Footsteps echoed through the hall.

Stephanie stopped, frozen in the dim lighting that fell in bursts through the old, dusty windows. She was the only one here. She was supposed to be the only one here. So why, when she was so close to figuring everything out, why was there

Neil paused, finger tapping lightly on the space bar before jamming the backspace button as though his life depended on it. Judging from the number of voicemails left in his inbox by his agent, he wouldn't be surprised if it actually did.

Neil wouldn’t really consider himself a problematic novelist. He submitted his work on time, rarely talked to the general public, bit his tongue in all of the interviews that actually mattered. By his reckoning, Neil was low maintence for a writer.

The thing was, for some reason, this book wasn’t working out like the others had.

It wasn’t really anything specific that Neil could pinpoint, either. He had drafted the outline, written out word count goals on his calendar, had even started ahead of schedule. But now it had all come to a screeching, stubborn halt.

Neil wanted to beat his head against his keyboard. He settled for shutting the lid of his laptop with slightly more force than strictly necessary, breath easing out of him through his teeth. He had spent the last handful of hours on a scene that wasn’t even important in the long run, just filler.

But.

He couldn’t get around it. Nothing he wrote seemed to flow, seemed to make sense, and as per usual his editor wasn’t around to answer her phone.

Neil’s fingers itched for a cigarette. He imagined the pack that he had hidden inside of his desk drawer, allowing himself a moment of weakness before he stood up instead, knocking his desk chair back in the process. It took a few minutes to extract his keys from underneath the fat tabby asleep on the entryway table, but Neil eventually made his way out the front door, locking it behind himself before he headed for the stairwell.

Outside, the chilly air kissed Neil’s face as he shoved his hands into his pockets, heading for the brightly-lit awning of a bookstore down the street. David Wymack, proud owner of The Foxhole, had helped Neil land his current agent, and Neil really didn’t know if he could ever repay the man for that. Signing books for free when he had time would have to do.

The door opened with a soft chime of an unseen bell, and Neil nodded to the haggard-looking man behind the counter before slipping off towards the staff break room at the back of the store. Poking his head through the cracked door, Neil glanced around for the owner before opening the door fully and sliding in.

“Did you not see the employees only sign, or are you illiterate?”

Neil froze, fingers twitching in his jacket pocket as he felt pressure on the small of his back. He glanced behind him, eyebrows furrowed together as he caught a flash of blond before his head was forcibly turned forward again by the steady presence of a hand cupped around his chin. “I didn’t realize Wymack had hired a new guard dog,” he quipped, refusing to flinch as whatever was pressed against his back dug in harder.

“Apparently I was needed.” The voice behind him sounded practically bored as the hand around his chin finally released Neil, apparently noticing the lack of threat that Neil posed. The person himself stepping back to lean against the closed door of the office, pen twirling harmlessly in his hands. Neil took a moment to rub at his back, frowning at the newcomer.

“You’d better hope that the cap was on that pen.”

“And if it wasn’t?”

Neil leveled a glare at the other man, taking satisfaction in the fact that he had to tilt his head down just a bit to look him in the eyes. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I believe that’s my line,” the blond replied, pointing towards Neil lazily, eyes narrowed as he quickly glanced him up and down, almost unnoticeable.

Neil frowned, plucking the pen from the other man’s grip, surprised when it was released with little reluctance. “Neil. You?”

Hazel eyes narrowed as the other raised a single eyebrow, face carefully blank otherwise. It made Neil want to hit him, just a little bit.

“Andrew!” Wymack finally opened the door, pausing as it hit the backs of Andrew’s shoes before pushing it open fully anyway, frowning at his wayward employee. “Where the hell have you been, Nicky’s been on register for 3 hours, it’s time for you to trade off.”

He sent Neil a cursory glance, before his eyes returned to Andrew, though he still addressed Neil. “I see you’ve met the new hire.”

"Briefly." Neil cut a glance at Andrew before he waved the stolen pen in his hand. "In the stockroom?"

Wymack nodded confirmation, shooting Andrew another frown. "Stock room."

Neil slipped out of the office between Andrew and Wymack, avoiding the eyes of both of them before heading through the stockroom door to the left. He breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of paper and ink before he ventured further into the shelved room, finding his own pile of books in the corner.

Shaking his head, Neil uncapped the pen, flexing his fingers for a second before he got to work, sitting down on the floor and tugging books towards him one by one as he carefully scrawled his messy signature on the front page of each copy.

Light footsteps alerted Neil to Andrew's presence seconds before the man himself made his way around the shelves of the room, and Neil reflexively gripped the pen a little tighter. "Anything new to say?"

