I am currently writing Out of the Shadows: A Witching Pen Series Prequel. While this book will deal with sexual themes (there is an incubus featuring quite heavily within the story) it is not a romance at all; it will fall under dark fantasy / paranormal fantasy / occult horror. And I am not interested in making Katherine Green a “likeable” character. I think readers will certainly resonate with her to an extent, but her attitude will always be questionable.

The joy of writing the unlikable character as the main character is that you can really get to the truth of who they are without worrying/caring what readers might think of her (or him) ... mostly, anyway. We are focusing on atmosphere and narrative here; we are focusing on keeping readers gripped by the story itself, without having to win aspects of their hearts through character loveability. Character truth is important, but not loveability.

This is the story of a teenage daughter who is angry, hurting, rebelling, craving so much, and in many ways should know better, but has a compulsion to act out. This is the story of a father who does not know how to be a father because he never stopped grieving his own past, thus emotionally disconnecting himself from everything that came after that grief, including his own daughter.

And right there, we have the breeding ground for everything that comes next.

Revisiting the vibe of The Witching Pen world, having left it behind in 2013, has been a bit of a revelation. There are parts of myself I had forgotten as a writer; things I wanted and desired as a writer in those early days. Every book is like self-development, whether intentional or not.