My Application to Be Your New Favorite Author (Part 2)

Hello, loyal readers! I’m writing this blog post on Memorial Day, so if you’re here, I hope you enjoyed the holiday in whatever form you choose and are as excited as I am to welcome the beginning of summer. It means it’s time once again to get outside and have some adventures — starting with a trip to Spain that I’ll be leaving for in a little over a week.

Another update from the Debut Author Diaries (patent pending) before we get into what I wanted to talk about this month: as I continue my work through “Knight School” (now at just over 100,000 words), I’ve definitely come to the conclusion that while I may be closer to the end of this story than the beginning at this point, I’m unfortunately not going to be ready to make my original spring window of querying it. Due to some other personal projects and vacation time in the next few months, my new goal is to query in the fall and I’m fairly confident I’ll have the story finished by that time. Now, how quickly will I be able to finish it…that’s the real question.

But setting that aside for now, if you’re here from my social post (or just arriving for the first time), I’ll get to what you really want to hear about: my stories in progress, and my continued pitch to be your new favorite author. While I have a seemingly never-ending supply of story ideas all competing for control in my brain at any given time, I’ve picked four main ones here to focus on that are the most complete and well-thought-out ones I have. All are in various states of writing, some more complete than others, and cover an array of genres that I consider my core favorites and strengths. I’ll give you a brief teaser of each of them here…and after you have a look, I’d love to know which one(s) appeal to you the most!

The Showstopper

REVENGE IS A BLOODY BUSINESS.

Broadway, New York, 1922: the economy is booming, the days are short, and the nights are long and filled with every kind of entertainment imaginable. But all is not well in this dazzling, decadent world. A masked criminal is stalking the streets and haunting the theaters, leaving chaos in his wake. No stage is safe from his devious and brilliant methods of sabotage.

Janitor Tom Wilkins is no hero: in his opinion, the snobby actors and rich fat cats around him are getting exactly what they deserve at the mysterious vigilante’s hands. But a chance encounter and a remarkable run of bad luck soon plunge him into a deadly game of cat and mouse against a madman bent on total destruction.

Caught in the whirlwind along with a beautiful actress, a refined theater owner, and a rookie police officer, Wilkins must use all his skills to expose the mastermind pulling all their strings before the curtain falls on Broadway forever — and possibly on his life.

The Showstopper is the only story on this list that’s already actually published — in fact, you can buy it now on Amazon! Inspired by some of my favorite period pieces of the 1920s like The Great Gatsby and pulpy, fantastical mystery-thrillers like Phantom of the Opera and Batman, I started writing it in high school due to my experiences with the relatively low-stakes drama and rivalries of student theater. It’s definitely an early example of my writing, but I’m still very proud of what I accomplished and how I crafted such an intricately-plotted mystery with some pretty fun action sequences and darkly humorous character moments.

If you decide to pick it up, I’m dying to know what you think of the plot twist…or maybe multiple ones. I haven’t touched the world of The Showstopper since 2020, but I have long-term plans for at least two sequels that will take place at different points in history — so stay tuned!

Knight School: The Rod-Man Cometh

Teenage peasant Danitha Alder is trapped: stuck in a backwater village unsuited to her high-minded ideals and lust for adventure. So when she runs away from home and is rescued on the road by knight-in-training Sir Roderick Payne, she thinks it’s fate. Rod is a student of the utterly unremarkable St. Cecil’s School of Sword and Sorcery, and a gig as his squire is Dani’s ticket out of her dull provincial life. The only problem is Rod is crude, rude, and breaks every rule in the book — all qualities she can’t stand.

Princess-apparent Tessa Blackstone is also trapped: forced into marriage against her will and alienated from everyone around her by a lifetime of oppressive expectations. She desperately desires to disappear, and her encounter with the misfit duo of Dani and Rod on a royal visit to St. Cecil’s will bring her a fleeting chance at escape — as well as a lot more trouble than she bargained for.

As Dani and Tessa’s grasps at freedom become entwined and mired in political intrigue, conflicting duties, and unexpected romance, they’re both about to get schooled in the seeming impossibility of their dreams: Dani to find a place where a commoner with big dreams can make a difference, and Tessa to protect the people as Albion’s first female knight. Allying with the uncouth and unconventional Rod, however, could be their salvation…if they don’t stab him to death first.

Battles of wits with dragons. Swordplay that’s low on swash but high on buckling. Derring-do in dining and dancing. Don’t forget your codpiece — education is about to get medieval.

If you’ve been paying attention to my social media and blog posts, you’ll probably be pretty familiar with this one already: it’s been my active project since 2023, and I’m finally getting close to the final steps before I send it out on query status to agents, which is a big step for me! How it came to be is a bit of a long story, but the short version is that I’ve always wanted to write a fan, lighthearted, somewhat goofy and non-serious fantasy story like the ones I grew up with: The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Never-Ending Story, and the like.

