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Several things are happening here at once: There is a large tornado on the ground and headed directly at me, I am in my basement with five unhappy birds taking work calls and apologizing to people on the other end for all the yelling, I am watching James Spann, our weather man, who just said, “Helmets for everybody!” and shoving coleslaw into my mouth. Also I just looked over and Sunna has been stealthily eating my biscuit while I wasn’t looking.

Being Southern gets so weird in the spring.

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My phone is about to die but I’ll post a quick pic of the night shift. Sunna (sun conure) and Hilda (cockatiel) are keeping me company while I work on on WT chapter 7!

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Shakespeare’s sonnets set a historical precedent for this. I vote to Make This A Thing 2021.

I know it's like one of the most common writer's problem, but titling fics is hard

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My son is “helping” me work on WT this morning. This is Loki, my adopted green cheek conure. I did not name him, but he lives up to his namesake.

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Project Sticky Post

Wild-Type (fanfic) Update tag #WTfic. Currently re-reading (with very minor edits) on AO3. To be completed.

Wild-Type (original novel) Update tag #WTnovel. In the planning phase - Will be republished as a single volume on Amazon. 

Podcast Currently in development. Will be a fictional kinda thing. Details coming soon. No update tag yet.

Other Fics I’m playing this by ear for now.

Patreon Inactive - will reactivate once I get organized and start producing original content

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HELLO!!!!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ i'm so sorry to hear about your family and your parents' friends, that sucks so much. so sorry you had a bad time of it. but i'm so glad to see you again!!!!!!! and that you're not sorry for your writing no matter what close minded people say. sending love to you and your birbs, and please have this BIGGEST of virtual hugs! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

AHHH HELLO!! Dumpster fire though it was, those things also prompted me to reassess some of my goals, so I guess it turned out okay? Reading back over the original version of WT, I feel like I could have done more with it than I did. So. I’m going to! Thank you for the virtual hugs! Sending some huge ones back! <3 <3

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Hello, I am alive! What did I miss?

The shortest and the nicest way to explain where I’ve been is probably just the words, ‘real depressed,’ but I feel like that doesn’t adequately account for the time I’ve been offline. MDD is a foul place to be and I don’t want to go back there, so that’s the best explanation I can give. I had too much happening too quickly and I reacted by transforming into a ghost. I kept meaning to come back and yet I never seemed to have the energy. Too much time passed and then ... I dunno. So! Uh. NEWS! News in nice bullets:

I want to finish a couple of my Attack on Titan WIPs. Wild-Type is my first priority, but I will need to re-read it and I will probably edit as I go so that I can look at it without being hella embarrassed. News on the other WIPs to follow.

The original version of Wild-Type (and the other things I wrote under the pseudonym Kasey Delamer) are currently offline. I took them down abruptly after some shit hit the fan. First, my aunt found my pseudonym by doing some very creepy sleuthing and threatened to read everything. Y’all. Everything. My family is socially conservative, Southern, religious, and Republican, and my aunt doesn’t keep secrets so when I tell you that my panic was very real and very blinding I don’t want you to mistake it for hyperbole. Julie, if you’re reading this, you suck and you are the reason I’m so paranoid. Anyway. Around that same time my parents’ friends heard I was writing an unspecified adult romance and called me a slut while they were all drunk, which my parents then proceeded to defend by saying I was making it up. So when my aunt found my pseudonym I snapped a little bit and took it down.

That being said, the horror has worn off and the anger has set in and I’m very seriously considering republishing it under my real name because yeah I write “slutty” gay dragon books and I’m not actually sorry.

I do want to rewrite it though. Because I feel like that story could be told in one book and planning for three makes me want to cry a little bit because I’m working on another original trilogy right now and that’s just too much y’all.

I now have five birbs. There will definitely be pics.

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AHHHHHH I CHECKED TODAY AND THE PAPERBACK IS AVAILABLE AHHHHHH I BOUGHT IT AHHHHHHHHHH *runs around in circles*

I’ll be damned, Anon, you knew this before I did. xDDD It was still “In Review” last time I checked, so I literally found out when I got your message. 

