(Light spoilers for Yampellec’s Idol with this one–y’all know how I feel about spoilers, so I promise they don’t reveal details and I will not approve any comments that spoil the books further. But skip if you’re not up to date on the series.)

Y’all know how much I love the show Psych–I named my kittens Shawn and Gus after all. I think I’ve seen it all the way through five or six times–all eight seasons*.

There are certainly things that didn’t land well the first time, let alone age well–mainly the transphobia, which always bothered me, but at least was relegated to maybe three or four instances so can be skipped/ignored. Usually, the show stuck the landing.

Except in one rather significant area: how it handled Juliet and the aftermath of Shawn’s betrayal, when she learned he had lied to her for years about being a psychic.

At first, things seemed to be progressing well. There was the episode where Shawn considered two paths–the real one, with the truth known, and another, where he continued to lie to Juliet. And at the very end, when she confronts him, and he says “If I’d just done this differently, you wouldn’t know and we’d still be happy” she is furious. And I thought, Oh, the writers know what they’re doing–he can’t be that oblivious. He’ll apologize. He’ll right a wrong. Juliet has been betrayed, she deserves better.

Then…nothing happened.

There were a handful of episodes of tension when she moved out and they struggled to get along. And then along came an episode where Shawn is woken by Gus in the middle of the night and Juliet is just…right there, asleep next to him.

Shawn never properly apologized.

Shawn never worked to regain her trust.

Shawn never actively made amends or showed he’d grown to realize lying to the woman you love is fucking wrong.

And Juliet…just went along with it.

Reader, that has never not pissed me off.

It made me think less of Shawn as a character, of Juliet as a character, and, quite frankly, of the writers themselves for making these choices.

Juliet deserved better.

All of our heroines deserve better.

I have read book after book, seen show after show (looking at you, my beloved trash PLL), watched movie after movie, in which men betray women and irreparably cause them harm and…there are no consequences. The heroine, after her initial anger, forgives him. Maybe after a big gesture. Maybe not.

What the ever-loving fuck.

It’s honestly at the point where sometimes I wonder if I am completely fucking crazy here, though a friend reminded me that the reason Mr. Darcy has endured as a hero for two hundred years is that he takes the deserved dressing-down from the heroine and fixes his shit. He doesn’t even intend for her to know what he does for her family–he does it because it’s the right thing to do, because he realized he was guilty of the things she accused him of. He wants to do better.

Lizzie Bennett knew her worth.

What about the rest of us?

I am not my characters, but I like to see them as my friends.

I root for them. I hurt for them. I get angry for them. I wish I could fix their flaws for them. I want them to be happy.

And like any good friend, I don’t want to see my heroines compromise themselves for men who are acting shitty.

I admit I am…genuinely baffled by the people–women!–who have said to me directly that they don’t understand why Livi would not forgive West at the end of Yampellec’s Idol. To the point where I’m wondering if I’m just a really shitty writer for it being unclear?

This is a man who did not do the bare fucking minimum of even apologizing to her.**

Why would I have her forgive that? How could I write a multi-book journey with this woman and see all she’s been through, all her insecurities, all she’s endured (she is a fucking rape victim!), and have her to accept back a man betrayed her to the degree he did?

And I say this as someone who loves West! He’s my favourite character. But boy done fucked up and, as a writer, I do not reward that kind of behaviour. It doesn’t matter that he self-sabotages–and knows it. It doesn’t matter how he feels. It matters what he’s done.

Livi deserves better.

Women deserve better.

This is not unique to Livi!

Zara Lain, both in Oblivion and the post-Oblivion stories (Dial V, Counterpoint) makes it abundantly clear that she still loves Nate more than anything, but both of them need to work their individual shit out AND that they deserve better than one another the way things are currently. This is not me being obtuse as a writer–this is knowing how deeply damaged these people are, and that they (at least, at the time thought) have centuries to figure it out and do it right.

The more issues you give your characters, the heavier their baggage, the more work you have to put in as a writer to show them doing the work of sorting their shit out.

Also?

I, for one, liked to see glimmers of happiness for Livi in the most recent book. I liked that, for a little while, she got to be with a man who made her feel safe. Who initiated conversations with her about consent and boundaries, who wanted to ensure he didn’t hurt her. When she was going through hell, that’s what she needed, and while I think I ultimately deleted the conversation in edits, there was a point where Pru said that to her too. It doesn’t need to be the love the century for it to still be good for her.

Someone said to me on Twitter a little while ago that why she absolutely trusts me with this series is because Richard was as much of a toxic asshole as she called from the moment she saw him. Because so often heroines in books go all heart-eyes over those types of men and they end up being viable love interests.

I planted those red flags intentionally with that character, because I too have read those sorts of books and it drives me nuts when these obvious douchebags are glossed over.

And although they’re different, there are also BRIGHT RED FLAGS with West as well. Glaring crimson, the size of billboards. He has repeatedly waved them in front of Livi’s face.

