Soulgazer Readalong | Chapters 1-1
Hello and welcome to our Summer Readalong where we’ll be diving deep (pun intended) on the origin of my Celtic pirate story, the themes and why’s, and small writing choices that made a huge difference to the book over time.
Below, I’ll the post the same graphics I did on Instagram, but with the script below in case you have trouble reading over the images. If you’re curious about any aspects, we’ll have a Q&A box going up on my instagram this Friday, or you can DM them or comment here and I’ll do my best to respond!
It Started with a Dream
No, but really though. I had a dream around 2018, scribbled it down, and didn’t touch the idea again until 2021.
Key parts that remained:
Saoirse is unloved, but wants to be and tries so hard
Her father’s an asshat
She swims to the pirate ship, choosing that fate over the sad future waiting at home
What’s in a Name?
There is a world in which Saoirse could have been called Catriona and Faolan, Cillian—to which I say, yikes.
First Reactions/Notes
Early seeds of the marriage of convenience + her tricky relationship with her magic, both using it and denying it because she doesn’t trust her own power, can be found in the iPhone note screenshot above!
iPhone Note: Does Saoirse need to be tricking Faolan right back?? Are her parents so cruel that when he finds her at the Dahmsa Cuplala and marks his proposal in chapter 1, she needs to choose to own up to her magic though it’s been forbidden, just in a desperate bid to leave home??
I think that could work and make her more active from the start, kind of Anastasia-ish? Or maybe she doesn’t KNOW she has magic, or kind of vaguely remembers but it’s more a childhood thing but when Faolan proposes it to her, she accepts and they kiss just enough for someone to discover them and force the arranged marriage?! And then once they’re married and away from the island, he realizes she doesn’t have magic after all (or it’s hidden). Hmm.
Important fact: this book would not exist without my critique partner and best friend, Jaime Johnson (seen above).
Text Screenshot: “Ummmmm I think I need a new critique parnter. Like how the fuck am I supposed to help you when you give me THE DAMN STARRY NIGHT MAGPIE!!! CHAPTER ONE IS SO GOOD I CAN SEE IT LIKE A MOVIE YOUR BRAIN IS SO SMART AND BEAUTIFUL AND YOU MADE SOMETHING INCREDIBLE. I need to go back through and comment but DAMNNNNN WOMANNNN”
Response: Misty eyed emoji, sobbing emoji, “Nah, you’re stuck with me!” Heart and sparkle emoji and Dwight from The Office saying “Thank You.” "Like you have no idea HOW FUCKING RELIEVED I am right now!!! First person scares the shit out of me and so does this book.”
Magic & Soulstones part 1
I knew from day 1 that Saoirse’s magic needed to be internal—like a heightened sense of empathy, intuition or “knowing” she’s been taught not to trust. Someone who sees too much—feels too much—can be deemed dangerous to a system that operates on compliance & requires apathy to survive.
But her grief is important. Her desire to witness and heal. Especially in a world in which the dead cannot move on.
Magic & Soulstones part 2
The soulstones emerged as I wrote this during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Surrounded by fear and loss, I remember reading an article about the particular grief of being unable to gather and mourn our dead—necessary human rituals that allow us to process emotions as a collective.
And it stuck with me. “We are a people who cannot mourn for the dead cannot move on.” What did that look like, in a magical landscape? If power is in storytelling, what would it be like if our souls formed into stones on our tongues—without anyone to collect and share them after?
It would take someone who could sit in the loneliness of it. The grief and pain. Someone with sympathy magic, a gentle yetferocious heart and stubbornnature willing to collect them, and help them pass on.
A magpie.
Soft Girl Protagonist
Because of that magic, Saoirse has always been a soft girl in my mind — lonely, a little sad, yearning for adventure, love, and wildness and yet unable to trust herself enough to claim it (at least at first)
We’ll discuss the themes in depth over the new few weeks and the “why” of it all, but it was so important to me to let this be her story—even if it was frustrating to see her backpedal or hesitate, to chew on her words and self-soothe even as she’s stubborn, smart, and quietly brave.
In writing & revising, I had to find ways to give her active choices—a challenge when she’s been raised to be submissive and told passivity is the thing she should strive for. For that, I looked to Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle, and Irina from Spinning Silver, among others.
The Tattoo
One of those choices centered on the inverse triskele tattoo—a late but vital addition to the story when I revised it from YA to Adult in 2023.
“Saoirse yearns to be powerless.” That was the first line in my query letter, and it was the game-changer to unlocking her character. When given the painful, self-sacrificial option to submit to a tattoo that is supposed to permanently lock away her magic...she’s going to do it. That’s what she wants most after all.
And though she leaves before it’s complete, she takes the ink with her to finish it in case they don’t succeed.
In a funny way, this gave her agency—and challenges to work through as she unlearned harmful ideologies. It also, ironically, gave her a little power back when it came to her relationship with Faolan and the Isle of Lost Souls.
Power Imbalance
Saoirse & Faolan were always going to have a power imbalance in this series — something I loved playing with and challenging, starting from chapter 1.
When Saoirse first spots Faolan at the damhsa, she’s the only one to notice his tail (notably NOT a real one, it’s a masquerade). It’s the tiniest, silliest detail she fixates on—and an important one. Because she’s not immune to his charm and rock-star status as a notorious pirate, but it immediately gives her an advantage. She sees the flaws—the humanity in him—like no one else quite can.
So when it comes time to bargain, she knows exactly which hand to play: he has the most perceivable power as captain of the ship, secretive leader of this mythic expedition, but she is the key he needs, and she plays her hand every moment it counts most.
The Storm
This is the turning point—more than their first kiss, their bargain, or her running away to join his crew.
The storm in chapter 16 is the moment Saoirse “awakens” — not because of any compulsion by her magic, or impossible circumstances pressing in, but because for the first time in a long time, she’s allowing herself to be held by somebody. Leaning in rather than away.
Saoirse is touch-starved, distrustful of her body and its responses (see the Purity Culture blog next week), but in this moment when given the option to leave Faolan’s arms once the storm has cleared...she stays. Listens, asks questions, pushes back. She’s learned she has safety here—that she can bite back at Faolan and he’ll welcome it with a wild grin.