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Ruby put the finishing touches on the last order from the queue. “Cinnamon latte for Mohammed,” she called and set the drink in the pick-up zone. Some days, the 02:00 rush was worse than others, and today had been horrific. Ruby’s hair was plastered to her head with sweat, and she felt like she was in another world. Fabian looked just as rough as she felt.

post the first sentence you write in your WIP today

Pleased with the result, she added the words, ‘Dearest Liza,’ at the top of the page, for she fancied her sketch would make an excellent addition to a letter, when she had anything to write about.

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Saw a fun little conversation on Threads but I don't have a Threads account, so I couldn't reply directly, but I sure can talk about it here!

I've been wanting to get into this for awhile, so here we go! First and foremost, I wanna say that "Emmaskies" here is really hitting the nail on the head despite having "no insider info". I don't want this post to be read as me shitting on trad pub editors or authors because that is fundamentally not what's happening.

Second, I want to say that this reply from Aaron Aceves is also spot on:

There are a lot of reviewers who think "I didn't enjoy this" means "no one edited this because if someone edited it, they would have made it something I like". As I talk about nonstop on this account, that is not a legitimate critique. However, as Aaron also mentions, rushed books are a thing that also happens.

As an author with 2 trad pub novels and 2 trad pub anthologies (all with HarperCollins, the 2nd largest trad publisher in the country), let me tell you that if you think books seem less edited lately, you are not making that up! It's true! Obviously, there are still a sizeable number of books that are being edited well, but something I was talking about before is that you can't really know that from picking it up. Unlike where you can generally tell an indie book will be poorly edited if the cover art is unprofessional or there are typoes all over the cover copy, trad is broken up into different departments, so even if editorial was too overworked to get a decent edit letter churned out, that doesn't mean marketing will be weak.

One person said that some publishers put more money into marketing than editorial and that's why this is happening, but I fundamentally disagree because many of these books that are getting rushed out are not getting a whole lot by way of marketing either! And I will say that I think most authors are afraid to admit if their book was rushed out or poorly edited because they don't want to sabotage their books, but guess what? I'm fucking shameless. Café Con Lychee was a rush job! That book was poorly edited! And it shows! Where Meet Cute Diary got 3 drafts from me and my beta readers, another 2 drafts with me and my agent, and then another 2 drafts with me and my editor, Café Con Lychee got a *single* concrete edit round with my editor after I turned in what was essentially a first draft. I had *three weeks* to rewrite the book before we went to copy edits. And the thing is, this wasn't my fault. I knew the book needed more work, but I wasn't allowed more time with it. My editor was so overworked, she was emailing me my edit letter at 1am. The publisher didn't care if the book was good, and then they were upset that its sales weren't as high at MCD's, but bffr. A book that doesn't live up to its potential is not going to sell at the same rate as one that does!

And this may sound like a fluke, but it's not. I'm not naming names because this is a deeply personal thing to share, but I have heard from *many* authors who were not happy with their second books. Not because they didn't love the story but because they felt so rushed either with their initial drafts or their edits that they didn't feel like it lived up to their potential. I also know of authors who demanded extra time because they knew their books weren't there yet only to face big backlash from their publisher or agent.

I literally cannot stress to you enough that publisher's *do not give a fuck* about how good their products are. If they can trick you into buying a poorly edited book with an AI cover that they undercut the author for, that is *better* than wasting time and money paying authors and editors to put together a quality product. And that's before we get into the blatant abuse that happens at these publishers and why there have been mass exoduses from Big 5 publishers lately.

There's also a problem where publishers do not value their experienced staff. They're laying off so many skilled, dedicated, long-term committed editors like their work never meant anything. And as someone who did freelance sensitivity reading for the Big 5, I can tell you that the way they treat freelancers is *also* abysmal. I was almost always given half the time I asked for and paid at less than *half* of my general going rate. Authors publishing out of their own pockets could afford my rate, but apparently multi-billion dollar corporations couldn't. Copy edits and proofreads are often handled by freelancers, meaning these are people who aren't familiar with the author's voice and often give feedback that doesn't account for that, plus they're not people who are gonna be as invested in the book, even before the bad payment and ridiculous timelines.

