Isabel Cañas

tbh i'm here for a good time, not an organized/professional time. that said! one! must! hustle!

the hacienda (ur hot priest bf versus haunted house)

vampires of el norte (ur hot vaquero bf versus vampires)

the possession of alba diaz (ur hot alchemist bf versus demons)

i also write short fiction! here's a selection of my favorite things i've published, available to read free:

there are no monsters on rancho buenavista: a feminist twist on an old mexican monster folktale

my sister is a scorpion: magical realism that stings

a land of saints and monsters: more vampires, this time in late medieval anatolia

no other life: sapphic vampires in 16th-century istanbul

the weight of a thousand needles: a retelling of the fairy tale the needle prince

I was wondering how do you choose what ideas to work on when or if you have a list of potential novels?

I keep a document of novel ideas that I want to work on and am always adding to it. I work on those ideas all the time, honestly, in bits and pieces, like when I hear a song or make a connection or untangle a plot knot. Sometimes, an idea will marinate on this list for literal years, slowly maturing. 

Then, when it comes time to pitch a new idea to my editor, I go to the list. Usually, 2-3 ideas stand out to me, given what I’ve been reading, what I’ve been writing, and what will best suit my progressing career. Of those 2-3 ideas, I pick the fruit that feels the ripest. 

So happy you’re back on Tumblr! I was wondering if you could talk about how you create such an intricate plot?

character arc above all

i think a lot about the causal chain--that is, one thing leading organically to another. i think about it re: character arc, i think about it re: plot, i think about re: the speculative elements

historical detail takes up square footage

so do speculative elements

so does romance

currently trying to write 500,000 words between dec 1, 2023 and nov 30, 2024 (a full calendar year, but ending on nanowrimo). after tallying up June's words, am up to 197,588, currently ~94k words short of my goal.

i am a whole novel's worth of words short of my goal, whoooopsie

better get back to it if I want to catch up

19,361 words and hanging in there. I wrote 5,500 words yesterday, 1,900 today. I'm nearing the end of the manuscript that i'm working on. A manuscript that I've been working on in some form or another since, like, I first had a nightmare that inspired it in August 2020. Really hoping to finish it tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it, because a main character dies and writing that is stressful. I literally have such a tense jaw right now from the last two days of drafting leading up to the third act.

AH.

Anyway.

Thinking of being here more often. Everywhere else makes me tired.

That's all.

fight fire with fire

fight boomers with FAXES