#also I am pretty sure that I used up my Realistic Hands quota for the rest of my life somewhere partway through this drawing

[chiropteracupola]

dress up nice (and don't get any blood on yourself this time, please)

[collaboration with @dxppercxdxver again. we are still going.]

[multiharlot]

real life spencer / matthew gray gubler x reader

summary: in which matthew meets the woman who inspired the man that’s stolen the hearts of america.

masterlist

part two

third person pov

the girl walked timidly through the busy filming set, clutching her hands around the strap of her shoulder bag. she approaches the studio doors, rocking awkwardly on her white low top vans and running her hand through her hair. her yellow midi skirt swayed softly over her legs as the warm los angeles breeze floated through her white button up. the doors open suddenly and she jumps back, nearly tripping over herself. 

“you must be, y/n. i’m jeff davis, thank you for coming in today.” the man smiles, sticking his hand out to the girl. 

her mouth opens and closes before she smiles. 

“hi. sorry umm...germ thing.” she chuckled awkwardly. 

“oh. oh right i’m sorry. come in and meet the cast.” he says, wiping his hands on his pants and opening the door wider.

she stepped into the doors, tucking her hair behind her ears and waiting for jeff to lead the way. 

“we really appreciate you being here and consulting with us. we want to make this show as real as possible.” he explains as he leads her towards the writers room. 

“of course, i’m happy to help. you did decide to base a character off of me, it’s the least i can do.” she nods, the thought in her mind made her feel slightly awkward, but grateful nonetheless. 

“yes, the cast is so excited to meet you by the way. we all were. it’s not everyday you get to meet a real life genius.” he chuckles. 

“technically, passing the IQ test only determines that you have a certain IQ. a large portion of those with higher IQ’s aren’t all that smart. high IQ’s couldn’t determine your true intelligence, never mind a genius.” she shrugs, silently reveling in the fact that yet another person had called her a genius. 

she secretly hated the term genius. as complimenting as it was, the word had hung over her head her entire life. she herself never believe she was a genius, and the word alone made her feel as though she had to meet a certain quota. the idea of being a genius held her to a standard that she felt she couldn’t meet. 

“right...well i mean, you do have an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory. so...you’re the most genius non-genius i’ve ever met.” jeff shrugged, stopping in front of the white door. 

“yeah...” the girl trails off, stopping beside him. 

“well this is the writer’s room, and this is our cast. everyone, meet agent- sorry, dr. y/n y/l/n. doctor, i give you the criminal minds cast.” jeff smiles as he opens the door, leading the girl into the room. 

she rocked awkwardly on her sneakers, waving timidly. 

“oh you’re so cute!” kirsten squeals, wrapping her arms around the girl, making her jump back. 

“sorry. ah. i’m sorry. i just uhh...germ thing.” she chuckles, making kirsten blush. 

“oh. oh i’m so sorry. i’m just a hugger.”

“that’s okay. you know our tendency to engage in physical touch is often a product of our upbringing. those of us who’s parents weren’t as physically demonstrative tend to disengage from activities like hugging, or even something as simple as a pat on the back.” the girl rambles nervously, making everyone in the room pause. 

“although, some children tend to have the exact opposite effect, leading to a starvation for human physical interaction, which in turn actually turns them into huggers.” matthew smiles widely at the girl. 

she blushes, and a nervous chuckle escapes her lips.

“you must be dr. spencer reid, nice to meet you.” she smiles, nodding her head at the man. 

“my name is matthew. matthew gray gubler. and it’s nice to meet you too, doctor.” he smirks, looking the girl up at down. 

shemar raises his eyebrow at him, an impressed smirk growing onto his face. 

“right, well, y/n here has graciously taken the day off to help assist in our terminology and making this show as realistic as possible. so, let’s get started.” jeff smiles, closing the door behind him. 

the room buzzes with light chatter as everyone begins taking their seats. y/n stood awkwardly off to the side, unsure of where she would be going. matthew takes note of this, and smiles softly, standing from his chair and walking over to her. 

“you can come sit next to me.” he smiles. 

“o-okay.” she nods, clutching the strap of her bag tightly and following beside him. 

the cast all exchange knowing looks as they looked from each other to the pair off in their own little world. 

“so, tell me, is working in the fbi as hectic as we’re making it seem?” matthew asks, leaning his head on his hands. 

