I Think About Social Media Too Much

I think about how bad it is, how harmful for humanity as a whole (this could be an entire blog post all on its own, actually), how my kids aren’t allowed on it now and how I wish I could keep them from ever being on it. I think about how invasive it is, how pervasive it is. I think it could be a major part of our downfall.
I also think about my own social media accounts and how I might be perceived and how I should act and what I could do to drive engagement and widen my audience and how much it bothers me that I don’t know how to do those things well.

I wish I didn’t have to worry about social media at all. When I was 9 and first dreamed of being an author someday, it never could have occurred to me that something like social media would even exist, much less how important it would feel or how many other authors I know feel like they have to constantly be able to market themselves. I worry over ways I could do social media better even though I know I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I imagine quitting it entirely, and then I fret about how if I quit social media I won’t be doing everything I possibly can to try to make my career successful. And by that logic am I already not doing everything I possibly can? Because I could probably research how to get better at social media if I could just force myself to engage with it properly.

But what’s worse than all that, lately, is that now that I have books to promote, I catch myself subconsciously treating time I’ve spent on my socials as if it was productive time. This is especially noteworthy when there’s a sale or when I have an event coming up. I can spend hours on Canva trying to make the best possible images to post to Instagram to promote my work, and by the time I’ve wrapped it up and made my posts, I’ll have used my entire early morning writing time on it. This should feel bad to me, but instead I’ll get up from my writing chair feeling as if I’ve done something productive. That’s an awful development, the kind of mindset that will make it way harder for me to be actually for-real productive with my limited free time. And I didn’t even really consciously realize until pretty recently that this shift in my outlook had even happened.

If I did finally tell myself something like, “Hmm, my Instagram and BlueSky accounts aren’t going to move the needle much, I’m just going to deactivate them” … I mean, I’d just reactivate them in a week. I’d do it mostly because social media is designed to be as addictive as possible and I’m not immune to its malignant allure, but also because there’s part of me that keeps treating it like I’m a kid again trying to figure out how to “be popular.”

And wow, that’s a mindset I have already grown out of once, over the course of my entire teens and early twenties, and now I have to do it again? Sigh. Well, at least it’ll be easier this time. I’m not going to delete my accounts, but starting right now I’m also going to try to stop worrying if I miss a trend that would’ve been perfect for talking about my book, I’m going to try to stop treating social media like something vital and important, and I’m going to try to not think about the apps at all when I’m not actively using them (I think this will be the most challenging but I’ve gotta try). Making shouting-about-my-book posts isn’t something I need to be stressing myself out over like this, it’s a task to add to my checklist, a task to find a way to manage just like any other chore. Maybe if I think of it like that—if I internally split “social media” as a category into two separate things (the Chore of Making Book-Marketing Posts on one hand and, on the other hand what it was always supposed to be, a fun little way to keep in touch with people)—I’ll be able to engage with it in a less unhealthy, less unproductive way. (I can’t in honesty say “in a healthy, productive way” because I believe that there is not really a healthy way to be on any social media site but again, that’s a whole-ass rant all on its own.)

Wish me luck…

THESE FAMILIAR WALLS Cover Reveal!

I am so beyond thrilled to share the cover for my second novel, THESE FAMILIAR WALLS! This dual-timeline haunted house novel comes out on April 14th, 2026. You can add it on GoodReads here, or head over here to pre-order your copy today!

In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood—a boy with dead eyes, a fascination with fire, and no remorse. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences.

Twenty-two years later, in 2020, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home.

After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and, in an effort to save money, moves in with her husband and two children, hoping to reclaim some sense of stability in the grief and chaos surrounding her. Instead, she finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress. She shifts in and out of dreamlike trances, her reflection won’t blink, and a menacing voice whispers to her from the gathering shadows. Although she tried to brush off the strange happenings as stress-fueled hallucinations, Amber is soon forced to admit that something much more real—and more dangerous—haunts her family. But Amber has deadly secrets of her own, and she must resolve these long-buried truths or lose the life she’s contrived for herself.

These Familiar Walls Updates

Hello! An announcement!

My second horror novel, THESE FAMILIAR WALLS, has a release date now—April 14th, 2026. I’ll be posting pre-order links next week!

And we’re having a cover reveal! In six days, on Wednesday, June 18th, keep an eye out on bluesky and Instagram for the hashtag #TheseFamiliarWalls to see the spooky, lovely cover for THESE FAMILIAR WALLS. Or pop back over here on Thursday, June 19th, and see the cover right here on my website.

About THESE FAMILIAR WALLS:

In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood—a boy with dead eyes, a fascination with fire, and no remorse. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences.

Twenty-two years later, in 2020, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home.

