cyloveless

[cyloveless]

Writing Advice #3

Try roasting your setting like you’re ranting to your group chat after a bad road trip. Seriously, don’t just tell me it’s a “quaint village.” Is it the kind of place where time forgot it existed? Does it have, like, three shops that all close at 2pm for mysterious reasons and a town square statue of some guy named “Jedediah” who absolutely committed tax fraud?

The more lovingly hateful you are, the clearer the place gets. Because when we roast things, we get weirdly specific. That specificity is PURE gold. “Dusty” is whatever. “A town where the post office smells like expired glue” is a vibe. It tells me everything I need to know and makes me want to keep reading just to see how much worse it gets.

Bonus points if your narrator is also sick of being there. Angry characters describe places way better than calm ones, it’s just science.

[cyloveless]

hey y'all, so i'm starting to do some freelancing stuff including editing and sensitivity reading if anyone's interested!

my qualifications for editing: i have a BA in writing and always edit my stuff very cleanly (please do not use this post as an example, i don't capitalize words on tumblr lol)

my qualifications for sensitivity reading: i have many years of lived experience as a trans, genderqueer, aromantic & asexual person, and i've also had a few sensitivity reading clients so far! i think there should be more queer stories in the world and i want to help you get your queer story out into the world, so if you have one that needs reading, hmu!

[cyloveless]

That Time a Published Author Told Me to Un-Queer My Novel

So, I don't think I ever shared this story on Tumblr before.

As you may know I've spent the past ten years turning my old Welcome to Night Vale fanfic into a stand alone novel called Echo of the Larkspur. Now, I haven't been working on it ten years straight. I'd pick it up, do a bunch of editing and rewriting, submit it to agents/publishers, get turned down, put the book away, wait 2-3 years, dust off the book, re-edit and rewrite, etc etc. A cycle that repeated itself far too many times that I would like.

Well, during one of these cycles when I was in the 'get rejected by every agent and publisher I submit to' stage I asked the writing group I was in what I was doing wrong. Because at this point I had reached a hundred total rejections and I was starting to suspect that the issue was with me.

One of the members of this writing group, a male author who was traditionally published, offered to read my first chapter and give his advice on how to fix it. This was, in retrospect, a mistake. But I was desperate. I sent him the first chapter and waited for his response.

Folks. The email he sent me changed my life.

First he said that agents wouldn't publish my novel because it was Sci-fi with hardcore gay erotica in it. This is curious because while the book certainly is queer, at no point in the conversation with this man did I say it was hardcore erotica. Nor did the first chapter feature any. It's almost as if he assumed that just because something was gay, it had to be hardcore erotica. Interesting.

He went on to say that a Human/Robot pairing was weird and that there was "No Way" my story could seriously address the issues of a relationship like that. Once again, he only read the first chapter. He just...assumed I wouldn't think of that? And that my book wouldn't cover it?

The author then said “I also felt that the LGBTQ inclusion really seems to cloud things.” Direct Quote.

And then this is when he said my favorite quote of them all:

The idea of a book being a sci-fi with romance AND a mystery is a Modern Art Marzipan Owl. It's just too confusing! No one can handle a story that is a mystery in a sci-fi enviroment AND has a romantic subplot! THEIR BRAINS WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE!

Thankfully he had a solution to my book problem. His answer? Turn the book into an Action Spy Thriller and turn S.A.G.E., a robot that identies as a gay man, into a sexy lady robot who needs a MAN to teach her what it means to be human.

(I assume the male lead will teach the 'confused' female robot how to be human via his penis.)

Now my favorite part about this advice is that at no point did he outright say "Remove the gay part". No, instead he sneakily changed the robot love interest into a female robot as if I wouldn't notice. Just sort of swept away the gay bits as something totally unneeded and just mucking up the narrative. Also that's not the plot of my story, I have no idea where this virus thing came from.

(Also note that the female robot can't be robotic-like at all. Must preserve the average straight-man sex drive at all costs I guess)

He then finished his email basically saying that I should remove everything that 'traditional publishers' don't like (aka the queer parts) and make it easier for 'your average reader' to digest and my book will be good as published!

When I said this email changed my life I meant it. Because it made me realize I'd rather be self published and unknown than traditionally publish milquetoast trash like he suggested. Like holy fuck. If I removed all of the "Difficult" to digest stories out of Echo of the Larkspur then there wouldn't be a book left!

So here I am. Self publishing my Marzipan Modern Art Owl of a book. I know it'll never see the inside of a bookstore or top the charts on Goodreads but hey, I'd rather it speak to one person than have a thousand people get excited for the part where the male lead teaches the lady robot how to be human (via his penis).

