All the boys.

I know I just posted, but boys.  I have a lot of them (and a few girls, I promise), and if any of this is going to make sense, I need to explain who they are.  Prepare yourself.  I’m not kidding when I say there are a lot.  I’m also linking all of their Pinterest boards because I’m shameless.  I’m also linking short stories for the ones that have those because why the heck not.

Alex the Destroyer: the original.  He is the literal first boy.  I first created Alex’s character (you might need to sit down for this confession) in a Good Charlotte fanfiction.  Oh lord.  After that fizzled out and died thank god, I gave him his own story (his boyfriend’s name is still Billy, shut up), wrote 44 chapters that spanned from age 17 to age, I don’t know, 37 or something.  It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever written, and I never finished it.  Fast forward to about three months ago, at the beginning of April, when I finally, finally, started working with him again.  Of course, I’ve paused just before the end for two reasons–a) I’m terrified to end his story after all this time, and b) Pen boys.

About: YA teen romance.  Teenage Alex Hart is addicted to heroin, has an abusive mom, and hates his life.  Characters include boyfriend Billy, best friend Noah, twins Wyatt and Caleb, in prison dad Max, psycho mom Michele, and villain Trent Travis.  They have a band.  They try to ruin their lives.  Ultimately, Trent gets a little too rough with Alex, and things spiral out of control.

Rónán: dragons.  I always referred to Rónán as the original because he was the one I wrote for 11 straight years, but chronologically, he did come after Alex.  In the eighth grade, I said to two of my friends, “I want to write about dragons.”  That was the entire plot.  Rónán has undergone four rewrites, all of which I hate, and is on an indefinite hiatus.  I will write his story someday, but he needs to simmer for a good, long while.

About: Adult high fantasy.  Rónán, king of Irizedd, dragon rider to Nevaeh, is struggling to maintain the balance of dark and light.  Characters include best friend/eventual boyfriend Liam, historian/magician Elias, villain Treyan (is that still his name?  that’s a bad idea), and a very large cast of various races.  There are seriously way too many characters for me to list.  There are dragons, magic, good versus evil, a lot of faery lore, and all the other things you could want out of a LOTR-inspired universe.

Mason & Co.: the faery.  More specifically, the fire elemental faery.  Mason is the reason for this blog.  I needed somewhere to rant about what was going on.  I had finally stepped away from Rónán after 11 years, and I was freaking the heck out.  I originally met him in April of 2016 in the form of a short story, spent a while thinking I was going to write five books, sliced up the story and made it into a trilogy, played very briefly with the idea of two books, and then finally realized I was only meant to write the one about him.  His whole novel has been written and revised, and he’s currently on a temporary hiatus, but I will come back to it.

About: YA urban fantasy.  Twenty-two year old Mason is an elemental faery who is coming out on the other side of a two-year addiction to tea to find that he’s survived the fire inside of him.  Characters include: boyfriend/air elemental faery Lukas, best friend/water elemental Miriam, sometimes nemesis/earth elementary faery Leila, Undying (basically just keeps him alive) Dhaval, and best friend Olive.  Faeries are trapped in a world where just being a faery (or a witch) means execution, so they live in secret.  This is the story of the beginning of their war against humans.

Gemma Gwyn: the witches.  Oh look, a girl!  There are a couple girls, and chronologically, I should put Gemma before Mason, but realistically, that’s not true.  Gemma first started out as a screenplay for my second(?) screenwriting class in college.  It was terrible.  Let’s not talk about it.  (There was one scene where I spent a full minute describing her bedroom.  My professor made us close our eyes for a minute and try to just envision her bedroom.  I’m going to never forget that, and I appreciate him for doing it.)  This was one of the first times I wanted to write about magic, and will certainly not be the last, but I am hopeful that someday I’ll go back to it.

About: YA urban fantasy.  Yo, I don’t know.  Honestly.  I have no idea what this story is about.  I do, kind of, but not really.  It’s got witches, they’re in a secluded city because humans, and bad things happen.  Characters include: best friend Maia Vernn, sisters Arianna and Ava, best friend Sam Lowen, awesome dad Elijah, and others that I don’t really remember.

the Hayes boys: zombies.  These boys have gone through so many different transformations, it’s a little funny.  They started as a short story written during college that was one of the few short stories I ever went back and worked on again.  The linked story is the final product (I think?) of those edits, and I was fairly proud of it.  During my first(?) screenwriting class, I tried to turn it into a screenplay.  I didn’t get very far.  I’ve also tried to turn it into a novel, but I wasn’t in the mindset to be writing outside of Rónán yet, at the time, so that fizzled out pretty quickly, as well.

About: Adult post-apocalypse.  When the world ends, the Hayes brothers are in separate countries.  This is their struggle to find one another again.  Characters include: Eoin, Connor, twins Jude and Rhys, and Leah.  Eoin and Jude are in London trying to find a new place for their family to live.  They want to leave Ireland after their father’s death, where Connor and Rhys are waiting to join them.  Faced with something that might be zombies, but that crazy scientist Leah tells them are not, this is a story told in halves.  One, with Eoin and Jude traveling from London to Wales so they can return to Ireland, and the other, Connor and Rhys trying desperately to survive in a dying world.

Pendulum: VAMPIRE DETECTIVE.  Someday, guys.  Some freaking day.  This idea has a mostly formed plot, characters, backstory, and vampires.  I should be able to write it right now, but I’m just not in the headspace to be writing about vampires, but someday.  Oh man.  I can’t wait for this story to happen.  I first wrote the short story in December of 2015 because vampires, and I’ve been looking back at it ever since.  I love this story, I love these characters, and I can’t wait to someday dig into it.