So, anyway, 1. go easy on authors and editors when you can. Most of us have 0 say in being in this position and authors who are in breech of their contract by refusing to turn in a book on time can face major legal and financial ramifications. 2. Know that this isn't in your head. If you disagree with the choices a book makes, that's probably just a disagreement, but if you feel like it had so much potential but just *didn't reach it*, that's likely because the author didn't have time to revise it or the editor didn't have time to give the sort of thorough edits it needed. 3. READ INDIE!!! Find the indie authors putting in the work the Big 5's won't do and support them! Stop counting on exploitative mega-corporations to do work they have no intention of doing.

Finally, to all my readers who read Café Con Lychee and loved it, thank you. I love y'all, and I appreciate y'all, and I really wish I'd been given the chance to give y'all the book you deserved. I hope I can make it up to you in 2025.

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Midnight Pals: Ace Succubus

John Wiswell: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the asexual succubus Wiswell: it's about a succubus who's different from the stereotypical succubus Wiswell: it makes you think about what if you were an individual in a society

Wiswell: so this succubus, you see, is ace Barker: oh come the fuck on Barker: come on!!! Barker: you can't have an asexual succubus! Barker: how would that even work?! Wiswell: well, CLIVE Wiswell: i'm about to explain that

Wiswell: this ace succubus expresses love in other ways Wiswell: like holding hands Wiswell: or parallel play Wiswell: that's when you sit next to each other on the couch playing stardew valley on the krobus the monster merchant roommate route Barker: what

Bram Stoker: interesting! i, for one, am glad to finally hear a succubus story without all that sex Barker: you can't just have an asexual succubus! Barker: that's like having a straight vampire! Stoker: Stoker: NOW SEE HERE YOU LITTLE-!!

Stoker: vampires aren't gay, how dare you!? Anne Rice: um yeah of course vampires are gay Stoker: no they're not! Rice: yes they are! Barker: fight! fight! fight! Poe: stop it! stop it! everyone, settle down! Mary Shelley: [flipping switchblade] finally, some action!

Poe: mary! who's side are you even on in this fight? Shelley: [stabbing Stoker] the winning side! Shelley: [stabbing Rice] as always Poe: Poe: yeah i guess that's usually try Shelley: [stabbing Poe] ALWAYS true Shelley: [stabbing Barker] try and stop me, nerds!

Barker: this is ridiculous, how can you have a succubus who's not horny?? Barker: i am offended by the very idea! King: actually, my boy joe dropped the take of the century on me earlier, he said that some aces actually DO get horny Barker: i am not getting into a discourse steve

Barker: how am i even supposed to get horny for this story about a succubus NOT having sex?! Wiswell: i have another story about a succubus turning into a couch Barker: how am i supposed to get horny for a couch!? Barker: who am i, JD vance!? [rim shot]

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I realized I keep forgetting to post my newsletter here, and some of you may enjoy it.

This month I talk about a sociolinguistic study of high school nerd girls in the 90s and that painting of a dog with sausages on his nose in the preview image.

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😭😭

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I keep forgetting that I have this tumblr and that I should post my newsletter links here.

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I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

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Fascinated by stories of the - I guess you'd call it the "stolen identity" genre, like, of the Anastasia Romanov variety. But - from both sides.

Your husband has been at war for thirty years. You married when you were teenagers. The man who returns bearing his name looks... plausible, you don't remember his eyes being quite so blue, but it's been thirty years and it's not like you could ever afford to have a portrait painted. He knows your name and the names of your children and your parents, but there are curious gaps in what he remembers. But war does things to the mind. And if he's kinder than you remember? Kind enough that, maybe, you let yourself believe...

No one has ever looked twice at you, since you're just the maid, until the day a revolutionary bomb goes off, blowing a crater in the summer palace. The famously reclusive duchess and the rest of her household lie dead in the rubble. You know that you and she were the same dress size. You know where her jewels are kept. Most importantly, you know the location of the secret tunnel that leads down to the docks, and to a life overseas that would be torturously hard going for a poor maid, especially one suspected as a thief, but a lot more comfortable for a royal in exile...