“yes and no. we’re more of a sub-unit within the national center for the analysis of violent crimes. there are a total of six different behavioral analysis units, each of us working for a different type of crime.” she explains as the writers scribbled across their notepads feverishly. 

“and which one are you on?” thomas asks, and she smiles as she looks at the man. 

“i work in analysis unit 4, which is crimes against adults and we also work hand in hand with the violent criminal apprehension program, also known as ViCap.”

“is it true you graduated high school at twelve? or did jeff just make that up?” kirsten asks, her eyes wide and curious. 

“thirteen. not twelve. and after high school, i attended Stanford, Cal Tech, and then Harvard where i was immediately recruited by the US government. i’m not supposed to tell you this, but it’s true what they say about those who take math 55.”

“how many PhD’s do you have?” aj asks as she leans onto the table.

“two. chemistry and clinical psychology. and i also have a master’s degree in neurobiology.”

“did they wave you through the academy the same way they did pretty boy, here?” shemar asks, ruffling the top of matthew’s head. 

“no they did not. i actually went through the training, same as everyone else. one thing that isn’t accurate about this show, however, is that our agents are actually required to take a certain amount of personal days per month, and there’s a mandatory 12 hours of counseling with our building psychologist that we have to complete every month.” 

“how many personal days?” matthew asks, a flirtatious smile slapped on his face causing the butterflies to go into a frenzy in y/n’s stomach. 

“u-um. i have a quota of three days per month. so i usually take a long weekend at the end of every month.” she smiles, nervously tucking her hair behind her ears. 

“do you carry a gun? oh! can we see your credentials?” aj gasps, almost excitedly. 

“i do. but only when i’m on the job. otherwise, i don’t like having them. and uhh..yeah sure.” y/n mumbles, rummaging through her purse and pulling out both her credentials and her identification card. 

y/n hands them to matthew and his fingers graze lightly over hers, causing a blush to form over her cheeks. he passes them along to the rest of the cast and he then looks down at the girl next to him. 

“can i draw you?”

“only if i can draw you.”

matthew chuckles, nodding his head. and the two mindlessly doodled each other as the meeting went on. y/n answered what seemed like an endless amount of questions and matthew simply stared her. her eyes, her nose, her lips. he found her absolutely beautiful, and he couldn’t manage to tear his eyes away from her for longer than 2 minutes at a time. as y/n finished her one line doodle of matthew, she scribbled a quick note at the bottom of the page, and tore it out of her notebook. matthew ripped the page from his, ready to hand it to the girl when jeff interrupted them. 

“alright guys, we’ll see you tomorrow. and thank you, dr. y/l/n, for coming in. i can’t explain how informative you’ve been.”

odd choice of words, she thought. but she nodded, saying you’re welcome nonetheless. 

everyone began to exit the room and matthew called out for the doctor, stopping her in her tracks. she looks up at him only realize just how tall he really was. 

“here.” he smiled, handing over the paper. 

to: the real life spencer reid from: gatthew may bugler

she giggled as she opened the page, seeing the truly abstract drawing of herself. 

“this is actually really good.” she smiled, staring down at the page. 

“thank you. it helped to have such a beautiful model.” he says, biting his lip nervously. 

a blush covered her cheeks and her ears and she giggled nervously. 

“well umm...here.” she says, handing over her page. 

when he folds open the paper, his mouth falls open at the beautiful one-line drawing she had done of him. then, his eyes fall to the bottom of the page, and his mouth runs dry.

“umm..give me a call if you need any...character reference.” she says as she rocks back and forth on her feet. 

“can i call you even if i don’t need any character reference?”

she smiles, nodding her head. 

“would uh...would you maybe want to go grab lunch with me?” he asks, scratching nervously at the back of his neck.

she opens her mouth to say something when her phone rings out. her eyebrows furrow as she pulls her phone out of her bag, her partners name across the top. 

“sorry, this’ll just take a second- i’m on my personal time, fields.” she sighs into the phone. 

“no no i know. so am i. and i also know you’re in los angeles. wanna go check out the bureau offices?”

“sorry, i have plans.” y/n shrugs, staring up at matthew. 

“oh do you? doing what?” fields questions. 

y/n bites her lip, reaching over and grabbing matthew’s hand. 

