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teehee >:3c

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Roha is very generous with his use of the word "tackled" 🥰

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Episode 92, Pairs, is now up on Webtoon Canvas!

You can read Rose Tide Rising for free here ^_^

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Throwback to one of my fave RTR scenes :3 Oh how far these two have come...

You can read the full comic for free here!

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Happy STS!

What's the funniest scene/line you think you've written?

Happy Solstice!! (I think that's what STS stands for? 😅)

omg this is such a fun question, thank you for asking!! It's also a very difficult question, because it made me confront the fact that I basically never write anything funny ;_;

Truthfully, I'm not very skilled at writing jokes, but I think I am good at sprinkling humour into non-funny scenes, if that makes sense. I usually write quite intense and earnest subject matter, but I try to always make it fun to read ^_^ So instead of having any good standalone lines, I end up with a funny vibe more than an actual funny scene.

Probably one of the funniest characters I've ever written is Peggy, the "woman of the house" in The Water Dog. Peggy is essentially the matriarch of her community, a grand, elderly woman who always says exactly what she means to. Peggy is cunning, devious, and generally just a lot of fun in every scene she's in.

A bit of a running joke (if it can be called that) in the novel, is that Kennedy, an army Sergeant with a gun on his person, is always the absolute height of gentlemanly to Peggy, and she basically just bullies him for being nice to her. When I say it like that, it really doesn't sound fun, but I do think it's quite funny to read in-text.... Up to a point ;3c

In this scene, Peggy has just come inside, dripping wet from the storm raging in from the ocean:

“Help me to the kitchen, ainnir.” Peggy waddled awkwardly under the weight and discomfort of her soggy wool clothes. “I'll warm myself by the range.” “There's water heating on the fire-” Sybil started. Kennedy, sharing that thought, had already stood. “I'll fill the bath for you,” he said to Peggy. “Go and warm up, I'll call when it's ready.” “Ah, thank you,” Peggy nodded feebly. She could not resist adding under her breath, “...Mustachioed pest.”

And later in the same scene, when Kennedy comes back:

“The bath is ready for you, Peig,” Kennedy said gently. “Will you be alright getting up the stairs?” “The cheek,” Peggy tutted as she laboured to her feet, apparently oblivious to the fact that the conversation was not over, Sybil was not satisfied, and she had not answered enough. Instead, she hobbled past the speechless young woman and bat a hand against Kennedy's shoulder as she went out. “Can I get up the stairs – I climbed a mountain today, as well you know. Bold little bollox.”

I guess what I'm saying here is... I find it very funny when elderly people are needlessly abusive to nice young people?? A niche sense of humour, but that's what I got 😅

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Episode 91 of Rose Tide Rising is now up on Webtoon Canvas!

Read the whole series for free here ^_^

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Aaaand a lil compilation of Rose being protective of Roha ;3

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Just a lil compilation of Roha being

✲ﾟ｡⋆❤⃛ೄ Protective ✲ﾟ｡⋆❤⃛ೄ

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The Water Dog is a prose novel I'm working on - by which I mean, it's not a comic/illustrated story - but thanks to the encouragement of some lovely followers I thought it would be fun to introduce people to the central characters of the book ^_^

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"Oh, how keenly you do court martyrdom."

A little art from my novel, The Water Dog ^-^ surely I'll be motivated to write if I procrastinate by drawing... Right?

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How to say "I love you" when you're allergic to saying "I love you"

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If the Water Dog was a visual novel (it isn't)

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My Webtoons Contest entry is officially up! If you enjoy RTR, Hawthorne, or any of my other stories, I hope you'll consider checking it out. A big part of the judging is reader engagement, so if you deigned to leave a like and a comment it would go a long way and I would grovel in appreciation 🙏🥰

Cherish Meadows is a vapid, spoiled heiress who can't quite seem to be satisfied with her life.

She launches a contest to win her hand in marriage as a vanity project - a way to feel like a princess, being courted by the fairytale knights of old.

Little does she know, there's a man in the running who can't afford to lose...

Silas Cedar us a self-serious, hard working ex-soldier. When the Meadows Corporation threatens to destroy his community, he will do whatever it takes to stop them.

... Even pretend to fall in love...

And it IS just pretend.... Right? 👀

The Contest is only a 3 episode entry for the competition and you can read it for free

HERE!

I would love to continue this project if I get shortlisted (but I'm not holding my breath haha)

In the meantime, if you enjoy it please consider leaving a like and comment to let me know! I spent the most of 2 months drawing this and it would mean a lot to me to read your thoughts in the comments on Webtoon ^_^

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Her name is Nuta and she's a necromancer who can only summon animals :)

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Episode 90 of Rose Tide Rising is now up on Webtoon Canvas!

Read the whole thing for free here ^_^

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Episode 89, Reward, is up on Webtoon Canvas!

You can read the whole story for free here ^_^

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I know absolutely nothing about the publishing world so forgive me if this is the stupidest question ever, but I was wondering why you're aiming for traditional over self publishing? Is it cause of the marketing publishing firms do, or cause you want TWD to be a physical book (which I assume isn't possible in self publishing without a lot of money), or something else? I'm thinking about the self publishing success of Wool/Silo (and no smut like you said about TWD!) but I know that's probably super rare

it's not a stupid question at all! Self publishing and traditional publishing are two different routes towards a similar goal, they both have advantages and disadvantages and it really depends on the author for what they're going for.

