I completed my first full (yet terrible) book-length story in middle school. Since I enjoyed writing it so much, I considered becoming a published author one day. Naturally, this required a publication method. I had first learned about traditional publishing in elementary school, and at the time, I had just recently learned about self-publishing. I thought about these two options, weighed their pros and cons, and decided to pursue self-publishing. It’s been years since then, and I still haven’t changed my mind.
When I learned about traditional publishing, I learned that authors need agents. Finding one, however, seemed like a daunting task. I needed a professional to be interested enough to actually look at my story and then decide it was good enough to be worth marketing to the publishing companies. I was aware that this part of the process could take a long time, too, and that I would need to be prepared for multiple rejections from different agents and publishing companies. I was, or at least I expected to be. This was, in the end, a part of the process that I believed would be manageable. It was the next part that concerned me.
I was aware, of course, that traditional publishing companies were supposed to make my book “better.” They hired professional editors, and these editors would advise me, guiding me to make important structural changes and polish my prose. I eventually learned that “better” was subjective. These companies were actually making books “as marketable as possible” rather than simply “better.” This is, of course, understandable. They need to make money, and authors also need to make money. Releasing books that are likely to sell well is beneficial to both parties.
This leads to my big concern: publishing companies can make books worse. This may be because they want to capitalize on current trends or target specific audiences or because there’s simply a difference in opinion on what counts as “good writing.” It doesn’t matter why the change happens. What matters is that, sometimes, a story failure is due to the interference of editors or other people high-up in the company. This is a nightmare for me. Self-publishing may limit my success, but it also ensures that my failures are solely due to my own mistakes. Basically, I want my story to be my story, for better or for worse.
Self-publishing isn’t easy. I am very aware of that. Book publication is a complex process that involves a large variety of skills, from writing to cover design to marketing. Ideally, traditional publishing companies manage most of it for you, but when you self-publish, you have to either do everything yourself or pay someone else. It is, admittedly, a little overwhelming, and I imagine it’ll take years to learn the process well enough to be successful. Still, I have no regrets. My stories may be flawed, but at least I can say they are truly my stories. That’s what matters most to me.
", "author": { "name": "J.M. Cooke" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-03-09T20:57:00-04:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-08T20:49:45-05:00" }, { "id": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/tropes-of-romantic-love/", "url": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/tropes-of-romantic-love/", "title": "Tropes of Romantic Love", "summary": "Since it’s February, I thought I’d talk a little about romance. Specifically, I want to talk about tropes relating to romantic love that, when done well, can elevate a story and make it far more memorable. Some are wholesome and cute. Others are funny, and…", "content_html": "Since it’s February, I thought I’d talk a little about romance. Specifically, I want to talk about tropes relating to romantic love that, when done well, can elevate a story and make it far more memorable. Some are wholesome and cute. Others are funny, and some are great for more dramatic or tragic stories. I’ve already talked a little about the Enemies to Lovers trope, so here are twelve more tropes of romantic love I enjoy, listed in no particular order.
1. Fake Relationship
A good fake relationship trope is both hilarious and sweet. You start with the (usually contrived or ridiculous) setup between the characters that forces them to pretend like they are dating, Then, you get to watch as they slowly stop pretending. This trope also leads to several fun questions. Who knows the truth? Who doesn’t? Who finds out and how? Who will fall in love first? How long will it take for them to accept their true feelings? What sparks the genuine connection between them? Basically, when well utilized, this trope can do a lot.
2. Marriage of Convenience
The marriage of convenience trope typically has a more tragic start than the fake relationship trope. Sometimes, one or both of the people involved are depressed about their circumstances, too. That does not mean, however, that a tragic ending is inevitable. Watching two people who were forced together actually fall for each other, turning what they originally viewed as an unfortunate circumstance into a happy ending, can be so satisfying. Of course, this works best when you actually want the two of them to have a happy ending together. When this isn’t the case, marriages of convenience lend themselves more to drama or tragedy.
