Behind the scenes: Julie

Julie Zaitsu was not born into privilege. She wasn’t raised with safety nets or backup plans. She grew up in the Earth orphanage system, and she learned fast that the universe wasn’t designed to protect kids like her.

She survived because she had to.

What makes Julie special is this: she never let the cruelty she saw become who she was.

Even in the orphanage she fought for herself, yes, but she also fought for her things because they were hers. Her effort. Her progress. Her mind. Everything she owned, she built herself.

Nisus recognised her genius early and recruited her. She rose fast, too fast for comfort. She didn’t play politics well because she refused to lie. She believed the truth should be enough. That made her dangerous. Beatrice exploited that. She stole Julie’s work, her credit, her future, and nearly had her killed.

Julie survived that too.

This is where most people get her wrong. They think she’s just cold now. Or ruthless. Actually, she’s guarded.

She knows what betrayal feels like on a cellular level, so she tests people. She watches how they behave under pressure. She chooses who to trust sparingly.

And then the Sonata crew happened.

For the first time in her life, Julie encountered people who didn’t just want to use her. They wanted her to belong. They treat her like one of their own. They push back when she’s too sharp. They challenge her. They stand up for her.

Julie is learning, slowly, painfully, that family isn’t a vulnerability. It’s armour.

She is still brilliant. Still cunning. Still capable of outplaying entire corporations. But now she is trying to be good on purpose, not just efficient. She cares. And she’s starting to realise caring is not a weakness.

---

Read more in Sinking Galaxy:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FY46RBMM?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apan_dp_JA4Q4XHXYWYBVNQMKGP6&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apan_dp_JA4Q4XHXYWYBVNQMKGP6&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apan_dp_JA4Q4XHXYWYBVNQMKGP6&bestFormat=true&dplnkId=26f305f5-2c12-4229-8ed0-a0769ac61465

Behind the Scenes: Thomas

Thomas is a believer.

He wants tomorrow to be better than today. He wants people to have chances. He wants the universe to be more than money, contracts and corporate ownership.

He is a hopeful soul who still wants to explore for the sake of it. He wants to see what is out there, not because there is a payout waiting at the end, but because there is meaning in simply discovering something new.

The part of him that hates the corporations comes from personal loss. He knows what they take. He knows the cost of their decisions. It taught him that freedom matters. It taught him that people matter more than profit.

Thomas leads because he cares.

He listens. He supports. He pushes for a future that is more than survival.

He is not done trying.

A Lesson in Greed and Rain

Every village has its own strange little stories. Some are about ghosts, others about old buildings that seem to hold bad luck. The one that stuck with me wasn’t about a haunting, but about a roof.

There used to be a big house in the village where I grew up. It had a beautiful thatched roof, the kind that made people stop and stare. The man who owned it was very wealthy and very proud of it. He cared for that roof as if it were alive.

Before he died, he told his children one thing: never change the roof.

No one knew why. Maybe it was just sentimentality, or maybe he believed the house’s luck was tied to it. But when he passed away, some of his fortune was missing. His children searched everywhere and found nothing. Eventually, they convinced themselves that their father must have hidden the money in the roof he loved so much.

So they destroyed it.

They pulled down the thatch, tore apart the beams, and searched every inch. There was nothing there. No treasure. No secret hoard. And soon after, tragedy struck the family. Each of the children, one after another, met some misfortune or early death.

Some people said it was coincidence. Others said it was a curse for their greed and for breaking their father’s last wish. Whatever it was, the house was never the same again.

I first heard this story from a teacher when we were on a school history walk through the village. It was a rainy day, the sort where your shoes fill with water and everything smells like wet earth. We stopped outside where the house once stood, and she told us the tale. I remember being cold, soaked through, and completely transfixed.

It’s funny what stories stay with you. That one never left my head. Maybe because it says something simple: some things are better left alone.

The Value of Small Improvements

We tend to expect change to arrive in big, cinematic moments — a breakthrough, a revelation, a sudden shift where everything finally clicks. But in reality, progress is quieter. It happens in the background, through repetition and patience.

Small, incremental improvements are where the real work gets done. Writing a few hundred words a day, taking a short walk, reading a few pages — these aren’t glamorous habits. They don’t feel transformative in the moment. But given time, they reshape who you are and what you can do.

There will be days when you miss one. When you don’t write, or you skip the workout, or you simply don’t have the energy. That’s fine. Missing a day isn’t failure — it’s part of the rhythm. What matters is that tomorrow, you return to it. Consistency isn’t perfection; it’s persistence.

James Clear puts it well in Atomic Habits: small habits are “the compound interest of self-improvement.” The gains are invisible at first, but they accumulate quietly. That’s why keeping some kind of metric helps — a word count, a streak, even a checklist. Not as a punishment, but as a way to see what your effort is building over time.

Patience is the hardest part. We live in a culture obsessed with immediate results, but growth is rarely visible in the short term. A month feels like nothing, six months feels uncertain — and then suddenly, a year has passed and the results are undeniable.

The truth is that small steps are the only ones that last. Big changes burn bright and fade. But the slow, steady work of daily effort endures.

