The Obsidian Ledger

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

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