“someone’s taking me to lunch” she smiles, pulling matthew towards the studio exit and hanging up the phone.

“so, where are we going mr. bugler?” she smiles. 

“i thought you had a germ thing.” he says, raising an eyebrow at their intertwined hands.

“i’ll make an exception for you.” she shrugs, making him smile. 

“well, how does chinese sound?”

“perfect..as long as i don’t have to use those god awful chopsticks.”

“a PhD in engineering yet you can’t use chopsticks?”

“excuse you. dr. reid is the one with the PhD in engineering. i only have PhD’s in chemistry and psychology.”

“oh. yeah. only.”

taglist:

@dreatine​ @slytherinintj13​ @mileven-reddie​ @eleventhdoctorsangel​ @haileymorelikestupid

[darkdisrepair]

the first step (is always the hardest)

alright guys fun fact someone asked about the origin of the queens living together but i wasn’t sure how to answer the ask while also having a title so here we are! hopefully whoever asked sees this.

in this, i’m thinking parr is around 20 (which would be about her second/third year of university in the united states, idk about the uk) which makes anne around 21-22

~

“I think I found our place,” Anne declared with a wide grin on her face. Parr looked up from her worn copy of Sense and Sensibility, eyebrows raised.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it, then,” Parr said, closing the book and turning her her full attention toward the brunette. 

“It’s on Upper Park Road. The website says we’d have housemates. They’re looking for two women to help them pay rent, but they don’t really care how old. There’d be a meeting first, so that the other people living in the house could meet us.”

“Upper Park Road is a really nice area,” Parr said skeptically. “Do you really think we could even realistically afford that?!”

“Honestly, it doesn’t look like they’re asking for much. I’m pretty sure whoever owns the house isn’t too worried about making a profit, necessarily.”

“Does it say what they’d expect us to pay? Let’s not forget that we both have university fees still.”

Anne rolled her eyes. “Would I be bringing this up to you if I didn’t think we could do it? They didn’t mention a price estimate. They just want whoever’s interested to set up a meeting and then they said that we’ll talk money there. If it doesn’t work out, fine, we’ll keep looking.”

“I don’t know, Annie, this seems way too far out of our wheelhouse. Houses on Upper Park Road go for millions of pounds, and I, for one, know that that’s definitely out of my price range.”

“Just give it a chance, okay? It’s a beautiful house, and it’s in a pretty decent location. We could get where we needed to go without having to deal with the tourists all the time.”

Parr still looked skeptical, with her arms crossed over her chest. “Anne...”

“It’s just one meeting. And then we can go for ice cream afterward, and I’ll pay.”

“That’s a dirty move.”

“But I know you’ll say yes.”

Even though she tried not to hide it, Anne was incredibly nervous for this first meeting with the homeowner. She and Parr had been looking for somewhere to stay for quite some time now, and this was one of, if not the only promising prospect they had.

It was either this, or find some run down old place on the outskirts of London, in some sketchy neighborhood. Which Anne would rather not do. They tried another place a few months prior, but their landlord had been less than pleasant, always lurking around the building, following Anne to the store one day, trying to bargain a kiss from Parr another...

She just prayed that whoever it was wasn’t going to ask them for much, rent-wise. She made a solid amount performing, but it wasn’t a lot, and Parr was in her final year of university. They certainly couldn’t afford a house on Upper Park Road by themselves.

Anne had dressed as nicely as she could, in one of her favorite olive green sweaters, dark jeans, and a pair of nice boots. Parr wore a white button down shirt, a blue blazer, and maroon pants. 

“Ready?” Anne asked, hand on the doorbell.

“As I’ll ever be.”

The doorbell rang once, twice, before the door swung open to reveal a very professional looking woman, with blonde hair that was nearly white. “You must be Anne and Catherine.”

“Yes, that would be us,” Parr said a bit awkwardly. “And you must be Ms. Seymour.”

“That would be correct, but do call me Jane. Come in. I was thinking we’d get to know each other a bit before we talk business, if that works for the two of you. Are you in much of a rush this morning?” Jane asked as she led them down the entrance hall.

“No, we have nothing planned.”

“Lovely.”

They’d reached the living room now, which was brightly lit by a large window on one side. 

