Reflecting back on last year, I’d like to set an intention for this new year.

A while back, someone on Substack asked “What does love mean to you?” I didn’t have an answer ready. I’ve never felt things the way they seem to in movies and TV romances. Is that because movies amplify it, or because I experience love differently?

To me, love is acceptance—accepting someone as they are. Beauty, grace, scars, warts, and all. It means accepting them as they are right now—not some theoretical idealized future version or some flawed past version.

Yet, love is not unconditional because people change—circumstances change.

We are not set in stone. People have great capacity for change and do so constantly. Those who don’t often stagnate because they resist change. This means you may no longer accept someone for who they are today or may one day accept them for who they have become.

I am a flawed person. I was worse yesterday than I am today. But I continuously work to improve myself. You first have to be bad at something to eventually be good at it. Writing has helped me to understand myself, reading has helped me to accept others.

To understand love, it must be compared to its opposite: hate.

Hate is not acceptance. Accepting a person means recognizing their dignity. Hate denies dignity and causes real harm to the people it targets. You cannot simultaneously recognize someone’s dignity while permitting something or someone that denies it. Therefore, accepting hate contradicts accepting people.

I do not accept hate. I do not tolerate hate. It’s the Paradox of Tolerance. To be truly a tolerant society, you must deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance.

Why am I talking about love and acceptance? It’s not just me thinking aloud—it drives how I engage with people. It’s what brought me to this community on Substack. I wanted to understand the queer people who are close to me better and to help build and support a safe community.

Full disclosure, I am a cisgender heterosexual man. I don’t know what it is like to be LGBTQ+, and maybe never will. But I don’t believe understanding someone’s experience is a prerequisite for accepting them or standing with them.

Humans are naturally wary of what they don’t understand—it’s an evolved survival trait. But caution isn’t an excuse. The more we understand each other, the easier acceptance becomes, and the responsibility to seek that understanding is ours.

When I first came to Substack, I sought out openly queer fiction writers and those that supported them. Through the people I started following, I found a great community of LGBTQ+ authors and allies.

I’ve been reading a lot of fiction by queer authors—across genres, across identities, across platforms. Some of it is quiet and platonic, while some of it is vivid and explicit.

I’ve lived all these lives for a brief moment. I guess I’m gay now. Or maybe I’m a lesbian. I’m asexual. I’m bisexual. I’m romantic. I’m trans. I’m aromantic. I’m still trying to figure it out. Or maybe I’m who I’ve always been: a straight white guy who’s learning to better accept others as they are.

Borrowing these lives didn’t change my gender or sexual identity—new information can’t change what is inherent, but it can reveal things previously misunderstood or hidden. What it did change was my understanding. The more I understand, the more I can support.

Since then, I’ve written stories with queer characters. If you’ve read Chuq’s story, then you might see that the love I represented there was acceptance. Seeing people at their most vulnerable, or at their worst, and loving them anyway.

My wife and I work with groups that carve out a safe space for LGBTQ+ teens and adults in a conservative area. We see the struggle every day. They aren’t struggling with their identity. They know who they are and that will evolve as they grow and feel more accepted. They struggle because they aren’t accepted—by family, by former friends, by culture, by society. Because of that, they may not accept themselves yet.

I was feeling pretty good about the Substack fiction community. Then, it became not so cozy. It became hostile.

Someone was spreading hate—attacking people for being trans, and attacking those who defended them. (I’m not calling them by name here as I do not want to amplify their voice anymore.)

Worse, I learned that some parts of the community supported this hateful person, whether out of ignorance or misplaced neutrality. As I mentioned earlier, tolerating hate means accepting the harassment of others.

When this happened, I was heartbroken. It pains me to see people struggle to be accepted for who they are—especially when they feel like society won’t let them accept themselves.

Tolerating hate means siding with the attacker and denying the victims their dignity. That is what divided our Substack community—not intolerance, but the failure to be intolerant of intolerance. In cases of abuse, it’s critical to listen to the abused and harassed—not to center the voice of the abuser.

You can’t always know who a person truly is. Especially when they hide parts of themselves and only show you what they want you to see. It’s frustratingly easy to be gaslit. But some people peddle hate on their front page.

It’s natural to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if someone is genuinely being curious and trying to understand people better. But it doesn’t take long to see that they’re questioning in bad faith and arguing in bad faith. It’s a mask to hide their hate.

You don’t have to agree with what people do and who they are, but you can accept it without hating them for it as long as what they’re doing is not hateful or harmful to others. Judging them for it is not acceptance. My judgement only goes so far as to determine if you’re an antagonist or an ally.

Fighting hate is exhausting. Not every fight is worth engaging in. I’m not going to fight little fights with random people online. I’m going to block them and save my energy for work that actually helps people.

It’s not our responsibility to educate people every time they make a mistake. If someone asks in good faith, I’m willing and able to help. But understanding can’t be forced. That kind of motivation is internal. You have to want to do it.

Hate is different. When someone spouts hate and people keep listening or responding, that hate is being fed. Don’t feed the trolls. Attention tells them their message is landing and that persistence might eventually pay off. If there’s hope that their message will prevail, why would they stop?

Set boundaries. Block. Disengage. To be effective, we must remove people from spaces where they target others. Don’t lend hate a voice. Don’t feed it. Let hate starve. This isn’t to punish or silence—it’s to protect people who are already being harmed.

Sometimes that distance creates room for reflection. Someone with hate in their heart may consider why they were pushed out and why people think their words are hateful. They might have a change of heart. Sometimes though, they don’t make the effort to reflect. If someone chooses to double down on hate, then that reveals their true nature and they’re better off far away from their victims—just like any abuser.

I will defend your right to be the arbiter of your own body, identity, gender, sexuality, or otherwise.

I will defend your right to free speech, with the understanding that you suffer the consequences of your words. Freedom of speech—not freedom from consequences. Shame is a consequence. Banishment from our spaces is a consequence.

Seek to understand and to be understood. Accept yourself for who you are. Accept others for who they are. Don’t let ancient culture or bigoted society decide what is right. But of course, do not accept hate, within yourself or others.

