been learning how to be myself. That has not always been easy, and for a long time it did not even feel possible. Because of that, I think I am always writing toward the places people are told not to look too closely: pain, loneliness, longing, uncertainty, desire, change, the parts of a self or a life that others would rather flatten, fear, or dismiss. I am interested in finding beauty there, not because suffering is noble, but because even difficu