little lights in the darkness

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/24/in-which-i-make-a-bold-yet-defensible-assertion/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57883

I assert to you that my little town of Bradford, Ohio is in fact the literature capital of Darke County, the county in which I live, and also probably of Miami County, which I don’t live in, but which Bradford is also part (the county line runs right down the middle of Route 721, our main street).

A bold claim, I know! But hear me out! In this village of just 1,850 people:

1. Since the turn of the century, more than three dozen books written in Bradford, fiction and non-fiction alike, have been traditionally published and made available for sale all across this country!

2. Books written in Bradford have been translated into three dozen languages across the globe!

3. The number of New York Times bestselling books from Bradford reaches into the double digits!

4. Written works from Bradford have won prestigious literary prizes here and abroad!

5. Work written here in Bradford has been adapted into Emmy-winning television shows!

Which other cities, towns and villages in Darke County can make that claim? Greenville? Ansonia? North Star?!? I think not. Not even the bustling Miami Country metropolises of Troy and Piqua can match Bradford’s prodigious output!

And yes, there have been notable writers who have been from Darke County (Lowell Thomas comes to mind), but most of their work hasn’t been written in Darke County. And while bestselling works have been written about cities in Miami County (the Captain Underpants series, taking place in Piqua), again, they weren’t written in those cities. Once again, Bradford comes up on top. It is small but mighty!

Clearly the next step is to petition the village government of Bradford to have “Bradford: Literature Capital of Darke County” on all its official communication henceforth. I think it’s reasonable and accurate. I will get on it. I shall report back.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/24/in-which-i-make-a-bold-yet-defensible-assertion/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57883

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/23/the-big-idea-j-r-blanes/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57879

While some ideas get shelved entirely, some ideas are merely on the back burner for a while before becoming fully realized ideas and narratives. Such was the case for author J. R. Blanes, who kept returning to the idea that ended up becoming his newest novel, Portrait of Decay. Follow along to see how a friend inspired Blanes to have this idea in the first place.

J. R. BLANES:

A friend once asked me, “If you couldn’t create, what would you do?” Since I’ve been a creator all my life—writing stories, playing music, and any number of other creative endeavors—I’d never considered what would happen if that was taken from me. My entire identity, my life even, is intrinsically tied to my imagination. Without the ability to create, I wouldn’t be the same person. I don’t know who I would be. For all I know, I might not exist. 

Now, I think what my friend was really asking was what I’d do for a career if I couldn’t create, but that first interpretation of his question stuck in my head. I was struggling with my identity as a writer at the time. I’d spent years writing literary fiction with increasingly less satisfaction and very little success. Frustrated, I returned to my roots and my first love: horror. I’d grown up reading the likes of Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe before graduating to Stephen King and Clive Barker (my biggest influence). Even after I began writing horror again, I wasn’t sure what kind of horror writer I wanted to be. I wrote some short stories—a few published, many others thrown into the trunk to rot—and hoped that one day soon I’d find my voice. 

Portraits of Decay started as a short story about a young woman who travels to see a swamp witch to buy a poison that will trap her cheating boyfriend under her control. As far as story plots go, it was very thin, which was why I shelved it for a while for other projects. Yet I kept coming back to it, knowing there was something there. I just didn’t know what. I really wanted to write about New Orleans and the effect the city had on me during the years it was a home away from home while I worked for a private passenger train company out of Chicago. I yearned to invoke its culture, its traditions, and its folklore through the lens of my imagination. Still, all I had was a somewhat cliché revenge tale. I knew there needed to be more. 

My friend’s question sparked a conflagration: What if I explored what happened to an artist when he no longer had the ability to create—as he slowly lost his identity (or soul, if you will) while withering into nothing? I imagined what emotions I’d feel if I was trapped with the ideas, thoughts, and anxieties in my head. The dark path I might take with no outlet to express these pieces of myself. A path that would surely lead to depression, anger, and even madness. While contemplating such an existence, I endured extreme panic attacks and bouts of intense fear. It’s with these intense emotions that I painted the main character of Portraits of Decay, Jefferson Fontenot, as he suffers at the hands of his girlfriend Gemma Landry after she doses him with a concoction from swamp witch Mirlande St. Pierre.

To ground these themes of obsession and control, I turned to another form of art well-remembered from my time in New Orleans. I remembered checking out the galleries around Royal Street, the Bywater, and Faubourg Marigny: The art I witnessed captured the vibrant atmosphere, multiculturalism, and colorful landscape of NOLA. It also captured the dark lore that ran through its streets and floated along the swamps of the bayou. Writing from the artists’ point of view provided the narrative with a visual aspect to the loss of identity. My descriptions of the emotions and struggles my characters move through in the course of the novel are framed through the lens of art. To make this world as visceral and instinctive as brushstrokes on canvas, I spent many hours researching the art world—talking with artists, visiting galleries, and working with my editor who is a painter herself. 

What would I do if I couldn’t create? My novel Portraits of Decay is the closest I can come to an answer. In writing this book, I found my voice as a writer amidst the terror of its loss.

—- 

Portraits of Decay: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Apple Books|Kobo|Ruadán Books

Author socials: Website|Instagram|Bluesky

Additional links: Animated cover on Bluesky

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/23/the-big-idea-j-r-blanes/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57879

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/22/thoughts-on-writing-throughout-this-past-year/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57865

In my post last week where I mentioned I had been writing “full-time” for a year and shared my favorite ten pieces from this past year, one commenter asked me about my overall experience with my writing career so far. I was going to reply to all his questions in a comment, but then I thought that it was worth a piece on its own.

