#aria l. deair

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Today, meet Aria, and check out their modern heist version of these characters we love…

Stolen Hearts by Aria L. Deair

About the Author: Aria L. Deair is an author who has been writing and (while cursing her excessive comma usage) publishing fanfiction online for more than sixteen years. Freelance writer by day and author every other hour that she isn’t sleeping, she spends her days courting carpal tunnel and “forgetting” to wear her wrist brace.

As a proud member of more fandoms than she can count, Aria can be found blogging about some of the writing that she is avoiding doing at arialerendeair.tumblr.com.

Like a dragon with her hoard, she can be found in her New Hampshire apartment, surrounded by notebooks (most of which are empty), half-filled mugs of tea, and some of the comfiest blankets that have ever existed. Disturb her at your own risk, especially during NaNo Season.

Links: Discord: Dragon#5555 | Tumblr | Twitter

Story Teaser:

“You ready?” Athos asked, pretending to sip the coffee.

D’art sighed and gave him a look. “You hired me for this. You should know that even with all my teasing, I am a professional.”

“So you are,” Athos agreed. “That’s why we’re planning to offer you a position on the team when we’re finished.”

D’art was quiet for a long moment as they stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the 39th floor. He could feel Athos studying him. Assessing his reaction to the offer, maybe. “You have a policy against dating people you work with?”

Athos blinked and sighed. “D’art—”

“Crimson,” Porthos’s voice hissed into the mic.

D’art froze, eyes widening. Over the comms, a crackle and the sound of the earpiece being shattered under a heel came. “Shit.”

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Received Asks: How Did You Pick the Name You Create Under and What Influenced that Decision?

A collaboratively written post by multiple members of Duck Prints Press. The input of every individual author has been used and lightly edited with permission and credited in the way they’ve requested.

Two days ago, a member of Duck Prints Press posed the following questions to our blogging team:

Whether you publish under a pen name or your given name, what factored into your decision to use one or the other?

Was personal safety the primary reason behind deciding to use a pen name, or were there other reasons? 

If you use your given name, do you feel safe? 

What's your advice for [creators] who are thinking about publishing original [work]? 

A number of us replied, and we all felt that the compiled responses would make a good post to share, as “whether or not to use a pen name” is a recurring question we often get in-server, and is likely one many of y’all out there thinking of publishing your original work have pondered as well. 

Do you publish under a pen name or use your given name, and what factors influenced your decision to use one or the other?

@arialerendeair: I publish under a pseudonym and always will! I decided to go with names that riff off my fanfic name (Aria Lerendeair) - Aria L. Deair (for non-erotica) and Aria D. Leren (for erotica) because I’ve built a community and wanted it to be a bit of an in-joke when they find/buy my content. If someone were to find the story organically - they might get the name reference, they might not. It’s a fun way to create not-separation between the names and have one for the different genres! 

B. T. Fish: I (try to) stay anonymous aside from necessary contracts because of personal safety as regards certain family members. I honestly don't worry about strangers knowing who I am, but if I am aiming for anonymity I have to commit.

Annabeth Lynch: I use a pen name, but I plan on taking at least the first name as my legal name when possible. I won't share that or my pen name with my family because 1) they don't know I write, and I'm not content to share that with them at all, and 2) I don't want them to know I'm queer. They likely wouldn't be hellish about it but I would certainly be mocked. Also, now I live in the south and while I live in a liberal section because of the nearby colleges, the place I want to move after my husband's schooling is ~liberal~ in a vague way but definitely not as good as where I am now. It's one reason why I'm hesitant to try and get my books in bookstores that might want in-person events.

Dei Walker: I went with a pen name for the erotica I wrote for DPP (and I'll keep with that), but the first name holds a link with my real name in some ways. My husband's a teacher at a fairly prestigious private school, and there's a degree of "yeah my wife writes smut" that's okay with colleagues but isn't okay if the parents find out about it if they use search engines to learn more about me.

Willa Blythe: I chose to use a pen name. One, my real name is kind of weirdly spelled and I don't actually even use my first name because it is a very popular name from the 80s that my parents left a letter out of... I go by my middle name but I spell it differently than what's on my birth certificate, and I've gone by this name since I was 18. Everyone in my life knows me as (NAME) save my family, and they know I go by that. It's not a nickname, it's my name, and that's fine. 

