Inkbound Realms | Blog

How Obsidian Throne Went From “Spicy Romance Weekend Project” to “Oh… This Is a Whole World.” There are moments in a writer’s life when you suddenly realize you’re not driving your own story anymore. You’re gripping the wheel, but someone else’s taste is quietly pressing the gas, turning the blinker on, and adjusting your rearview mirror like they live there. For me, that moment with Obsidian Throne  hit like a pothole at midnight: I didn’t realize someone else’s taste had it

(And who would, without question, drag me into trouble with a smile.) There are fictional characters you admire , fictional characters you root for , and then there are fictional characters you just know—instinctively, cosmically—would absolutely enable your nonsense while also reminding you to hydrate. Those are my people. So today, let me introduce you to three cozy sleuths I would one hundred percent befriend in real life. I’m talking warm drink, rainy afternoon, wool-sock

Here’s the thing: office romance tropes ambush me the way stray sticky notes cling to my sweater. I’ll be minding my business, outlining something wholesome and chaos-free, and suddenly two characters are locked in deeply questionable eye contact across a conference table while someone drones on about quarterly projections. I can’t help it. Fictional workplaces are infinitely more entertaining than real ones—unless your actual job includes ghosts or curses, in which case, pl

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

I’ve always been a storyteller — I just didn’t realize it until the universe grabbed me by the shoulders a few years ago and went, “Ma’am, look at your life choices.” If something happened to me, everyone within a five-mile radius was going to hear about it. With props. With reenactments. With the kind of sound effects usually reserved for action movie trailers. The dramatic recap of that one time I accidentally told the Dunkin’ Donuts cashier “I love you” after she told me

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!