Hello, friends.
Happy two-days-after-Friday the 13th and day-after-Valentine’s Day!
I have finally come to the mid-winter vacation! It always falls at the perfect time and this year is no different. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while then you know that the last several years of teaching have been monstrous and you know how much I look forward to these vacations where I can work on my various writing—and creative—projects.
Welcome to the 160th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and love in stories. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m not breaking any records but I’m thankful to have any audience.
Thank you.
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The Monster in the Closet comes out February 24th and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on it! Preorder it now!
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Work on Project: Amusement Park continues. I got through about 60 or so pages and whittled down around 200 words. Last night I got to a place where I’m about 250 pages or so away from completing the third draft of the book. It’s a long book but, I think, a good one. Those who’ve read the second draft seemed to like it.
The first draft of Four Moons continues to be posted daily on Patreon. It’s a werewolf story and I think it’s fun. It is a first draft, though. If you’re interested, Patrons at the $5 tier and above have access but there is also a way to buy into the whole book for $13.99, and you’ll be notified when new installments are posted. You don’t have to be a long-term Patron for that second option.
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It’s Valentine’s Day as I write today’s essay thus love is on my mind. Cherubs and chocolates and hot, sweaty passion…. Maybe I’ve gone too far there but you get it. My thoughts go to stories where love is a key ingredient. Of course my thoughts go to stories. I’ve been receiving and telling stories my whole life so it’s natural that’s where my mind goes. When I say I’m thinking about love in stories, I’m not really thinking of romance novels though I’m sure it applies. I have nothing against romance novels, not even those Harlequin romance novels that come four or more in a box once a month, sometimes with collectible crystal glasses. If that seems specific it’s because my mother would get those books—several different imprints from Harlequin, enough for the whole month—and she’d read them at just about a book a day. I’m thinking about how love can weave itself into other kinds of stories. I love it, but it’s difficult to pull off.
As a child, I didn’t really want romance in my stories. Superman II deeply offended me with Superman giving up his powers for love. Now as an adult, I eat that shit up. It was alright that Han Solo and Princess Leia fell in love, but before George Lucas pulled a deus ex machina with Leia being Luke’s sister, the idea of that love triangle bothered me. Luke shouldn’t have needed that! Now, of course, I wish that Lucas had come up with a better way out of that situation (perhaps having Luke just give his blessings and being happy to become a Jedi?).
One of my favorite love stories comes from The Dark Tower IV: Wizard & Glass where Stephen King gives his Constant Readers more of Roland Deschain’s backstory, which is a love story interwoven with the fantasy, adventure, and, yes, horror. It’s such a good story!
This could become one of those essays where I keep naming examples of love in the stories I love but I feel like that would be repetitive, like the essay I wrote about snow in stories. Instead, I want to talk about how difficult it is to weave love into a story. I’m in awe when I read (or see) it done well. I’ve attempted to have something like romance in my novels. There’s a little bit of it in Echoes on the Pond that grows mostly off camera between the last chapter and the epilogue. The seeds are in the book, though. The Monster in the Closet has a little bit of it between two characters. I hope it feels natural. My novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed both deal with love, though not necessarily in the ways we consider. It’s difficult.
The thing that’s important when creating a love story within the world you’re working in is that the characters need to get there in a natural way. It’s based on how relatable the character is to the reader. Relatable or even likable. As with horror, romance only works if the audience is emotionally involved with your character. That’s always a trick that seems easier to pull off than it is.
For me, I think loving my own characters is a key element to try to create a love story for the characters. If I really care about the characters then it’ll be easier to create a romance between them. Especially if I’m rooting for it to happen. That instance of first feeling the vibe, the sense that this person has something that feels right, feels comfortable. It’s heady and one hopes that one can catch even just a small iota of it in a story.
I very much feel like I’m a kitchen sink writer, meaning I’ll put everything into a story (even the kitchen sink) in the hopes that I’m entertained. A big part of that is romance, because who doesn’t want to experience that nervous bubbling in the chest when you think about that person? I don’t know if I do it well, but I certainly try. Which, when I think about it, is basically how we approach love.
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In less than one week I’ll be talking to Brennan LaFaro at Once Upon A Bookstore in Fall River, Massachusetts as we launch our novels The Denizens and The Monster in the Closet!
The event will be on February 21st at 6 PM.
I have to up my reading game to finish The Denizens in time! But with vacation—and how the book moves—that shouldn’t be difficult.
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That’s this week’s newsletter. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support. Be safe out there, friends.
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Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com 
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