So don’t worry about missing a day. Don’t expect fireworks. Just show up, again and again, and let time do what time does best — turn small things into something meaningful.

Lost is Out Now

I’m really excited to share that my new sci-fi adventure Lost is now available on Kindle.

You can find it here: https://amzn.eu/d/5anA8Y3

Set in the far reaches of space, Lost follows Captain Thomas and the crew of the Sonata, a ship that looks like an ordinary freighter but hides more than a few surprises. When a simple escort mission turns into a running battle with pirates, the crew discover a clue to one of the galaxy’s greatest mysteries — the disappearance of the legendary cruise ship Achelois.

As they chase fragments of the past across asteroid fields and forgotten systems, the crew are pulled into a web of secrets that will test their courage, loyalty and luck. What they find beneath the silence of space might change everything.

If you enjoy fast-paced sci-fi with tight-knit crews, mystery, humour and heart, you’ll feel right at home aboard the Sonata.

Lost is the start of a new series that blends space adventure with human stories about trust, survival and the cost of chasing what was never meant to be found. It’s full of sharp dialogue, cinematic action and the kind of found-family dynamic I love to write.

You can read it now on Kindle: https://amzn.eu/d/5anA8Y3

Ringu – The Original That Started It All

 I remember the first time I saw Ringu. It was for a class on horror cinema, and our teacher wanted us to experience it properly — on the big screen. We took a trip to a large theatre, the kind where the sound fills every corner and the darkness feels absolute. Sitting there among my classmates, I was transfixed. From the first static flicker of that cursed videotape to the chilling final scene, I was terrified — but completely captivated.

The premise is deceptively simple: a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it seven days later. Journalist Reiko Asakawa begins investigating after a string of mysterious deaths, only to discover that she herself has been cursed. With the help of her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama, she sets out to uncover the origins of the tape and the story of the girl behind it — Sadako Yamamura.

What struck me most, even on that first viewing, was how quiet the film is. Ringu doesn’t rely on jump scares or gore. Its power lies in restraint. Everything about it feels muted — the washed-out colours, the measured pacing, the way the camera lingers just a little too long on an empty hallway. The unease builds slowly, almost imperceptibly, until you realise you’ve been holding your breath.

I remember how the sound design amplified that dread. The low hum of static, the faint echoes of water, the eerie distortion of the cursed tape — all of it works together to create a sense of something malignant pressing in from just beyond the frame. Then, when the film reaches its climax, the volume surges and the atmosphere becomes suffocating. The horror takes on a new intensity, as if the film itself has been possessed by Sadako’s rage.

Watching Ringu in a cinema full of students was an unforgettable experience. There was a collective stillness in the room — nobody laughed, nobody moved. When the screen went black, there was a long silence before anyone dared to speak. It wasn’t just fear; it was awe.

The film has since become legendary, spawning countless remakes, including the American The Ring. But nothing compares to the original. There’s a raw, lingering sense of doom that no remake has ever captured. Ringu isn’t just about a cursed videotape — it’s about the unstoppable spread of fear itself, passed from person to person, screen to screen.

Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie

 I’ve just finished Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie and it’s one of those books that lingers. Not in the sense of jump scares or gore, but in the way it seeps into your head and quietly unsettles you long after you’ve put it down.

The premise is simple on the surface but slippery underneath: back in the late 1990s, a group of young filmmakers come together to make a low-budget horror movie. They’ve got ambition, energy, and a kind of reckless belief that they can make something unforgettable. And they do—but not for the reasons they intended. The film never truly gets released, only whispered about in underground circles, and what happened during production leaves scars that the cast and crew carry for decades.

The book picks up years later, when one of the surviving actors finds himself being interviewed, asked to revisit the past. From there, Tremblay shifts us back and forth—between the chaotic shoot days of the film, with all the tensions and strange occurrences piling up, and the present, where the survivors are left to reckon with what it all meant. I really enjoyed this alternating structure. At one point you’re caught up in the raw energy of these kids trying to make art, and the next you’re in the now, staring at the wreckage and wondering what broke these people.

What makes it so compelling is how ordinary it begins. It’s not about vampires or haunted houses. It’s about the process of making a film, with all its clashing egos, bad decisions, and flashes of brilliance. But slowly—so slowly—you start to notice the cracks. A scene goes too far. Someone begins to act strangely. And then the unease ratchets up another notch. Tremblay builds dread in the same way The Ring does (still one of my favourite horror films). It’s a slow burn, but it keeps climbing, tightening the screws, until there’s a moment of no return. A tipping point where fear transforms into something else. When the story shifts from being about people making a horror movie, to being about them living in one.

That’s the clever trick here: the monster isn’t just in the story they’re filming, it’s in the making of the story itself. And by the time you reach the conversion moment—the crossing of the line—you realise the book has been tightening around you the whole time.

I don’t want to give too much away, because this is definitely a book best experienced without spoilers. Part of the tension comes from not knowing exactly where it’s headed, only feeling the dread coil tighter with every chapter.

If you like horror that trusts you to be patient, that doesn’t rush its reveals but instead layers on unease until you’re practically vibrating with it, Horror Movie is absolutely worth your time. It’s not just about scares, it’s about memory, trauma, and the way stories consume the people who tell them.