“These two women are Catherine Aragon and Anna Cleves,” Jane said, motioning toward the two women who were seated on the couch. “They are also staying here at the present time. Catherine, Anna, meet, well, Catherine and Anne.”

“It looks like your Catherine and Anna quotas are already filled,” Anne quipped as she sat down in one of the armchairs. “Don’t need much more of those around the house.”

“All we need is another Jane,” Cleves added, smirking. “Then it would be even teams.”

“How about you tell us a little about yourselves? What do you do for a living? How long have you been in London?” Jane asked, looking at the two of them in a manner that made Anne feel like she was a piece of art to be appraised in a museum. 

“We both went to university here, and I’m currently auditioning on the West End,” Anne said. “I studied musical theatre.”

“And I’m planning on becoming a writer after I graduate,” Parr added. “But I still have a little ways to go.”

“What sort of writing?” Catherine Aragon asked, at the same time Cleves asked about what shows Anne was going for.

“Um, well, I like writing about social issues. Women’s rights, how people interact with others, problematic trends. But I also enjoy fiction quite a bit, so maybe I’ll write some novels on the side while I work as a journalist the rest of the time.”

“I’ll really go for any role they want me,” Anne explained. “But I love dancing, and I love playing the quirky characters. The love interest doesn’t really suit me- I prefer the witty ones, the ones with the good one-liners.”

~

The conversation continued like that for about thirty more minutes. To Anne, it felt more like a job interview than a get-to-know-you session, but when something as intimate as sharing a house was on the line, she couldn’t blame any of them for wanting to know as much as possible.

“I have one more question before we make our decision. What brought you here?” Jane asked.

“We had a bad experience at the last place we visited,” Parr said after a heavy silence. “Our landlord was very... pushy. He followed Anne around all the time, flirting with her, trying to get her to go on a date with him... I forgot the keys one time and he tried to get me to sleep with him in order for him to let me in. It just wasn’t where we wanted to be anymore.”

Anne couldn’t bring herself to look at the other women.

“Thank you for telling us that,” Aragon said, but Anne couldn’t tell if her tone of voice had changed because she disliked the two of them or because she disapproved of their old landlord. 

Jane, Aragon, and Cleves left the room for a few minutes to discuss, leaving Anne and Parr alone in the living room.

“They seemed nice, if not intense,” Parr commented. “They seem so put together.”

“They are older than us. They’ve had time to find out what they want to do with their lives, where as we’re just... skating through.”

“Do you really think they’re even considering letting us stay with them? We’re so different from each other. They’re successful, well-off women, and we’re practically kids,” Parr wondered out loud.

“I don’t know. I can see it going either way.”

Anne definitely couldn’t see Jane Seymour appreciating the late-night lifestyle of a theatre actress, or Anne’s passion for wearing wheeled sneakers indoors, but she didn’t tell that to Parr.

The three women came back.

“We’ve made our decision. We’d be happy to have the two of you stay with us, if you would like,” Jane said with little fanfare. “You seem like you have promising futures ahead of you, we’d love to be a part of that. I know the value of a healthy living environment, and while I don’t have much experience acting as a landlady, I’m more than happy to open my home to bright young women such as yourselves.”

“And we need some new life in this house,” Aragon added.

“I’m sure we don’t be without our disagreements. Those are inherent when you put five women in the same house for long periods of time. But as long as you’re willing to adapt, compromise, and try it out, I’m willing to give it a shot,” Jane continued.

Anne held her breath.

“I’m not going to charge you an exorbitant amount. I’m the CEO of a company- I don’t plan on taking your hard-earned money away from you. I consider this less of a business transaction and more as a foray into the human experience. I refuse to let the two of you go through another housing experience like your past one. So, we’ll settle on some kind of monthly payment that fits your financial abilities, such as a few hundred pounds a month. You’ll contribute to groceries, and such, but I am certainly not depending your money in order to keep this house. That was never the issue.”

Both girls were stunned. Anne couldn’t even process what the blonde woman was telling them, she was so shocked. “Is this a dream?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“No, it’s not a dream,” Jane said warmly. “Is this a yes?”

Anne and Parr barely needed to look at each other to confirm before they nodded their assent.

“Welcome home, then, Anne and Catherine.”

