What I’m posting today is a journey. It evolved over time and may appear a bit fractured, but trust me: it’ll come together in the end. As all good stories do. And, I’m posting it on two of my blogs: Behind the Scenes with Diana Stout, MFA, PhD because the story concerns my writing and life as a writer; and Into the Core: One Woman’s Mystic Journey because this story deals with my intuitive, mystical side where manifesting and gratitude play a huge role.

March 13, 2023

I’m doing a 30-day manifestation exercise with my niece, Heather. Part of the ritual is to record 10 things you’re thankful for and then list what you’d like to manifest. Thirty days.

I started my notebook on this date, which, incidentally, is my deceased Mom’s birthday. I’ll clue you in on the importance of that memory in a minute.

Each day, before I made my list of 10 things for which I was grateful, I’d reread a passage that basically said, for those things you are grateful, you will have abundance. For the things where there is no gratitude, what you have will be taken away.

Later, I added: Nothing will change until you are grateful.

After our daily exercise concluded, I was still recording daily gratitudes plus journaling events and opportunities I’d been manifesting, along with lessons I was learning.

That night, a group of writers interested in writing a story for an anthology to be published through the Greater Detroit Romance Writers, of which I’m a member, was discussed.

I’ve had an idea for a Gothic based on a spooky house for a long time. The Uninvited with Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, and Gail Russel, a black and white movie released in 1944, was my inspiration. (Great movie!) I was in 9^th grade when Mom introduced me to that movie and that genre. I would start inhaling every book published by Victoria Holt, Dorothy Eden, Phyllis Whitney, and Mary Stewart.

According to Lori A. Paige in her book, The Gothic Romance Wave: A Critical History of the Mass Market Novels, 1960-1993, her research discovered that these mass market books were published in the late 60s and 70s during what is known as the second wave of the woman’s rights era. It was during that time, I was reading everything those authors published. Paige says:

In Jane Eyre, the work on which most mass market gothic romances were based, the hero and heroine (at least upon first glance) represent the two extremes of Victorian psychology, sentimentality, and brutish cynicism, which heightens the conflict (as well as the attract) between them.

What drew me to the Gothics were the haunted houses. The heroines weren’t active or strong but were passive and cowered in fear a lot. The heroes, at first thought to be creatures of the night as vampires or werewolves, would come to their aid and rescue them from the true source of evil—the house and its ghosts. The books’ covers showed women running away from the houses.

I realized by volunteering to do an anthology novelette, it could be my entry into a full-length Gothic novel where I would change the story after I got the rights back four months after publication. I already had the house. Now, I just needed some ghosts.

The novelette, Harbor House: Say You Will, was written and turned in by the August due date for an original October publication, which in September got moved to January 2024.

Summer 2023

While writing the story through the summer, I was reading Freida McFadden’s psychological thrillers. I was hooked on the old-time Gothic feel of the books, at least those that had big mysterious houses out in the middle of nowhere.

And then, inspiration hit.

Why not turn the historical Gothic novelette into a modern-day psychological thriller? Better yet, let the Gothic story stand as it was, set in the 1920s, and turn the thriller into a story of the same family 100 years later?

I could now write an old-fashioned Gothic-style story but with added psychological thriller and paranormal elements.

Fall 2023

While at a weekend writing retreat, I created a rough outline of Harbor House: Last Blood on a storyboard, brainstorming with a writer friend.

I put it aside to work on CPE: Characters, Plot, & Emotion. Another idea I’d been manifesting for a while. The spark of its real-time creation is another story to tell.

March 2024

During a three-week period in March, while waiting for a testimonial for the CPE book, I created a more detailed outline, including the setups and payoffs, the triggers, the symbolism, and other little details that enrich a story. The story was ready to write, but first I had to finish and publish CPE and its companion book, the CPE Workbook.

May 26, 2024

I wrote the Epilogue and Chapter 1 to Harbor House: Last Blood.

Needing to prep for an online class I’d be teaching the first two weeks in June became a priority. Henceforth, any writing would be toward that class. The story would have to wait again.

June 9, 2024

The class ended, and I began writing Harbor House: Last Blood in earnest.

Today, Tuesday, June 18, 2024

A week later, I have now written 25% of the first draft. I’m on track to have the first draft finished by July 4. That leaves me July and August to rewrite, revise, and polish before handing it over to some beta readers.

So far, this is the best story I’ve created. As it should be.

The novelette, Harbor House: Say You Will is currently not in print, but I’m publishing it as a stand-alone book later this summer or early fall. To be followed by Harbor House: Last Blood in October.

Manifesting isn’t always instant. Many of my manifestations have germinated decades earlier… waiting for the right conditions to flower and grow. Though, it is fun to watch those manifesting desires that occur rapidly.

So, what does any of this have to do with gratitude?

• I’m thankful for the ability to write fast.
• I’m thankful for the ideas that flow my way.
• I’m thankful for finally knowing that I have found my true genre. Even if this late in life.
• I’m especially thankful for my followers, fans, and friends.
• I’m thankful for the opportunity to share this story with you.

How about you? What are you grateful for, and what are you manifesting?