I lay in my bed, blanket pulled to my chest, knees up, laptop fulfilling its sworn duty. As I put the finishing touches on my latest chapter, I giggled at the infectious good cheer shared between Chuq and Slacy. My smiling, stifled laughter made one of my dogs lift its head and look at me as if to say “C’mon man, I’m trying to sleep.”

“I’m sorry, girl,” I whisper and scratch her belly in apology. I looked to my wife to make sure I hadn’t woken her. Her face, shrouded by an eye mask in peaceful rest, soft lines at the corners her lips earned by years of laughing, made me smile again. She had earplugs in to block out her noisy night-owl.

A clatter clacked on the roof. I looked up at the ceiling. The dogs also looked up at the ceiling, then at me as if to say “not it” before laying their heads back down for sweet slumber. Another clatter called to me. “Dammit”, I huffed. Neither my wife nor dogs rustled at my complaints.

I pulled the Santa hat more snug on my head. What? Who cares that it’s over? It’s nice and warm. I slid out of bed, thinking about Christmas day when I found the hat. It lay on the ground, just in front of our fireplace. I mused that it must have been dropped by Santa on his way out. But Santa isn’t real. Besides we have a gas fireplace and no chimney.

I walked into the living room, expecting to see nothing. Other than the lit Christmas tree and stockings hung on the mantle, nothing is what I saw.

The clatter clacked again. Clack. Clack. It moved across the roof, getting closer. Clack. Clack. Directly above me now. Clack. Silence.

The gas vent over the fireplace swung open. Crawling out of the vents came a gray mist. It swirled its way towards me, then clawed into my nostrils and down my throat, scratching, burning. I coughed, gray dust and blood splattering on the hardwood floors in wet blobs. “What. The. Hell?” I wheezed. Not mist—dust. Drying my mouth, scraping my eyeballs, abrading my skin.

The dust poured out of the vent in a torrent, swirling around the room. A tornado stream of gray fog and shadow. The Christmas tree shook, paintings tilted askew, and the stockings looped around themselves. The dust twirled faster, tighter, like an ice skater going for a record spin.

A shadow formed in the dark cloud. Spinning. Faster. Tighter. The shape became more solid, more real. The whirlwind coalesced into a single being. A large man in a red suit—white beard, balding head bare.

He held out a hand. “Give.”

“No. I found it—it’s mine.”

“Give!”

“No!”

He held up a red-mittened hand. “Ho now, ho ho, young man. Be reasonable. I shall ask once more, and then—oof”

I tackled the not so jolly man to the ground. He grabbed for the hat and I used my longer arms to push his forehead down, forcing the rest of his body out of reach of the hat. I punched Santa in the face, brushing a layer of dust off revealing cartilage and sinew, that then spiraled around his rosy cheeks.

The face quickly reformed, cheeks redder and madder than ever. I felt the true power of the hat then. Strength flowed through me. I punched Santa again, his face fractured into clouds of dust with each hit.

It reconstituted, slower this time, and he yelled “Stop that!”

The power felt good, warm, cozy in my bones. I could do this. I could kill Santa with my bare hands and keep the hat forever, feeding off its power to do good with cozy and cheer. I will defeat—

Santa snapped his meaty fingers through the mitten, thumb rushing past four fingers fused into a single flipper. A flash of bright light seared my eyeballs. Then, too late, I realized the mittens were not an idle threat. They were the alpha and the omega—time and space bent to his will.

My fingers felt like they were dipped in the arctic sea. I tried to tap into the hat’s warmth—its coziness—but the connection unraveled in my grasp.

I pulled my hands close, peering through the spots in my eyes, lit only by the dim Christmas tree lights. The tips of my fingers blackened, then flaked away like the first snowfall of the year. Each snowflake tumbling, spinning, then turning to dust before it ever touched the floor.

Once the skin of my palms eroded, the red muscles beneath were exposed, bulging as my fingers clenched in agony. My hands shook, and the muscles slid free in avalanche sheets, exposing bare bone. With fingers now made bone rakes, I dragged them inward to gather the dust falling from my chest, but it all slipped through like sand.

I tried to scream, but my lips split and the roof of my mouth caved in. My finger bones cracked like ice sickles, then shattered into fragments that melted into dust. My body disintegrated from top to bottom, grain sliding through an hourglass.

My essence floated above, watching the scene below. As my body crumpled to dust, the hat remained intact. Skin, muscle, ligaments, and bones broke apart, molecule by molecule, and piled at my once-feet—the hat left untouched atop the heap.

In my last moments, I saw Santa walk over, lift the hat, and return it to his balding head. He spit on the pile of dust that was me, snapped his fingers, collapsed into a vortex of dust, and exited through the vent.

A white light came for my soul, surrounding me, calling me home. When it receded, I was somewhere dark, somewhere cold. A howl cut through the silence. Then a pack joined in. I was cozy no more.

Author’s Notes

Yep, I got Flucksed by Santa. I enjoyed being Ed the Cozy Editor, but Cozy had to die.

I had a lot of fun these past seven months. and I first posted The Spectral Agent on May 19th. My plan in coming here was to support Jan’s work and join a community of like-minded writers. Both of those were a great success.

What I never planned on was writing The Flucks. That idea and motivation spawned out of nowhere with a flash. I’m so grateful to for lending Slacy a voice. The story wouldn’t be the same or had as much success without him.

In the past seven months we have:

• Published 20 episodes and 2 bonus episodes of The Spectral Agent (only 10 left)

  • 2,300+ downloads of the audio version

• Published the first chapter of Orchards of Time last month

  • 124 downloads of the audio version

• Jan sent Thank you from the bottom of my heart

• Published 9 episodes of The Flucks

  • 2000+ downloads of the audio version

• Hosted The Flucks Live with Anthony. His performance was on point and hilarious with a few stifled laughs from him.

• Published I can hear her calling as part of the Hallowtide Files: The Gheeldyn community collaboration (now clearly seated in the Flucksverse)

• Published 3 extra cozy episodes of The Flucks — Chuq, the origin story of Chuq and Slacy’s relationship.

  • I also wrote a poem for the first time in this series. Who knew I could?

• The Cozy Editor — this post of course.

