The Rabbit Hole

Nostalgic fiction taps into universal experiences: first loves, heartbreaks, family dynamics, and the quest for identity. But it also layers in generation-specific cultural touchstones—music, fashion, slang—that make those memories vivid and personal. When I write these stories, I’m not just constructing an engaging plot; I’m capturing moments that I hope will feel both unique and shared.

Jason is an iconic character. You have to understand who he is and why he has a vendetta against teenage and twenty-something camp counselors. Motivation and its resulting behavior are crucial elements in character development. That foundational understanding of the status quo must be in place before things begin to shift and change in the face of challenges and adversity.

If you've spent any time in writing circles, you've probably heard authors describe themselves as "plotters" or "pantsers." Maybe you've even heard the compromise term "plantser." For those unfamiliar with the terminology, here's the breakdown: Plotters  meticulously outline their entire story before writing a single scene. They know the beginning, middle, and end. They have character arcs mapped out. They've planned every plot twist, every emotional beat, every chapter break

It's September, which means back to school. I'm grateful that we live in a town with a great school system, which includes classes and after school activities for band, drama, and other arts. Whenever I get to thinking about the transitional nature of back to school season, I think about one of my favorite movies, which I can't watch without crying.

Generational trauma is like an invisible thread weaving through time, pulling at our emotions, decisions, and even our dreams. If you’ve ever felt that pull, you’re not alone. There’s a whole world of generational trauma books that explore these deep, often hidden wounds—and the paths toward healing them.

Going the traditional publishing route requires you to sell the book before readers ever get a chance to read it. You have to convince an agent, who has to convince an editor, who has to convince a publishing committee, who has to convince bookstores, who then—maybe—will put it in front of actual readers.

When you’re creating content for your own projects, life has a tendency to get in the way. Your priorities can shift in unexpected ways. Sometimes, you just don’t feel it, and if you don’t feel it, you can’t force it.

This song is a fucking menace, and not the adorable, mischievous Dennis kind. From the siren-blare guitars to the insistent, relentless drumming, there is no question that someone—or something—is pursuing you and it’s not going to stop. If you thought the opening lyrics would be any less alarming, you’re wrong.  

My mother had been relentless about my earning a degree for as long as I could remember. She repeatedly told me that I had no chance of getting ahead in the world—of doing any better than she did—if I didn’t graduate college.

Of all the cover songs out there, there are few more hotly debated than Disturbed’s morose take on this Simon and Garfunkel classic. Though I personally prefer the original to the cover, in the context of choosing which song made the most sense for the overall vibe of Chapter 21, I had to go with Disturbed’s version.

Released in 1998, You've Got Mail captured something about the early internet and those first few forays into social media (no one called it that then, but that’s what it was) that still hold true today: How you show up is entirely up to you.

This song released in March of 1994, when I was in my second semester as a freshman at UMass Boston. To think that was now over thirty years ago kind of blows my mind. Listening to that song again now, and hearing that its advice is just as relevant to my life now as it was then makes this, to me, a timeless classic.

Trust is that fragile thread of connection weaving through every relationship. When it's strong and unbroken, it holds everything together. When it's weak or fraying, it can unravel it completely.

When I was looking for the perfect song for Chapter 19, I wanted something that spoke to what was going on not through Autumn’s perspective, but her mother’s. As I said in a previous post, most songs should be interpreted as representing what’s going on in Autumn’s head, but not all of them do. This is one of the exceptions.

I was curious what it was about this movie that had him so excited to show it to me. At the start, it was macabre, then amusingly offbeat and quirky as Harold crossed paths with Maude. I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but suffice it to say that when the important scene arrived, I paid very close attention.

Anyone who was alive in the 1970s and 80s, living in the United States, and had access to a radio knows a minimum of five Steve Miller Band songs. They were as inescapable as Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” or Pink Floyd’s “Money.” Their ubiquity means my memories on first exposure to any of them are non-existent; they’ve just always been there.

That’s who Autumn is, and her story has to reflect that authenticity, even if it means the opening lacks conventional pizzazz. I let the book cover do the eye-catching, but the first line (of hers) does something else entirely. Let me show you what I mean.

I have no memory of the first time I heard this song. Simon and Garfunkel have just always been a part of the soundtrack of my life. Of the faint memories that still survive from my earliest childhood, my mother’s copy of their Greatest Hits (1972) album cover is among them. Though I can’t recall the first Simon and Garfunkel song I heard, I do have a very clear memory of the first one I “owned.”  

There's something Billy Corgan does in that song that I've never heard anyone else quite replicate — the way the quiet parts aren't really quiet at all. They're coiled. Every delicate guitar figure and whispered lyric feels like it's holding its breath, waiting for permission to become something enormous. And then it does.

Springtime is once again looming on the ever-brighter horizon. Like the beginning of a new year and the requisite resolutions that accompany it, I often feel a burst of inspiration to start something new (or improve something old), but in recent years those urgent, insistent motivations are often out of sync with… well, everything else.