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I lost track of time but so did Amazon, apparently. Cross your fingers that the pattern is visible because the darkness of that thumbnail is making me anxious. I've decided that if it comes in and the cover is completely black I'm just going to draw a fire breathing dick with tiny dragon wings on it and call it a day.

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“Encouragement and support is a universal language ❤” Put that quote on a t-shirt. That’s just good life advice.

I don't get the "non-native speaker so won't comment" thing. Like, you just read a fic in that language? You can write a short sentence in that language. Who cares if there are mistakes, even native speakers sometimes suck. English isn't my first language either? and yet i've posted over 100k in english on ao3 over a year. I get being anxious, but not being a native speaker Isn't A Good Reason For Not Commenting. If you can read then you can write.

If you can read then you can write.

I’ve got to disagree with you there, anon. I was an English language instructor both overseas and in Canada for 14 years and lemme tell you? That’s not the case. 

When we read a language, we’re recognizing words and interpreting meaning. When we’re writing, we have to actively choose words and put them together in some sort of grammatical form. They two skills are related, but they aren’t the same. I can read Korean just fine, and I know how to write all of the letters and combine them together, but when I try to form a sentence? Everything is in the wrong order and I’m choosing words that are impolite or incorrect for the context or both. 

I’ve learned a lot of languages in a lot of different ways, from growing up in a bilingual community to studying languages in school to immersing myself in another culture overseas and I 100% understand the nerves of someone not only trying to write in a language they’re not completely comfortable in but trying to do so in a way that doesn’t come across as rude. 

Your level of English language mastery is clearly very very high and the people reading your fics might have a very different level than you do. Native speaking readers don’t comment because of anxiety or worry or any number of other reasons. Non-native speakers just have one more anxiety to add to the rest.

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R O F L

So. I got my first author proof. Everything looks awesome on the inside and the text on the cover is aligned very well, but the cover (which was supposed to be a subtle black scale pattern that I was expecting to look gorgeous) is not only too dark, but completely obliterated. This has been a complete nightmare useful learning exercise. I went back in today and made it as light as I can without repainting the cover entirely and ordered a second author proof.  It should arrive at my house on March 8. If all goes well, that will be the date that paperbacks are available on Amazon.  If not, that will be the day I make my first drunk post to tumblr. 

The longer short version of the cover creation story is below the cut. It has a punchline, but the joke is entirely at my expense: 

There are two ways to upload a cover to Amazon. One: You can download their template for the dimensions you choose and stick it in Photoshop and create your cover on top of it. Two: You can do the “cover creator” thing where you use a bunch of public domain clip art and preset designs and end up with a thing that looks like a self-help book. I have the means of producing a cover in Photoshop, so I followed all the instructions and spent two days trying to upload the file and Amazon spent two days going, “No thank you, we don’t want this file.” I got too into it to sleep, so there was also that. THEN after much angst and frantic “what am I doing wrong nothing appears to be wrong help me forums help me” research and screaming and (on the second night) drinking, it occurred to my dumb ass to take the cover, open cover creator, and shove it into their magic design tool or whatever as a background image, then just delete all the fill in the box fields that sit on top of it. It was done in five minutes. The end.

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I’m screaming! Thank you @chainsawsavvy

What’s up with dragons do they shed their skin? Do they feel all smooth and shiny and soft when they shed?

