Spotlight

NOVEMBER 2022

Short Story: Death By Candlelight (Set & Written: 2019)

The second in the trio of stories I’ve written for the #GHWhoDunit Mystery series at the Liason Haven, this has a special place in my heart. I drew on the thousands of romance novels I’ve read over the last two decades and used some old London neighborhoods where I lived and studied in 2013-14 to write a story about Jason and Elizabeth in Jack the Ripper’s London, trying to navigate society and mysterious murders and séances.

Novel: Bittersweet (Set 2002; Written 2016-18)

I chose Bittersweet for November for a few reasons. One, I honestly love it, and I’m really proud of how it turned out. I discovered a lot about my writing process while working on it. Bittersweet was also the final project that Cora and I worked on together. Cora was my beta reader for this novel as well as The Best Thing, and a lot of the story beats and themes were improved upon due to her guidance. I also have a sequel in the works for Bittersweet that I nearly chose this time around, and I thought it might be fun to reacquaint you all with the first story.

• November 3: Chapter 1 – Chapter 7: I wrote several different openings for Bittersweet, really struggling with the tone I wanted to set for the Jason/Elizabeth relationship. I’ve posted all the novel’s deleted and unused material on the Workshop. I very much wanted to establish the universe and the characters in this first section of the story, particularly the friendship between Elizabeth, Gia, and Courtney. I also spent a lot of time filling out the mob storyline, figuring out how to make that storyline pop. I love the early Zander material with Nico and Lenny. Some of my favorite mob stuff. I’m most proud of my Jason/AJ scenes and forcing them both to look at each other in a new light.
• November 9: Chapter 8 – Chapter 14: Chapter 8’s bar fight had a Liason moment that was in my head almost from the moment I began thinking about this story back in 2014. It’s one of my favorite scenes I’ve written for them. And the final scene in Chapter 8 used to open the story, but I moved it to trick readers into thinking they were reading one kind of story, and then delivering a second one.  This chunk of chapters is the important character stuff with Jason and AJ, and developing the Liason relationship before the story takes the twist. Gia’s dialogue in Chapter 14 at the end has one of my favorite lines, I’m only sorry I got to write it once.
• November 16: Chapter 15 – Chapter 21
• November 23: Chapter 22 – Chapter 28
• November 30: Chapter 29 – Second Epilogue

OCTOBER 2022

Short Story: Everytime (Set & Written July 2004)

Sam was a controversial character from the moment she set foot on screen, and her character struggled for years to find a firm footing in Port Charles, flitting from backstory to back to story and romance to romance. It wasn’t until her relationship with Jason in late 2004 and the decision to make her Alexis’s daughter in 2006 that Sam truly found her place. I was an early fan of Sam/Sonny and an advocate for a friendship with Jason/Sam. Their pre-relationship dynamic was fun to watch and had promise. I wasn’t the only Liason writer that thought Sam and Elizabeth in this time period would have made good friends, and that Sam might have even been an advocate for Jason and Elizabeth.

I wrote Everytime that summer and nearly turned it into a longer story, but eventually decided that it was enough just as it was.  I miss the early promise of Sam, and I’ve always considered returning to 2004 to tackle the mess made after Elizabeth left Ric and Jason left Courtney.

Novel: The Witness (Set in 2006, Written in 2006-07)

I chose The Witness as my first spotlight story for a few reasons. One, it’s shorter than a lot of my other stories so it fits nicely to begin mid-month; two, it’s just a fun story. It was my first foray into playing with the Cassadine/Spencer feud, and it has a lot of ensemble characters. If I were writing this story today, it’d probably be twice as long with a more definitive ending, but I just had so much fun writing and returning to this story.

• October 14: Prologue – Chapter 5: The premise for this story was a challenge at The Canvas where writers received a title and had to write a story around that. I didn’t plan any piece of The Witness, so the fact that I ended up actually making this worked is an accident. I honestly couldn’t tell you why I decided to go with this idea. Honestly, the final line in the prologue might be one of my favorite cliff hangers.
• October 21: Chapter 6 – Chapter 10: These are the chapters where I definitely leaned into plot twist after plot twist. Paternity secrets, shootings, back from the dead, blood feuds. I was having so much fun with this story, which I hope it shows off. I would never ever write this story like this today, but it still holds up pretty well. My favorite line is definitely the last one of Chapter 10 — it’s a one-liner I shamelessly stole from a 1998 episode.
• October 28: Chapter 11 – Epilogue: It’s been a very long time since I wrote this story, but I know that I wrote a bunch of chapters in a rush towards the end of May and in June of 2006, but I don’t think I finished it that summer.  I look back at these closing chapters and it definitely tells you the kind of writer I was when I was 22/23. I rushed the ending and closed out some storylines, particularly the Elizabeth part of the story. I was satisfied at the time with it, but I do regret the ultimate lack of Liason. I think I had anticipated Lucky’s role remaining the same as I hinted in the beginning, but I wrote myself to a different ending and there just wasn’t room anymore. Still, this story was an absolute joy ride to write and revisit. I pantsed every minute of it and never knew how I was ending every chapter.