Soulbinder

You’ve found my library.

The candles are always lit. The mirrors are all covered.

And the air smells faintly of parchment, blood, and regret.

🔗 UNSHACKLED - out now on AO3

I go by Soulbinder—writer of dark fiction. Worshipper of morally gray monsters. Binder of trauma, myth, and desire into bleeding prose.

Currently writing:

My debut novel, The Heart of Major Carver — a near-future psychological war thriller about a brilliant surgeon with no empathy, a covert program that weaponizes the unfeeling, and the price paid for changing the world.

Documenting every writing enlightenment I have, craft notes, character epiphanies, plot revelations, and the unhinged sparks that arrive at 3 a.m.

Beta-reading WIPs, reviewing chapters, cheering on fellow writers, and rereading Harris’ Lecter series like I’m studying for an exam in madness.

Obsessions — Thomas Harris, classical literature, Anne Rice, dark poetry, religious guilt, abandoned architecture, and beautiful people making terrible choices.

Stay awhile.

We write to remember what we once were, or to become what we were never allowed to be. —Soulbinder

The constant insecurities, the imposter syndrome that hits like a bludger,

the never-ending doubt about whether you’ve actually “got this” or not.

What I find the hardest is the loneliness.

The way creativity isolates you.

The way no one quite understands the battle inside your own mind.

The way you carry entire worlds alone.

And yet I keep writing.

I write to remember who I was.

Your story should be a stairway to heaven. Every scene, every chapter climbing higher and higher until you hit that blazing climax at the top.

You’d think this would be obvious…but you’d be surprised how many manuscripts I critique where the plot just plateaus in the middle. It stalls. It wanders. It loses tension.

Don’t let yours do that.

Raise the stakes.

Tighten the rope.

Escalate, escalate, escalate.

- Hemingway.

I’m on a company-paid vacation. sun, beach, laughter all around. Everyone’s out there swimming and drinking and living.

And I’m here, in my room, because the characters won’t shut up and the story won’t stop clawing at the walls of my head.

It has to be written, or I’ll lose my goddamn mind.

Talk to your writer friends. Ask how they’re doing.

This thing we love can get so isolating.

I’m not complaining. I love it. Writing nourishes me like nothing else ever could.

But sometimes I wish someone would understand what it’s like to burn for something so quietly.

To my fellow writers: I see you.

I wish I could say you’re not alone. But that would be a lie.

Because most of the time, we are. Completely. Irrevocably.

There’s a reason these stories have withstood the trial of time.

Shelley, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Twain, Poe, they didn’t write for the market.

They wrote about timeless things, right from the raw bottom of their souls. And it shows.

The themes in Frankenstein are heavy on the heart, but they never feel like lectures.

I’m saying this because of a book I’m currently editing. The writer describes a gorgeous emotional breakdown, it’s vivid, poetic, everything technically right… and I feel nothing.

Why? Because it’s in chapter 4.

If you want your readers to suffer with your character, don’t rush the breakdown. Let us earn it.

1! The beginning of the book is for questions, not cries.

2! We don’t care enough to sob with your character by chapter 4.

If I'm beta reading/editing your WIP I can usually tell if you use AI and never read.

Tread lightly. Because I will call you out on that.

With love.

I stand by what I said.

I know you wanna. I know you're tempted.

But under no circumstances DON’T read your first draft while writing it.

It's cringe.