M. Clark

#tropemap for my current #WIP Canary, a Southern Gothic Queer YA Paranormal Thriller #writesky #queerwriters #amdrafting

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'spooky' - it's not just the vibes in this scene, my MC is noticing strange behavior. But what do you do when a child is giving you a warning you can't connect to any danger? #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

Found family is a complex theme in my novel. My MCs desire it, but there's forces dividing them. Katie wants it so badly being the black swan of her own family but she doesn't know how to trust others. Bekah craves it but doesn't know how to deal with rejection and healthy conflict. #LitHodgepodge

Love to hate = truly insane, illogical motives, genuinely so mad they're kinda dumb Just hate = a villain who tortures for fun, derives pleasure from others' pain I personally love to write the kind I hate over one that I love to hate. There's more depth to evil with a motive. #AwesomeCharacters

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'claustrophobia' - I went for her near cousin 'claustrophobic'. Sometimes, it's not a tight space, but tight clothes. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

Katie - when I sense I'm in danger/threatened, to avoid conflict, to cover my ass Bekah - I plead the fifth Meg - I don't often, I hate lying. The only time I do is when I think I need privacy to push an investigation forward uninhibited. Or to avoid being mocked. Della - Too often. #LitHodgepodge

The #SundaySnips Word of the Week is 'midnight' - wouldn't you know it, I've got an abundance of it here, but for good reason. My MC struggles with undiagnosed/untreated OCD. After a traumatic event, the cycles of rumination reach a fever pitch. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #HQPress

The #LGBTQWriteAThon challenge is to share an excerpt featuring 'terror' - the concept or the word. Here, I chose a situation where the fear is in my character's head but it makes her act rashly in a way that does noooooot defeat the allegations against her lol #queerwriters #lgbtqwriters

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'insert' - and what better excuse to have a playful laugh at gratuitous teenage self insert characters among friends. While DnD isn't a heavy feature of my story, playing a game as a group is a lighthearted sidestep from the serious drama #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'false' - late to the game on this one, I had an unexpectedly long day at work. No worries, better late than never. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

Nothing yet but please consider following me here as I share excerpts, visuals, and content about the upcoming story and its sequels. #TBBChat #BookBazaar26

Katie fears she'll end up lost between worlds but that's also her OCD which causes her to ruminate about the possibility constantly. It's possible if she doesn't come to terms with the end peacefully. Bekah could be given her difficult childhood but she approaches death with relief and hope #TBBChat

Katie, despite being a medium, is both curious of and terribly frightened of spirits. It thrills and terrifies her in a way she can't quite put to words, even though she truly hates being scared. Bekah doesn't fear ghosts one bit, she also can't sense them. She's afraid of abandonment. #TBBChat

My MC Katie is a reluctant medium so while she does have an avid interest in death and the occult, she's equally cautious about letting the wrong spirits through. She'd want to talk to her grandmother or her dead dog. Bekah, on the other hand, would want to play to see what talks. #TBBChat

Yes and yes! My WIP is a paranormal thriller where mediumship and spirits are active parts of the story. The afterlife is not mentioned much other than the sensation of transitioning, usually one that feels warm with relief. Death is the end of suffering, after all. #TBBChat #BookBazaar26

I'm a bit late, but I'll catch up on this #TBBChat! My name's Micah, I'm a queer unpublished writer who specializes in paranormal thrillers, mysteries, angst, and historical dramas. You can follow my page here to support the development of my debut novel 'The Canary'. #BookBazaar26

I can't say without spoiling the ending but I'd literally rather open the air lock and be sucked out into the engine than sit next to them 🫩 #AwesomeCharacters

Wrote more than I expected but less than I wanted to. Hoping to catch up on my expected word count to keep my end of October first draft deadline. #LGBTQWriteAThon

Sakura - Kishimoto and the fans boil her character down to tropes and proximity influence to male characters. She has just as much right to be Hokage if not more than the others. I refuse to believe a woman of her capacity and power would fold to be an absent father's housewife.

Somehow missed this one! Honestly, exciting. I love creating worlds, characters, and stories. It's invigorating to lose myself in the joy of creation as a practice. That being said, I often take on the emotions I'm writing, so I have to balance how lost in my work I get. #pretendpanel

I'll never forget seeing same sex marriage legalized in the USA in 2015, I cried out of hope. It was the day before my 20th birthday. It's why I try to impress how hard we had to fight for that chance and how hard we must fight to keep it, too.

The sequel! My issue is completing things and I have 2-3 books planned total. To sustain intrigue, I need the next books to come out in a reasonable time after the first is published. Otherwise, I have a self gratuitous lesbian chefxcritic romance novels in my drafts. #pretendpanel

Without explaining why: Katie - 3/10 Bekah - 9/10 Megan - 5/10 Della - 7/10 Since I'm writing a paranormal thriller, someone has to be frightening, powerful, or otherwise magically grim. That being said, maybe these numbers are due to skill or perhaps something deeper. #QueerPrompts

For my MC Katie/KT, what animal do you think she'd reincarnate as? Animal icons/imagery is crucial to the plot of my WIP so this #LitHodgepodge challenge is perfect for what I'm writing. So, what do you think?