[transrph]

                                  Writing a Trans Character                          As Experienced by a Trans Man

With more resources coming out for trans faceclaims, I wanted to make sure that there were also more guides on how to write a trans character. So I’m going to be sharing my personal experience with gender as a toolset for those that haven’t/aren’t questioning their identity. Please keep in mind that this is entirely based off of my personal experience and growth, and that every trans person has their own journey with their own experiences. None are invalid and all are equally as important. This also wound up turning into more of a gender study as well, so feel free to share and message about your thoughts. I’d love to have gender discussions!

Part One                 Part Two The Early Signs     | Mislabeling 

Part Three Navigating Identities

My biggest struggle, but also probably the biggest blessing, was trying to sort through and learn about all of the different identities that I’d found out about once gender became less boy and girl. I owe the knew knowledge I had to a web-series called Carmilla, and I owe the remaining and future knowledge to a youtuber by the name of Ash Hardell, who’s videos are beyond educational (seriously if you ever want to learn about gender identities and different labels go to their channel, it’s incredible).

The first label I used was nonbinary, it was the one I felt most comfortable with at 23 and not having a clue as to what my gender identity really was. I enjoyed my feminine side, I even thought I was pretty. And while some days I was very dysphoric about my chest, others I was more than happy to look down and say ‘damn I have some nice boobs’. Which brings your character to the next set of questions. What about their body do they love, what can they simply appreciate, and what do they absolutely despise? Because there is a difference between appreciating something and actually loving it. I appreciated my boobs, but I didn’t love them. However, my hair I loved, but I also love my short hair as well. It makes me feel better connected to myself. So take your character head to toe, list the things like like about themselves, and sort out what they appreciate and what they love. And then make a separate list for what they hate.

There’s a common misconception that transgender people hate everything about their bodies, or have to be dysphoric at all. The fact is, being trans is different for everyone. For some, yes, it can be crippling dysphoria and severe depression. For me, it was minor dysphoria, and overall unhappiness in myself over something I couldn’t identify, and wishing for people to see me as a boy. In that sense I was more socially dysphoric as opposed to physically dysphoric (more on this in a few). And then we have some that simply don’t experience dysphoria at all, they just know that the way society views them is not how they view themselves. And they know they want to fix that.

With physical dysphoria it is about your body, the things that make you feel like you are not the gender you know you are internally. Hair, face shape, shoulders, genitalia, leg hair, adam’s apple, even height. These are all some of the things a person suffering with physical dysphoria would take note of.

With social dysphoria, it’s more about how society see’s you and what it is about your social interactions that make you come off more masculine/feminine. Voice, for instance, was a major social one for me, because my voice was relatively deep for a female it was still too high to be seen as male. The body language I used is also quite feminine. I pop my hip a lot, click my tongue, wave my hand, all things stuck with the ‘feminine’ label. And it was due to growing up and learning body language from other people that shared my sex.

So when writing your character, know what kind of dysphoria that they experience. Is it mostly social or physical, is it a balance between both?

Also keep in mind that dysphoria isn’t just about the chest and the genitals. Yes for some that’s a huge problem, but for me my lower half gives me no dysphoria. The worst I get is penis envy but never truly dysphoric. My biggest dysphoria comes from my voice, as I said, second to that my muscles, after that my chest, and then after that my height. Dysphoria can present itself in so many different ways and in so many different levels. How much someone experiences will be unique to that person, and no person, character, mun, anyone should tell someone that the way they feel their dysphoria is wrong. So keep this in mind when roleplaying with another trans character, just because their character’s dysphoria does not match your idea, it does not make it any less valid.

Getting back to dysphoria and identities, there sadly is a struggle with the standard ‘quota’ on dysphoria. Because media presents being dysphoric as a sort of requirement, finding one’s gender identity can feel like we are simply making it all up in our heads. So when I finally came to realize that it in fact, is not a requirement, I began to label myself as genderfluid. Because again, I didn’t hate myself for being a woman, and in my mind that was what was required to be a trans male. I can say, the more I explored the masculine side of gender fluidity, the more I began falling deeper and deeper into self discovery. Cutting long hair to short hair seems to be a turning point in a lot of the trans guys I see both on Tumblr and on Youtube. It was sort of like that eye opening moment of ‘Yes. This fits me. Yes.’ A sort of silent validation that this is who you are. For me, I tried to keep it feminine cut, wanting to cling to the female side of gender fluidity due to my relationship with a lesbian cis woman.