3. Friends to Lovers
If you want an adorable love story, the friends to lovers trope is a great choice. There are different dynamics to this trope, depending on when they start to fall for each other, but regardless, this requires one foundational thing to be successful: they must truly feel like best friends at the beginning of the story. Then, it only feels natural for them to fall in love. They’re soulmates. Who could they love more? Under the right circumstances, though, this trope can also lead to tragedy, such as when their romantic relationship ruins their friendship
4. First Love/ “One and Only”
Only ever falling in love with one person happens rarely in real life. Perhaps because it’s so unlikely, it feels special to see fictional couples live it. This trope won’t work in most stories, but when it does, it’s so sweet. You believe they are truly soulmates, and they were meant to be together. This trope becomes tragic, though, when one of them dies. They lost someone so important to them, and they’ll never find anyone else, often by choice.
5. True Love’s Kiss
True Love’s Kiss is a fun trope. It can be sweet, of course, but the main reason I love this trope is that you can’t cheat. It either works or it doesn’t, and even if the characters lie to others (or themselves) about their feelings, the magic reveals the truth. Because of that, finding out who can (and who can’t) use true love’s kiss to save someone can lead to some fun drama. This trope can work in different ways, too. Sometimes, it just takes someone who truly loves them to do it. Other times, both people have to truly love each other for it to work. Either way, the truth of people’s feelings is revealed, and the characters have to decide what to do with the information.
6. Red String of Fate
Fate can be kind, and fate can be cruel. This is a compelling trope regardless of how it is used. I enjoy watching how the characters’ lives are entwined as they fall in love. Perhaps they just keep meeting by chance far too often, or perhaps they met as children but don’t remember that until halfway through the story. Sometimes, this trope can even lead to a happy ending even when it originally seemed impossible. The lovers may be separated – permanently, it seems – but don’t worry. Fate will bring them together again someday, somehow. As long as the explanation isn’t too contrived, this can lead to a beautifully satisfying happy ending where an otherwise bittersweet or tragic ending was expected.
7. Reincarnation Romance
This, to me, is just an extension of the red string of fate trope. At its core, this trope involves lovers meeting again in another life. Sometimes, the setup is tragic, such as when the lovers die unfairly and they’re granted a second chance to be together. This naturally lends itself well to the idea of soulmates, but it doesn’t have to. This trope can lead to a lot of drama if one of the lovers chooses to be with someone else in their next life. Regardless of the implementation, this trope is great for emotional moments.
8. Even Evil Has Loved Ones
Villains vary because different stories need different villains. Some are a caricature of evil. Others are tragic. Some want to destroy the world. Others want to “improve” the world. This means that this trope won’t work for all stories, but seeing the villain truly love someone is chilling. Caricatures of evil are easy to understand. They are devoid of care and empathy. However, if someone is capable of care and empathy yet inflicts suffering anyway, that’s terrifying. This can also work as a great motivator for the villain if anything happens to the few people they care about. Watching them show grief and anger over their loss while taking the loved ones of others is painful. This trope can lead to a greater understanding of the villain and why they do what they do, but it can also relate to trope 10 on this list, especially if the heroes aren’t paragons of justice – instead willing to do whatever it takes to stop the villain.
9. Star-crossed Lovers
This trope is tragic, but if done incorrectly, it’s just frustrating. It may feel too contrived, or if the couple lacked chemistry, you might roll your eyes as the story laments their separation. When done correctly, however, this can add a beautiful layer of tragedy and drama to a story, especially if their separation was an intentional sacrifice they made. If their parting feels inevitable and their chemistry is high, then knowing they’re alive and well–just separated–will still be devastating.
10. Love is a Weakness
This is, perhaps, the saddest trope related to romantic love. There are also multiple implementations of it. It can show devotion, if someone chooses to love another anyway, knowing it makes them more vulnerable, but it doesn’t feel sweet. Just sad. It does, however, lend itself well to so many character and world-building related questions. Why does the character feel that love is weakness? Given their world, are they correct? Does showing love make you too vulnerable? For heroes, this can also lead to great moral dilemmas if their loved one is in danger but rescuing them would put others in more danger.