• Published 46 posts overall

• Posted thousands 😅 of notes

• Gained 99 subscribers and 184 followers

Throughout all this, we’ve found an inviting and supportive community of writers and readers. I love being part of this community. I don’t believe we’d have been able to write so much without your support.

First, I’d like to thank . He is my inspiration. Without him, I wouldn’t be here. I would have never started The Flucks. I love working with him every day and can’t wait to see what he creates next.

Jan and I would like to thank a few of our biggest supporters. They read and comment across all our creations and are always extremely kind. Every one of them has their own amazing stories that are better than mine.

• reads everything. Not just Jan and my stuff, but everything our community produces it seems. She’s always supportive and a pillar of the community. Without her feedback and encouragement, I would not have branched out into some flash fiction, then Gheeldyn, and probably The Flucks. She’s the biggest supporter of Jan and everything he creates. We have a ton of fun with the crossovers.

• has been working with me on The Flucks since day one. I throw crazy stories and situations at him, and he performs them perfectly. An extra special thanks for narrating The Cozy Editor with no notice!

• was one of the earliest readers of TSA and bullied me into publishing The Flucks. I can’t thank her enough for both.

• has read every episode of TSA and loves the characters as much as Jan and I do.

• listens to every episode of The Flucks and loves a good squelch. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to fit one in this story, pal.

• lets me take his stories out of context and roots for bad things for Slacy.

• creeps me out with her teeth talk, but I like that she likes The Flucks. Maybe The Flucks needs more teeth 🤔.

• loves Chuq as much as I do and likes to go into nerdy detail about neurodivergence with me.

• and I get technical with Substack and that tickles my engineer brain.

• found The Flucks, I think through Stephen, and then listened to everything in like one day.

• hits in waves and brings her dragons along for the ride. Nothing for a while, then bam!—a lot of the chapters and a lot of fun comments in one day. She also loves cozy, so of course loves Chuq.

• created three cover arts for episodes of The Flucks.

I’d like to give special thanks to . Her story doc on The Flucks provided a lot of insight that has shaped future chapters. She’s also a very active member of the community.

Hopefully, Chapter 7 and on Thursday, November 13th. We’re trying to find a time that would get maximum audience participation. But I have no idea when any of you are online. Myself? I’m online at very odd times.

What time would you be able to tune in live?

⚠️ Content Warning: Implied sexual assault, murder

I can hear her calling

Sept 18, 2024 — Full Moon — Partial Lunar Eclipse

I woke in a cold sweat. It was almost 2. I don’t have time for this! I’d have to wake up for school in a few hours. I tried to go back to sleep.

    But I could hear her calling

I didn’t want to go to her.

    But I could feel her calling

My parents would hear me if I went out the front door. The last thing I needed was for dad to find me half-dressed and out of my room. So, I went out my window. Bare feet hitting flower-bed gravel and sending it crackling.

Her voice cried out again. I knew exactly where she was calling from, but I promised myself I would never go there. I could never be seen there.

     But I could hear her calling

Hesitantly, I turned towards the back of the neighborhood, then headed to the woods, feet slapping on smooth asphalt. The road was still warm from the sun’s daily rays. The cool autumn air grabbed at my bare arms and ankles and tried to drag me back to bed.

I reached the edge of the asphalt where it meets the ground covered in pine needles. I would have just stayed there all night if I could, but the shadows wouldn’t let me. The shadows crept across the ground towards me, pushing me to go into the lone trail.

As a kid, I’d been to this trail many times. I played with foam swords and shields with my friends. I climbed every big oak. I hung ropes on their branches and we swung on them until we collapsed, exhausted, in their piles of leaves. I snuck my first kiss with a girl behind one of these trees.

But tonight, they were a lonely place. No owls hooted, no crickets chirped. They weren’t dark though. Tonight was a partial lunar eclipse. I marked it on my calendar, but it was when I was supposed to be fucking sleeping, so I didn’t plan on seeing it.

The fog scattered the scarlet moonlight through the trees. It was quite beautiful. I admired it for a moment. The shadows got impatient and egged me on.

I entered the trail and tried not to walk to that place I said I’d never go again. No matter what path I took, the shadows caught up with me.

I told the shadows to go fuck themselves, and ran back towards the road. What followed me was larger than a shadow. Twigs snapped and leaves rustled behind me. I kept running.

    I could hear her calling

I said, “Fuck no, not tonight bitch!” and kept running. I could feel her behind me, just a finger away. Her talons scraped at my arms, tore at my ankles, but I kept running.

I made it to the road and ran home, feet bloody from roots and rocks. I dove through the window. I wanted to slam it shut, but I didn’t want to wake the house. I slid it down quietly, climbed into my bed, and covered my head with the comforter.

I don’t know if I slept, but the alarm woke me up on time.

Sep 19

She called to me again last night. I told her, yet again, to fuck off. She didn’t listen, but I ignored her—for the most part. Her howls kept me awake all night.

Sep 21

I awoke in the woods.

I didn’t remember going there. But I could hear her calling. The clearing was lit by the waning moon. I knew this clearing. I didn’t want to be at this clearing.

I scrambled to my feet, bare on the dirt. The moonlight crowned the trees and made a perfect circle of shadows. The edge of the shadows pulsed, circling my feet in waves.

    I could feel her calling

“What do you want from me?” I shouted into the trees. The shadows snapped to a shape that obeyed the laws of physics.

        You have a secret

“What—what the hell are you talking about?”

             Your secret
        feed it to me

“How?”

             Write your truth
                    put it in the soil

I did as I was told and dropped to my knees, using my finger to scratch a message into the dark earth.

Charlotte was here

She growled.

            Half-truths will not save you

I felt her reach for me, talons breaking skin. Just then, a cloud passed in front of the moon, and the shadows receded into darkness. Her grip vanished.

I stood up and ran home.

Sep 22

    I could hear her calling

I returned to the woods and wrote my truth into the soil.

Charlotte was here

I awoke to my alarm in my bed. I do not remember anything else.

Sep 23

Charlotte was here

Sep 24

Charlotte was here

Sep 27

Many nights, I awake in the forest. I never remember going there or going home. But I write my half-truth and awake in bed.