So when the truth of it is before her…Livi chooses herself.

She puts herself first. She will not compromise herself. And if she had, at this point in the series, attempted for forgive that betrayal, that would’ve ended spectacularly badly because I know West and he is going to fuck up again and again and again. He hasn’t learned a fucking thing.

Of course that choice hurts. I’d love for it to be easy, but we all know it isn’t. It sucks and it hurts and I wish circumstances were different.

It’s still the right choice.

My heroines will choose to be alone before they accept less than they deserve–I’ve seen enough compromising in real life, thank you.

This is, after all, The Livi Talbot Series. It’s right there in the name–this is about her journey and always will be.

I am an urban fantasy and thriller writer. This means, among other things, I am very unlikely to ever guarantee a romantic HEA in anything I write***–that doesn’t mean some books won’t have it but, I mean, have you met me? (There is a reason I don’t write erotic romance anymore!)

But what I can guarantee, 100% every time, are two things:

1. I won’t kill pets, even via old age or off page.
2. I am aware of red flags among shitty men and they never get off consequence-free with my heroines. ****

That is the kind of writer I aspire to be: the kind you can trust not to idealize toxic relationships or abusive behaviour. That when you read something of mine and you start thinking 🚩🚩🚩…at least you know I’m aware of it too and I’m going to do something about it (probably involving murder). My stories will hurt, and they will be dark, but I will never betray you in that regard.

Love does not heal men who betray. No one has a magic vagina that zaps the lying sack of shit out of them.

People get better by doing the work. Until such a time? My heroines come first.

Because they deserve better.

If you, too, like heroines who come into their own and decide take the step to put themselves first, let me introduce you to my girl Lizzie Grace.

---

* Although I haven’t seen it since Gus died.

** TBH I don’t remember–I don’t think he did, but after knowing people are currently reading that book having stolen from me, given how much that book means to me, I am literally queasy at the thought of looking up those final scenes to refresh my memory.

*** Particularly not when I can’t complete a series as intended.

***** There is, in fact, an excellent chance of them being murdered!

Yesterday was November 30, which was the last day of NaNoWriMo. And yes, I finished my novel weeks ago but I wanted all the NaNo badges, which included writing every day and achieving par every day, so I pulled out the second Waverly Jones book, which I’d started in September after finishing the first one–I had 19K written and I gave myself a modest goal of another 30K by the end of the month.

Then last night I kind of sort of finished it–it came in at 88K and change.

So in the month of November I wrote 152 000 (and change) words. That’s the NaNo goal times three.

And I got all my badges!

I honestly did not think I’d finish the book and I even doubted I’d get the last two writing badges after the weekend I had because the moment those books popped up for download, again, it was like something just shut off in my brain. I couldn’t type in the document. I thankfully already got my words in for the day because I walked away in the middle of a paragraph and it was well over twenty-four hours before I could make words again (and those were pulled out with pliers).

I cannot describe it any way other than paralyzing. And honestly if not for NaNo and my completionist need to get those last two badges, I don’t think I would’ve made myself get back on the horse right away. It’s why Livi 5 took so damn long–I completely FREEZE.

(Again, do I need professional help? Probably! But therapy? In this economy???)

But it took another two days of steady writing at night and things were moving again, and yesterday I flipped my freelance/writing scheduled days so I could focus entirely on finishing the book. I wrote 13K and was done after 11pm.

Tacking on the 45K I wrote to finish Livi 6 in October, I’ve basically written 200K words in five weeks. On top of 30 hours a week freelancing.

I physically feel like I am about to fall apart. My entire body aches. I’ve been wearing a wrist brace all month. So whenever you see my crazy high word counts, remember there is an enormous physical toll because I’m an old lady approaching forty, and I can also do this because this is literally all I have. I’m in year two of lockdown with my health compromised and no one in my social bubble because no one will make the same sacrifices to do so. I don’t have hobbies, I don’t socialize beyond weekly DnD and Saturday write-ins (if that counts as “social”?). I have the imaginary people in my head and my cats. That’s it.

But that’s six books I’ve finished in six months and I’m really proud of that. I’ve actually reconnected and re-fallen in love with writing again, and while the rough drafts I’ve finished are all pretty messy, I am really happy I did them. I’ve got a lot of work of revision ahead of me but that’s something I can pick at next year when my health is rougher again.

The book I just finished is A Wild Kind of Darkness, and it’s probably not going to release until spring 2024, but after The Killing Beach took me three and a half years to write, I was so happy the sequel moved so smoothly.

I can’t wait for y’all to meet Waverly.

She’s misanthropic. She’s anxious. She talks to the hallucination of her dead sister. She keeps accidentally rescuing strays. She has Resting Sociopath Face. She has a complicated relationship with her two mothers. She’s both coolly detached and deeply intense. And she has one of my favourite lines: My sexual orientation is Tired of Dealing with Humans So Mostly I Don’t Bother and there’s no pride flag for that.

