A girl. Her dog. A whole lot of trouble. When Kit Raglan takes a job staying a night in a haunted house, she expects a quiet night, maybe a ghost if she's lucky. Instead, she finds herself implicated in a murder, kicking off a cat-and-mouse game with a bird-masked killer. #QuestPit #WIP #T #AG

#Editors of #QuestPit Haunted since her father’s drowning by nightmares of a revenant Mariner who bears his face, writer Lee Fisk returns to the lighthouse where he spent his last days in search of closure. But on the island, THE MARINER is more than mere nightmare. It’s a curse. #S #H #MY #OS

Writer pals, as we venture into “best of” list season, remember to focus on your other accomplishments. That new draft, the books you’ve read to hone your craft… Maybe the new thing you’re doing outside of writing (these are so important!) Zero in on what you can control, and keep your head up. ❤️

MEXICAN GOTHIC X BOBH X SINNERS Stasi, a gifted painter, enters a competition in which blood magic makes art come alive. But when she uncovers a conspiracy to eliminate magical women, she risks her life to stop those running the show. #GhostPit #A #G #F #H #Agented #LGBT

A writer infiltrates a reader’s retreat in an old hunting lodge under false pretences only to find herself the target of a taxidermist with the ability to reanimate the dead - including the hunting trophies in every room of the lodge. #GhostPit #A #H #T #W

Trapped in a remote offshore weather station in the path of a deadly supernatural storm, a former salvage diver recounts her ill-fated descent into a world of magic and monsters as she plans her perilous escape. #GhostPit #A #W #F #PN

A girl. Her dog. A whole lot of trouble. When Kit Raglan takes a quick job staying a night in a haunted house to make a few bucks, she expects a quiet night, maybe a ghost if she's really lucky. Instead, she finds a body with her name carved into it. HERE COMES TROUBLE. #GhostPit #A #W #T 👻

I had one of those days where the words just weren’t coming yesterday. Here are all the things I tried. I ended up making it over the next 10K interval in my current project and writing the beginning of the next one! #writingcommunity #writersky

How I structure a novel, a loose guide:

I gave myself full permission to just rest and read for the day and so of course I keep finding myself sneaking words on my WIP on the side. It’s almost more fun this way. I’m cheating on my reading to write my book.

The horrors persist, but so do dogs. Sharing a snippet of my thriller WIP about a girl, her dog and a whole lot of trouble. #writesky #writingcommunity #thrillerbooks

Writing about what it took for me to let go of my on sub book and start a new one + the best advice I received about going on submission. #onsubmission #writesky #writingcommunity open.substack.com/pub/writersa...

I may have just written the best pitch of my life. I will never top this. I am 100% maniacal laughter right now. The title is so good it’s breaking my brain. Some books are gift books. I’m convinced that this is one.

🌊 A storm-buffeted island of folklore and superstition. 🌊 A writer grieving her father’s drowning death in an isolated lighthouse keeper’s cottage. 🌊 A cursed Mariner who will tear her apart to stop her learning the truth. #WriteSky #OS #AG #MY #T #H #questpit

“But the image that will stick like a burr in his mind, which will appear to him in quiet moments for the rest of his life, is of long tendrils of red hair swaying like the tentacles of a Pacific octopus in the chill water of the hold.” #OS #AG #A #MY #T #H #QuestPit

Hi, my name is Beth, and I don’t believe in guilty pleasure books. Give up the guilt. Enjoy the book. #Booksky

Introducing my #WIP THE TAXIDERMIST, a romantic horror mystery described as THE HUNTING PARTY X RIP VAN WINKLE. Illustration: own work. Background image: provided copyright free by Birmingham Museum Trust. #RT #MiseryPit #A

Everything is uncertain and everything is terrifying and every night I sit down and write imagining that, word by word, I am building a better world. #writingcommunity

My video this week on Last Chance Writer’s Club is about finding joy in your creative process again. 🍁💛 If you watch it, I’d love you to let me know one of your ‘joy notes’ for today. #writingcommunity youtu.be/XY1jc8YBrBA?...

My WIP has taken a turn, as WIPs tend to do, and I’m now describing it as: THE HUNTING PARTY x RIP VAN WINKLE. I am so excited to submit my last assignments so I can dive headfirst into this deliciously spooky book!! #writesky #writingcommunity

This week on Last Chance I’m talking writing to your strengths. This was honestly the most transformative practice for me - to actively seek out the gold in feedback and use it to be even better at what I’m good at. I hope this discussion serves you, too! youtu.be/YmxwcmDxddQ?...

Art + words from my WIP about a doomed reader’s retreat. I’ve never painted in a journal before, and I think I’ll have to continue. It makes me so happy!