I had two story ideas, actually: one for a Harry Potter-esque fantasy school setting that I never felt escaped from the shadow of its source material, but whose characters I loved; and the other for the fantasy adventure I mentioned before which I had a setting for but not characters. By mashing the two together, I came up with what I believe is my best piece of writing to date, and I’m more than excited to be able to share it with the world soon!

I also know that right now, the publishing scene is dominated by dark fantasy and romantasy, which focus largely on steamy spice and gritty, realistic warfare. Will there be some of those things in Knight School? Maybe. But I’ve personally had enough of the glut and my stated goal with this story is just to “make fantasy fun again.” Also, The Rod-Man Cometh is only the first book in a planned trilogy, so more is on the way.

Spartacus & Spartacus: Attorneys-at-Law

I’m willing to bet you either laughed out loud or rolled your eyes at that title alone: either way, I hope it caught your attention, because it sure did mine. I always knew I wanted to write a story about Ancient Greece and have been fascinated by the history and the mythology surrounding that civilization. One day, the title idea just popped into my head, and I knew it was going to be either the most brilliant or the dumbest story idea I’d ever had. Either way, I had to write it and find out.

I’ve been working on this story for a little over a year, piecing a very rough first draft together here and there in breaks from Knight School. I don’t have an official summary yet like the other two, but I’ll give you the broad strokes:

In ancient Athens, Seph, a young woman promised to the temple for life to refine her oracular foresight abilities, flees after being targeted by a mysterious assassin. Seeking refuge, she runs straight into the office and arms of Josephus “Joe” Spartacus: a chariot-chasing personal injury lawyer with a bit of brash, rough-edged Humphrey Bogart-esque private detective in him.

Joe’s suspicious of everyone and everything, but something about Seph’s story rings a bell and allows him to connect the attempt on her life to a vast conspiracy he’s been onto for years that goes from the streets of Athens, to the People’s Assembly, through the king’s court, and all the way to the gods on Olympus. With the help of Joe’s bookish younger brother Nicholai (Nick) and their political patron and father figure Archon Pallas, Joe and Seph dive headlong into a dangerous world and a game they don’t understand — one that could shake the very foundations of Greece.

I have to say, the story has been a blast to write so far! Admittedly it’s pretty goofy and out there in terms of material, but I have some really fun ideas about how to build out the world and the characters and reimagine Greek history and mythology into something suiting a Maltese Falcon-style thriller. I’ll keep you all posted on what comes next! And surprise surprise, I have plans for a trilogy once again (it’s just how I think).

Megasite

Last but not least, I’ll share what little I can about a story that goes in a totally different direction from the last three: military sci-fi/horror. I’ve always been a huge sci-fi geek, from Star Trek and Star Wars to deeper cuts like Hyperion, The Expanse, and Dune. I’ve also been a fan of the blending between sci-fi and horror, as done so well in the Alien franchise (one of my all-time favorites). Megacyte was born from these, along with traditional alien invasion movies like Independence Day that have a heavy military background. Once again, I’ll broad-strokes it for you:

In the not-too-distant future, a lunar mission gone wrong exposes that the Earth’s moon is, in fact, a dormant planet-sized alien vessel. The vessel, a bizarre blend of bio-mechanical technologies, latches onto the Earth and begins draining its core of energy like a parasite, earning it the name “megasite.” The armies of the word mobilize to defend the planet, but they are decimated by the aliens’ superior firepower.

Years later, the human survivors struggle to stay alive in hidden enclaves as the environment disintegrates around them from the megasite’s impact on the planet. A last-ditch multinational mission is put in motion to infiltrate the megasite and shut it down from within. Once inside, however, the team encounters things they could never have prepared for, including a hostile alien biome that is slowly integrating them all into the ship, turning them into tools and stripping away their sanity.

With tensions high, old nationalistic rivalries begin to resurface and secret, conflicting agendas come to light among the team as different powers seek not only to shut down the megasite, but to be in control of it when the dust settles. The team members also come to realize that the megasite isn’t so much a ship, but a life form, which leads to big questions: can it be shut down? Even if it can, will the damage to the planet be reversible? And if they defeat this organism, will they have to face an even more terrifying force: its creators?

There are a lot of ideas I want to explore in this story: the idea of alien invasion as a unifying force for humanity (spoiler alert: not as much as you’d think); environmental catastrophe and its impacts in a post-apocalyptic world; political and societal differences and rivalries; the nature of the alien, expanding into a more cosmic outlook in sequels (once again, three books at least planned); and of course the body/psychological horror component. It’s going to require a lot more time and thought to get the core story in line, but I’ve wanted to write a sci-fi story for a long time and I think this is the one.

So, which one of these stories intrigues or excites you the most? Which one would you pick up off the bookshelf? Hit me up on social media or send me a message now.