Grace H. Osborn
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gracehosborn.bsky.social
Grace H. Osborn
@gracehosborn.bsky.social
93 followers 59 following 47 posts
Historical Fiction writer telling epic stories from the 18th-19thC ✍🏻: an epic saga about Alexander Hamilton | Aspiring Historian | Visually impaired | Queer; Autistic

https://gracehosborn.carrd.co/
🧭Lost in Hamilton’s papers
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gracehosborn.bsky.social
Grace H. Osborn @gracehosborn.bsky.social · Dec 17
Hi, everyone! 👋
Thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Grace, and am currently working on an epic historical fiction saga about Alexander Hamilton. I love chocolate, the American Revolution, and cats!
You can find my website, quarterly newsletter, and other socials here: gracehosborn.carrd.co
gracehosborn.bsky.social
So this is what happens when I listen to my gut and feel my way through a scene with many moving parts. How could I have possibly written so many words? 😂

#historicalfiction #mywriting #amrev #18thC
Cropped image of a Scrivener file Editor, with a pop-up box covering the words. The black box displays in white text the words of the scene (6,240), Characters (34,381), and Characters without spaces (2,606).
August 2, 2025 at 10:34 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
When you’re researching for your #historicalfiction series & come across a letter from Hamilton to William Livingston (dated April 21, 1777) discussing Hamilton’s personal witness of an “examination” by Washington of a number of suspicious persons, it quickly becomes a very interesting research day.
July 9, 2025 at 1:11 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Being awoken at nearly 4 AM by a very intense scene idea for TAI, vol. 2 and then proceeding to write some 200 words about it for my future self while half awake into my Notes app was not how I thought the day would be started.

Being a creative is strange sometimes.

#histfic ##writingcommunity
June 22, 2025 at 7:30 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Oh, the things you find while flipping through the index to investigate some primary sources for your series. 😂

#writingcommunity #histfic #alexanderhamilton #18thC #18thcentury
Portion of the index of volume 9 of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Featuring Alexander Hamilton’s section in the index, “horses for,” is highlighted alongside corresponding page numbers.
June 4, 2025 at 4:03 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Yesterday turned into quite the writing session when I had to pull the brick of a book that is Gotham: A History of New York City To 1898 off my shelf to help with the setting of the chapter I’ve been working on. Lesson learned: setting is important!

#historicalfiction #18thC #writingcommunity
Against a bookcase full of an assortment of books, a hand holds up a copy of Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace's Gotham: A History of New York City To 1898. The book is angled slightly to the right, to showcase the thickness of the spine. In the foreground, a copy of Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace's Gotham: A History of New York City To 1898 lays open in my lap. Just behind, a black laptop rests upon a comforter, displaying an open Scrivener file. On the screen, the top portion showcases the main editor, with a scene in progress. The bottom half of the screen is taken up by a map of New York City, dated 1776, from the Library of Congress.
May 15, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Grace H. Osborn
bookspotlight.bsky.social
no YOU stayed awake the entire night rereading your wip
A man smoking. Text reads: ‘to me, that’s the best time to write.’
May 12, 2025 at 9:18 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
I absolutely love when, after reading a primary source for the first time, pieces of the plot puzzle for my Hamilton series click together clearly! It’s so satisfying.

Bonus: my cat decided she wanted to be a helper. 😊

#historicalfiction #amwriting #18thc #historicalresearch #historicaldocuments
Against a floral comforter, a copy of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 4, is open, showing the editorial introductory note to a document. To the right of the open book, a white and brown cat sits curled up, looking forward.
May 12, 2025 at 10:30 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
This is just a “I got to write for the first time in forever” post! The chapter of my A. Hamilton #histfic novel I’ve been working on has required me to reference both an #18thC map & Revolutionary War muster roll; I love how Scrivener lets me do this seamlessly. 🥰
March 29, 2025 at 7:50 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
I’ve been reading @williamhogeland.bsky.social’s “The Hamilton Scheme” to help take the first steps towards starting the outlining process for volume 4 of my #historicalfiction series about A.Ham, and the imagery in this paragraph made me laugh way too hard.

#writingcommunity #18thC #booksky
A paragraph from William Hogeland's "The Hamilton Scheme" which reads: Yet neither Madison's shrewd legal calculation nor Morris's realpolitik was getting the federal impost anywhere, and Hamilton could hardly believe his new degree of frustration. He'd hit the ground running into a brick wall. The war was effectively over, the first-step federal tax was dying, and with it all hopes for a Continentalist United States. Taking extreme positions might only cause backlash, he believed, yet the catastrophe he'd long predicted was looming, and there was nothing for him to do in the Congress but seethe.
March 16, 2025 at 7:40 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
I thought that yesterday, my research session flipping through The Papers of William Livingston would take only a few minutes. It took around an hour, and I left the library more stuck on this TAI chapter than I was when I started. 😂
#historicalfiction #AmRev #writingcommunity #writerproblems
March 2, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Grace H. Osborn
merriam-webster.com
Heavy is the book that has the words.
January 16, 2025 at 1:16 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
The amount of dedication I have for this novel: spending what has now become over an hour transcribing names off a 1776 muster roll--just for one chapter. The historian-in-training in me is coming out in full swing with this one.