Charlotte was here
                   Charlotte was here
                                      Charlotte was here

Oct 3

    I could hear her calling—faintly.

I could feel her hold on me weakening as the moon moved into darkness. Without shadows, she had no dominion over me. So I did what any sane person would do, and walked to the woods.

As I entered the clearing, I turned off my flashlight. I didn’t want her to have any shadow to work with.

“What do you want from me? I can’t tell you my secret.”

          Write your truth
                put it in the soil

“I have!”

        Your grief

                  Your shame

           I can taste it

                        It festers in you
        
                 I want it

“It’s not yours.”

                                It will be

I tried to talk to her again, but she was only a whisper on the wind.

Oct 9

    I could feel her calling

I looked at the lunar calendar on my phone—full moon in eight days. I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist her for long.

I rolled over and tried to sleep.

Oct 11

                   Charlotte was here

Oct 12

Charlotte was here

Oct 13

I stood at the edge of the forest, willing myself not to enter. The streetlight brightened, and the shadows grew darker, cutting a crisp black edge. They pushed me forward.

I had a plan. I reached the clearing.

                 Give me your secret

“I’ll give you a secret,” I said, pulling the knife out of my pocket.

        That won’t hurt me

“It’s not for you.”

I pressed it against my wrist, breaking the skin, letting a trickle of blood escape. If she wanted my misery, I was going to give it to her. But she couldn’t have my secret.

The shadows rushed in, pulling at my arms, pinning me into the dirt.

        Fool
             why would you give your life for this secret

“Because it hurts too much,” I sobbed. “I must not remember.”

             Reveal your secret in the soil

“No!”

                I will set you free

The shadows pushed the knife into my hand. I began to dig. One slice after another, I broke into the soil until I hit bone.

There was his face. The face I must not remember. I didn’t want to remember his hands on me, his hot breath, his vile stench. His face was half rotten, much improved over his living visage.

She demanded

        Put it in the soil

I stabbed the knife into his chest, for the second time.

She moaned

                  Delicious

The knife rusted to dust. The corpse crumbled into ashes. The breeze carried them away.

I just lay there, crying, folding into a ball. The shadows surrounded me, warmed me, comforted me. Hello darkness, my old friend.

Oct 15

                               here 
                    was            
Charlotte                      

Oct 16

I awoke in the woods. I thought I was done with this, didn’t I feed her what she wanted?

But the clearing was different. A circle of mushrooms always surrounded the center of the clearing. My mom calls them Fairy rings. When I realized where I was, I shouted “No—no-no-no!”

             You still have a secret
        I want it

“No...”, I cried. “This, this one is too much!”

              Feed it to me
                    I will set you free

“I can’t!”

I ran. This time, the shadows didn’t follow. She knew the moon cycle as well as I did— tomorrow, I would be powerless.

Oct 17, 2024 — Huntress Moon

I couldn’t hear her calling. But I knew I had to go.

I would bring this journal. I had one final entry to write.

When I reached the clearing, I started digging.

I did not unwrap the little bundle inside.

She wailed and cried with me.

The bundle turned to ash and floated to the Heavens.

This journal is the final secret. I have to put it in the soil.

I will fold this letter for you, my darling, and place it with the journal.

ENCLOSED LETTER

My little darling,

I don’t know who your father was. All I know is he was an evil man. The night he came to me, I killed him. But not before he planted a seed.

I don’t tell you this to be cruel. I tell you this because I love you, and you should always be honest with those you love. I did not expect to have you, but the moment I knew you were there, I loved you.

I wanted you to know that your father was an evil man, but that did not make me love you less. I wanted to hold you in my arms, to kiss the top of your little head.

But the distress he caused me was more than I could bear, more than my body could bear. When my body could no longer carry you, I had to let you go.

I was afraid to tell my parents about the man and about you. I was afraid no one would believe me. I was afraid people would think I got an abortion and put me in prison.

So, I buried the truth, and I buried you in the soil. My favorite spot in these woods as a child. Where we would play, sing songs, and have fun. I thought you would enjoy that, a way to experience a little of the childhood you were robbed of.

I do not want my father’s name, so I will not give it to you.

My mother named me Charlotte, and I love her. So I give you my name, and mine alone.

Charlie, I love you.

Mom

LAST PAGE OF JOURNAL

If you’re reading this journal, you have spoiled sacred ground. Your guilt of reading this will drive you to keep it hidden—to keep it secret. She feeds on secrets.

Lady Misery will find you.

In a Room

"Hallowtide Files: The Gheeldyn" Request for Materials

Read more

7 months ago · 72 likes · 33 comments · R. M. Greta and Hylia

Brujas

By

Brujas is a visceral, witchy tale of loss and seizing control. I can see and smell every depiction R. M. Greta writes about the mesa. Especially the food and flowers. Her narrative is so palpable that I sometimes feel like I've witnessed a ritual I shouldn’t have been spying on. I’m surely cursed by proxy.

Catriz and Elvis are forces not to be messed with.

It’s a short, yet searing 8-part series. I’ve been savoring it slowly, saving the last part until I can set aside time to contemplate it.

Three women with ties to ancestral magic via a fictional indigenous tribe go up against a corrupt witch in the desert of Southern California. Brujas is a folk horror/dark fantasy commentary on colonization and the systems that fail women of color.

Start here: Brujas pt. 1

Jack and the Beanstalk Cafe

By

This is definitely not a romance novel about a badass vampire and her doofus wizard who occasionally undress each other with their eyes and occasionally kiss—platonically, of course. It’s romance adjacent. And torture adjacent. You see, it’s all about magic and vampires—not romance! It’s quite cozy.

I also enjoy the narration on all most (ahem) of the chapters.

It is mostly lighthearted and Happy, although of course there is some danger lurking around the corner...

I think people who enjoyed books like Legends & Lattes, movies like National Treasure, or who ironically or unironically loved Twilight would also love this story.

Start here: Chapter 1: The Beanstalk Cafe

No Such Thing As Normal (Olivia/Ben)

By

I started reading this story when it was published as separate serials, one for each of Olivia and Ben’s perspectives. The first few chapters of Olivia had audio narration.