11. I Want My Beloved to be Happy
This trope is bittersweet. When a character prioritizes their beloved’s happiness, even when it means they can’t be together, that illustrates just how much they truly care about that person. Unfortunately, it still feels a little bitter, because their love will never be reciprocated and all they can do is try to move on. Usually, no one did anything wrong either. They simply weren’t meant to be, and because the character wants their beloved to be happy, they accept it. Sometimes, it’s not about watching their beloved be with someone else, though. Sometimes, it’s about making a sacrifice to ensure their beloved is okay. When this is done secretly, it’s tragic. When it’s done openly, it often leads to trope 12.
12. Love is Worth Anything
A character is faced with a choice: live a good life or suffer with your beloved. In this trope, they choose the latter, often with little hesitation. Sometimes, their beloved tries to spare them from the pain (as in trope 11), but they declare that their beloved is worth whatever nightmare they’ll experience. Caring so much about someone that you’d suffer alongside them, even if it’s just to keep them from being alone, shows a tragic type of deep love. This trope can take another turn if the character starts to regret their decision. Finally, depending on the story, it can make you wonder. What would I suffer to be with my beloved? How much should I sacrifice for them?
", "author": { "name": "J.M. Cooke" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-02-23T20:56:00-05:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-08T20:49:57-05:00" }, { "id": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/just-write/", "url": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/just-write/", "title": "Just Write", "summary": "“Just write” is one of my least favorite pieces of writing advice because it’s often dismissive and unhelpful. Yes, it’s necessary to put words on the page to be a writer, but to actually improve in the craft, you need to know how to practice…", "content_html": "“Just write” is one of my least favorite pieces of writing advice because it’s often dismissive and unhelpful. Yes, it’s necessary to put words on the page to be a writer, but to actually improve in the craft, you need to know how to practice it. Real life is not a video game. In video games, you can often do the same action over and over until you level up, and when you do, you’re simply better. You can be better in so many ways, too, even when it doesn’t make sense considering what you did. For example, how does walking around and finding cool locations make you stronger? And how does hitting people with a lance make you more immune to magic? It would be awesome if reality worked the same way. However, in real life you can’t just do something repeatedly to improve: you have to do something repeatedly in the right way. In some cases, practicing incorrectly only wastes your time, but it can also lead to poor habits that make learning the right way more difficult.
To address this, I think it’s far more helpful to explain how to write. Writing is a skill, and like other skills, it has fundamental components that you can learn to master. When someone learns how to play the piano, they typically learn how to read sheet music, practice chords and scales (using the correct fingers for each note), and work on pieces that require different types of technical skill. The same is true for writing. Rather than “just write,” break writing down into simpler components that you can work on. Then, you can practice them individually as well as together.
Here are some examples of how to practice writing that, at some point in my writing journey, have been helpful for me:
A lot of what you write will probably sound awkward when doing exercises like these. That’s fine. Then, when you work on a real story (piecing all those components together), evaluate your work. Read what you’ve written, and, if you’re able, have someone else read it, too. Consider what is working and what isn’t working. What technical skills do you need to further refine? I practice writing descriptions because they’re something I naturally struggle with. They’re far from perfect in Coalescent, but they’re also far better than they were before.
Finally, don’t forget that plotting, writing, and editing a novel are also skills you’ll need to practice. Don’t wait until you feel like your prose is perfect to start drafting a full book, and also, allow yourself to write a terrible book. Just because you finish one doesn’t mean you need to publish it. Edit it again, if you want, or set it aside and work on a new project, learning from your past mistakes. Don’t be afraid to leave a draft undone either.
Writing is a skill, and like other skills, you can learn it. It just takes time.