However when I got home and saw the cut, it felt worse than when I had long hair. I no longer had the femininity of my long hair, but this wasn’t quite masculine enough in my opinion either. So I went in and chopped my hair off little by little until I got to a length I was happy with. 

For me, my long hair was the biggest thing about my femininity, and even though it was my favorite part about myself, it also made people think I was only female and that didn’t work for me on days when I felt very masculine.

My point in this is that finding the right label and growing comfortable in said label is a process in itself. The entire journey through gender identity is long. Painfully long. And before you know it so much time has passed by just trying it figure out who you are and what your identity is. In my opinion this is critical to the development of a character, knowing the struggles they went through to find their label and to grow comfortable in it. Because as you can see, I very much am not genderfluid, but at the time that was the label I was happy with. It was a stepping stone in the full journey, and that is what character development is about. The journey to who your character is today, and why they are that way. Research as many labels as possible, think about what they would realistically feel comfortable labeling themselves as before transgender fits them (that is if yours struggles with identities, if not then feel free to skip ahead). The following links are to Ash Hardell’s very educational videos on gender identity that they made and I think are a great tool in both writing and in the self.

All About Pronouns

Everything Gender Part One

Everything Gender Part Two

Greygender

Settling into the trans label was oddly difficult. I don’t think it was internalized transphobia because it had nothing to do with transphobia and more to do with me thinking I wasn’t allowed to label myself as transgender given all the facts I’ve mentioned before. So now would be a good time to reflect on your character building. With their experiences as kids and on, their sexuality labels and their comfort in those labels, and now the stepping stone labels (if they used any before identifying as transgender), would your character feel comfortable and sure enough to label themselves as transgender? If yes, congrats feel free to move ahead. If no, then the rest of this will be catered to you.

Growing comfortable in a label, in my opinion, is all about the research done. Learning what it means to identify as that label, and listening to others experiences when finding themselves and identifying with that label. Below is a video I watched (excluding one by Benton Sorensen which was the genuine video that validated my identity. He has since deleted it) that helped me immensely through my journey and I think will further help you in putting your mindset in that of a trans guy (I cannot and will not speak on behalf of trans women because it is my belief that socially they have it much harder and have an entirely different struggle than trans men face. Again, just my opinion).

I Didn’t Know I Was Transgender

I’d like to remind everyone reading that transitioning and figuring themselves out is different for everyone, however, Taylor O’Keefe’s video was like someone took my life and had someone else speak about it. So while there are differences, there are also many similarities on the emotional and mental level. The thought processes when questioning your gender.

So if your character was not feeling comfortable identifying as trans before, write in how they grew comfortable, or have that be a plotline in your story/verse. Because it can be a long grueling process full of self doubt and at times self loathing, I can’t think of a better source of angst than feeling like you are at war with yourself.

Prompt Version:

What about your characters body do they love?

What about your characters body do they appreciate?

What about your characters body do they hate?

Do they experience more physical dysphoria or social dysphoira? Or a balance of both?

Does your character feel comfortable enough at this point in time, to for sure call themselves transgender?

How did they grow comfortable?

[sachablack]

Last week saw me visit the London Book Fair 2017, the UK’s largest book fair. Over 25,000 people attend to negotiate rights, deals, have agent sessions, attend insightful seminars and network with author services as well as meet fellow authors.

I spent two days there and frankly, I think they have to be the best two days of my entire writing career to date. I learnt so much, mostly unexpected things. But also things about myself, things about the industry, and things I didn’t even know I didn’t know.

But all that’s led me to one stark conclusion and one that’s resulted in me taking quite surprising action.

Image Credit: The London Book Fair

But before I tell you my decision, let me tell you about the fair.

THE LONDON BOOK FAIR

I’d been more militant about preparing for the fair than a bra burning protester. I planned everything down to what break I should get my lunch in, to circling locations of the seminars on my maps. I was determined to get as much out of the fair as possible.

I was on my own the first day, several blogging buddies joined on weds.

Being on my own was not cool. There was no part of me that was okay with knowing I HAD to speak to total strangers. My insides rocked themselves rhythmically in dark corners of my mind while my stomach curled into a million knots.