I haven’t finished all the Olivia and Ben chapters, but now is a good time to catch up, as Nikki has restructured them into a single novel. I’m happy to start over because it’s an engrossing story, with protagonists you shouldn’t identify with—but it’s hard not to.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, so I’ll post the synopsis here.

No Such Thing As Normal is a dark, dual-narrative thriller that pairs a psychopathic researcher who can predict violence with a combat-hardened soldier who’s spent years carrying it out.

Start here: No Such Thing As Normal | FOREWORD

Slice of Death

By

Ever is Death’s new apprentice. He has no memory of what it was like to be a human, but is plopped right onto Earth—in front of an ice cream parlor. This is a touching slice-of-life story that treats moments of death with dignity.

There’s Death and Choas, though it’s still quite cozy. I read this when I want a break from the real world.

Each chapter is short. I’d love to have a complete audio version of this story.

Death's first apprentice is sent to live as a human on Earth for 365 days, awkwardness ensues.

Start here: Prologue

Thrain

By

Thrain is an epic, high-fantasy story with an intriguing, war-torn, magical world. I’m not yet too far along with the story because I’m listening to the excellent narration performance by Andrew as he publishes them. I listen to every chapter as soon as the audio is available. The narration is currently available up to Part 12 - Chapter 4.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a synopsis for Thrain.

Start here: Thrain - Part 1 - Chapter 1

The Spectral Agent

By

I’m a bit biased, but I love this story and the characters. I read them or talk about them nearly every day, then listen to them five or ten times, because I’m the editor for it. I edit, Jan reviews, I generate and listen to the audio, Jan reviews, and we repeat.

It could be considered a paranormal crime thriller, but it’s really about the characters and their internal struggles writ large on a backdrop of murder mystery, ghosts, and the uncovering of a criminal underworld.

It’s designed to be heard. Audio for every episode is available on Substack, as well as Spotify and Apple Podcasts, to make it easy to binge while in the car or doing chores.

Aspiring detective Viktor Levitsky thought he was investigating a suicide—until the corpse spoke. The line between hallucination and reality blurs as Viktor is pulled into a grim mystery of secrets, corruption, and possession. With a voice in his head that won’t shut up and a feeling he can't shake, Viktor must uncover the truth before a malignant force takes control.

Start here: The Spectral Agent - Chapter 1

We made some updates to Part One (Chapters 1-10) of The Spectral Agent. They don't change the overall main story points, but Jan and I felt it would make the story better.

After finishing Part One, I started writing a recap. I wrote this one rather than , who is the author. I had fun doing it.

I imagined Viktor standing in front of a murder board like Charlie, recorder in hand, mapping out the clues he had found so far, except Viktor is much more subdued than Charlie.

This also prompted me to review all the clues and story points to make sure there were no plot holes and that they all lined up and pointed where they needed to go. For the most part, they did. But it also gave us a chance to reflect on the story so far and the feedback we've received.

Why did we make changes?

After I wrote the first draft, I stumbled upon The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story by Erik Bork. It made me step back. Because The Spectral Agent is written to be an audiobook, and Jan writes fairly fast-paced stories, it felt more like a movie than a novel. So, The Idea, being primarily about story writing for movies and TV, resonated with me.

Some of the key points I took away fit with some of the other feedback we received:

• The audience needs to understand your character's motivations and goals within the first few chapters.

• Your character should be actively pursuing their goal nearly every moment of the story.

• Raise the stakes and punish your character as they strive to reach their goal.

While Viktor is clearly trying to solve some case, and he's actively pursuing solving it, and he's punished quite a bit, some things could be improved.

One of the most brutal pieces of feedback we received was, "Why should I care about Viktor?"

The main character wasn't relatable enough, and it wasn't really clear why he was trying to solve this case.

Clear story explanation

Erik Bork also talks about a logline.

A log line or logline is a brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a television program, film, short film or book, that states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stimulate interest

Bork says the logline should spotlight a relatable main character facing high-stakes challenges, striving toward a difficult but rootable outcome, while delivering an emotionally engaging and entertaining experience.

The logline isn't to tease the audience; it's a clear explanation for industry professionals.

Although we aren't trying to pitch this as a movie, we thought a bit about what a logline for TSA would be. If we can't think of a clear explanation of the story, then maybe we don't understand it well enough.

This is what we have come up with so far:

When an aspiring detective — who is fed up with the system — hears his best friend's murder next door, he is possessed by a ghost that can help him solve the case, but he must infiltrate the ghost's former gang, and stop a malignant crime lord who is on a murder spree in his quest to become immortal.

I might be failing at this exercise. But anyway, feedback, The Idea, and a logline made us reconsider the main drivers of the story. So we made a few changes.

What kind of story is it, anyway?

There's one more thing that made us reflect on the story. Save the Cat has the Beat Sheets that describe story genres. One that resonated with TSA is "buddy love".

TSA is somewhat of a buddy-cop dark comedy. Viktor is possessed by the ghost of a gang member who is also his reluctant partner.

The three elements of a BUDDY LOVE story are:

1. An incomplete hero who is missing something physical, ethical, or spiritual; (s)he needs another to be whole.

2. A counterpart who makes that completion come about or has qualities the hero needs.

3. A complication, be it a misunderstanding, personal or ethical viewpoint, epic historical event, or the prudish disapproval of society.

In this case, Chai (the ghost) is Viktor's heart. Chai centers Viktor when he’s spiraling and bolsters his confidence. Obviously, Chai, being a former (formerly living, amiright?) gang member, is a complication and ethical difference.

Reorganizing the sock drawer

Before we get into spoiler territory, I’d like to tell you about a few updates to the SubStack organization.

TSA was designed to be an audiobook. So, we published it as a SubStack podcast, one episode a week. As a result, we have more regular listeners on Substack Podcasts, Apple, and Spotify than we have readers here. It’s about 30 listeners an episode. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but for us, it’s huge.

To do that, we split the text version and audio version into separate posts. Originally, the text version was behind a paywall, and the Podcast was free. This was intended to direct people to the Podcast, which it seems to have done.

Unfortunately, that meant no one was really reading and interacting on Substack.