After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and, in an effort to save money, moves in with her husband and two children, hoping to reclaim some sense of stability in the grief and chaos surrounding her. Instead, she finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress. She shifts in and out of dreamlike trances, her reflection won’t meet her gaze, and a menacing voice whispers to her from the gathering shadows. Although she tried to brush off the strange happenings as stress-fueled hallucinations, Amber is soon forced to admit that something much more real—and more dangerous—haunts her family. But Amber has deadly secrets of her own, and she must resolve these long-buried truths or lose the life she’s contrived for herself.

Signed Hardcover Giveaway!

THE CUT comes out in only three weeks! If you are hoping to get your hands on a copy a little early but missed your chance at a paperback ARC from the GoodReads giveaways, then I have good news for you! I am giving away five signed hardcover copies of THE CUT, and each will come with a bookmark in the shape of a hotel do-not-disturb doorknob hanger!

Part of THE CUT takes place on a Lake Erie beach overlooked by an ominous power plant. I based that place on a real beach near where I grew up, a beach with a power plant looming over it, a beach where I once saw something in the water that inspired the first little writing idea that grew into this book. Now I want to know about your own local, eerie places! Your haunted bridges, your cursed trees, your abandoned amusement parks, your—I don’t know—your evil dog houses? Surprise me with your local creepy lore! And if you have (and feel comfortable sharing) any personal unsettling experiences in your nearby uncanny locations? Even better!

HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY
After reading the rest of this post, including the nitty-gritty below, head over to the contact page on this very website, here, and send me a message telling me about the most scary location near you, or your own personal story about that scary location if you have one you’d like to share. My five favorite stories will each win one signed hardcover copy of THE CUT, one bookmark in the shape of a do-not-disturb hotel doorknob sign, and the option to have their story included in the next regular issue of my newsletter, C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch.

THE NITTY-GRITTY
- There is no fee or purchase of any kind necessary to enter this giveaway
- Entry into the giveaway does not guarantee a prize; only five entries will win
- This giveaway is open only to residents of the USA and Canada
- Entries must be sent through this website’s contact page, not through social media, e-mail, this post, etc.
- Entries must be submitted by the end of the day on April 1st, 2025
- Entries must include:
1. A 5,000-word-maximum recounting or story about a creepy place near you, in your own words (no plagiarism, no AI)
2. An email address at which I can contact you in case your story is one of the five winners
3. Indicate whether you would want your story, if it is a winner, to be featured in the next regular issue of my monthly newsletter, C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch. If you like, you may also include a brief 300-word-maximum bio in case your story is one of the winners.

Please note that I will only be reaching out to and notifying the five winners—if you do not hear from me by the end of the day on April 2nd, 2025, then please consider that an indication that your story, however creepy and fun, was not one of the winners.

And that about wraps it up! I look forward to reading your unsettling tales and learning about your eerie locations!

THE CUT comes out 4/8/25 and is currently available for pre-order here.

A Known Place Made Strange by Darkness

I grew up in a neighborhood that had begun its transition from rural to suburban sometime just before my family moved in, a neighborhood that was fully suburban by the time I moved out on my own. I then spent my early adulthood until my mid-thirties living in cities.

Now I live by the woods. The forest presses right up to the back of my house. I like the quiet here, I like the way everything looks and feels and smells.

And I like the way it scares me a little bit at night, when I leave my house after dark for one reason or another. There’s no streetlights on the road where I live. When it’s dark here, it’s really dark. Especially under the trees, leaning over my house, watching my small self as I move around at night.

Fear of the woods and what lives in the woods is probably one of our oldest human fears. When I walk outside at night and get that little shiver of discomfort, I feel like it’s something I share with the people who have come before me, all the way back to the first of us. And I think that this fear, of a place unknown or of a known place made strange by darkness, is probably one of the roots of storytelling.

When I go out near the woods alone at night and know that I’m safe but feel that cool touch of unease on the back of my neck anyway, it makes me feel storytelling’s connection to fear, and it makes me feel my connection to storytelling in a living, breathing way.

Man, now I want spring to come faster, so I could go camping and tell stories around a fire.

THE CUT is now available to request on NetGalley!

The title kind of says it all, doesn’t it? My debut horror novel THE CUT is now available to request on NetGalley!

You can find it at https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/446259 right now!

If you’re unfamiliar with NetGalley, it’s a website where publishers make eARCs (electronic Advanced Reader Copies) of soon-to-be-published books available for request so that people can read the book early and post their reviews online. Reviewer accounts are free to make, then you request a book, and if the publisher approves your request you get access to the eARC. The more books you read and review the higher your rate of approval. It’s a great website.
And I’m not just saying that because I think you should make an account and request THE CUT. (But you should make an account and request THE CUT, and I hope you dig it!)

THE CUT Cover Reveal!

Here’s the incredible cover for THE CUT!

The jacket designer is Olga Grlic and she did an incredible job. I simply cannot get enough of staring at this cover!

