lilyfoxwriting

[lilyfoxwriting]

The Third Nemesis Book Is On The Way

So some people know but I haven’t made a formal announcement that I’m writing the third book in the Nemesis Trilogy, colloquially referred to as Dreadnought 3. The final title is yet to be settled on.

I do not know when it will be available. My hope is sometime in 2022, but I can’t promise that for certain right now.

The reason this is taking so long is that I had a huge mental health meltdown shortly after publishing the first book, and then I had to roll right into editing the second book (and I wasn’t fully happy with the final result but ran out of time) and then I fell apart and lost my day job and entered into an odyssey of serious disability.

Throughout this time, I never gave up on writing, but I did find a repeated pattern of writer’s blockage cropping up whenever a project began to mature past a few scribbled notes. Every time I got to the first major “turn” in the story, I’d come down with a severe case of choice paralysis.

There were ten thousand bad ideas I had for Dreadnought 3, and it feels like I worked through all of them. Hopefully, the ones I’ve settled on are the good ideas I knew must be down at the bottom of the pile somewhere. This book, if I can pull it off, is going to be amazing.

I have started to recover. I am starting to write again. Dreadnought 3 is on the way. Thank you everyone for your patience.

[lilyfoxwriting]

No we may not!

[lilyfoxwriting]

I swear Marisha is TRYING to kill the lesbians

sweatingtowelguy.jpg

[lilyfoxwriting]

They are old guys

[lilyfoxwriting]

[lilyfoxwriting]

some writer snob somewhere: Do not start sentences with But or And because doing so is grammatically incorrect.

me, writing my fic: But I don’t care. And you can’t stop me.

[lilyfoxwriting]

Break I/O

By Lily Fox

Cw violence, blood, death, heights and falling from them

Joelle gunned the throttle over her hoverbike to overtake the garbage truck, squeezing between its side and the skyway's central divider. rain lashed a helmet visor and beat up on her leathers but her thoughts were laser-focused on her destination. The Wrench-heads had taken someone close to her and she would not be merciful.

Headlights and red-blue police beacons fast all around overwhelmed now and then by the neon glow of holo-signs advertising cars and surgery and bottled happiness, all the things people couldn't afford but told themselves they needed.

At last Joelle saw her turnoff. She slammed the bike right, cutting across a truck that blared its horns angrily, and pumped the repulsors. The bike jumped off the road and sailed through the city night towards the dhining mirrored windows of 37 Albemarle Boulevard.

The window shattered all around her. The bikes front repulsor arch struck the frame and catapulted her forwards. She landed, rolling, upon a long table in a meeting room and tumbled right up onto her feet, twin machine-pistols already in hand.

Confused shouts of alarm went up around her and Wrenchers lifted their firearms to engage Joelle. They barely had time to cock their weapons before Joelle's aim snapped for one to the next to the next and, with six sharp bursts of fire that lit the room up like strobe lighting, they dropped to the hardwood flooring.

She paused only a heartbeat in the silence before running on. She barged through the door and tore down the corridor. The way was lit only by faint red emergency lights but the tower's schematics overlayed on Joelle's vision showed her the way.

She encountered no resistance until she approached the elevator bank. Two hulking Wrenchers opened up with automatic fire, peppering the corridor all along Joelle. She leapt from the floor to run along one wall, bounded to the other, and jumped over the first enforcer's head, all the way avoiding the bullets that tore craters out of every surface they hit.

Dropping to the floor, she pulled the legs out from under one Wrencher with a sweep of her legs. The other dropped his aim, the muzzle pointed right at her head. Joelle span aside and the spray of lead tore his companion's torso and augmented arm to bloody confetti. The thunderous barrage only stopped when Joelle slammed a flash-fabricated blade between his vertebrae. She twisted and pulled it out once more with a wet pop. With a twitch of synthetic muscle, the blade shot back through her wrist to rest inside her forearm.

Joelle stood. In her vision, a red tracker blinked far above on some penthouse level. There was no time to take the stairs. She needed another way.

