{"id":139,"date":"2025-06-19T20:34:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T20:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/?p=139"},"modified":"2025-06-19T20:40:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T20:40:49","slug":"dont-half-ass-two-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/?p=139","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Half-Ass Two Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Contrary to all of the advice I received in my formative years:<\/p>

  • You can\u2019t do that<\/em>.<\/li>
  • It\u2019s too dark.<\/li>
  • You\u2019re too much.<\/li>
  • Tone it down.<\/li>
  • You\u2019re too messy.<\/li>
  • Too honest.<\/li><\/ul>

    I have finally come to an important realization. The only time any of my art or writing seems to touch anyone, is when I am embracing those exact things I was told to fear.<\/p>

    It\u2019s been a theme my entire life. Restraint. Filter. Polish.<\/p>

    I was once crowned the reincarnation of Emily Post by my respective friend group. At 27.<\/p>

    Look, this isn\u2019t completely self-imposed de-clawing. I\u2019ve worked in creative fields professionally for over a decade. Palatable has always been the name of the game. Clients don\u2019t want too funny, too self-aware, too bright, too true. Safety nets, everyone.<\/p>

    Unlearning that conditioning though, is a superhuman feat. Writing a book while fighting that voice in the back of my head, that little nagging one that whines in a wheedling tone:<\/p>

    You can\u2019t write that! Someone might read it!<\/em><\/p>

    But, as I enter into draft 3 of The Last Dawn<\/em>, I\u2019ve come to a kind of peace with it. I\u2019ve spent a year developing these characters, this world, and exploring the awful consequences of their actions.<\/p>

    I don\u2019t want<\/em> to write the story that makes that palatable. It simply doesn\u2019t interest me. There are writers out there who will do that far better than I ever could. Because they are actually passionate<\/em> about it. The endcap at your local bookstore has plenty to choose from where the dark will never go too dark. No one will really break.<\/p>

    I\u2019m not here to knock genre fiction. I love a good beach read as much as anyone. But I realized that I don\u2019t have any interest in writing<\/em> it.<\/p>

    Which made my revision plan fairly straightforward honestly. I\u2019d done something weird where I wrote a Frankenstein of a novel; three parts romantasy, one part dark fantasy. I didn\u2019t really mean to, but that internal filtering system I had going on just pulled my punches when it should have let me double down.<\/p>

    I was battling \u2018this is going to be unpublishable<\/em>\u2019 with \u2018maybe this will have crossover appeal<\/em>\u2019 with a dusting of \u00a0\u2018let\u2019s go full commercial candy<\/em>\u2019 and ended up with a novel that wasn\u2019t really living up to my original awful vision.<\/p>

    I wanted to write something smart. Something toothy. Something that subverted expectations but still made you want more, like a slow-motion car wreck.<\/p>

    Instead of half-assing two genres, I decided to whole-ass one. Right now, as long as I remain brave enough, The Last Dawn <\/em>is going to live up to my vision\u2014and to hell with marketability. Filing off my claws wasn\u2019t doing me any favors. If you want a happy ending, if you want redeemable anti-heroes, I\u2019m going to recommend you move along for your own sanity. \u00a0<\/p>

    I\u2019m telling a messy, tragic, tale of what happens when we reach for power instead of connection. When we tell ourselves it was a necessary evil. When there is no magic kiss to break the spell. Villains are made one baby step at a time, and each of those steps feels justified.<\/p>

    It won\u2019t be neat. It won\u2019t fit into witty little hashtags, and you\u2019ll see no Canva book graphics about this one.<\/p>

    Wish me luck. Or better yet, guts.\u2014SMH<\/em> \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Contrary to all of the advice I received in my formative years: You can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s too dark. You\u2019re too much. Tone it down. You\u2019re too messy. Too honest. I have finally come to an important realization. The only time any of my art or writing seems to touch anyone, is when I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,17,15,16,13],"tags":[34,35,24,45],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behind-the-book","category-creative-process","category-dark-fantasy","category-publishing-journey","category-writing-life","tag-author-updates","tag-empress-of-suffering","tag-revision-process","tag-whinging","post-preview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samanthahund.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}