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woohooo i'm so proud of you congrats on the update, so just two quick questions (maybe three). I thought the first book was allure? But now you say flint and I'm confused. So which is exactly the order? Also will it ship worldwide? And lastly, does that mean you won't continue the eruri wild type fic? Or you will, but it will take a different direction/ less story-plot etc? sorry for my english it's not really good

Thank you! TwT

Yes! The first book was going to be Allure, but I decided that it sounded like the title for an erotica. I did start writing the fic with plenty of erotica in mind, but when I edited my timeline for the original version and worked for a more natural slow burn, it ended up being more fantasy/kinda action/kinda crime novel with a gay romance in it. There will be sexy times in the third book, but it definitely isn’t a typical erotica. So ... I don’t know. Long story short, I was nervous about the title so I went for one of those trilogy set theme things. The books are going to be Flint, Steel, and Tinder, in that order! =D

Right now, I only have the eBook published, so it will be downloadable in any of the countries Amazon has contracts with. However, I am working on paperbacks as well. Amazon’s system doesn’t like the PDF I’m trying to upload, so I’ll probably end up having to reformat it in Word using someone else’s computer (mine doesn’t have Word on it. I write in Scrivener). This will take a bit longer, BUT I’m busting ass on it because I want it up as soon as possible. The paperbacks will have different covers than the eBooks and I really think they’re prettier. But anyway, if Amazon doesn’t ship to your country, I’m ordering a bunch of extra copies, so you can also get it directly through me. 

And yes! Wild-Type the fic is going to keep going. I never tried sending the original to a publisher for that reason. I didn’t want to have to take it down and I wanted to be able to finish it. You pretty much nailed my intentions in your question. I’m going to continue the fic as well as the originals, but there will be differences even in the things I have yet to write. I don’t have the fic set up correctly for the ending that I intend for the original books, so it will end differently. It does feel almost like I’m telling two different stories at this point. Almost, but not quite. Maybe like fraternal twin stories! =DDDDDD

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13, 29 and 63, please~

Oh jeez, when was this? I’m so sorry for the delay: 

13. I’m not sure where I’ll be, Saturday. I’ve been invited along on a beach thingy, but we’re having transport issues. Ollie’s car was totaled so I was going to drive, but two nights ago I kicked the shit out of the corner of my dresser drawer and I can’t really walk and that was my driving foot, so the five hour drive might be out. The bruise is impressive though. About half my foot is blue. I might have even fractured it! =O If that’s the case I’ll ... probably be writing. 

26. Yes and no. My current hair color is mostly natural. I dyed a small bit of it pink while I was in the salon and I just cut MOST of it off when I decided I wanted to look like a 20′s flapper chick for a while. There is a teeny tiny bit of pink left, but that’s it.

63. My first concert was MCR! I saw them in Toronto in the 9th grade. =D

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How does Levi breathe covered by all those blankets...

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Book #1 of The Wild-Type Trilogy is live! You can now get Flint on Amazon.

Dragons are more than what science expected of them, emerging from a long extinction with mankind’s intelligence and the ability to wear the human form as naturally as their own. They are all the things that set humans apart from other animals, yet they are bought and sold like property in a thriving exotic pet trade.

Detective Noah Lark never wanted anything to do with this system. He does the work he believes he can accomplish, investigating organized crime in his Oregon community and leaving the fight for dragon welfare to more ambitious people. He never dreamed that the case of a lifetime would center around a dragon fighting ring, nor could he have imagined that he’d form a personal attachment to his key witness, the dangerous, bad-tempered drake called Liam. But Liam is living on borrowed time. Mandatory euthanasia awaits any dragon fought in a ring, and when the federal government connects Liam’s bloodline to a far deadlier threat, the odds of his survival diminish to nothing. As a matter of practicality, Noah has never stood against the impossible, but the losing battle for Liam’s life may become the most important one he’s ever fought.

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Published, Almost Live

This is apparently a thing:

The first eBook for Wild-Type (called Flint) has been uploaded to Amazon. It just seems that it will take some time to go show up in the store. I started on Friday because I expected this, buuut I also had other delays.

The paperback version is still in progress. It should still be uploaded tonight or in the wee hours of the morning. I’m just going to have to create a completely separate file for the paperback cover because of actual books being 3D and angular and nightmarish, so if you were wanting this book in paperback form, that may take ... maybe a day extra?? I’ve had dinner and Ibuprofen sitting next to me for an hour and I’ve been neglecting both, but after I eat and medicate, I’m starting immediately on the cover. Just. I’m going to need more coffee. 

I was prepared, but I wasn’t prepared.