", "author": { "name": "J.M. Cooke" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-02-16T20:56:00-05:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-08T20:50:09-05:00" }, { "id": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/cognitive-distortions-ii/", "url": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/cognitive-distortions-ii/", "title": "Cognitive Distortions II", "summary": "As a reminder, cognitive distortions are negative and irrational thought patterns (Rnic et al., 2016; Shickel et al., 2020) that authors can take advantage of in their stories. Like everything else, cognitive distortions need to be used carefully and intelligently, and doing so requires understanding…", "content_html": "As a reminder, cognitive distortions are negative and irrational thought patterns (Rnic et al., 2016; Shickel et al., 2020) that authors can take advantage of in their stories. Like everything else, cognitive distortions need to be used carefully and intelligently, and doing so requires understanding what they are. Last time, we looked at four specific cognitive distortions. Today, we’re going to look at four more: catastrophizing, personalization, labelling, and all or nothing thinking.
Catastrophizing involves assuming extremely negative possibilities are likely despite the lack of supporting evidence (Floyd et al. 2025, Rnic et al. 2016). For example, there are a lot of reasons someone may not answer a phone call. Assuming that they’re probably dead or hospitalized would be catastrophizing. It’s a possibility, yes, but is it really a likely one? Do you have any reason to suspect those possibilities are any more likely than the alternatives?
Characters who catastrophize may seem dramatic. However, since this requires an overreaction (treating the literal end of the world as the end of the world would not be catastrophizing), you can decide who is right and who is just catastrophizing. How likely are the possibilities? What evidence are the characters using? Also, they may not agree on what counts as compelling evidence or have different estimations for the likelihood of events. These disagreements could be shown in various ways. Perhaps there are different interpretations for an ancient prophecy, or perhaps the characters’ backgrounds influence their perception of the situation and what the villain is capable of. Remember, sometimes, bad things do happen, and in books, they tend to happen often. For example, the villain may not win in the end, but they could still come close enough to cause lasting damage.
Personalization is, in a sense, egotistical, as it involves an assumption that negative outcomes occurred because of the self (Rnic et al., 2016). Maybe you picked the beach for your next vacation, and then it poured the entire time you were there. It would be nonsensical to blame yourself for that, as you could not possibly have predicted the weather (especially if you booked the trip months in advance). Or maybe you discovered your friend crying in the bathroom and wondered what you must have done to upset them. Essentially, you assign blame to yourself, ignoring other potential causes and the limited effect you can have on this world.
This can be a fun one to write because worlds of magic can make these assumptions true. Perhaps the character is right in believing they cause bad things to happen, or perhaps other people believe it’s true even when it’s not. As the author, you get to determine exactly which negative events (if any) happened because of the character. For characters who feel responsible but aren’t, you can also explore why they feel that way. Why do they assume bad things must be related to them? If another character tells them it’s not true, will they listen?
Labelling involves applying a negative label to oneself after one instance of negative behavior (Rnic et al., 2016). In other words, a label that defines a negative pattern of behavior (such as lazy or careless) is applied even though a pattern can’t yet be established (like forgetting to take the trash out once or dropping a single plate while doing dishes).
Labelling can be shown either externally or internally. Characters may outwardly claim to be lazy or dumb after one failure, or these feelings may only show up in their thoughts, which could be explored if the story is from their POV. Other characters may also try to convince them that the label is wrong. You can decide if they’re trying in vain. You can also consider the consequences of labelling. If the character feels careless, for example, does that cause them to be more stressed in certain circumstances, which in turn makes them more careless?
Engaging in all or nothing thinking involves treating a situation as having only two, opposing outcomes rather than accepting that there are a multitude of possibilities between them (Rnic et al., 2016). For example, a person may make a New Year’s resolution to exercise for 20 minutes every day. Then, in late January, they skip one day of exercise, decide they are a failure, and stop exercising for the rest of the year. In other words, it’s either “exercise every single day” or “never exercise.” It’s either Perfection or Quitting. No mistakes, no cheat days, no extenuating circumstances allowed.