I’ve been reading other authors' work on Substack, and I have fallen in love with the community through comments and Notes. It’s mostly a community of writers, but as an editor/sometimes writer, that’s a community I want to be a part of.

Because of the way we initially published the text, we missed out on that community for our own story. We don’t really get any feedback from the listeners of the podcast since most of them are listening through Apple and Spotify and never see the comments section.

So, now all the text and podcast audio for a chapter are on the same post. The only paywall is for the latest episode, which becomes free the moment we publish the next. This will give us an opportunity to build a community on Substack.

We also added content warnings at the top of each post. While this is somewhat of a comedy, it’s also dark. It deals with suicide, hallucinations, murder, and paranormal activity. So, some warning is warranted.

I still have gripes with the Substack UI, though. On mobile, when you click on a post, it first appears in the podcast player, and you must click “View Post” to view the text. The only way I’ve found to link people directly to the text is to do a restack in Notes. I hope going straight to the podcast doesn’t deter people who want to read and don’t realize they can by clicking “View Post”.

What we changed and why

This part will contain spoilers, but the most significant change appears in Chapter One, so it's not that big of a deal. Other parts are minor story changes that shouldn't spoil the story.

Olivia

(Not that Olivia.)

Olivia was originally just Viktor's neighbor, whom he didn't know too much about. She dies in Chapter One, then Viktor spends the book trying to solve this murder while getting pulled into a larger conspiracy.

This made it a little fuzzy on why Viktor cares about the case so much, or why the audience should care. This became obvious to me in the recap when I had Viktor question why he cared so much about this person he didn't even know.

To fix this, we made Olivia Viktor's best friend. We revised the beginning of the story to focus on their friendship. We wanted the audience to love her and see Viktor through her eyes. Then she dies shortly thereafter, mwuhahah. Authors suck. She died in the original story, so at least we didn't kill her for no new reason.

Now Viktor's mission is clear: find Olivia’s killer and punish them.

The conversation with Olivia also gave a moment to subtly point out that Viktor is gay in chapter one, instead of people getting offended in chapter five. If things like that are going to offend someone, might as well part ways early, as that's not the audience we want.

Viktor

Originally, Viktor was already a detective. We did some math on his age (~27), and it would be unlikely for him to be a detective that young. Not being a detective yet makes it easier to forgive his obvious mistakes (we aren’t detectives, we have no idea what we’re doing) and gives him more freedom to move in the criminal underworld. Additionally, having him worry about becoming a detective raises the stakes, and his concern about exams makes him more relatable.

We also had to make some adjustments to his meds. Originally, Viktor was meant to be a detective who had a history of hallucinations, so the reader wouldn’t be sure if he were hallucinating or seeing ghosts. It was always meant to be hallucinations as a teenager, and meds since. But, after thinking about it, he probably wouldn’t be able to pass a psych-eval to be a police officer or detective if he were on meds. So, he’s no longer on meds, and the timeline of his history of hallucinations is cleared up.

Allie

Allie is the records desk lady in Chapter Four. She wasn't originally named. She plays a bigger part in book two, so we wanted to go ahead and name her and give her a little more time in the scene. Before, she was just a plot device. Now she's a plot device with jokes.

Raise the stakes

TSA seems fast-paced to me. Something happens in each chapter to drive the story forward, but sometimes it seems like Viktor is stumbling from clue to clue. He himself calls that out. Stakes get pretty high fast, but not in a way that keeps up with the story's pace, if that makes sense.

In Chapter Four, Viktor goes to talk to an old gang member Chai knew. Originally, Viktor ducks out before anything bad can happen. This was an opportunity to raise the stakes.

So now, Viktor gets shot—just a little—not enough to kill him, of course.

I took a cue from and and ended the chapter on a cliffhanger. I hated the damn enjoyed cliffhangers from their stories, so I added more to TSA. 50% more cliffhangers! (thank them). Because of the episodic nature of the story, cliffhangers just made sense.

Adding cliffhangers wasn't hard. Mainly, it meant ending the chapter earlier and incorporating the resolution into the beginning of the next.

Chapter Seven now ends on a cliffhanger, too. The vending machine scene was moved to the beginning of the chapter, and the fight scene with Lenny starts, but remains unresolved until the next chapter.

Chapters Nine and Ten already ended on major cliffhangers.

Kira

Kira is introduced in Chapter Five. That chapter dropped a lot of bombs right at the end:

• Viktor's family is Russian, though he was raised in the US

• His father is dying, and Viktor has a strained relationship with him

• Viktor is gay

• Viktor has a sister named Kira, who comes out as non-binary

That was a bit much. As a result, Kira’s introduction risked feeling overshadowed, tokenistic, or even a political commentary, which was never the intent. Viktor is what Viktor is, and Kira is what Kira is. The moment was meant to highlight a warm connection between siblings.

Kira plays a bigger role as the story unfolds, so we wanted to give their story more time to breathe and not be muddled with other dramatic beats. The same conversation will return later in the story, when it can carry the weight it deserves.

Chai

We updated a few moments about Chai.

First, we made it a little clearer the moment he possesses Viktor in Chapter One.

In Chapter Six, Chai now talks about his experience as a ghost before he met Viktor. This one is a critical addition because it introduces the “nowhere place”, which will come up later in the story. It’s also another opportunity for you to fall in love with Chai a little more—that lovable doofus.

Audio

Since we had to edit every chapter, we also had to update the audio for each one. When my laptop died, I realized I didn’t have the Logic Pro file for all the audio backed up. So, I had to recreate it.

All the plugins for compression, EQ, noise reduction, volume normalization, and other effects had to be redone. It won’t sound exactly the same. Hopefully, I improved the quality from our earlier versions.

You can read more about how we produce the audio here.

Closing Time

Yeah, so that's where we're at. The Spectral Agent Part One 2.0. If you find behind-the-scenes Ed-itorials like this, let me know in the comments.

Continue to Viktor’s Case Review

We’re thrilled that many of you have found our story and have listened to every episode. Thank you for supporting us; your being here means a lot to us.

The Spectral Agent is Jan’s first full-length novel, and The Flucks is Ed’s first whatever it is. We’re independent publishers, and this book and podcast are an experiment.