#1 hands down haha what can I say, I love to brood and keep odd hours. Coffee and sad music goes hand in hand imo.

Nothing published yet but I'm a yapper and if you'd like to follow along with my writing journey to publishing, please consider giving me a follow.

After a complex and depressing childhood, my MC feels adrift and scattered both physically & emotionally. Her fast and true friendship with my secondary MC Bekah helps bring her back to center. It's also why she feels indebted to her despite being caught up mostly in Bekah's drama. #QueerWritersChat

Quite a bit. Katie has been alienated from her peers for so long that the rejection is a constant ache. It's why when Bekah so sincerely seems open to friendship it leads Katie in blind, and often ignorantly. It's her weakness to overcome throughout the story. #QueerWritersChat

lmao I was called The Angst Peddler in high school and even now I'm still at it. What can I say, I love the gothic, tragic, and knife twisting pearl clutching drama within. I'm often accused of not liking happy endings, but that's not true at all. I just want my readers to earn it. #QueerWritersChat

Welcome back to another amazing #QueerWriters Chat - I'm Micah and I'm writing a Southern Gothic sapphic paranormal horror/thriller series. Always wanted Goosebumps/Fear Street but gay? I'm your answer 🎃🦇🛸🧟 (my answers may be delayed, I'm running errands with a dying phone haha)

Katie fooorrrr sure lol. She was adultified early both for her intelligence & her independence. Bekah helps her loosen up which predisposes Katie to be overly trusting of often the wrong people because she hasn't always got along with her peers. It's also her journey to overcome. #AwesomeCharacters

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'rattle' - I went with a more unconventional usage for the fun of it. Summers are times of memory and they shouldn't be wasted, especially not if you're feeling very 'teen idle.' #WIP #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

While I'm not frequently a horror reader, I highly recommend the dark frights within Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar and the stomach testing grit of @gabino.bsky.social's The Devil Takes You Home as my best dark/horror reading recs. #QueerPrompts

Oh gosh this is a good one but hard to answer. Probably a necklace cage holding a gem or stone to symbolize an amulet my character wears at the end of the story. A locket symbolizing the one Bekah wears. And a copy of Meg and Della's promise rings. #LitHodgepodge

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'equate' - had to go with 'equal' here but they're cousins lol. Here's a tense moment between my MCs where Katie gets the courage to ask Bekah a deeply personal question she thinks she already has the answer to.

Katie - trusting the wrong person and being guilty by association, losing grip on her anger, being trapped in her narrow minded home town Bekah - losing the person she's in love with, her image shattering, being ultimately alone #QueerPrompts

This is a perfect #WritingPrompt for my WIP 'The Canary' - Bekah and Katie keep each other off the ledge. Logan relies on Bekah to keep him grounded. That constant cycle of trust and dependency conceals real, dark secrets between them.

While I don't have any published works yet for #WriterShareWednesday, I'm currently developing my debut toxic sapphic Appalachian gothic paranormal thriller (that may or may not end up a trilogy). If you like murder mysteries, girl fails, and homoerotic friendships, my book may just be for you!

Honestly, few stories have wrapped up in such a deliciously tragic and beautiful way as #TheSummerHikaruDied did. The anguish, the confusion, the freedom to dream. The only problem I'll have is being patient for the incredible animation team to adapt these last volumes into seasons of #anime.

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'breeze' - this excerpt is as much from my MC's POV as it is my own. While extremely complicated and marred with grief and pain, the American South will always be my home. My novels, a way, are odes to the gothic beauty therein. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

Any other #writers get jittery when you're at the 90% mark on your drafts? I always get so excited, but I love my stories as much as I want other people to love them. I just love crafting that breathtaking plot peak after a long arc of action and drama. #rambling

Personally, I love finding unique and powerful verbs to paint a picture for my readers. That being said, this scene is decided stomach turning. 🛑CW: mildly graphic, specific descriptions of a freshly skinned animal pelt and desecration of animal remains. #LitHodgepodge #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

Nope - my story happens in the rural American South and randomly opening with pronouns will socially ostracize you if not endanger you. My character's gender experience is more subtle and internal. #QueerPrompts

Katie - Don't bring up her mother or call her a liar Bekah - Don't tell her she can't do something, she'll chase it until it kills her Megan - Don't mention Della's wedding Della - Avoid bringing up Megan at all, but especially the fight they had before her engagement. #AwesomeCharacters

The #WIPSnip Word of the Day is 'peddle' but I didn't have a decent use of that word in my manuscript so far so I picked 'sell' for this one. This snippet is a love letter to the Southern American micro gas stations & the heartwarming foods within. Gritty, grimy, & fully stocked. It's heaven to me.