Needlessly detailed breakdown of self pub vs trad pub under the cut:

Self publishing can be very attractive for creators with a small but passionate online following. It allows fans of your work to support you financially and have their own copy (digital or physical) of your book! It also gives the author a higher cut of the sales revenue their book makes. Royalty rates vary based on a bunch of factors (what publisher you use, what paper you print on, how many pages your book is etc) but here's a breakdown by McZell Book Writing (as of 2023):

But there are also some significant disadvantages to self publishing. For starters, ALL the marketing is on you. You don't have the machine of traditional publishing pushing your book. It's not going to be in brick and mortar bookstores, it's not going to have publicists and advertising campaigns, it's only going to reach as many people as you, the individual author, are able to reach. And of those people it reaches, only a small percentage will actually pay money for it.

Statistically, most self published authors sell less than 100 books during the entire lifetime that book is on sale. At least, that's what all the agents and writing forums on the internet tell me -and it's probably correct. And once you've self published, it becomes exponentially harder to sell that book to a trad publisher should you change your mind in the future.

Additionally, though your royalties are markedly less with traditional publishing, you're also likely to have an advance* - a lump sum the publisher gives you in good faith, which your royalties are then deducted from. Let's say a publisher pays you a $50k advance for your first book (that's slightly less than the average for a debut, according to google). Well, that's money that you can use to pay the bills while you write your NEXT book, which you'll hopefully sell to the publisher for even more money. This has an obvious appeal over self publishing, where you have to fight and claw to sell every single copy for that $5 cut. Basically, instead of quitting your job and using that advance to write for a year, with self publishing you'll have to keep your full time job, and take on the second full time job of marketing and selling your book, AND the third job of trying to write your next book. Glamorous, it is not.

(*Important acknowledgement that publishers are capitalist enterprises and there's many reasons they fuck with an author's advance, delay paying out, or simply don't pull their weight on the marketing side of things. There are many instances of publishers failing to pay out an advance for up to TWO YEARS after the book has hit shelves. I've mostly seen this done to women of colour, and I do think that's a factor in this fuckery. Having a trad publisher is not a guarantee that you'll have meaningful financial stability or industry support. Essentially, authors are being fucked on all sides)

Now, with self publishing, you DO have more control over the story! You can prioritize the story you want to tell without worrying about what the market research team in Penguin Randomhouse thinks. I have seen horror stories of authors being told "We like the story, but the queer characters aren't relatable, axe them" by the publisher they're in submission with. Trad publishers are also notoriously fickle, and can change their mind at any point in the process - basically until that book is printed and on the shelves, it doesn't matter how much interest they're showing you. They can and do back out of deals. I saw one absolutely heartbreaking case of an author who had been in submission with a trad publisher for over 8 months and had done 3 rounds of edits that they'd requested and was waiting for the final feedback, when they called her and told her they weren't going to move forward with her book because she didn't have a large enough online following. I cannot IMAGINE the spiral of despair that would send me down. But that's the publishers prerogative - their job is to make money, and that is how they look at the books they receive for consideration.

However, there are also significant limits to your control with self-publishing. For one, Amazon is practically your ONLY route to self publish, whether you like it or not. Vanity Presses (publishers you have to pay to get your book printed) are scams who prey on naive authors that are blinded by aspiration and don't realise they're being conned. IngramSpark isn't UNattractive as a self-pub option (for starters, it gets you on a global distribution list, so you have SOME chance of getting into a brick and mortar bookstore - though not much). But IngramSpark sell most of their books via Amazon ANYWAY - and what's worse, sometimes they'll "sell" books to Amazon, which will appear to the unsuspecting author as genuine sales. But when Amazon fails to sell those copies on to actual customers, they'll return them to IngramSpark, leaving the poor author to foot the bill for the refund. Amazon is the unavoidable beast in the dungeon here, so swallow whatever ethical objections you have towards them if you want to self publish. Selling on Amazon guarantees your book will never appear in a physical bookstore, because Amazon sells books at a loss as a way to put bookstores out of business. What bookstore is going to buy from their direct competitor, try to sell the book at standard retail price, and make a loss because Amazon has it for 40% cheaper?

There is one other self publishing option: Print and distribute your book independently. This is the hardest of all publishing options, because it requires CAPITAL. To put this into perspective, to print my novel at its current length with the cheapest, shittiest paper, completely ignoring any additional costs such as shipping to the author's home for storage, printing a colour cover, any decorative/hardcover editions, and distribution to customers: It costs $7.28 per copy. Now consider that the average cost of a paperback novel in the US (the largest book market on earth) is $5-$7. So you the author now have to convince people to buy your book for higher than market price so that you can make a miniscule profit per copy - AND you're still working your full time job, AND you're still doing the work of marketing and selling your book, AND you're now the distributor of your book so that's ANOTHER job, AND you want to write your next book.

Etc, etc. All of this to say... Isn't it a bit fucked up? Think about this for a second. We live on a planet that is brimming with art. Books, podcasts, music, theatre, illustrations etc... There is more art on this Earth than anyone could enjoy in a lifetime, and the people making that art want desperately to share it with everyone they can, and yet the only way We The Everyman can interact with it is through the grubby, greedy hands of some of the most morally bankrupt institutions in the world. Amazon and Spotify and whoever the Monopoly Man Of The Day happens to be - they don't make the art, they don't pay the artists any more than a trickle they can get away with, and they rake us for every red cent they can just so we can experience a second of escapism from the cruel reality THEY made the world into.

Anyway. Self publishing is definitely not out of the question for me! It's just not my first option :)