The seminars were good, but I realised they were pitched at beginners. I learnt fast that the benefit of the LBF was not the seminars, but the networking and opportunity to meet others. So I tossed my  itinerary in the bin, sucked up my inner introvert and said fuck it. Off I trotted to talking to people… LOTS of people. I’m pretty sure I’ve used my quota of meeting new people for the rest of my life!

I met my absolute idol, Joanna Penn and tried very hard not to fangirl the shit out of her – I failed miserably and if it weren’t for BlondeWriteMore holding me upright, I’d have thrown up in her lap.

#gallery-0-6 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-6 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Me and Joanna Penn

Me and Clare Lydon mega legend in LGBT fiction

Left to Right: Me, James Blatch co-presenter of the Self Publishing Formula Podcast, Orna Ross Director of ALLi and John Dyer Director of Self Publishing Formula company

There’s too much to break down into one post and I’ll share things over the next few months but here are some quick tips I learnt from the fair:

1. The Two C’s – Book fairs, conferences and any other event with real writing cyborgs in attendance isn’t really about the content, it’s about the connect with other writerly cyborgs. I learnt more talking to other authors than I did from anything else I’ve done… Period.

2. Connection means support. Authors are amazingly generous creatures, and often, asking… just putting it out there that you’d love to connect, or guest post, or pick their brains is actually as satisfying to them, as it is helpful to you.

3. Every author’s journey is different, but the guiding principles are the same.

By that, I mean if you want to sell books, you better make damn sure you have a business mindset, be unscrupulous about priorities/time management, and get a fucking subscriber list! But none of those things are new, I say them all the time. But it was nice to have them reaffirmed at the show.

4. Take business cards. TAKE ALLLLLL THE BUSINESS CARDS you have to any event you go to. I was shocked at how many I used.

5. Planning is everything and nothing. I’d planned every last second, but my plan got torn in two in favour of an ad lib one. But if I hadn’t planned I wouldn’t have been in the right place to bump into people, nor would I have known who they were or what burning questions I wanted to ask. Know who’s going, know what you want to ask, then give them your business card!

6. Smile. Be friendly. Grab yourself by the balls and just say hello, it’s amazing but people don’t actually bite… Okay. I do bite. But only on the weekend.

If you haven’t been to the book fair you should. The two days I spent there have permanently changed my life. I’m still trying to consolidate everything that happened.

Which leads me to my announcement…

There were a lot of conversations at the seminar. I learnt so much from all the amazing authors, and I’ve been given some pretty awesome opportunities to help with my book launch… but those opportunities have pretty finite deadlines. SO…

With a huge amount of reluctance… I am stopping blogging… completely. Well. Until I finish my current manuscripts and send them off to the editor at any rate. I fannyied around attempting to cut down blogging before Christmas with the help of some amazing guest posters (thank you my wonderful blogging buddies), but I need more time. I’ve sacrficied pretty much everything I can without stopping sleep completely, and much as I like to think I am the robotic version of wonder woman, I’m not. Realistically, there’s only one thing left I can give up… The ultimate sacrifice… The blog. The blog has got to go.

I know. Don’t fall over.

Watch me rip my Tarzan t-shirt and roar in my best Schwarznegger voice,”I’ll be back.”

But things are too tight, too close, and frankly, I am desperate to just finish the bastard books. As a result of the networking I’ve got the opportunity to do some pretty spectacular things but now I HAVE to hit my deadlines (cool shit to be revealed when I’m back).

But for now, no more Monday posts. Writespirations will be posted, but I will close the comments – ping backs will work but I won’t be publishing the entries until I hand my manuscript over to the editor. The only other posts you’ll see are pre-scheduled ones for the Bash.

I hope this hiatus won’t be long, hopefully, it might not even last a month… but it could last two. I have to stay strong. I have to have a clear head, and I really need to tick some shit off my triple-figure to do list. Wish me luck, send me coffee or wine, or a shotgun for even considering writing a book in the first place. This isn’t goodbye, so I won’t bullshit you with that. Instead, let me say:

Image from Hot Imagery

  It’s been emotional.

    Sign up for publishing news, writing comps and writing tips galore here.

You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads

  The London Book Fair, Decisions & The Ultimate Sacrifice Last week saw me visit the London Book Fair 2017, the UK's largest book fair. Over 25,000 people attend to negotiate rights, deals, have agent sessions, attend insightful seminars and network with author services as well as meet fellow authors.