Anonymous: I decided to use a pen name for two reasons: 1) my name is incomprehensible to English speakers - not only is it hard to pronounce, but it also uses special characters; 2) I'm a primary teacher in a small town where gossip goes wild (for example, when I decided to go part-time so I have more time for writing it was going around that I was pregnant ) so I don't want anyone to find out that I'm queer and write queer romance. There are idiots out there who wouldn't want me to teach their kids because of that. I eventually came up with a pen name that is a word play on my legal name so it still feels like me, and the people I want to know would recognize it as me but strangers are unlikely to make the connection.

Nina Waters ( @unforth ): I publish under a pen name because people always mispronounce my last name and my understanding is that it's better to make a pen name people can pronounce. Back when I was still considering trad pub, I was planning to use multiple pen names so I could write across genres. Nina Waters was gonna be spec fic and romance, but I love historical drama type stuff too and like. Those sell better with a male name on them? So I was gonna use either C. P. Houck (so, my actual initials and last name) or Charles (or maybe Chuck) P. Houck, since Charles is a family name (my uncle, my grandfather, and my great grandfather on my dad's side are all Charles's). That all said, when I decided to go the small Press creation route instead, there was basically no way to keep my real name out of things since as the owner I have to put it on all official paperwork, which means it's filed with the government and a matter of public record. Since anyone could access it, there didn't seem to be much point in keeping it a secret/separate. 

Was personal safety the primary reason behind deciding to use a pen name? What other reasons influenced your decisions?

(some authors included their answers to this in their replies above)

Nina Waters: Not really, though I did originally concoct the Nina Waters name for a really silly version of personal safety? I was writing a thing based on my unrequited feelings for someone and I obviously couldn't put that under my real name without risking them figuring it out, so I needed a pen name. I never did finish that project lmao and now I would never bother but the pen name stuck. 

arialerendeair: Part of [why I use a pen name] is because I was doxxed (and received threats) from a non-writing community almost a decade ago. I’m not afraid of attaching my real name to my works - I’m proud of them! But with the very real possibility of that happening again at some point in the future, I didn’t want to risk it!

Willa Blythe: There was an additional reason that using a pen name was important to me, though. When I wrote fan fiction, I was the victim of a targeted hate campaign aimed at people who wrote fanfiction about a certain character. I wrote fic that I loved and I stayed in my corner, but I got aggressive and hateful messages constantly about not only myself but also my young son, for the crime of choosing to write about a young man of color instead of the overwhelmingly popular white m/m ship in that fandom. It was alarming, especially when people I didn't know sent me messages about my workplace and my movements there. Prior to that, I'd been pretty open online. I'm not now. I take doxxing very seriously. My son's safety, but also my own and my roommate's, are of huge importance. I write about things people don't love: complicated queer relationships, critiques of capitalism and white supremacy, critiques of religion and spiritual practices, etc. I have to do what is necessary to create distance between my real life, my fandom life, and my writing life. That said... I've done more to separate my fandom and writing identities than my real and writing identities, for a variety of reasons. It's complicated, but as much as I love fandom, it does breed a certain kind of entitlement that my personal friends and family just don't have.

If you use your given name, do you feel safe?

@owlishintergalactic: My wife and I had a huge conversation about the implications of me writing under my wallet name. I am quite politically involved in the Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education sectors in my county and state. This is a sector where being openly LGBTQ can cause problems with a particular subset of parents and voters. Yet, we don't believe we should have to hide who we are and that we are LGBTQ - like many other parents in our state. We decided, in the end, that since I don't write anything more racy than "mature," it makes sense to build my platform using my real name. My writing is a part of me. It is a part of my advocacy. It's my profession. But it is a risk, and it's mitigated some because I live in one of the most open and inclusive communities in the US. For the most part, though, I do almost all of my online work under a variation of Owlish because it creates a layer of protection between me and the internet masses who don't always have the best intentions.

