#Substack novel

[joncronshawauthor]

Jon's Author Diary - June 23, 2023

Welcome to the 300th episode of Jon’s Author Diary. This week has been a tremendous journey, with progress on my books, indulgence in some fantastic reads, and a few hours well-spent on Netflix. This week, I’ve been channeling my inner rogue while working on my book, Guild of Assassins, an exclusive Substack novel. It’s an intense exploration of the shadows where the silent killers dwell. Stay…

[caspercryptid]

Hello everyone I am so unbelievably pissed about the NaNoWriMo situation that i'm going to take my massive stack of writing and craft books and my English degree and channel all my rage into making an email newsletter to send craft-oriented writing prompts and tips during the month of November. Say No to NaNoWriMo, but yes to WriMo. You get it.

I'm not going to make this have the same goals as Nanowrimo-- I'm not reskinning it but less ableist, I just really think having a whole month where people focused on their work is pretty cool and I want to keep up that spirit. This is going to be informal and run by Just Me, though I'll make a discord server if it's clear there's interest. Direct questions to @nowrimomo , which I literally just made and so will look like a skeleton currently.

I'm going to include prompts from various professional sources with options for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Fanfic, so everybody can get in on this. It doesn't matter what you write, but we should all Write More.

[literatureaesthetic]

march '24 favs:

• those who leave and those who stay & the story of the lost child ; elena ferrante — the final two books in the neapolitan novels, a tetrology recording the lives of two girls in naples from childhood to old age. gutting, beautiful, layered, and complex. this series is a masterpiece, elena ferrante is everything to me <3 (please read it!!)

• sirens and muses by antonia angress — following an array of characters at an art university as they navigate life, work, academia, relationships, and being an artist in a capitalist world where everything is commodified. the depth of characters paired with the nuanced discussions of art, class, and politics left me so pleasantly surprised. (it's also extremely gay and perfect for all you tumblr users with mummy/daddy issues)

[fuddlyduddly]

Hey, I saw you talking about reading The Haunting of Hill House via a trans lens and I got curious. Could you elaborate on that, please? Cause I found it really interesting.

yeah I can! I've been meaning to write some sort of article about why I feel Hill House is trans, so this is a good excuse to get these thoughts written out.It's mostly that I find the story and its themes to be very trans to me, specifically with the character of Eleanor; when I was a teen and didn't know I was trans, and I found myself drawn to her for reasons I couldn't understand yet. There are a lot of things about her that spoke to me as a pre egg-crack trans woman; the way she feels like she's been waiting her whole life for something, anything, but she doesn't know what; the way she's felt trapped by the expectations of her; the way she's so shy and withdrawing (she reminds me in a way of this quote from Imogen Binnie's Nevada: "Maria is transsexual and she is so meek she might disappear"); the ways in which Eleanor constantly feels out of touch with the people around her and can't figure out social situations; the ways she's never felt wanted ("I am a sort of stray cat aren't I?"); the way she is prone to misreading casual relationships because she isn't experienced enough to know she's mistaken; and especially how she so desperately wants to belong. Eleanor is so withdrawn and desperate for connection that she lets the House take her over because, at last, “something is at last really, really, really, happening to [her]”, and unfortunately I could relate to that; she's so desperate to belong that she'll let anything happen to her, even if it kills her.

One line in particular really speaks to me every time I reread the book: “—and then each year, one summer morning, the warm wind would come down the city street where she walked and she would be touched with the little cold thought: I have let more time go by.” To me, that's what it felt like pre realization, every year would go by and I'd feel like I'd missed something; I wouldn't know what, but I'd know I'd let more time go by. Eleanor's story is one of a person who's been waiting so long to make a change, that when a change finally happens, it's too late for her; she's waited too long, and she's out of time. It's rather bleak, but so is gender dysphoria.

I think for me ultimately, any story about a woman who feels trapped and out of touch in some way will feel trans to me (I have a Letterboxd list about that with all sorts of movies on it), but Hill House really sticks out to me because of how acute and specific Eleanor's pain is, and how relatable I found her; her pain feels very transfeminine to me in ways I'm not quite sure how to articulate. I've found a lot of other transfems on tumblr who are also very drawn to Hill House, and in a way its very nice to see us all have a special connection to this book.

also part of this realization came from this post!

[jurassicparkdaily]

Jurassic Park Daily Calendar

(design by @itaviv. Thank you!)

[btrflyng]

Jurassic Park Daily starts tomorrow my children!

Go get your dino book fast!! I want to see memes

[thecandlewasters]

[itaviv]

July 18 Entry - Happens all the time yes yes.