Since we listen to a lot of audiobooks, we figured a lot of people would enjoy stories the same way.

That seems to be the case, as many of you have been following Viktor and his investigation solely through the podcast.

Ed, in particular, likes the buddy cop—buddy ghost?—banter between Viktor and Chai.

Since Ed has to hear it over and over during editing and audio production, it must be good.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Substack.

We’re grateful you’re here on Substack to see our creative process, read text versions of the story, and learn more about the characters. We’d love to hear your feedback.

If you enjoy the story, please tell a friend and rate the podcast.

If you hate the story, tell a friend about that, too.

Maybe it’s their cup of tea.

The first draft was written between January and March 2025. Jan has lived with these characters in his mind for much longer. He’s glad to share them with you finally.

Ed edits each chapter weekly and then publishes it for your listening pleasure.

and

While we hope to hire a voice actor in the future, the iterative use of AI voices allowed us to fine-tune the performance and quality. We’ve used transcription tools and voice generation to help refine the story. Hearing the story out loud helped us spot issues, refine characters, and keep the work moving forward. The audiobook has grown naturally out of our process.

Creative and technical collaboration

Jan and I work best when we combine our strengths. Jan writes, draws, and composes music. I take on editing, managing tools, and now, learning to mix and master audio. He's much more creative, while I like technical details.

The Spectral Agent is Jan's brainchild. Viktor Levitsky and his cohorts have been percolating in Jan's mind for years. I'm the editor, or as I often put it, Jan's technical advisor.

Together, we’ve both been developing skills that didn’t seem related to storytelling at first. Yet, they've ended up feeding into the audiobook process. For example, Jan has been learning to make better music, and I’ve been learning how to mix it.

As we each improved in those areas, we began applying those lessons to how we work on The Spectral Agent. Everything we do follows the same pattern: try something, improve it, iterate. That rhythm moves us forward.

From manuscript to audiobook

The story itself had been forming for years, but Jan finally began writing it in early 2025. He had the complete manuscript written within a couple of months. Once it was finished, we started editing.

We avoided editing while writing. It's important to have a first draft of an end-to-end product before getting bogged down in the details. However, we did refine the story as Jan wrote it. Listening to the story read aloud became a critical part of the story-writing and editing process.

We used AI-generated narration to bring the story to life, but the real advantage was the feedback loop. Write a scene, hear it out loud, then go back and refine it. That approach shaped not just the eventual audiobook but the story itself.

While the manuscript was written in a couple of months, it takes more time to complete all the edits. We're actually still evolving it as we publish each chapter.

Walking is when we're most creative

A big part of our creative process is going on walks together to talk through story ideas, characters, and plot points. Walking is great for getting creative juices flowing.

The setting of our long walks has shaped the story, too. Jan wrote the early chapters during winter, when we were walking in the cold. Jan prefers the cold—it’s the only time we can really walk and think for hours.

So naturally, the book is set in the cold months. When Victor tightens his jacket in the story, it’s because we were doing the same on those walks. Now that it’s summer, walking is less of an option, so we’re focusing on editing and publishing.

How walking led to the audiobook

However, it's challenging to recall everything we discuss while walking. We talk about so many things, I barely remember what we started the walk talking about by the end.

Jan has had complex story ideas for years. So many, it's hard to keep track of. I've used Obsidian to track my own thoughts for a few years. I’m not great at remembering things, so I use it as my second brain. I had Jan start using it as well. Over the past few years, he’s built a massive vault—hundreds of thousands of words—cataloging characters, timelines, and story ideas.

For at least a year or two, we typed notes into Obsidian on a phone as we walked. But it was awkward, so we'd jot down just a few notes. But that meant a lot of nuance was lost. Jan would often find himself trying to remember or recreate those ideas later when finally sitting down at a computer.

Last year, while sitting in a coffee shop discussing a story, we started using AI to transcribe our conversations. That was a turning point. With it, we could talk naturally and still capture all the nuanced points. With everything transcribed, Jan had the finer details of our discussions to draw inspiration from when sitting at a keyboard.

When we didn’t have that, we’d sometimes reach a later chapter and wonder, “Wait, why did this happen?” We'd realized Jan had forgotten to include some detail we’d discussed initially on a walk. The iterative process helped us go back and fix those continuity issues, but the transcription made it a lot easier to keep the story cohesive from the start.

Turning drives into draft reviews

The transcribed text was extremely useful. However, what really shaped our process was hearing AI read back our conversations and story to us. At first, we used ChatGPT to transcribe ideas. Then Jan would write a chapter and read it aloud himself while we walked. At some point, we started pasting the chapter into ChatGPT so it could read it aloud.

That kind of listening felt familiar. We’ve listened to audiobooks together for years while traveling. So, hearing Jan's story that way was just a natural extension of how we already enjoy stories. It gave us a sense of the pacing, tone, and energy of the scenes from a listener’s perspective.

Another place where transcription and audio generation were helpful was in the car. While driving us around town, we'd discuss story ideas and listen to Jan's latest draft. Before AI transcription, I'd often transcribe for Jan because I type much faster. Since I was driving, I couldn't type or read, and we didn't always have a computer with us.

Giving the characters a voice

We began to rely on the generated audio to hear the story come alive. But ChatGPT isn't really intended to be a voice generation service. It didn't really handle being given a couple of thousand words to read aloud well. It often refused to do it. So we looked for other options to generate the audio.

We started using ElevenLabs to generate audio. It specifically has a feature for audiobooks. We could paste a completed chapter in it and hear it read aloud without any of the frustration of trying to get ChatGPT to read it.

At first, we used the Viktor voice to read early drafts. At some point, it became the voice of Viktor in our minds. We couldn’t think about the character without hearing that voice. Though, it wasn’t until much later that we decided to publish as an audiobook.

You can see what Viktor sounds like below. We think it’s quite fitting. What do you think?

Liminal Verse

The Spectral Agent - Chapter 1

Detective Viktor Levitsky is startled by a scream from his neighbor’s apartment. He finds what appears to be a suicide—but a strange encounter at the scene raises questions he can’t shake. Viktor is unsettled by the police moving to close the case as a suicide. He reports what he saw, but is met with concern about his mental state, and he's forced onto …

Listen now

a year ago · 1 like · Jan Herrington

Listening to a book rather than reading it changes how you think about writing. A good audio performance requires books to be written differently. Traditionally, a book might have a lot of "he/she/they said" after each dialogue. You may not notice these details while reading, but they become annoying when you hear them.