Nina Waters: I. uh. Mostly? I definitely worry about it. I've been thinking about getting a P. O. Box for the business so I at least don't have to use my real address all the time too. I worry that if someone took offense to the kind of work I do, they could go after my children, and that scares the crap out of me. In retrospect I wish I’d worked a little harder to keep my identities separate, but they were already mostly merged by the time I had kids and I’d have had to completely restart with new screen names and everything, so it felt like it was already too late by the time the business became public.

What’s your advice for [creators] who are thinking about publishing original [work]?

Nina Waters: The advice I give to people in the Press is if they're even a LITTLE unsure, they should use a pen name. At any time when they decide they're comfortable they can always switch to using their real name, but once the genie's out of the bottle there's no putting it back.

arialerendeair: There are a great many reasons to choose to use a pseud! For your own personal reasons, for reasons involving your spouse, your family, your activism work, because the internet is a scary place sometimes and many grew up in the web safety diligence era. If you are picking up a pseud for any reason at all - great! They can be fun, they can be punny, (is it a coincidence that D is the middle initial for my pseud that I write erotica under? Nope!) and they can be a chance to reinvent yourself for an audience that doesn’t know you yet. There’s a power in being able to shape a persona - and sometimes it’s fun to grab that and see where it leads!

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Do you - yes, you, the person reading this! - use a pen name for publishing your art, fiction, or other types of creations? Have you kept your fandom, creation, and meatspace selves separate? We’d love to hear your answers to the above questions, so feel free to reblog and weigh in!

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Have a question? Feel free to drop us an ask any time!

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Solicited Brilliance

Hey everyone! This is Aria, one of the resident fandom olds here to bring you a guest blog post this week. The topic is near and dear to my heart, so let’s dive straight into talking about that ever-ominous thundercloud - Writing Advice! 

Writing advice is a tricky subject for many authors - what works for one clearly doesn’t work for another, and what’s essential for one genre might not even apply to another genre . (Certain authors can pry adverbs from my cold, dead hands.) It doesn't matter who is offering it, where, or when: it is an industry truism that writing advice is as varied as writers themselves. 

With that in mind, I asked ten different authors for writing advice, in the hope to highlight just how different we all are, even when approaching the same question.

The question I posed to everyone individually (so no one would get worried if they gave the same answer), was as follows: What is one piece of writing/writerly advice you hold as a Universal Constant? That no matter what you are writing or what you are working on still holds true?

As I hoped, the advice is as varied as the authors are!

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@nottesilhouette:

Hmm I think for me, the Universal Constant is that [my writing has] got to make me feel good. Not necessarily happy, because I've definitely written through tears before, but it's got to make me feel...satisfied, or give me catharsis, or lead me towards a goal I'm passionate about (looking at you, med school essays!). 

Even if [my writing is] for school, getting things done feels good, and for creative writing, I want to feel like I've stretched my writing brain or accomplished something cool -- if I'm not getting that feeling, it's time for a break and maybe a new plan of attack.

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Hermit:

"You can't think your way out of a writer's block. Most of the time you need to write yourself out of a thinking block.” - John Rogers

When a story is fighting me this is often the solution. Either the scene is going against the characterization, the characters are lacking agency/being too passive, or I went wrong three sentences back; the answer to getting the story flowing is to write it differently and see how that feels. Rather than try to force an existing scene by coming up with better justification for an OOC (Out of Character) passage or diving into a new research rabbit hole.

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Shadaras:

I don't know where this advice first came from (it's one of those things that just gets passed around until it's from the general writer mindscape, especially in fandom spaces), but this is the advice I tend to ground myself in: "Write what you want to read." What that means can vary depending on context, of course, but it gives a guiding point to return to when I'm stuck. 

The thing I want to read could be a specific character dynamic, or leaning into descriptions of the environment, or a plot beat I really want to hit, or even (in a nonfiction context) just the clearest explanation of an event/rule I know how to give. Writing what I want to read means that I'm going to enjoy myself more, and that means that I'm going to be able to write much more easily, and that makes it more likely I'll finish stories and be able to share them with other people - and then I can find people who like the same things in stories I do, and we all win!

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Annabeth Lynch:

The most constant advice that I really try to keep in mind is that sure, someone else may have written it, but not you. Everyone has unique experiences, and that makes your writing unique. No one can write something the exact way you would. It's my favorite advice I've ever gotten, and I feel that it's always relevant.