If a Queer Sci-fi/Romance/Mystery novel sounds like your jam then consider preordering it!

Looking for something to read now? Can't afford the book? Willing to read in exchange for an honest review? You can join my ARC book readers here!

[cyloveless]

[cyloveless]

i think i tend to forget how good boredom is for creativity because we're all so addicted to numbing ourselves with screens and stimulation. but standing in the shower or going for a walk with no music or just sitting in your bedroom without being allowed to touch any screens & all of a sudden i have multiple new projects to start, a solution to a months-long plot problem & 4 new original characters

[cyloveless]

I know advertising in pride month can smack of rainbow capitalism, but hear me out: I am not A Rainbow Capitalism. I’m a queer professional freelance editor with five years of experience, here to celebrate and polish queer stories throughout the fruitiest month of the year (and all year round). From now until July 1st, you can get 15% off any of my single editing services so long as:

a) you have a story that’s longer than 10,000 words, and

b) there is some flavour of queerness in there that’s relevant to the story (i.e, more relevant than the off-page second cousin of your main character being mentioned as gay in an otherwise cishet cast).

Rest assured that I won’t ask you to share or ““prove”” your own identity unless you want to tell me, because that’s none of my business and also gatekeeping sucks.

Plus, this discount stacks – so if you’re also eligible for one of my self-published author discounts of 10% (30,000–99,999 words) or 15% (100,000 words or more), you can get a nice 25–30% off.

I can edit:

UK or US English (+ I do my best to factor currency conversion into the rates for international clients)

Fiction – SF/F is my happy place, but all genres are welcome.

Creative non-fiction – e.g., memoir, biography, essays and essay collections.

Middle Grade through to Adult.

If you’re not quite ready for editing but think you will be within the next two months, you can secure an editing slot with this discount now and use it later (ideally before September 1st, but I do understand writing doesn’t always happen when you want it to; just be aware that if you don’t pre-book my services for a specific time or if you need to re-schedule the edit, you may need to wait until I’m available again).

If you’re interested (or just have questions), check out my services page and get in touch:

[cyloveless]

btw, since i've seen this mistake several times in the last week:

it's not 'been put through the ringer.' what would that mean. what would the ringer do to you.

it's the wringer. a device for squishing the water out of clothes so they'll dry faster on the line. wringing them out.

[cyloveless]

“Don’t deify the dead.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not the truth. They were human, they were flawed and that fleeting imperfect nature is what made them them.”

“…Save your poetry.”

“My lady—“

“It makes more sense that I can’t touch a god than it does to believe I’ll never see them again.”

[cyloveless]

[cyloveless]

“Life While-You-Wait. Performance without rehearsal. Body without alterations. Head without premeditation. I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it. I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about. Ill-prepared for the privilege of living, I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands. I improvise, although I loathe improvisation. I trip at every step over my own ignorance. I can’t conceal my hayseed manners. My instincts are for happy histrionics. Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more. Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel. Words and impulses you can’t take back, stars you’ll never get counted, your character like a raincoat you button on the run? the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness. If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance, or repeat a single Thursday that has passed! But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen. Is it fair, I ask (my voice a little hoarse, since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage). You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no. I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is. The props are surprisingly precise. The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer. The farthest galaxies have been turned on. Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere. And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.”

— Life While-You-Wait by Wisława Szymborska  English version by S. Barańczak and C. Cavanagh, Original Language Polish

[cyloveless]

settings I would love to see more in fantasy:

Deserts, but like, positive. Deserts portrayed as beautiful places full of life and wonder. Desert as homeland, desert as a place of beauty and intrinsic value.

Mountains. Andean-style settings where the world is mountainous and the land is organized into altitude zones, where uphill/downhill are more meaningful than east/west

Island archipelagos. We’ve gotten a few in fantasy recently but 1) I want More 2) I want someone to do a Fantasy Kula Ring

Something inspired by Tiwanaku or Chavín de Huántar

Independent city-states. They all are unified by basically the same culture but they are all also politically independent variously at war, making alliances, happily trading, in a trade war, conquered and subordinate to other city-states, founding new city-states, travelling to the central temples of other city-states’ patron gods, etc.

Full of prehistoric animals that never coexisted with humans but they do in this fantasy world because they’re Cool

[cyloveless]

Editing Tips: Watch Out for Tautology

When you say the same thing twice with different words, it's a "tautology". They make manuscripts wordy.

Examples:

He shrugged his shoulders. -> He shrugged.

She clapped her hands. -> She clapped.