So you have to write in a way that's obvious which character is speaking, without constantly mentioning who's speaking or their pronouns. Pronouns alone get confusing anyway when you have multiple characters of the same gender talking or have non-binary characters.

We decided to use different voices for each character because the characters are alive in Jan's mind. It helps him process each character more effectively by hearing them. Jan draws every character, so he knows what they look like. Hearing their unique voice brings them fully to life.

Even though you can tell who's talking in the audiobook just by the voice, we didn't want you to have to guess who was speaking, even if it was narrated with only a single voice. We tried to make it clear who was speaking, without explicitly mentioning it, unless it was to add nuance. Hopefully, that comes through in the writing.

The iterative process of using AI-generated narration helped us make the book better. It's clearer, more concise, and less annoying when read aloud. Whereas, if we had hired a voice actor, we would have had many back-and-forths. It would take days to wait for the voice actor to read it to get feedback. With AI voices, we can hear what the book sounds like within a few minutes.

While we're at this stage of evolving the book as we edit and publish it, we need fast feedback. If it gains enough popularity and we secure the necessary funds, I would love to hire a voice actor to perform the book. It would actually be cool to have the original voice actors who created the AI voices read it.

By the time the voice actor receives it, they will have a refined book that works well for audio performances. We didn't have to go through the slow, iterative process, which would have taken up too much of a voice actor's time.

Tweaking voices

Even with ElevenLabs narrating, there was still a lot of work needed to make it production-ready.

The AI voices aren't ready to go right out of the box. There are many times when they would say strange things in unusual ways. For example, here's the first (hilarious take) of Viktor shouting:

In cases like this, I'd have to regenerate the sentences to make them sound right. I'd also tweak the settings for each virtual voice actor. ElevenLabs has a few knobs to adjust such as speed, similarity to the original voice actor, and a few others.

For example, the Viktor voice is provided by a man speaking in a Russian accent. Viktor was born in Russia, but has lived in the United States since early childhood. So, it makes sense for him to have a slight accent.

The way the voice actor reads doesn't always match the pacing of English writing. Sometimes the Viktor voice will speed up or slow down at odd points. Sometimes it works well in the story, and sometimes it doesn't. We tried to adjust it, but it's not always perfect.

Sometimes we ended up changing voices just because they were wrong. We couldn't consistently achieve a good performance with the AI voice. We'd have to find one that was similar without changing too much of the character we already created.

All of the voices have different volume levels. ElevenLabs has a normalization feature on export, but it sounds too compressed and overdriven. Additionally, it's not normalized when previewing each chapter or sentence in the app, which is a crucial part of our workflow.

I wrote a script to make each voice say "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog". Then, it gets the peak volume of each voice and normalizes it to the loudest voice. This way, no voice was too loud or quiet. I have another script that will update the settings in ElevenLabs. This way, when we preview, the voices are equally loud, and it simplifies later parts of the process.

Audio production

Even with all the tweaking of voices inside the ElevenLabs app, the raw AI output wasn’t clean enough for a polished release.

That’s where the rest of our workflow came in. I’d export the voice tracks as WAV files and drop them into Logic Pro for mastering. From there, I’d apply EQ, compress dynamic range, remove unwanted noise, and control breath sounds. For example, the Viktor voice is boomy in low frequencies and tends to take a sharp breath at the end of sentences.

We also have to do some mixing. For example, the first chapter features a music intro created by Jan. We need to mix it so that you can hear both the audiobook performance and the music performance.

It took multiple rounds of listening across the platforms where we typically listen to audiobooks. We'd listen in the car, on the phone speaker, on AirPods, and on our studio headphones. We wanted to make sure it sounded good on all of them. I'd then listen on each app (SubStack, Spotify, Apple Podcast) to ensure that each platform didn't process the audio drastically differently and affect the performance.

For the four chapters that are currently published, I re-uploaded multiple times as I tweaked the audio. We want to lock down the audio process early because each time we change a voice or the audio levels, we have to regenerate and re-upload all the chapters before it. Otherwise, if someone is listening to the book all the way through, they'd hear the performance changing throughout the book.

I didn’t start with a background in audio. But Jan’s been producing music, and I’ve been learning how to mix it. Those skills came together here. They weren’t part of the plan, but they became essential to finishing the audiobook. That’s the core of our process: try, learn, apply—then do it all again.

What's next?

We’ve published the first few chapters and have around thirty total written. Every chapter is a chance to improve our process—writing, editing, voicing, mixing. And everything we’ve learned here will carry into the next book. Jan already has outlines and characters ready for future stories, many of them connected to this one. We’re not just building a book—we’re building a universe of stories, layer by layer.

If there’s one lesson we want to share, it’s this: don’t wait for things to be perfect. Write a complete first draft. Finish something, even if it’s rough. Then go back and improve it. You’ll learn more from fixing a finished piece than from polishing a single chapter endlessly.

That’s what we’ve done—and are still doing—with The Spectral Agent. This version isn’t perfect. But it’s the worst it’ll ever be, because we’ll keep making it better. The only way to get feedback is to put it out there. So, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

And if you’re working on your own project, we hope this encourages you to do the same—get your work out there, take feedback, and keep building.

Your first draft doesn’t have to be flawless. It just has to exist. The rest comes through iteration.

Subscribe now

If you want to try out making your own audiobook, check out ElevenLabs. This affiliate supports us in making more content.

To see how this all turned out, check out The Spectral Agent Podcast.

Liminal Verse

The Spectral Agent - Chapter 1

Detective Viktor Levitsky is startled by a scream from his neighbor’s apartment. He finds what appears to be a suicide—but a strange encounter at the scene raises questions he can’t shake. Viktor is unsettled by the police moving to close the case as a suicide. He reports what he saw, but is met with concern about his mental state, and he's forced onto …

Listen now

a year ago · 1 like · Jan Herrington