[eirinstiva]

Letters from Carruthers: A Riddle of the Sands

¡Ha llegado carta! And it's from... Carruthers? Yeah, new book club with the spy novel The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service by Erskine Childers. I haven't read this book nor watched the film so everything is new to me.

In October last (1902), my friend “Carruthers” visited me in my chambers, and, under a provisional pledge of secrecy, told me frankly the whole of the adventure described in these pages. Till then I had only known as much as the rest of his friends, namely, that he had recently undergone experiences during a yachting cruise with a certain Mr “Davies” which had left a deep mark on his character and habits.

Oh, things are getting interesting...

The great drawback was that an Englishman, bearing an honoured name, was disgracefully implicated, and that unless infinite delicacy were used, innocent persons, and, especially, a young lady, would suffer pain and indignity, if his identity were known.

We have the editor E. C. who writes this story based on Carruthers' diary and Mr. Davies' maps... names have been changed to protect their identities, maps are based on ritish and German Admiralty charts... This is just the preface but things are already getting dark. Let's see what is waiting for us in the next letter!

[incomingalbatross]

Delighted to know there are people going into Kidnapped completely blind.

[syphoncontinuity]

Swimming against the current and swept together by circumstance, these six strange bedfellows have everything to lose. 

(Sorry, Cam, you have some stereotypical MC vibes but you're more of an inciting incident.)

Starting September 12, we'll be posting The Butterfly Koi as a serial novel. Sign up now to read from the beginning at https://syphoncontinuity.substack.com.

[annakayy]

Hey y'all - I haven't been as active on here as I would like due to an insaaneee amount of school work. Honestly, I saw it coming since it is the spring semester, and I thought I'd be able to juggle short stories (or a novella) every two weeks on Fridays, but with the intensity of school and the much-needed preparation time for upcoming exams, I'll be cutting down my posting of short stories to once a month for the remainder of this semester. I'll still be active on Tumblr and Substack, as only the official posting schedule of stories is changing, but I wanted to give y'all a heads up about that. That being said, the next post for Chapter 3 of L'appel du Vide is still March 8th, but the one after that will be on April 5th instead of March 22nd.

[jrtstories]

A writer is summoned to a Tower where events are not exact to his story but follow a similar scenario. Along with millions of others, he will have to fight to survive in circumstances similar to a game.

[megsbookclub]

New Poem: Icarus & The Sun☀️

A poem about the tragic consequences of loving something or someone so intensely that it leads to self-destruction and the inevitable downfall that is forbidden love.

[flameswallower]

My partner's real time Der Zauberberg project started today! It's the perfect time to sign up!

[jurassicparkdaily]

Jurassic Park Daily Announcement and Organization 🦖🦕🦖🦕

Considering the rise of substacks (especially Dracula Daily) and the constant discovery of how some classical stories are so different in adaptions compared to it's original source there was one book (series) that came to my mind that is so entirely from it's adaptions. Jurassic Park. If you want the beautiful insanity (and genuine good sci-fi thriller!) that the original is then prepare yourself for Jurassic Park Daily! From rich bicycle twinks, MILFs, GILFs, bikers, baby-faced chaotic villains, homicidal maniacs to dinosaurs with unchecked vendetta and anger issues... we have everything! And especially dinosaurs! Gene manipulated ones even!

With Dracula we redeemed a bunch of characters from their adaptions perhaps with Jurassic Park we'll redeem the next!

🦖🦖🦖🦕🦕🦕🦖🦖🦖🦕🦕🦕🦖🦖🦖

How will Jurassic Park Daily work?

Well, quite different from the typical substacks. Unfortunately the book is copyrighted/not in public domain so we cannot mail them to you. However what we can do is provide you with sources to the books and we'll update you where we currently are in the book on this blog.

Which means:

We will probably read one sub chapter every day or two (still open to debate, poll is on the blog) to keep a steady pace to make it easy to follow how far we are into the book.

We will update everytime which one we are reading that day plus what the title of the next sub chapter is so that you do not miss it by accident.

We will read both books. Means we will also always post in which book we currently are. Note: The two books only loosely tie together meaning you can decide whether you want to read both books or only one of the two.

The starting date is not official yet but we hope to start in late june/early july depending on the chosen reading pace

The reading process will be a lot more independent and will be an attempt at a digital book club where everyone individually finds their best source. If this (a bit) unconvetional way is fine with you and you're interested in dinosaur chaos then join us on our journey through the Jurassic Park 🦕🦖

🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕

What can you do to help the project?

We have a few links and sources but if you have good ones feel free to share them with us!

Nothing else. Just be open for a bit of unconvetionalness and letting yourself get bitten by your local dinosaur 🦖