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@ts-knight:

Writing by habit is often easier than waiting for the muse. When I feel out of practice in my writing, I find that starting again is an uphill climb, but setting a daily goal helps me get back into the flow. That goal could be just writing at all or a certain (achievable) number of words. That way, I know I've reached the goal not when I've hit a certain quality of writing, but when I sat down at the keys. Exercising my writing muscles (even when I'm afraid to) makes the creativity flow so much better than avoiding the ominous blank page!

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@mad-madam-m:

[My writing advice is] that you have to finish. And I don't mean that you have to finish everything that you write; I've got easily a dozen stories or more that are either unfinished or never made it past the first draft. But if you're writing with the goal of sharing your stories with an audience, be that via fanfic or original fiction or what have you, I really think one of the best things you can do is learn to finish them. This quote about it in particular is one that I've held close to my heart for years:

“Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don’t talk about doing it. Do it. Finish.” — E. L. Konigsburg 

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Sanne Burg:

I think my universal constant is that I write because I want to write, and I create for myself. That means not caring what other people think of the topics I write [about], as long as I'm behind whatever it is I'm writing. (It also means that I know when I'm forcing it and that I need to stop when writing becomes a chore rather than something for fun or a hobby.)

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@theleakypen:

I think the one [piece of writing advice] that has been truest for me, regardless of what I'm working on, is that if something isn't working [I should] step away from it for a bit and go work on something else. Usually if there's a problem, I need to let it percolate in the back of my head instead of banging my head against a wall.

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ThePornFairy:

Focus on the feeling. If you can write the feeling so that it's filling you from the tips of your toes to the hair on your head, then you're on the right track. People don't care half as much about the setting and wording as they do about the feeling. 

When people say "step inside your character", I think what they mean is "let your character feel and feel along with them until feelings come out on your page and stab your reader's eyeballs until they're feeling right along with you." Everything else can be edited later, as long as you capture and express the emotions.

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@tryslora:

Fall in love with your characters. If you don't love them, no one else will. And yes, this includes the antagonists and every single side character. And while you're doing that, remember that every single character thinks they are the star of their own narrative, so let them tell you what it is, even if it's not the main storyline. Let them come alive.

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Wonderfully said, everyone! I’m going to add my answer to the question as well, because sometimes, I’ve needed this reminder far more than I’ll admit! 

@arialerendeair:

Don’t be afraid to write badly. Or poorly, or lazily. (Take that, Mr. Adverb-Hater.) There is a freedom I never realized before in allowing myself to write “badly:” to overuse certain words, phrases, and even styles as I write my rough draft. When I remember not to focus on the minutiae of a story, I can focus on the bigger problems, and fix the small ones later. Once the words are on the page, they can be fixed, but they have to be put on the page first. Write badly, edit, learn, get better, and write again. 

Writing advice as a topic is a mix of controversial and contradictory; all advice should be applied in moderation rather than treated as an endless stream of syrup being poured over a stack of pancakes. (And now I want pancakes…) It’s always all right if advice doesn’t apply to you - but understanding why the advice is given is important. There are other authors out there who might need the advice that isn’t right for you.

When I set out to write this blog post, I had two goals. The first was I wanted to highlight how varied writing advice and tips can be. The second one was for everyone reading it to walk away with one piece of advice that they could hold to heart because it fit them. I accomplished the first, but the second is entirely up to every author reading this. 

The one consistent theme through all of this advice comes down to two words: Keep Writing. Whether that’s daydreaming about your story or putting the words down on the page, write. 

Keep writing. 

Last, but not least, I’ll leave you all with the same question, because I know there are more answers out there that we all would love to hear:

What is one piece of writing/writerly advice you hold as a Universal Constant? That no matter what you are writing, what you are working on, still holds true.

Stay sassy, everyone!

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"And Seek (Not) to Alter Me" Story Teasers: Era J. M. Couts and Aria L. Deair

Author Spotlight: Era J. M. Couts

Biography: I’ve been a writer for over 20 years. Well, if I actually think about it carefully, it has probably been longer than that. I do remember writing a story on MS Paint when my age was still single digits. I could have used Word, but Paint was funnier, it let me draw my scenes there too.