Talking about how I’ve felt about my job this past year, how I feel as a writer, what’s different now compared to last year, I honestly have more to say about the whole thing than I realized. So thanks, Mike, for the content inspiration! I hope your questions get answered in the next few paragraphs.

First, more than anything, I’m grateful to be able to do this. I’ve been writing on the blog on and off (and with varied levels of uhhh.. talent) since 2018, and since the beginning I have always felt thankful to have such a fun, cool opportunity as what I like to call “doing whatever I want and writing about it.” It can be a struggle sometimes to come up with content when I’m feeling particularly unmotivated, but overall having the freedom to choose what kind of content I want to create is a huge thing that I’m very happy about it.

I feel so lucky to have a fun, stable, not physically demanding job. It’s a rare breed of job. And I have had other jobs, for what it’s worth, but turns out I like sitting at my laptop a lot more than just about anything else. Wonder where I get that from.

Beyond feeling grateful for the position itself, I also feel grateful to have dedicated readers and commenters. I am consistently amazed and surprised at how many of you comment such nice things, always encouraging me and supporting me. It means a lot! Of course, I love my haters, too, and have a collection of screenshots of many jackass comments before they get malleted, just to laugh at later on down the road. So thanks for being here, y’all, I couldn’t do it without you!

This past year of writing has taught me a lot about myself. Mainly that I’m depressed and sticking to a schedule is very difficult for me. This past year I was supposed to have a pretty solid writing schedule, and be in my “office” (in the church) for a set time to do things like blog posts and other writing endeavors. Well, turns out I don’t feel like doing that a lot of the time, so I didn’t.

I actually heavily slacked and neglected my responsibilities over the past year. There were many times where my dad would specifically ask me to contribute more pieces to the blog whilst he was busy traveling or on tour, and I would say no problem, I can do that. And then I’d only put out one piece that week. I would mean to do more, really I would! But I didn’t. And I did that kind of thing a lot.

I’ll get to it later. I’ll find the time to do it later. I’ll just post tomorrow, instead. It was a lot of that sort of thinking this past year. Turns out that that doesn’t make me feel good about myself or my work. I regret how much I didn’t do. I hope that moving forward, I do more, and most importantly, am more consistent. It’s good for my brain to be more consistent, yet harder to achieve. Plus I want to give y’all consistent content to look forward to!

One thing I was supposed to do this past year on top of doing blog posts, was to write creatively, as well. Guess what I didn’t do even once! That’s right, write anything fictional or personal or anything that wasn’t a blog post. Damn. Better luck this upcoming year, I guess!

My life lacks structure and intentionality and it turns out you need both to be a writer. Damn (again). Turns out I’m a procrastinator. Wonder where I get that issue from.

Anyways, all of this is to say that I’m disappointed in myself this past year and I hope to do better moving forward. And I hope to write creatively. That is my dream, after all. Following in footsteps and whatnot. You get the idea.

Aside from all that, this past year is the first time in my life where when people ask me “what do you do for work?” I say “I’m a writer.” Of course, that always leads to “what do you write?” and then “so do you write for a magazine or a newspaper orr..?” and I have noticed that it always always leads to, “so how do you make money from that?” I understand the curiosity, but I also find it to be a strange question.

I can honestly say I have never asked anyone how they make money from their work. If someone tells me they’re an artist, I don’t ask if that’s salary or hourly, or ask the Tik Tok content creator if that comes with benefits and PTO. I think unless the information is offered willingly, it’s best to leave it alone.

It’s important to note that I’m not ashamed about how much I get paid or in the way that I get paid for this job (and it does in fact come with benefits!), but the issue for me is that it feels like a question that is only asked of those in creative fields, and makes them feel lesser than other jobs. It’s feels demeaning, because it’s not like I’m asking every market analyst I come in contact with how they’re putting bread on the table. Why do I have to disclose my salary for you to take my profession seriously?

I guess it’s just been an interesting experience overall telling others that I’m a writer. I can’t say I really like it. I feel awkward every time I say it. I hope I get past that feeling eventually.

All in all, I obviously love being a writer and being able to share all my experiences, both good and bad, with you all. I hope to branch out in topics and push outside of my comfort zone of mainly just restaurant reviews. It’s just what comes easiest to me, so it’s what I do the most. But I’d like to be more varied moving forward.

I’m looking forward to this next year of writing. I feel like I finally understand myself and my craft better than I ever have before, and I’m glad y’all are on this journey with me. Cheers to the year ahead.

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/22/thoughts-on-writing-throughout-this-past-year/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57865

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/21/couldnt-sleep-did-a-cover-song/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57841

I couldn’t sleep because a certain black kitten decided that he wanted to sleep on my face, precipitating a coughing fit that knocked slumber right out of me. So, here: a cover of “Bring On the Dancing Horses” from Echo & the Bunnymen, which I started recording the other night, and now was a fine time to finish it up. It’s a little more drum-heavy than the original version; what can I say, I like drums. Some people are like that.

For those of you too young and/or tragically unhip to have ever heard the original, here it is for compare and contrast:

Now I’m tired. I think I’ll try to go back to sleep.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/10/21/couldnt-sleep-did-a-cover-song/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57841