"I didn't realize that we had such a talented author in our company." Andrew's voice was flat, though as Neil flicked him a look he caught something shifting in Andrew's eyes before the blond tilted his chin down at the pile of books beside Neil. "Josten"

Neil frowned, ignoring the sarcasm coating Andrew’s words. "I'm surprised Wymack didn't tell you about me earlier. Maybe he didn't think you'd last, what with the threatening customers bit of your personality?"

Andrew shrugged carelessly, nudging a wayward book with the toe of his shoe. Neil pulled it back before the blond could leave scuff marks, snapping a quick, "did you come back here for any particular reason, or are you just here to damage the merchandise?"

Silence reigned, other than the scratch of Neil's pen against paper as he resumed his work, frowning down at the book in his hand. He shot one quick glance upwards, taking in Andrew's relaxed stance against a shelf, and brought his gaze back down again. There was something about the other man that needled him, even with the blond keeping his mouth shut.

Andrew never did reply, settling for eventually leaving the room almost as silently as he had entered. Neil counted that as a win, though he wasn't sure what they had been competing over.

It was late before Neil left the store, Andrew locking the door audibly behind him as Neil pulled up his hood against the late summer shower that beat down on the awning of The Foxhole. He glanced back once, only to see Andrew still watching him, before he faced away again. It wasn't a particularly long walk home, and the rain wasn't that heavy, but Neil took it at a run anyway.

He was soaked anyway by the time he stepped through his front door, toeing off his waterlogged shoes by the front door before he shook out his damp hair. He huffed impatiently, almost tripping over Sir on his way to his desk, shooting the angered cat an apologetic glance as he lifted the screen of his laptop, looking back to find the blinking cursor right where he had left it.

Footsteps echoed through the hall.

Stephanie stopped, frozen in the dim lighting that fell in bursts through the old, dusty windows. She was the only one here. She was supposed to be the only one here. So why, when she was so close to figuring everything out, why was there noise in the back room of the house?

Taking a deep breath for courage, finger resting on the trigger of her gun, Stephanie stepped towards the door.

It was late before Neil finally finished the chapter, though he sent it away to Allison anyway, knowing the notification was going to wake his agent. He figured it was deserved after the latest round of voicemails.

Stretching his arms above his head, Neil paused, lips pinched together as his thoughts returned to the bookstore, and the angry blond from earlier in the evening. Finally taking off his jacket, Neil turned it around to examine the back.

There was ink where Andrew had held the pen against Neil’s back in the break room of The Foxhole. He couldn’t really bring himself to be angry.

15. Where does your inspiration come from?

I happen to live in a college town with an open-to-the-public campus and had been on campus at a private college (my future sister-in-law’s alma mater) before, so I took everything I knew about art, college, about college life, art school, about living with other confused twenty-somethings, mashed the campuses together and created a fictionalized college very heavily based on the one I can see from my apartment, and CiYH fell out.  It’s trite and overused, but I really do write what I know.  My experiences, and the experiences of my SO, are my biggest inspirations.Early on, I used a lot of my own struggles with my relationships, my self-image, my mental health and anger-based demons to fuel Adam.  Now, several years later (and in a very different stage of my life), I pour my frustrations and alienation and Adult Fears into Noah (he’s also a vessel for my explorations of Judaism), and he also gets my SO’s Polish cultural background.  My relationship with my SO, which has changed in infinite ways since I started writing CiYH, colors how I write Blue’s feminism, confidence, sexuality, and her intimate relationships.  Tad has my social anxiety, my awkwardness around people I’m attracted to, the tone of my inner monologue.  Gansey has some of my passions and interests and my SO’s anxiety disorder, autism-spectrum behaviors, and OCD tendencies (even though I don’t touch much on any of this in CiYH).  Ronan got saddled with my post-teenage discovery of my sexuality and queerness, and my SO’s experiences of Catholicism, dubiously consensual early sexual encounters, and familial anxieties.  Kavinsky is the extreme end of my worst impulses and my desire to be better than I am.

16. Where do you take your motivation from?

I want to tell stories.  I’ve been doing it since before I was old enough to write my own name.  I’ve been telling stories for decades now, and writing them for three quarters of that.  I want to write.  I want to spill my guts without getting emotionally naked and vulnerable.  I want to spend years and break a million words in one piece, then go back and trim it down to half that, whip it into a better shape, and send it out into the world and see if I can legitimize my efforts by getting even a single dollar for my efforts.

CiYH is my best effort to date.  An exercise in proving to myself that I have it in me to do this and that people (like you!) will validate it and me by reading and engaging with it and me.  Someday, I’ll have something original to show for my work, and I can only hope by starting here some of you will be along for the ride.

17. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

Not as much as I’d like, lately!  But, on a good day, when I’m in a better mental place to focus, I can crank out a few thousand words or a couple of pages of work across several WIPs, and I can do that consistently.

18. What’s your revision or rewriting process like?