The down arrow above one of the elevators began to flash. Someone was coming to her.

Joelle forced her fingers between the doors of an adjacent elevator and pulled them open. Beyond, the shaft was empty. Far above she could see the elevator car one land over descending with purpose.

She slipped the pistols in their holders and leapt for the cables ahead. She climbed in the darkness one hand over the other and legs hanging free. At the perfect moment, as the neighbouring car passed, she swung and jumped to land atop it.

Many voices from before shouted in surprise and bullets ripped through the car ceiling, leaving spears of light in their wake. Joelle made herself as narrow as possible and, by some miracle, came away with only ricochets and dents over her synthetic body, though she was sure her leathers were ruined.

The storm fell silent as their magazines ran dry. The Wrenchers hurried to reload. With gritted teeth, Jodie took hold of one thick cable and, drawing a pistol in the other hand, shot out first the breaks then the bottom of the cable itself.

The Wrenchers’ screams were lost in the howling of metal and the air rushing past Joelle's ears as she was pulled upwards at incredible speed. Floors shot by, ten, twenty in a blink, until the shaft ceiling approached and Joelle flung herself against the wall. She grabbed desperately for purchase as she first rose and then fell again. Fail here and she would fall 120 floor back to ground level.

For one terrible moment she knew she would not make it, then through fingers of her right hand caught upon a lip of steel. It buckled under her sudden weight but gave her just enough resistance to get a firm hold on a studier concrete outcropping.

Joelle pulled apart the door and hauled herself up onto the penthouse floor. The bright lights and glaring glass and marble blinded her until her eyes adjusted and she found herself in an unnervingly silent hall. The tracker still flashed a floor above. She was so close.

She took a careful step forwards. The elevator door closed behind her. Two dozen Wrenchers stepped into view from behind columns and plinths, weapons ready and trained upon her. Too many to fight at once and they had the drop on her and her back against a wall.

It was over.

With ten weapons or more levelled upon her at all times, Joelle allowed herself to be stripped of her guns, her knives, the tools upon her belt and hidden in her boots. Her helmet was removed. All the while she did not speak. Neither did her captors until they prodded her forward towards a curving glass staircase.

“He wants to see you.”

Surrounded at every step, Joelle was led up the stairs and through two sets of guarded, mag-sealed doors into the Boss’ office. The navy beacon disappeared, Joelle having arrived at her destination.

The Boss, infamous, intelligent and brutal leader of the Wrench-heads, stood by the room's great floor-to-ceiling window, looking over the city to the distant boundary wall upon the horizon. At eight feet of muscle and steel, he was every bit the horror stories made or him. In one colossal hand he gripped the objective of Joelle's infiltration, fingers tight around their head like an apple.

“Jo,” Kora said with a tear-filled gasp, “I knew you'd come.”

Joelle's guards spread out to line the room. One Wrencher placed her helmet upon the Boss's grand desk, like a trophy.

“It's going to be okay, baby,” Joelle said. Her face was set, cold and inscrutable.

“At last, I have plucked the thorn from my side.” The Boss growled each word, grinning darkly. “I don't know what objections you have to my business and, frankly, I don't care. As you have been unmoved by my generous offers of credits or collaboration in my endeavours, you have forced my hand.”

He flexed the thick steel digits of his hand and Kora whined in renewed pain.

“I trust the continued well being of your lover is important to you, so let me be clear. You will do as I instruct, to the letter, I shall not make this person's existence a living hell. Do we have an understanding?”

Across the length of the room, Joelle and Kora shared a long look. Kora gave the smallest of nods allowed by the vice-like grip around her head, and Joelle knew the answer.

“Fuck you.”

With lightening speed, Joelle's arm snapped up and launched a blade dead at the Boss's head. His heavy arm blocked it, moving just as quickly despite its great size. She launched two more in rapid succession, missing the Boss and sending a spiders web of cracks racing across the window behind him.

“I wanted to be reasonable with you, but you- AHHAHAHHAHHHHAHHH!!!”

