On writing

Occasional notes from the desk — less advice, more thinking aloud about how stories get made.

Where ideas come from (the honest version)

Not from lightning. From attention. I keep a notebook of small wrongnesses — a door that opens the wrong way, a stranger who seems to recognize me, a word that means its own opposite. Ideas are just two of those rubbing together until they spark. The trick isn't having ideas; it's noticing them, and then being patient enough to let them find each other.

The literary and the speculative

People ask which one I write. Both, and I don't think they're really different. A ghost is grief you can see. A map of a place that doesn't exist is just hope, or dread, made literal. The speculative element isn't decoration — it's the emotional truth of the story wearing a costume so you'll finally look at it directly. Keep the people real and you can tilt the world as far as you like.

On revision

The first draft is me telling myself the story. Every draft after is me getting out of its way. I cut the sentences I'm proudest of first — they're usually me performing rather than serving the story. If a paragraph is beautiful but the story doesn't need it, it belongs in the notebook, not the book.

On finishing

The hardest and most important craft skill is finishing — letting a thing be imperfect and done rather than perfect and forever unwritten. A finished flawed story exists in the world; a perfect unfinished one exists only as an excuse. I've learned to trust that the next story will fix what this one couldn't.