Her feet stepped back. -> She stepped back.

He hand picked up the knife. -> He picked up the knife.

If a movement is necessary for an action, the movement is included in the action and doesn't need to be spelled out separately.

He reached out his arm and took the book from her -> He took the book from her.

She lifted the glass to her lips and drained it. -> She drained her glass.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

💎If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 

💎Before you ask, check out my masterpost part 1 and part 2 

💎For early access to my content,  become a Writing Wizard 

[cyloveless]

PAPER TIGRESS / 3k

If anyone else had been there, Vidalia thought, they would have found it very funny. Unfortunately, it was her and a crew of cisgender people.

Short story about transsexual reality TV drama, food romance, and a tiger. For fans of Detransition, Baby, which is to say, for people who want to watch the nastiest, most cynical, most outright terrible trans protagonists devour a room of clueless cis people. Come watch the authentic performance.

behind the scenes | reading by the author

Support the author: all posted writing | book | ko-fi | Patreon

[cyloveless]

Happy pride month to everyone, but especially to this short story that burst out of my head last year then grabbed me by the throat with its teeth until I finished writing it (<- said with genuine affection).

If you like Norse mythology, Wild Hunt folklore, transgender characters embracing gender fuckery, the catharsis of a character stepping out of a controlling parent's shadow, and the idea of Odin being queer af, then you'll probably enjoy On Queerer Paths. It's just under 10k words, and it's free (or pay what-you-want. But that includes free!). Here's a little snippet of the opening:

The sound of the warning-drums turned my heart cold – but not from fear. No, this was not a sound that any of us in this town truly feared. We had been braced for it since the winter solstice, as we were every year. What chilled me was the lack of warning from my mother. She must have known, of course: she was our town’s seer, and such foreknowledge was her domain. But she considered my life her domain too, and there were times she felt that testing me was more important than her holy duty. We were together in the sanctuary, a sacred space built around an ancient ash tree. A ring of thick, close-set posts separated us from the rest of the town, and they seemed almost to muffle the drums’ call. Perhaps that was why my mother still sat upon her seat of twisted roots at the tree’s base, eyes closed, pose settled, expression lax, as if she could not hear the sound. My every instinct was reverberating in time with the drums, telling me I needed to do my duty, to leave her, to move. But I could not. Not until I knew. Until I was certain— “Are you not needed, Minnow?” Her tone was sharp despite the well-worn endearment. The perverse relief of it punched a hefty breath from my lungs. This had been deliberate, then; not another manifestation of the strange absent-mindedness that had so plagued her of late. Her first test of my worth had been like this, too. The boom of the great drums, their beat frantic with surprise. My mother, still seated before the ancient ash with her eyes closed and a knowing smile cool upon her lips. Me, trembling and terrified, only two moons into my training at the spear. I’d scrambled to join my fellow warriors of the jarl’s hird, and we’d faced the onslaught of the Wild Hunt as our people had since our city’s founding. When all was over, my mother tended to the jarl with perfect lies: I am but a voice for the gods, and I cannot speak that which I choose not to share. Still, we have proven ourselves worthy of the All-Father’s blessing for the year ahead. Even in my worst swelter of youthful resentment, I’d been forced to appreciate the skill with which she did it. She had tended to me, next. Warmed my frost-nipped fingers over the laundry copper and told me that I too had proven myself worthy. That I could continue to carry her name along my chosen path. I’d been far too rattled to tell her that choice had naught to do with who I was becoming.

Content warnings for blood, violence, implied misgendering, and transphobia in the context of gender essentialist thinking.

You can read the rest online at my website, or get the free/pay-what-you-want ePub from my payhip:

now go forth and be in queer in a way that would make odin proud <3

[cyloveless]

my fave writing reminder

honestly, this phrase has been on my mind more times than i can count. i've kidnapped it, taken it as a hostage with no ransom money because i need it to live permanently in my head.

[cyloveless]

starting a campaign called Put Fingers In His Bullet Wound Wednesday where every wednesday we celebrate medical accuracy by leaving the bullet in whatever fictional pookie you shot real good and Packing His Hole with gauze. by fingering that bullet wound real good. With gauze. this campaign will increase medical accuracy in fics and also make bullet wounds hornier.

[cyloveless]

I contributed to this article on ace stories in publishing which came out this week! I really enjoyed hearing the perspectives of my fellow contributors: Michelle Jing Chan, Lilly Lu, Marina Martinez, and Leanne Schwartz. Happy Pride month to all the aces and aros out there! 🖤💜🤍

insta / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books / print store / bluesky