I’ve been searching for ways to give back to the #writingcommunity that has supported me for so many years, and what I came up with was this: The Last Chance Writer’s Club.

In this locked room mystery/horror, a horror writer at a reader’s retreat in the Washington woods unravels the tangled histories of the attendees when flooding washes out the only road into town and something monstrous stalks the readers from the trees. #QuestPit #WIP #a #m #h

🌊A small boy finds a body floating in the fish hold of his father’s boat. 🌊A writer packs up her missing lighthouse keeper father’s things. 🌊A private investigator searches for the missing and the drowned. 🌊A horror rises from the deep. #questpit #onsub #editors #m #h #a #os

Quick after work oil painting. The sea wolves were calling.

The most important job of a first line… is to set up the next line. I actually think a first line that is too beautiful, too stunning, that holds you too much in thrall, actually prevents that so-important momentum at the beginning of a book. #writingcommunity #writesky

When you sign with my literary agency they ask for a few things, one of which is an author photo. I’ve been putting this one off since… erm, November. But today I did it and I’m so glad I did. For one of the few times in my life, the outside of me looks somewhat like the inside of me. #WriteSky

Me, trying to explain my genre niche: “… and you HAVE to solve the mystery, or the monster will eat you.” #writesky #writingcommunity

#Editors “There is no sleep to be had in winter. The sea wind howls too loud, buffeting the fishing boat and the small boy curled up inside.” #1stLinePit #Gothic #A #M #H

Just a perfect early autumn afternoon. ☀️🌊🍃

I’m the Scooby Doo of the horror writing set.🤷‍♀️ #unhingedpit #os #A #H

“I waited half a week before I knew he was missing. Knew for sure, in the way of logic and fact, rather than the bone-deep knowing I had carried with me for days before that.” #WIPSnips #WriteSky #writingcommunity

My brain: Has an idea for a dark mystery/thriller on a niche topic I’m super interested in that only I could write. Also my brain: Now, how can I add monsters? Once more, the writer I want to be is defeated by the writer I am. #writesky #writingcommunity

HELLO publishing and writing friends! Have you seen any articles/interviews/resources on what personal qualities editors are looking for in a writer - beyond a really good book? It’s for a uni assignment. Boosts appreciated. ☺️ #writesky #booksky #writingcommunity

A short reflection on whether it’s self-indulgent for writers to write about writers over on the ‘gram today. www.instagram.com/reel/DHcCZVO... #writesky #writingcommunity #booksky

Six creepy thriller novels set by bodies of water, aka my favourite genre niche! 🌊 #BookSky

Writers, have you ever given yourself ‘one last chance’ to make it? One last query. One last book. What happened next? I want to hear your Last Chance stories! #writesky #writingcommunity

New pinned post! 🌊 A storm-buffeted island of folklore and superstition. 🌊 A writer grieving her father’s drowning death in an isolated lighthouse keeper’s cottage. 🌊 A cursed Mariner who will tear her apart to stop her learning the truth. #WriteSky

Maybe something good will happen. Maybe it won’t. But if it does, it’s going to find me working.

Hello, #writesky. What if you obsessed over the compliments as much as you obsess over the critiques?

Please welcome my agency to Bluesky!

“There are still things I can’t reconcile. The stair railing — no human is that strong. The axe in the generator, also. And that roar. I can still feel it reverberating inside me, like my bones are a tuning fork, struck once and ringing on and on.” #WIPSnips #horror

Mariner is a self-indulgent little mystery/horror novel, so I made myself a self-indulgent little shirt to celebrate.

Last night I dreamt I was a deep sea diver, floating in the depths of a new story while my last novel sailed off to destinations unknown. A gift from the deep. It’s time to start something new.

🌊Everyone fears for the souls of the drowned.🌊 In this gothic mystery, a horror writer investigates her lighthouse keeper father’s mysterious drowning, only to face a revenant called the Mariner in a decommissioned lighthouse off the coast of Washington State. #WSPit #WSPitS #A #M #H #editorsguide

“Six months without a keeper and it’s like he was never here at all. This place is going to fall into the sea and just like all Dad’s things sold before I knew to claim them, it will all be gone. Every part of him. Everything left to love.” #WIPSnips

A very happy Twin Peaks day to all who observe 🌲🍩

How can I help you? I’m a recently agented and on submission author who struggled in the query trenches for years, and all I want to do now is lift others up, but I’m not sure how. How can I help you? #writingcommunity

Diana Urban once wrote, regarding being on submission, that the worst case scenario isn’t your book dying on sub. It’s never going on sub at all. I’m just so grateful to be where I am. That I still love to write. That I have an advocate for my work. That others are reading it as we speak. Grateful.