About: either YA urban fantasy or Adult fantasy, I haven’t decided yet.  Vampire Andrew has woken up to another dead body, drenched in blood, and with no memories of last night.  Meanwhile, his detective partner, Sam, is furious about the news of a new missing person while they’re in the middle of hunting down a cult of serial killers.  Surprise: they’re Andrew’s old clan.  I’m actively grinning right now.  Characters include: vampire detective Mediterranean Andrew, human detective redhead Sam, and a whole cast of vampires and other mythical creatures.  And yes, his original name was Lucien.

Dima & Jae: post-apocalypse.  Oh look, another girl!  She’s not the last one, either, I’m realizing.  Oh man, this story.  This was also born out of a short story that I wrote, but it was very small, and it was overflowing with stuff.  I started writing the novel in January, but it just wasn’t ready.  It needs a loooooong time to sit on the stove.  Like, a stupid long time.  There is a lot packed into this story, and I’m pretty sure it’s not just one book, but I am nowhere near ready to tackle it.

About: YA fantasy.  This book does not take place on Earth.  IT’S ONE OF THE REASONS I LIKE IT SO MUCH.  All of my YA takes place on Earth, and I miss working in Irizedd so much that I was too freaking excited for this idea that I just plunged in with absolutely no idea of where I was going or what was happening.  Teenager Dima lives in a world where the air poisons those born without the gift of magic.  And even when you are born with magic, you are hunted down and forced into slavery under the high queen Shri.  More on her in a second.  Characters include: best friend Jae (boy), non-magic aunt Zahra, girlfriend Surya (straight relationships bore me, whoops), Jae’s sister Harper, misunderstood villain Morroca, high queen Shri, and her attendant Devika.

the desert witch: see above.  OKAY.  This is one of those where chronologically, it should come before Dima & Jae, but realistically, it comes after.  This started as a short story that later became the backstory for Dima & Jae.  This is Shri’s beginning, and thus why I think Dima & Jae is a multiple-novel pain in the ass.

About: YA fantasy.  Magic is not allowed.  Magic is heresy.  Magic is a sin, meant to be extinct.  This is why Shri’s father sells her to a witch master.  Characters include: her later attendant/right now little girl Devika, and witch master Nagendra.  This is the beginning of the world that Shri creates, the one that Dima and Jae are born into.

comet novel: Sense8 meets Cloud Atlas meets The OA.  I posted about this only once, but that’s because it’s a novel that I’ll likely write after I’ve finally managed to work through all these other ideas because it’s a novel that’s going to take a hell of a lot of time.  Like, years.  Actual years to write.  Comet novel takes place in seven different countries with eight different characters in several different decades.  It still hurts my brain sometimes to think about it.

About: Adult fiction.  Their souls were born long ago, and they have been fighting their way back to each other for centuries until, finally, they are born again–in separate countries and in different times.  And yet, they can still hear and feel each other.  Characters include: the wanderer (Midwest America), the free spirit (New Zealand), the monk (Thailand), the soldier (Egypt, but from Greece), the healer (ISS, but from Bolivia), the witch (Italy), the aware (Antarctica, but from Africa), and the scientist (Argentina).

the Pen boys: my life right now.  I have currently written 106k words for these boys.  This was the beach trip with my anam cara that helped dissolve a lot of the doubt I had around my writing.  I said to Erin, “I want to write about boys and magic.”  Like Rónán, that was it.  That was the plot.  It took most of that day, and our drive to and from New York before I started forming a solid plot and characters, and still a while after that before I started writing, but I am officially halfway through the first novel, and wow, do I love these boys something fierce.

About: YA urban fantasy.  It’s not Harry Potter.  It’s much angstier, and it’s more energy work, tarot, and crystals than it is wand waving and Latin spells.  Penhallam Academy for Magic proudly houses the brightest boys Massachusetts has ever seen.  What they don’t know is that one of their boys has summoned the family demon, bound his cult following into its service, and is preparing to kill off those that oppose him.  Pen boys include: Oliver Hollands, James Goddard, Harrison Eldridge, James and Jasper Marlow.  Oliver is terribly sad, very broken, and just trying to survive.  James just wants to watch the world burn, though only because it’s trying to burn him first.  Harrison loves bright colors, accidentally fell in love with his best friend, and is busy trying to make everyone happy.  Other characters include: Ainsley & Parker Eldridge, villain Quinn Arkwright, and various parents/siblings/faculty/other students.

And that’s it?  There are actually two that are missing–Colin Luan and Isaac the vampire–but that’s because I’m not sure I’ll ever write those.  My plan, right now, is to eventually tackle every single idea above, and hopefully many more after that.  These are all ideas that I’ve worked on previously, and that I’ve loved enough to keep holding onto.  There are some–death-bringer, Ode à la mort, and the zombie sisters–that don’t have enough pull quite yet, but I think might someday.  But these are the ten that are in my brain right now, that are constantly vying for first position.  These are the stories I want to tell, the characters I want to explore, and the words I want to write.

One of the things I’ve always found so amazing about Maggie Stiefvater (favorite author, I’ll undoubtedly reference her a lot) is that she’s always got something else going on.  Even while writing one novel, another one is brewing.  I never knew that was how it worked.  For 11 years, I thought I had to finish this one idea before I could move onto something else.  Now that I’m free, I have ten ideas, and I’m so eager to dig into every single one of them.

So hey.  This is what the inside of my brain looks like.  Feel free to ask all the questions because writing is the one thing I will confidently talk about endlessly.  Why?  Because I’m damn good at it.