There are many ways to utilize all or nothing thinking. A character may have very black and white morality and thus struggle with situations and people who are morally gray. Or, if a character adopts the “Perfection or Quitting” mentality, you can show how it limits their growth and explore why they feel this way. You can even demonstrate all or nothing thinking with cultures. Is there anything their society treats as “either-or” when that isn’t how their world works? On the other hand, you can also decide that some situations/ ideas truly are “either-or” and explore the consequences of that.
Including these cognitive distortions can add depth to your characters and drive conflict. Another thing to consider is how the characters in your story react to these cognitive distortions, both in themselves and others. What would they call these cognitive distortions? What would they do to address them? Is there any form of therapy available to help?
As a final note, cognitive distortions can be difficult to ignore. Just because a character is aware that they are being irrational does not mean they can simply stop thinking or feeling the way they do. For example, your character may understand rationally that all or nothing thinking is problematic yet still struggle with managing it. I have known about cognitive distortions for years, and I still find myself occasionally engaging in them.
References
Floyd, K., Ray, C. D., & Boumis, J. K. (2025). Cognitive distortions associated with loneliness: An exploratory study. Behavioral Sciences, 15(8), 1061. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15081061
Rnic, K., Dozois, D. J., & Martin, R. A. (2016). Cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118
Shickel, B., Siegel, S., Heesacker, M., Benton, S., & Rashidi, P. (2020) Automatic detection and classification of cognitive distortions in mental health text, 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Bioinformatics and Bioengineering (BIBE), Cincinnati, OH, USA, 275-280, https://doi.org/10.1109/BIBE50027.2020.00052
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", "author": { "name": "J.M. Cooke" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-02-09T20:56:00-05:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-08T20:50:29-05:00" }, { "id": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/coalescent-dedication/", "url": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/coalescent-dedication/", "title": "Coalescent Dedication", "summary": "Coalescent is dedicated to my beloved cat, Holly. She was born on March 28th, 2007 and sadly passed away on May 14th, 2025 at 18 years old. She was my beloved kitten, and since she was born in my family’s garage, I knew her for…", "content_html": "Coalescent is dedicated to my beloved cat, Holly. She was born on March 28th, 2007 and sadly passed away on May 14th, 2025 at 18 years old. She was my beloved kitten, and since she was born in my family’s garage, I knew her for her whole life. She was really sweet, though mostly just to me. She wasn’t fond of other people, and she certainly wasn’t fond of the other animals. They annoyed her greatly. Even in her old age, she wasn’t afraid to smack them for playing too close to her. She wasn’t afraid to fight against her daily pills, either, and she was an expert at secretly spitting them out. It was quite impressive.
Holly lived a very simple life. A cozy life. She loved laying on the vents when the heater was going, laying on blankets and warm beds, and, in her old age, spending time outside in the sun. She was never an energetic cat, playing for only short periods of time before finding a warm place to rest. Aside from just being cozy, she really loved chicken. She would sit and meow at us in the kitchen whenever we boiled some.
Her death wasn’t entirely unexpected. A few years ago, her kidneys started to fail. It took some time to find a renal diet she would eat, a problem that was inflamed by her IBD. Slowly, she also developed hyperthyroidism, a heart murmur, and high blood pressure. Her ability to groom herself decreased dramatically, so I had to brush her frequently (which she usually enjoyed). Her hearing was probably also getting worse. Then, a few days before May 14th, she developed a UTI. The treatments from the vet improved her mood slightly for a while, but in the end, they weren’t enough. She passed away at home, lying beside me on the couch. Until that infection, though, she had been happy and well despite her health problems, and for that I am grateful.
Since Holly was there for me for 18 years, I wanted to dedicate this book to her. She was my first kitten, the one I had spent years wishing for, and she was with me through a lot of major life changing events. I wrote the original dedication page before her passing and published a copy for myself to work on editing. It arrived after her death, and I couldn’t help but cry. I added her birth date and death date to the dedication page.
