Hello dear readers,

As seems to be the pattern, I write to you from my kitchen desk on a blustery Sunday morning. The skies are grey and flat, and wind blows through the cedars and the pines in the neighbours’ yards beyond. 

I am incredibly tired, mainly because I drank coffee at six yesterday afternoon, which was entirely unnecessary but was fun while it lasted¹. Because of that caffeine-fueled night, I ended up writing a long, rambling substack post, about becoming my thirteen year old self again. 

Over the past few weeks, I came to realize that I want my substack to return to what it was before: less a curated archive and more like a diary². Because of this, I now have an ever-growing list of topics I’d like to write about, from my detailed history of working in coffee shops to being the art no one asked for.

In other writing news: I’ve been submitting my finished manuscript to agents, and writing the first draft of another fantasy novel I began last autumn. Except… we have a problem.

Let me explain. I am, unequivocally, a fan of horror. I started watching horror movies at the ripe old age of ten³, and haven’t stopped since. My reading habits tend toward frightening, too, with one of my favourite books being Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, and another being Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It—I also have a soft spot for Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves; do you see the theme? Coincidentally, I’m also enamoured with haunted houses and, a bit more strangely, house blueprints⁴. 

Now, let’s rewind to the summer of 2021. I was meeting regularly with my writing club and wrote a first draft of a horror novel which, you may guess, was centered on a haunted house. Except it’s not just a haunted house, because of course it isn’t—no haunted house is ever just a haunted house. But I can’t tell you what happens because that would give it all away.

Anyway, I spent the next months revising, but something got in the way. Maybe it was my creative writing degree coming back to bite me, but I felt like I had to⁵ turn to literary fiction instead. And so I spent the next few years plodding along, writing literary fiction that was fine, but it didn’t spark much joy⁶.

Fast forward to last month, when I was working through revisions for my current novel. As I was nearing the end, I started thinking of what I’d do next, and the old horror manuscript came to mind. It had been five years since I’d touched it, and so I opened the document and began to read. Within a few minutes, I knew I needed to get back into it; the story wasn’t finished, and I felt new ideas well up in me like the tide⁷.

I ended up working on the first draft of that fantasy novel for a bit, but the whole time, the horror novel has been whispering from its document. And so, as of Monday, I’ll be going back to it⁸. It’s strange to dive back into a manuscript I haven’t touched in so long, but I can feel that it needs to happen now—finally. I know it will be much stronger now, and may even see the agenting process sometime this spring.

The first draft of that fantasy novel will be finished, but I think the horror novel needs to be finished first. It’s been waiting so long already.

—Catherine

footnotes

¹ I updated my website, started sewing a quilt square, cleaned the house, made gingerbread muffins, worked on a sweater I’m knitting… you get the picture.

² I really do want all my online adventures to be more like a diary than some rigid, prescriptive account, but I do tend toward rigidity. It’s something I’m working on.

³ My first horror movie was Thirteen Ghosts, rented from the Blockbuster down the hill. I was obsessed the moment the first scene began.

⁴ If you read my recent substack post, you’ll get a bit more of an explanation around this.

⁵ A lot of my degree was centered on current literary influences, and had little to nothing to do with any sort of genre fiction (so, mysteries, fantasy, etc.). It gave the impression that literary fiction was the only real sort of writing that’s any good, which we all know is a blatant lie.

⁶ My heart always lies with horror and mysteries, though fantasy has clearly grown on me, too.

⁷ If the horror novel ever sees the light of day, this will be a wonderful bit of foreshadowing.

⁸ I’m writing this on Sunday, so by the time you’re reading this, I’ll have been working on it for a couple days already. Wish me luck!

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