5 Stars for Ghost Station

In my perpetual hunt for haunted spaceships I was excited last year to find Dead Silence, S.A. Barnes’s space horror debut. If you haven’t read that one and you love horror and sci-fi, I definitely recommend it. After having read Dead Silence I went straight to twitter to look up the author and was delighted to see that she’s got another space horror book, Ghost Station.

I received an ARC of Ghost Station from Tor Publishing through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review of the book.

The book follows Ophelia Bray, daughter of an extremely wealthy and powerful family who run a company called Pinnacle. Her relationship with every last one of her family members except her sister is not just strained but extremely antagonistic, and that antagonism paired with her family’s Lords of Capitalism Assholery are a large part of what drove Ophelia to seek out a profession as a psychiatrist and to find a job working for her family’s company’s competitor, Montrose. But it’s Ophelia’s struggle with her own feelings of guilt that truly drive most of her decisions, including prompting her to take a very remote assignment for her company; the book opens with Ophelia preparing to enter cold sleep for a long interstellar trip out to accompany a corporate Reclamation and Exploration (R&E) team staking a claim for Montrose, on a far-flung planet once inhabited by now-extinct sentient life, while her family makes one final attempt to convince her not to go.

Her official reason for accompanying the R&E team is to act as an on-site psychiatrist in an effort to help reduce the risk of psychological problems arising from the stress, isolation, and long periods of cold sleep that their jobs entail, especially as this team has recently suffered the loss of a team member—a loss Ophelia suspects is more complicated than the team lets on.

The team themselves clearly don’t want Ophelia there, with reactions to her presence ranging from cool and aloof to openly hostile, with the exception of one team member who is portrayed as more vulnerable but also younger, less mature, and more naïve. It is with this inauspicious start that Ophelia finds herself descending with a mostly-hostile, secretive team to a poorly-understood, inhospitable alien planet, where things take a turn from bad to worse.

From the jump, the threading together of Ophelia’s openly acknowledged motivations and the secrets she keeps about her past is deftly handled. It’s immediately clear that there are some things that Ophelia not only refuses to talk about with others but also does her best to refuse engaging with in her own mind. The hints laid throughout the text early in the book give shape to those secrets without explicitly defining them, in a way that keeps interest without becoming annoying. The character interactions are well-written, varied, and keep the tension high even in between the scares. Clues are trickled out in a mix of obvious moments and more subtle hints that makes it easy for the reader to second-guess the situation in a way that feels intriguing and natural rather than obfuscating, and because of that it is easy too for the reader to understand oversights on the characters’ parts. All the pieces are woven throughout the narrative so that when it’s time to wrap the story up it feels neither painfully obvious nor contrived, and very satisfying.

The whole book was a fun, enjoyable, unsettling read, but there are two aspects in which I feel Barnes really excels.

First, throughout the book there is a growing sense of unease, dread, and even disgust. The team’s natural inclination to pranks, and their expectation of being pranked in turn, make it so easy for Ophelia and for the reader to feel wrong-footed throughout the first half of the book. Is this something to be concerned about, or is it the R&E team playing a joke? Is this something uncanny, or was it the previous team indulging in some malicious mischief? The book puts your guard up or gets your guard down by turns, so that the thing you can really expect is that whatever you’re looking at isn’t quite what it seems. It’s hard to pull off an unreliable narrator who the reader wants to believe in even if they can’t believe them, but Ophelia is just that. The book didn’t have the literary equivalent of jump-scares, but it didn’t need them, relying instead on an ever-increasing dread and paranoia that was deftly handled.

Second, the underlying theme of guilt—both earned and unearned, both resolved and unresolved—was powerfully woven. From guilt that was wrongly put on Ophelia’s shoulders by others, to undeserved guilt she assigns to herself, to the guilt she actually owns, Ophelia has a lot to face. The themes of guilt and accountability would be powerful enough if Ophelia only had to resolve her unearned feelings of guilt over situations that were out of her control, or if she only had to reckon with her actual complicity in situations which she could have changed but chose not to. But Barnes crafted a story in which Ophelia had to both forgive herself and let go of guilt that was not hers and accept and resolve guilt that she did have a part in. Doing both at once could have wound up clunky, but Barnes wove them together deftly in a way that caused each aspect of the guilt theme to highlight and strengthen the other, and resolved it satisfyingly. I was very impressed.

The only thing about the book that I wish had been different is more of a me-problem than anything else—my memory is so poor, and Barnes introduced a whole handful of corporate acronyms pretty quickly, which left me flipping back through pages to figure out what people were talking about more than once.

I’ll wrap it up by saying that I loved the way the resolution of the story felt tidy and well-resolved but still left enough threads open that I can sit here and hope for a sequel without feeling frustrated by the end of the book. Whether S.A. Barnes does write a direct sequel to this book or not, I absolutely hope that she gives me more of the space horror I crave.

This review has been an excerpt from the March 2024 issue of my newsletter, C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch. If you enjoyed it, check out the full issue here.