End of August 2025: Finish prewriting

End of December 2025: First 100 pages of first draft

May of 2026: Half to three quarters of the way done with first draft

October of 2026: Finish first draft, and start looking for editor and beta reader

December of 2026: Start work on second draft

June of 2027: Finish second draft, resend to editor, start working on marketing

August of 2027: Continue working...

As a result of having spent her entire life in the rebellion that fights to free the kingdom of Ardainia from the traitorous rule of Queen Analeigh, Jessamine Stevenson has one hard and fast rule: “Don’t get attached to people, since you’ll just lose them anyway.”

This belief had only been reinforced when her girlfriend Marissa, the love of her life, had been captured by Queen Analeigh’s forces ...

To build and to shape

A masterpiece unknown

Each piece of the self

Waiting to be shown

A block of marble

A slab of clay

All see fit to tremble

When the sculptor comes to play

Each of them cries

As bits get chipped away

In service of an art form where they have no say

They’re built to have noses, eyes and ears

But cursed to never smell, see or hear

Their pain goes unnoticed

Their cries go unhea...

The familiar road of gravel

Crunches beneath my boots as I travel

The wind at my back, the sun in my face

I could not imagine any better place

The idea of a “home” is not one I know

To stay is to settle, to move is to grow

Life soon becomes stagnant in a singular place

So in wandering the world, I discover my grace

Sometimes it gets tiring to wander alone

But no one wants to join me in the place...

I look at my reflection

Haunted, empty eyes stare back

As I gaze at my broken face

The mirror starts to crack

It’s said that mirrors tell the truth

That eyes are the window to the soul

Yet when I look, all I see is a soul of fire and a heart of coal

Sometimes I ask how I became this way

The darkness of night drowning out the light of day

I wish I could say what happened to me, what awful truths...

I stare up at the sunset, watching as the colors drown the sky

My memories can’t help but flit to the life that’s passed me by

Despite the emptiness in my eyes, I can’t bring myself to cry

Sometimes it’s peaceful to let go, to dive into the dark

A feeling of calm enveloping my heart

In my mind I say goodbye, to those who never knew me, but never knew why

They’re fools for letting me go, but in th...

It’s one of those days that’s disconnected from time and space. Everything is covered in a thick layer of fog and everyone is quickly falling under the spell the duchess cast on this place. One by one, people walk out of their houses and cars and get up from sitting at tables or lying on the grass. They move in unison to go meet the duchess at the edge of the path to see who will be marked next. T...

The smells of dust and cement clog my nose and eyes and ears, permeating every corner of my subconscious.

This lid weighs heavily on me, slowly crushing my already rotten corpse; just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I can’t feel things anymore.

“Shh, go back to sleep my child; close your eyes, it will all be better in the dark,” my mother croons.

“Mother, I’m lonely in here, please open the li...

The sound of sirens causes me to blink rapidly as my eyes flutter open. Flashing lights dance at the edge of my vision and I can’t tell if they’re real or just a figment of my imagination. Everything in my head is blurry, including my memories of how I got here. That’s not anything all that unusual though, at least, I think it isn’t. It’s hard to think clearly, especially as the rough asphalt scra...

I’ve done what I swore I never would; I’ve signed the Contract of Loyalty. I don’t necessarily have a logical reason for why I did it other than the fact that I had nothing waiting for me back in the rebellion. While I was being mentally and emotionally tortured they didn’t even try to rescue me. While I was ready to defend the cause until my last breath, they were content to abandon me, even afte...