I’m Back. Please Clap.
Here’s what I’ve been up to, in the order I remembered it while staring at a blank document for forty-five minutes.
Let me set the scene: it is Tuesday. My cat, Jolene, has once again claimed the recliner with the territorial confidence of a small, indifferent god. I am on the couch. This is her house. I just pay the lease.
I’ve been meaning to write this letter for a while. The reason I haven’t is embarrassing, and also deeply on-brand for me, so I’ll tell you: I’ve been paralyzed. Not in a dramatic way — no inciting incident, no dark night of the soul. Just a sustained, low-grade inability to commit to which story I’m supposed to be writing next. I have ideas. Several, actually, which turns out to be worse than having none. I rotate between them like a broken carousel, convincing myself each time that this one is the real one, the one I’m meant to write, before cycling back to quiet panic and eating something from the pantry I didn’t really want. My writing abilities feel, in these moments, genuinely questionable — and I say this as someone who is supposed to be a writer. Who has, in fact, written a book. A real one. That exists.
Which brings me to the good news.
A Haunting Before I Do is out in the world, which still doesn’t feel entirely real. It’s a supernatural thriller set in Charleston — found family, ghosts, the particular texture of a city that never fully lets you leave — and it is mine, which is a sentence I have to say slowly sometimes just to believe it. If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, the link is below, and I would love you for it.
In my favorite recent development: I was at a psychiatry appointment today — routine, deeply necessary, the usual — when I mentioned the book, mostly in passing. My psychiatrist stopped the session, pulled up her phone, and bought it on the spot. I sat there watching her complete the purchase in real time and felt something I can only describe as feral joy. I don’t know what this says about me. I think it says good things. My therapist would probably have notes.
Meanwhile, The Static — book two — is taking shape. I’m not going to tell you too much yet, because I want it to hit the way it’s supposed to hit, but I will say: the stakes are higher, the haunting is different, and some questions you didn’t know you had about the first book are going to get answered in ways that might make you a little upset with me. In a good way, I hope. Mostly.
On the subject of this newsletter:
Here’s what I’m planning to do with this space, now that I’m actually showing up to it:
I’m going to write fiction here — short stories, flash pieces, the kinds of things that live in my head between novels and need somewhere to go. I’m going to write personal essays, which I’ve always loved and which I’m choosing to believe you’ll love too. And I’m going to bring you behind the scenes of what it actually looks like to write books — including the carousel of indecision, the pantry eating, the cat who has taken your chair and will not be moved.
It won’t always be tidy. But it’ll be honest, and it’ll be mine.
We’ve also recently moved — still in the Charleston area, but out to West Ashley now, which has been an adjustment. Quieter townhouse, different rhythm. There’s a creek behind the property that’s become my unexpected anchor — wide enough to matter, full of anhingas drying their wings on the bank, geese doing geese things, ducks, and at least one alligator I’ve spotted who I have decided not to name because I read somewhere that naming them makes you careless. I stand at the water sometimes when the writing isn’t coming and just watch. It helps more than it should.
Jolene remains unbothered by all of it. The recliner is hers. The sun hits it just right in the afternoon. I understand, honestly. I’d do the same.
More soon — fiction, updates, the occasional unhinged personal essay. I’m glad you’re here.
— Harlo
Leave a Reply