I wish she could have been here for my book’s official debut, but I think she was ready to go.
", "author": { "name": "J.M. Cooke" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-02-02T20:55:00-05:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-08T20:51:27-05:00" }, { "id": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/my-top-10-favorite-books-or-book-series/", "url": "https://jmcooke.com/posts/my-top-10-favorite-books-or-book-series/", "title": "My Top 10 Favorite Books (or Book Series)", "summary": "I want to start by saying that these books aren’t listed in order of preference. It was hard enough to decide upon just 10 books (or book series) to include here. It would have been impossible to truly rank them. These are books that stayed…", "content_html": "I want to start by saying that these books aren’t listed in order of preference. It was hard enough to decide upon just 10 books (or book series) to include here. It would have been impossible to truly rank them. These are books that stayed with me in some way after I read them. I may have read them several times over the years, or maybe something about the story/ characters/ themes has influenced my own writing. Regardless, these books are special to me. This does, however, mean that books I’ve read more recently won’t be included. After all, I don’t know yet if the books I read in 2025 will stay with me for very long.
Also, I don’t intend to say much in particular regarding the plots of each book, as I don’t want to spoil the stories. Maybe one day I’ll analyze these books in greater detail.
1) The Percy Jackson and the Olympian series by Rick Riordan
Every year, my elementary school recommended specific books to students, presenting them prominently in the library and giving us information on them. The Lightning Thief was one such book. It seemed interesting, and since I was trying to obtain as many accelerated reader points as possible, I decided to check it out. I greatly enjoyed reading it. The chapter titles made me laugh as a kid, and the characters and story kept me interested. It also sparked my interest in Greek mythology. When the other books were released, I read them as soon as I could. I’m not sure there’s a particular book I enjoy more than the others in the series, so I can’t pick just one book to represent all five. Recently, with the second season of the live action series, I’ve started re-reading the series. It’s still enjoyable.
2) The Warriors series by Erin Hunter
When I first learned about this series, I was excited. I loved cats, so it seemed only natural that I should read a series about cats. I was not, however, prepared for how much I would love the story or how emotional it would make me. This is especially true for the first six books. Some of the deaths haunted me. The characters and story have been very memorable, and details of this series found their way into some of my middle school and high school writing. Again, I’m not sure there’s a particular book in the series that I think stands stronger than the others.
3) The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
I had to read this for school, and since I prefer fantasy stories, I wasn’t expecting much. For some reason, though, I really enjoyed the story. Very specific details stayed with me, and the book has some memorable lines. It’s hard to say much more because, again, I’m not sure what it is that kept me so interested given my typical book preferences. I recently read this book again, and I’m glad I did.
4) The Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins
I started reading this in elementary school and loved it, though the giant cockroaches made me uncomfortable. It certainly wasn’t a fantasy world I wanted to personally visit. It was an interesting one, though, and it did influence my middle school and high school writing to some extent. Our teacher read us the second book in class, and I still remember how my class responded when we reached one of the cliffhangers. I was intrigued by its portrayal of prophecies, especially given some of the details in the last book. It’s hard to say which of the books was best, though the first, third, and last have stayed with me longer. When I first read the series, though, I was disappointed by the ending. I’m content with it now.
5) The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
I started reading this series because some of my friends were reading it. It’s not written in my favorite style, but once I adapted, I greatly enjoyed it. I enjoyed this trilogy more as I got older, too, since I was able to more thoroughly analyze details of the characters and story. I think when I finish reading Sunrise on the Reaping, I’ll go back and re-read these books. It’s been a while, and when I re-watched the movies recently, it reminded me of all the book details that hadn’t been included.
6) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
My mother read the first Wrinkle in Time book to me when I was a child. As such, this is a special series to me. I can’t remember what it was like to read it for the first time. It feels like I’ve just always known the story. It’s such a wild and interesting story, too. I’ve read the other books in the series, but (aside from the last one, which I read most recently) the details of those stories are a little hazier. I’d like to try re-reading them again soon.