#historicalfiction #AmRev #18thC #amwriting #writingcommunity #mywips
Screenshot of an open Scrivener file. On the left side, taking up a majority of the screen, is an image scan of a muster roll that is enlarged. On the right side is an open panel with a gold background. Notes and an ongoing transcription of the manuscript are written in white text.
January 13, 2025 at 2:49 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Wrote enough words in my #WIP today that I reached a palindrome total word count!
It’s the little silly things that make me smile. 😊

#writingcommunity #amwriting #historicalfiction #AmRev
January 8, 2025 at 2:01 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
I feel like it was inevitable that my attempt at a late-night research clarification session for TAI: Vol. I would lead me here, flipping through a modern bio and two volumes of AH’s papers. The joys of trying to resolve a plot conundrum….

#historicalfiction #alexanderhamilton #writingcommunity
Against a black, grey, and pink floral comforter sit three open books. To the bottom left, angled slightly, is a worn copy of Michael E. Newton’s Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years. To the right, overlapping the right page of the former, is a copy of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton: Volume I, edited by Harold C. Syrett. At the top left is a copy of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton: Volume II, edited by the same.
January 6, 2025 at 3:53 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Happy New Year!!! My goals for the year are:
- To finish Draft 1 of The American Icarus: Volume I.
- Outline more of volumes 2 and 3.
- Read a few titles off my TAI Research List.
- Clean up my website; maybe offer some fun goodies, but that depends on what you want to see!

#writingcommunity #goals
January 1, 2025 at 6:14 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Those moments when you own so many books that you forgot you had one sitting on the shelf, waiting to be plucked for this exact moment when the problem you’ve now run into with your novel has you stuck. 😂

#historicalfiction #amrev #writingcommunity
A partial view of a bookshelf with books stacked in the background that are shrouded in shadow. A copy of Mary Beth Norton’s 1774: The Long Year of Revolution is held towards the camera, leaning slightly against the books in the background.
December 31, 2024 at 6:35 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Made the classic mistake of walking into Half Price Books declaring that I wasn’t going to buy anything. But here we are. Absolutely loved the HBO miniseries, so I thought I’d finally pick up the bio it was based upon. Then I spotted the letters; my love of primary sources couldn’t resist the urge.
December 27, 2024 at 2:38 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
I just love when I find these little historical nuggets. Perfect way to open one of the last chapters of this novel if you ask me.

#historicalfiction #amrev #theamericanicarus #TAI #amwriting #writingcommunity
Note 3 of letter from George Washington to John Hancock, January 5, 1777 as seen on Founders Online. Part of the note is highlighted and reads: “The firing of an alarm gun about ten o'clock on the morning of 2 Jan. alerted the American troops at Trenton that the British were advancing toward the town from Princeton eleven miles to the northeast. Almost immediately the various regimental drummers began to beat the call to arms.”
December 24, 2024 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by Grace H. Osborn
kiraofthewind.com
Writing isn't a video game where you allocate your stats. You don't take points out of narrative writing or character development to slap it in worldbuilding. You can write a book/TTRPG/game/whatever that's amazing in every aspect you want to hit. You CAN do it all.
Meme of a guy pressing both buttons, one for "amazing worldbuilding" and one for "in-depth characters". Then he gives you the thumbs up. He is captioned as a "good writer"
December 23, 2024 at 10:55 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
It finally hit me today why this one chapter has been giving me grief: Alexander does not just have one want throughout the story. He has four! And they’re all at play in this chapter. Whee!

#historicalfiction #writingcommunity #writerproblems
a cartoon of ariel from the little mermaid is making a sad face and says sigh .
ALT: a cartoon of ariel from the little mermaid is making a sad face and says sigh .
media.tenor.com
December 20, 2024 at 8:57 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
When you start your day realizing that for a laundry list of reasons you need to split your current draft into two, resulting in your #histfic series potentially spanning 6 books instead of 5, it’s quite the morning.

The scale of this project is something I just can’t wrap my brain around.
December 19, 2024 at 6:17 PM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
We’re getting serious now with a deadline…. Maybe? ‘Tis self-imposed, but I finally think it’s time I try to hold myself accountable to finishing this draft. And, tonight’s session already has me four days ahead of my goal! So maybe writing non-linearly will prove beneficial?

#histfic #amwriting
December 19, 2024 at 5:14 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
My cat decided that she needed to help me write this chapter. Unfortunately, I have to report that many of her ideas (read: hand rubs) have not been very helpful, but the thought is appreciated.

#amwriting #cats #writingcommunity #histfic #amrev #writingproblems #latenightwrites
December 18, 2024 at 5:49 AM
gracehosborn.bsky.social
Broke ground on Chapter 47 and the date and location marker are chunkier than I had anticipated, but pacing demands. Hopefully it’ll be worth it. I’m super excited for this one, though Alexander surely will not be.

#histfic #amwriting #amrev #writingcommunity #18thC
Date and location marker for the chapter that reads: “December 25-26th, 1776. Solebury Township, Pennsylvania; Trenton, New Jersey.”
December 18, 2024 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Grace H. Osborn
stephmurraywrites.bsky.social
How does one come up with (steady) content for an author Instagram account if they're still in the writing/revising stage? Asking for a friend.

#writingcommunity
#writerlife
#writesky
#amrevising
December 18, 2024 at 12:30 AM