His body, flesh and machine both, convulsed as electricity arced from the blade, embedded in his arm, and crackled over every inch of him. His clamped tight around Kora's head and it, and the rest of her body and clothes, turned to a shimmering silver liquid. A moment later they reformed, unharmed and free from the Boss's grip.

“Open fire!” The shout went up and the Wrenchers’ guns snapped up but Joelle was already running. She slid over the desk, grabbed Kora around the waist and, with bullets striking across her back and all around, Joelle ran through the window into open air and a 500m drop.

They fell screaming with exhilaration and joy through the neon city, gunfire fading away behind them. They narrowly avoided a delivery drone, then a high-altitude car. The lower levels were quickly rising up to meet them and exhileration turned to anxiety growing towards panic.

Joelle saw their chance for a safe landing and, with the control surfaces of her artificial body, redirected their path to land atop a passing sky-train. They came down hard and, though Joelle punched a handhold in the roof, Kora slipped away screaming.

Joelle grabbed out towards her with her free hand, not far enough, but Kora stretched out her arm to twice it's normal length and their hands held each other tight. Joelle pulled them up and the two kissed at last.

“Jo! You saved me!” Kora shouted over the wind.

“Baby, I'm so sorry!” Tears streamed down Joelle's cheeks. “It's my fault the Boss went after you.”

“Shhh, no, it's not your fault. But won't he come after us again?”

“Maybe, but this will slow him down!”

Joelle slipped a small, thin remote from her breast pocket. She looked back to the tower from which they had jumped, now rapidly diminishing as the train sped away. She pressed the remote's single button and in the same moment a blast of fire and debris burst from the penthouse window as the high-explosives packed into the lining of Joelle's helmet detonated.

She looked back at Kora with all the love in her titanium heart.

“Come on, baby, let's get breakfast.”

[lilyfoxwriting]

dnd spell: vicious mochrie - summons an enraged balding canadian to improv melee damage at your enemies (roll for comedic effect)

[lilyfoxwriting]

Please tow

No park

Only tow

Tow zone

Boston, Massachusetts - 8/13/12

[lilyfoxwriting]

Make a Vampire character who’s lived through several waves of the common language’s development and can’t let go if certain gramatical habbits from different time eras.

So like, thou ist a horrid creature, an absolute cur, but go off i guess

[lilyfoxwriting]

I'M HAVING A BAD TIME TOO

Fic writers with weekly updates: I’m sorry this 12k chapter is so short and took me so long!

Me, thinking about the 43 words I took 5 months to write: what the actual fuck

[lilyfoxwriting]

Come on, SBA author! What happens next???

being a fan of your own ocs is frustrating because you literally have to rely on your own productivity for any content

[lilyfoxwriting]

Writing Again (and free sample!)

[Cross posted from https://www.patreon.com/posts/writing-again-17394022]

Life comes at you fast, huh?

As those who follow my twitter may no, I really struggled last month for a while host of reasons, not least of which was a mental break. But I'm back and writing again!

I PROMISE to you, you will get a completed short story this month as you should expect.

To wet your appetite for Bunny #3, Bunny and the Desert Queen, here is a freely available sample from that story.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FZL35wcDlABw6rGBc0lbcJRNxf5xi4dCurWRUTixzas/edit?usp=sharing

[lilyfoxwriting]

My main problem as a writer is that I don’t write because “I have a story to tell”. I write because there are worlds I want to visit, ideas I want to explore, people I want to meet, conversations I want to hear, emotions that I want to express, and impossibilities I want to make real.

Which means that I still need a fucking plot.

[lilyfoxwriting]

Heyyyyy did you happen to get published/self-publish/post to your blog a short story with trans/nb/intersex themes in 2017? Good news! Lethe Press is now open for submissions to the Years Best Trans Stories anthology! I just sent in a story with a nonbinary merperson, because that’s how I roll. You’ve got until March 10th, 2018 to join me in submitting.