Waverly gets back to my roots of writing Unlikeable Female Characters and I have so much fun with her. I’m sure reception will be mixed but I’m also sure she’ll have her fans and I’m excited for them to find her.

Since I switched my writing day this week, it’s back to freelancing now through Friday, and I know I’m at the edge of exhaustion so no more raw wordage (except for maybe a for-pay novella I’m nearly done) and just a slow pace starting Livi 6 revisions.

And instead of writing tonight I will probably nap.

My NaNoWriMo book is done, though of course I’m not.

National Novel Writing Month, for those new to it, involves writing a “book” in a month, and it happens every November. The definition of a book there is 50 000 words–and unless you’re writing young adult (sometimes) or category romance length books, usually a book is running longer than that (though FYI, The Silent Places was like 56K IIRC–it just worked better taut and anything else would be filler).

Because I guess how dopamine is processed in my brain is a little wonky, I get a nice chemical hit in my head with things like word count. 50K in thirty days is like 1667/day, which is great, but I operate a little differently…so I knocked out that first 50K in seven days.

So some people were a little concerned about me burning out since that was my follow up to writing the last 45K of Livi 6 in four days (yes, we’re looking at almost 100K in two weeks, I’m nuts), so I dropped my daily count to 2K a day–except for Wednesdays, my scheduled writing day (thanks, Patreon!), and Saturday night when I do my weekly write-in (again, thanks, patrons!).

I finished the book today, at 83K.

I have hated a good chunk of it, especially this last half, as I realized I had no idea where I was going. Usually by that point I have an idea, even when I’m writing by the seat of my pants. There are varying methods for me when writing across a spectrum: you’ve got The Silent Places, that dropped out of my head complete with the backstory and full ending before I even wrote the first word; you’ve got the Livi Talbot series and, by virtue of it living in my head for nearly ten years, I know the endings to each book ahead of time so I’ve got a guide book; and then you’ve got Dweller on the Threshold, where I knew a couple of things but not really the ending until I was more than halfway through, making it up as I went along.

This new one–Watcher of the Woods (or Haunted Vacation Lesbians if you follow me elsewhere) was one of those where I was flying by the seat of my pants but no fucking idea where I was going to land. Usually by halfway, I know or have an idea. By 75%, I always know. This one, I kept adding elements, leaving myself notes, trying to see through the fog while completely clueless. Even as it came to a conclusion today, I still wasn’t 100% sure it was coming together…

Right until the very, very last line, which I did not know I would write until I actually wrote it.

It’s this bizarre kind of magic that is fascinating to be apart of. Note that I am aware all of this stuff comes from my brain, and I do not believe my skill was some kind of gift. I write because it’s how I learned to cope with trauma. Telling myself stories as a very, very small child allowed me a safe place to fall asleep in, to retreat to, to keep me company. And because it was my only real reliable coping mechanism, I used it again and again as I grew up, and using it brought skills. I learned how to tell better stories more clearly, with more depth, through the practice I fell into just trying to survive, and I’m lucky enough to make some money with it now because I’d fucking suck at a job outside the home.

But it still feels like magic when it happens, my subconscious mind laying out all these pieces I don’t know what to do with until I get to the part where they all come together.

So it turns out, much to my genuine surprise, I can probably beat this one into shape eventually. I’ve got my release schedule set for about eighteen months so I’m not sure where I’ll slot this one in–for now, at least I’ve got something roughly done and I can worry about it later.

But as I said, I’m not done yet–I still want to do 2K a day to keep up the habit for November. So I’m pulling out the second Waverly Jones book, A Wild Kind of Darkness, which I started and got 19K into when I finished her first one in September before I switched to Livi 6, with an eye to get another 30K done on it this month.

To recap, I started this summer in a really rough spot, exhausted from Livi 5 revisions eating my brain for months. And now…

• July – finished Witch Hunt
• August – wrote Dweller on the Threshold
• September – finished The Killing Beach
• October – finished Charon’s Gold
• November – wrote Watcher of the Woods

I am still fucking amazed at that. I mean, it helps that I’ve been on corticosteroids off and on, which not only helps my mood but for a chunk of that time I could actually eat and absorb nutrients, which helps my brain, and also I’m still isolated–my health is fragile so I’m locked away with my imaginary friends. And I had to get that new laptop in September, so I can actually work easier from bed now.

Everything is terrible but this is one thing I feel really good about, even though it likely won’t last.

December I’ve scheduled myself Livi 6 revisions, to get it in shape for another set of eyes, but I might also try to finish A Wild Kind of Darkness, and in January I’m starting Hell Fire. Of course my body is falling apart again so…we’ll see.

For now, I’m taking the win.

(Also here’s the cover for those not on NaNo or Patreon.)