Spring 2024: Zealot

In every book that has captivated me, I find myself drawn to that one insane side character whose purpose we never quite know. The one who doesn’t have many lines, but each one seems like the writer was struck with sudden inspiration. So I decided to expand on one such character from my novel. The resulting novella aims to give life to the little pieces of chaos that we glimpse everywhere, but rarely explore.

Sam and Ash: two characters I've been developing for as long in real life as they have been apart in the story. This chapter of my novel is set shortly after they meet for the first time since childhood. It explores the conflict that builds, after diverging from someone, secretly and without drama, manifesting in strange ways once you find one another again.

Taken from the middle of my novel, these scenes are bookends to a death, a defining moment, a beginning hidden like hot coals under ashes. They contain a kind of warmth that might fool you, if you don’t know the characters in question—and maybe it fooled them too for a time. But the comfort these two people expected to find at this point in their story has unraveled. Now, slowly and just as unexpectedly, they begin to find it again.