Link to the call for submissions [here]

Link to the editor’s Q&A (from last year, but e linked to it again this year) [here]

[lilyfoxwriting]

Description: Making Representation Obvious

Sometimes you have to code characters, either because the terms they use to describe themselves don’t exist (like secondary world fantasy), or because they haven’t found the words themselves yet (undiagnosed illnesses and disabilities). But if at all possible, you should make it clear who these people are and own that you’re putting them in the story.

Even if you actively can say that somebody is part of a certain group, you still have to make sure you’re not -washing them in the narrative. Be it whitewashing, straightwashing, abledwashing, or any sort of situation where you say one thing, but the story itself doesn’t reflect that.

Here are some things to consider that will help you make it obvious that…

This character is PoC

Describe:

Skin tone (just don’t use food metaphors)

Hair texture/colour (especially black hair)

Most commonly eaten foods at home

Microaggressions

Cultural clues that they would have (either assimilated or not, because both will have tells)

Their opinion of white people/things outside of their experience

This character is LGBTQA+

Describe:

Who they’re attracted to (or lack thereof)/past crushes (or lack thereof)

Their circle of friends (seriously, we travel in packs, I know like five straight people)

For trans characters: hormones, binders, packers, breast forms, tucking. Also, for more subtle clues, pronoun asking, euphoria at gender affirming things (like them being proud of their particularly dapper, feminine, or ‘I have no idea what gender that is but I like it’ style), dislike of off-gender things (like complaining about somebody getting them something that doesn’t match how they like to present)

The actual orientation that they are, for crying out loud

Their opinion of straight people/things outside of their experience

This character is disabled

Describe:

Their disability. Preferably in the actual labels, or make up your own labels for a secondary world fantasy

Any mobility, hearing, or speaking aids

Behaviours that come with the disability (ie- stimming such as rocking or flapping for autistic/ADHD people, navigating through appropriately wide paths for wheelchairs/walkers, sitting on one side of the group conversations to make sure their good ear catches it, etc)

Levels of aid needed and any accommodations

Avoiding things that trip them up (like somebody autistic not wanting to go where it’s crowded, a wheelchair user avoiding curbs, a Deaf person making sure there’s a sign language interpreter at a concert, somebody with celiac avoiding gluten like the plague)

Plan cancelling because it’s a bad day, or having to leave early because the environment is bad

Medications, doctors, etc, if applicable

Self care rituals for after a long day or during a flare up

Their opinion of abled people/things outside of their experience

This character is mentally/chronically ill

Describe:

Their symptoms, from good to messy, consistently

Their energy levels, as many of us use the spoon theory

Self care rituals they practice during flare ups or after hard days

Medication, doctors, therapies, etc

Cancelling plans because a bad day came up, or having to leave early because the environment is bad

Triggers and their individual reaction to their triggers

Their opinion of well people/things outside of their experience

And so on. These lists are not meant to be exhaustive at all, but they are meant to get you thinking about how you need to go about describing representation.

One thing to note: you can go about establishing representation in one of two ways. Either have the characters noting their differences, or them nothing others’ differences. Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys describes white skin when it appears, because within the narrator’s world, black skin is the norm. But others note their own differences. It’s all about their character.

Either one requires a lot of careful thought and sensitivity readers, but both are valid* options for owning** representation.

Followers, feel free to add more!

*Do be aware that some groups are chronically under-represented when it comes to the actual word of their identity. Bisexual people hardly have characters say the word as their identity. Autistic people also hardly have characters say the word as their identity. Be very careful of not having characters talk about themselves if the group is prone to being coded but not explicitly represented

**You have to actually own it and say they’re that when people put all the clues you left together

Thanks for reading! If you liked this content, please consider supporting me on patreon. It’ll get you access to a bunch of cool stuff!

[lilyfoxwriting]

You know why I write, read, play D&D and video games, watch TV and movies? TO HAVE FUN. I don’t want to think about sexism and racism, I want everyone to be able to see themselves as heroes, adventurers, blacksmiths, and wizards. Xenophobia comes up, yes, but the players/readers always have the opportunity to fight back and crush the fascism that creates and spreads such prejudices.

whats the point of fantasy novels if youre still going to treat women like shit