Inkbound Realms | Blog

There’s a particular kind of quiet magic that lives in late-night reruns. The soft hum of the TV, the glow flickering across a dark living room, and the crunch of cereal that was definitely more sugar than grain — these were the rituals of my childhood. That liminal time between homework and bedtime when the world softened at the edges and anything felt possible. When I sat cross-legged on the couch, remote in hand, letting fictional strangers teach me how to be human. Thes

Welcome to a Town That Probably Should Come With a Warning Label Every town has quirks. Mine has… more . The kind of “more” where the fog doesn’t simply roll in—it sweeps dramatically across the street like it has a main-character complex. Church bells chime at hours no church committee ever approved. And at least one cat is always perched on a wrought-iron railing, judging you with the withering disdain of a Victorian magistrate who’s deeply disappointed in your life choic

There’s this couple I watch on YouTube—yes, a sentence that still feels vaguely ridiculous to say out loud. Once upon a time we lived in a world before YouTube existed. (I don’t remember those days clearly, because my memory enjoys playing hide-and-seek, but I’m told they definitely happened.) Anyway. This couple lived in an RV when I first found them during my vanlife-curious era, and eventually they traded wheels for a sailboat. Something about that shift—taking your entire

Hello, friends — welcome to the new space. I’ve been off doing what writers do best: wandering through stories, tripping over emotions, and accidentally reorganizing my entire creative life in the process. You know. Tuesday stuff. I won’t pretend the past year didn’t leave its mark. Losing Mia cracked something open in me, and grief has a sneaky way of rearranging your priorities when you’re not looking. Eventually I realized that the way I’d been approaching my writing life

The day after Valentine’s Day, my world cracked a little. I had to say goodbye to my dog, Mia — my shadow, my co-pilot, my emotional support goblin, my best friend of over ten years. I can still see the moment our story began. I was working in my library system’s IT department back then, bouncing between branches teaching digital literacy classes. On that particular morning, the security guard waved me down. A cardboard box had been left out near the flagpole overnight. Ins

Right now, I’m standing in that strange in-between place writers rarely talk about—the doorway between “I did the brave thing” and “now I wait.” I’ve sent The Obsidian Throne  out into the world in the form of query letters, and honestly? It feels a little like setting a paper boat on a wide, unpredictable river and whispering, “Okay, sweetheart… please don’t sink immediately.” Submitting to literary agents was supposed to feel exciting, right? Big Author Energy. Confetti. Tr

World-building and I were not always on speaking terms. For years, I wrote stories tucked safely inside modern-day Earth, where the biggest challenge was remembering whether Starbucks still sold that seasonal drink I’d mentioned in Chapter Two. But then The Obsidian Throne  came knocking—dramatic, magical, “surprise, we’re doing a whole new universe now”—and suddenly I had to build Nyverna from scratch. This was my first true leap into the unknown. And honestly? It was terrif

Okay, picture it. It's the summer of 2022. It's hot and the twentieth person has just come through the library doors and the first thing out of their mouth is "Whoo, it's hot out there."  And it was only 10:30 a.m. We open at 9. Yeah, it was gonna be a long day. So a coworker and I found ourselves randomly talking, and I said I wanted to do some National Novel Writing Month write-ins. This was obviously before NaNoWriMo became cancelled. Said coworker mentioned she'd never d

Join me on this magical journey of storytelling! What diverse voices are waiting to be uplifted in your heart? Let’s explore together!