The old king's most faithful retainer swears this is the heir to the throne, raised in secret and trained to one day step into his father's shoes. As the usurper as dragged off the throne, she screams that the old king's children are all dead, she made sure of it; no one pays her any heed. (Maybe they should have...)

The man in the tavern is buying drinks for the whole bar before he sets sail tomorrow for the far side of the world. He's got it all figured out - a ship of his own, retirement to a tropical paradise when he gets sick of the pirating life. His lip curls as he talks about the stultifying boredom of the aristocratic world he's already left behind. You find out that his parents recently died, and the estate is in the care of his younger sister, who was only six when her brother first left home two decades since. Between the lines, they sound like a good family; they sound like they love him, the way your family never did. Your heart aches. He shows you portraits, letters, before shoving them carelessly back in his coat pocket. They would be so easy to lift...

It's a surprisingly common concept and I just love it. It's The Return of Martin Guerre; it's multiple 90s romcoms; Agatha Christie pulls it half a dozen times. Sooner or later, it crops up in fanfic for just about any fandom with a royal or aristocratic main character.

And I can see why, because there's so much richness to it. From the outside, it can be anything from a horror story to an unlikely love story; from the perspective of the person pulling off the con, a heist movie or a tragedy or a heartwarming tale of found family. And then there are the longer-term implications: What happens if you wear a mask so long that it becomes who you are? What happens if you come to love the "replacement" to the point where you don't want to find out the truth? What is it like to uncover such a deception a century down the line, to find out that your great-grandfather... wasn't?

Just. Identity stories, man. <3

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I wrote a newsletter about this a few months ago, too!

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQuxw52/

I think I found my new favorite rabbit hole. This voice actor does Shakespeare scenes in a southern accent and I need to see the whole damn play. Absolutely beautiful

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this is so cute 🥹

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I wrote 1500 words and didn't answer the question, but honestly, people have written 150 pages without answering that question, so I think I'm doing ok.

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Me listening to the voice actors of the Witcher 3 pronounce Welsh names like Emhyr and Mairwen and Rhosyn: Oof, this is painful

Me listening to the voice actors of the Witcher 3 pronounce the Welsh name Cerys specifically, which is also one of my own middle names: I Am Going To Commit An Unspeakable Crime And Then Delete The World

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Lingthusiasm Episode 88: No such thing as the oldest language

It's easy to find claims that certain languages are old or even the oldest, but which one is actually true? Fortunately, there's an easy (though unsatisfying) answer: none of them! Like how humans are all descended from other humans, even though some of us may have longer or shorter family trees found in written records, all human languages are shaped by contact with other languages. We don't even know whether the oldest language(s) was/were spoken or signed, or even whether there was a singular common ancestor language or several.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about what people mean when we talk about a language as being old. We talk about how classifying languages as old or classical is often a political or cultural decision, how the materials that are used to write a language influence whether it gets preserved (from clay to bark), and how people talk about creoles and signed languages in terms of oldness and newness. And finally, how a language doesn't need to be justified in terms of its age for whether it's interesting or worthy of respect.

Read the transcript here.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Lingthusiasm episode 'Tracing languages back before recorded history'

'My Big Fat Greek Wedding- Give me any word and I show you the Greek root' on YouTube

Glottolog entry for 'classical'

Wikipedia entry for 'Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir'

Wikipedia entry for 'Bath curse tablets'

Wikipedia entry for 'Cuneiform'

Wikipedia entry for 'Mesopotamian writing systems'

Wikipedia entry for 'Home Sign'

Lingthusiasm episode 'Villages, gifs, and children: Researching signed languages in real-world contexts with Lynn Hou'

Wikipedia entry for 'Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language'

Wikipedia entry for 'Kata Kolok' (also known as Benkala Sign Language)

True Biz by Sara Nović on Goodreads

Gretchen's thread about reading True Biz

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

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read my beautiful son with so much wrong with him. No I don’t know why it’s like this either.

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/