So maybe I should rephrase it: I have been a fanfic writer for over 20 years. There, that looks a bit better. I wrote a few originals, too, but those never saw the light of day. They will, eventually.

I like to write about characters and their development. I like to write about feelings and struggles and how complicated life can be even when it looks so simple. I like to write epic love stories that don’t always have a happy ending. But most often they do.

I will, one day, write a dystopian series that I’ve been plotting for over a decade. One day, certainly one day.

Aside from being a writer, I’m a reader, an opinionated mind, an Aries, an immigrant, a coffee lover, and a night owl that has been forced to conform to the social norm of waking up early only to become a “Morgenmuffel.”

I am passionate, energetic, lazy, and sarcastic. I’m a CrazyCatLady in the making, a food lover that cannot cook, the Man™ my grandma wanted me to marry, and a happy soul in my own shoes.

And, above all, I am weird. I am queer. And so damn proud of it.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr (@erajakira)

Story Title: Ruckus, Drama, and 2 Metre Tall Penguins

Tags: genderqueer character, modern setting, setting: berlin

Teaser:

“I bet you a lokum cube they will stay at this for a good ten minutes.” Brigit nudged Jinji gently, moving around on the old bench to make herself more comfortable. Her teasing smile made Jinji sigh.

Sitting next to Brigit, Hatice giggled, “Ten minutes? I say we will not have any more rehearsing to do tonight!” she said, stretching her legs in front of her. “I bet you two lokum cubes they will not even notice if we leave now.”

“Am I the only one worried we won’t be ready in time for the premiere?” Jinji eyed the ladies, with their light moods and high spirits, and tried not to frown. He was certainly the youngest in their theatre group; he was also, alongside the always warm/stunning/Jinji’s-”problem number one” Pascoal, the latest to join. He didn’t have much experience with theatre—or any stage art for that matter—but his nature demanded he succeed. Shouldn’t they be able to run the play from start to end when they were mere 14 days away from the big night?

“You worry too much, pumpkin,” Hatice said, and Jinji sighed again. She’d been saying that since the day he’d joined the group, three months before. “Your generation seems to be built to worry! Our grandkids are the same. Always worrying about one thing or another.”

“You will have worry wrinkles by the age of twenty-five if you keep frowning like that,” Brigit warned, nudging him again. Carlo’s cursing onstage grew so loud it nearly drowned her out. “And then, when you get to our age, you will look like our rescued sphynx cat!”

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Author Spotlight: Aria L. Deair

Biography: Aria L. Deair is an author who has been writing and (while cursing her excessive comma usage) publishing fanfiction online for more than sixteen years. Freelance writer by day and author every other hour that she isn’t sleeping, she spends her days courting carpal tunnel and “forgetting” to wear her wrist brace.

As a proud member of more fandoms than she can count, Aria can be found blogging about some of the writing that she is avoiding doing at @arialerendeair.

Like a dragon with her hoard, she can be found in her New Hampshire apartment, surrounded by notebooks (most of which are empty), half-filled mugs of tea, and some of the comfiest blankets that have ever existed. Disturb her at your own risk, especially during NaNo Season.

Links: Discord: ✨Dragon✨#5555 | Tumblr | Twitter

Story Title: An Office Ado

Tags: fluff, friends to lovers, getting together, modern setting, mutual pining

Teaser:

“Don’t be like that.” Hero bumped his shoulder with her own. When he still said nothing, she turned to look at him then took his arm to stop them on the landing between floors. “We’re friends, aren’t we, Beau?”

Beau blinked in surprise, turning his full attention to her. “What makes you ask a question like that, Hero?”

She shifted on the balls of her feet, brushing a fleck of imaginary dust off her slacks. “I wondered if you talk with me the same way I do with you.”

“I do,” Beau tilted his head. It was clear she had more to say. “In fact, you often bemoan how much I talk about—”

“I’m not talking about work or office things, Beauregard,” Hero said, her lips pressing together to make a thin line. “I’m talking about you.’

Beau frowned, his shoulders hunching. “What about me?”

Hero waved a hand at him. “Things like whether you’re a cat or a dog person, why you only own six collared shirts—”

Beau stiffened indignantly. “It’s efficient—”

“—and how long you’ve been in love with Benedict Dickson.”

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