7) The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars
When I was in middle school, I visited the library often during the summer. Unfortunately, it didn’t take me too long to read most of the fantasy books at my grade level, so I decided to give some other books a chance. Much to my surprise, I really liked the books by Betsy Byars, and I especially loved The Midnight Fox. It’s almost impossible to say why exactly the story stuck with me so much, but this, too, influenced my middle school and high school writing. I added a fox with black fur to one of my stories, and her name included Midnight. It also led me to be more interested in foxes when before I was primarily interested in cats.
8) The Giver by Lois Lowry
This book was recommended to me by a family member, so I gave it a read. I enjoyed it more than I expected. The dystopia presented was really interesting to me, and I was fascinated by the way the book utilized its medium to hide an important detail about the world building until the big reveal partway through. It felt unique, and there are some particular scenes that have recently stuck with me. I later read the other books in the series (except the last, which I have yet to finish), and though they are enjoyable, they just don’t feel the same.
9) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
I read this book in middle school and loved it immediately. The writing itself was beautiful, and I greatly enjoyed the plot. As mentioned, I love fantasy, and books like this are why. The imaginative setting and magic system kept me interested, as did the way they were entwined with the story. I haven’t read all the Earthsea related books yet, just this one and The Tombs of Atuan, but the others are absolutely on my list.
10) Holes by Louis Sachar
Once again, I enjoyed this book more than I had expected. It was a book we had to read in middle school, but I loved the way the different storylines were woven together. The storylines were all interesting, too. Sometimes, when there are different storylines within a book, one or two are just not nearly as strong and it makes getting through them (and thus the book itself) more difficult.
Coalescent began with just a trope: enemies to lovers. It’s a trope I’m\nrather fond of, and I wanted to tell my own story with it. I love the idea of\ncharacter relationships changing so drastically over time, and one benefit\nof enemies to lovers is that the characters start by knowing the other’s\nworst side. It can only go up from there. I love to watch the progression of\nthe relationship: enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers. That is\nwhat I wanted to portray in my story, and everything else was built around\nthat concept.
When I first sat down to outline this story, I divided it into three sections:\nhis story, her story, and their story. The first two sections would show what\nhappened when they first met in Bryn and follow them (individually) until\ntheir reunion in Wen. The third section would be their journey together. This\nwas done to explore their individual characters and provide a foundation\nfor their future relationship.
Since I wanted them to become reluctant allies, I needed a reason why they\nwould work together. That drove the overarching conflict, character creation,\nand world building. I had to explain 1) what stakes would lead them to\nagree to this, 2) why they believed cooperation was necessary, and 3) why\nit had to be them specifically. After that, I started filling in details,\nand after debating a lot of plot points, I finally found a rough outline I\nwas happy with.
Initially, I planned to leave this story on hold for the moment. I’ve\nbeen working on another project, so I thought I should focus on that. Then,\nAmazon announced a Kindle Vella competition. I wanted to enter, and this\nstory was already outlined and ready to write. I needed only ten chapters,\nand that wouldn’t have even finished Alec’s side of the story. As much as\nI wanted to write about his growth, I decided to jump ahead to their reunion\nin Bryn. I figured that would be the most compelling storyline. Still,\nI would love to go back one day and write their individual stories.
As I wrote Coalescent, I ended up changing a lot (as usual). Some sections\nwere lengthened, and scenes were added. My rough drafts also tend to be quite\nsparse in detail, so as I edit, I often add descriptions. I’m not good\nat estimating, and what was originally anticipated to be about 20 chapters\nended up at 30. I also never expected it to reach 50,000 words either. It\nmay not be a perfect story, but I’m happy with it. I wrote a story that\nI wanted to read, and I hope others enjoy it as well.
", "author": { "name": "J.M. Cooke" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-01-05T20:51:00-05:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-08T20:52:17-05:00" } ] }