Better Late Than Never...

I recently started writing the first chapter of my project, which has been in the making for a long time...about ten years now.

Hang on. Don't give me too much credit. I haven't been actively writing this book for ten years. More like...I've been actively thinking about writing it for ten years. And even that's a stretch, because I put this at the very back of my to-write list about eight years ago and didn't pick it back up until about four years ago.

Late is better than never...I think.

contemplating my life choices up until this point

It started as something entirely different than what it is now. It was heavily inspired by the YA authors I used to be obsessed with--specifically Cassandra Clare and her Mortal Instruments series.* It took place in my hometown, which I thought would be a mind-blowing reveal that propelled Bargain Bin Kentucky, CA, into Forks-level fame and notoriety once my book became a bestseller. The worldbuilding was lackluster and relied too much on the YA urban fantasy tropes that were popular back then. There were some decent characters and plot points, but not enough to keep my attention long enough to get a decent amount of it written.

The updated, 2025, post-frontal-cortex-development version can be described, if we're following the basic USP (unique selling proposition) format, as:

Encanto meets Gothic Horror

And if we're just letting my autistic brain go off the rails with description, it can be described as:

Encanto meets Gothic Horror (vampires, werewolves, evil spirits, etc.) and Lovecraftian-esque eldritch monstrosities meet A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files (super obscure western/horror/fantasy trilogy that I hold near and dear to my heart) meet the hot guys in Narcos: Mexico on Netflix (specifically Alberto Guerra, who is so hot that I made his likeness into two identical guys) meets the ridiculous plot twists and melodrama of a telenovela from the 90s.

And it would be super messed up of me to not mention the books by amazing successful Latina authors that have also inspired me, in one way or another:

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Hacienda and Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

A Cruel Thirst by Angela Montoya

These books are perfection and I will not accept dissenting opinions, thank you.

I wouldn't say that my current project was super influenced by these books in particular (they've definitely influenced other projects of mine a lot more), but I'm always stirred into a frenzy of inspiration by a Mexican/Latina heroine starring in a book outside of the contemporary or historical romance genres. Nothing wrong with either of those, of course, but I do feel like Latinas in particular tend to get shoehorned into magic-less books that emphasize our real-life struggles more than our desire to kiss supernatural creatures, and that's just unfair.

But as some person somewhere said at one point:

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

Inspirational, no? Whenever I sit down to write something, I remind myself of my life's mission: let Latinas kiss more werewolves.

anyone who says they don't want to kiss this beast is a damn liar and your mother knows it

you know what you are

I'm sure there was a point to this post at some point, but that's long gone from my goldfish brain by now. I'll post more about my project in the coming weeks...and hopefully if I spam the link to this place on enough of my sock puppet accounts, I'll start to get hate comments from confused and angry people.

Kindly subscribe once I figure out how to let people subscribe.

~~~

*NOTE: Cassandra Clare is not an author I look up to because she's lowkey awful, but her books had an undeniably huge influence on me (aside from the incestuous romance subplot of course).