#maybe more. we'll have to see how much i can add when it edit.

[krytus]

you wish you were me

[jothemouse]

COMMISSIONS ARE CLOSED!!

EDIT/UPDATE:

Commissions will be closed until August! Thank you so much to everyone who's commissioned me or shown interest in these! It means the world to me!! And I hope that you'll all stick around to see the results of these commissions!! (Which does include the sticker plan!)

To all current commissioners and waitlisted folks: don't worry, your pieces are still in progress and to those on the waitlist I will be in contact! Thank you all for your patronage and patience! You are all so amazing!!!

If you would like a commission but missed out on these, please be sure to check back in August!

Thank you all again so much!! I hope you have a wonderful week you guys!! <333

SO, as you may know, some of you may know, maybe none of you know, I am trying to start selling stickers!!! On my own. No RedBubble or Society6. Nope. All by my lonesome!

But in order to do that, I need to make the money to purchase the stickers and other necessary shipping supplies in the first place. So, I'm opening commissions!! Specifically,,,,,,

I am doing sketch commissions!

I don't have a set close date OR any slots, so it is completely first come, first serve for as long as I can keep it up!

I'm going to include more information, process, as well as terms and conditions under the cut, but if you have any questions not answered below please don't hesitate to get in touch with me here, on Instagram (@jo.the.mouse) or by email (micecandraw@gmail.com)!

And before I continue on, if you cant commission me but want to support me all I ask is that you please reblog this post!! It does a WORLD of wonders to spread posts around! Thank you!!

What I'm Offering

Commissioned artworks in my “Sketch Style”. The money made from these commissions is going to directly fund the creation and sale of illustrated stickers!

Here is a fun little preview sketch of what will be the Canada sticker that I've been obnoxiously polling people about:

Prices

Uncolored Sketch:

$15 

Includes: one character, no/minimal shading, and simple/abstract background

Flat Color Sketch:

$25

Includes: one character, no/minimal shading, and simple/abstract background

Full Color Sketch:

$35

Includes: one character, basic shading, and simple/abstract background

Add Additional Characters:

+ $5 per added character

What I will draw:

OCs (original characters)

Fanart

Real People

Furries (Anthro and Feral)

Fantasy/DnD 

Suggestive (no real people without written and signed consent)

What I will NOT draw:

Overtly NSFW

Heavy Gore

Process

Contact me either through DMs (Tumblr: jothemouse, Instagram: jo.the.mouse) or through email (micecandraw@gmail.com) 

We'll talk a bit about your commission (like what you're looking for, any references I'll need, how much it'll cost,.ect.) I'll also be asking for your email and preferred payment method at this time. 

Payment for the commission is due upon receiving a confirmation email. This email will include a google form contract (this is mainly for me to make sure I have everything correct), notice that I've sent you a payment request, and a time estimate! 

I will begin the initial sketch once payment is received. 

Refunds are available at any point before you receive the initial sketch. 

Upon receiving the initial sketch you can suggest changes and revisions. This is your only opportunity to do so. 

From there I will finalize your commission to agreed upon level. 

I will let you know when your commission is finished and send you an email containing a PDF and PNG file!

Terms and Conditions

PAYMENT is due upon receiving email with confirmation and a time estimate. Depending on discussed payment method, you will receive either A; a PayPal invoice, or B; a Venmo payment request. Work will begin once payment is received. 

REFUNDS are available at any time BEFORE you receive the “initial sketch” OR if commission cannot be delivered within agreed upon time or at all. 

Time estimate is not a hard deadline and response times may affect how long a commission will take. 

This commission is for PERSONAL USE ONLY. You may not use the commission for any commercial purposes, claim it as your own, or use it in conjunction with any AI methods. 

I reserve the right to refuse any commission that I believe falls outside of my comfort level or skill level.  

Additionally, I will only be drawing in the specific style demonstrated in the example works. 

ALRIGHT! You made it through all that nonsense!

Thank you so much for reading! And if you're able, please consider commissioning me!

I hope to see you in my DMs!! (^-^)

[where-i-overanalyze]

Maka and Crona gay moment masterpost (part 2)

welcome back everyone. part 1 is here.

literally pain and nothing else

fellas, is it gay to threaten to kill your crush's mom in exchange for information of their whereabouts???

i feel like this definitely counts. when your friends know how much you care about one person that they immediately react to hearing bad news about that person is "oh man, they're gonna cry." kinda gay imo.

also, Maka literally sends re-brainwashed Crona into a panic. by Black☆Star and Tsubaki just mentioning Maka to them, they literally lose it and it messes with the brainwashing, experimentation, whatever it is that Medusa did to them so that by the time they've killed Medusa they can at least pull some of Maka's significance in their life out of the depths of the madness. UGH!!!! devastating,,,,,,

Maka trying to pinpoint Crona's soul wavelength?? her first instinct is to look for them as she remembers them, not what they've become. i'm emotional

the church

idk man, abandoning the order you fought for your whole life to make sure that you are able to spare and knock some sense into this person, who you know has been wrongfully manipulated??? these are kinda gay.

ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow

the head cradling, the reestablished connection, and once again, someone Maka is close to is like "yeah, Crona means a lot to Maka, so we've been making sure to keep believing in you too"

and would it truly be gay without tragedy??? without redemption and devotion and sacrifice??? without the lingering devastation that one has to live without the other for the rest of their life??? understanding that, while people may somewhat understand how they feel, they will never be able to share this specific experience with someone else??? the mourning, the memory, staring at a reminder every night of everything that happened and a promise that couldn't be kept while everyone moves on with their lives.

literally devastating. is it that poetic because that's because it's the way it was written and planned, or is it because i've become extremely attached to these characters??? that's up to interpretation (not really, i doubt Ohkubo would do what i wish this all meant)

now, happy anime things to make this nice at the end!!!!

misc. homosexual anime behavior

okay, yeah, each of these scenes didn't happen in this order, but it's still gay.

i tried to upload that as a gif, but it was Too Big. fellas, is it gay to have a montage of all your memories as you avenge them, and then the montage is apparently too long to become a gif because you have all these memories with them???

thanks for joining me. haven't done a long post in a bit and this one is Long. if there are any other gay moments i missed, let me know and i'll edit this post and add more of them (or maybe just a part 3, but i hate making "parts" so we'll see)

(edit 1: found a better translation for the panels from Chapter 112, so i replaced the previous panels!)

[steamberrystudio]

30/07/2023 Devlog

Hallo! Time for another quick devlog here on tumblr.

Summary:

All Sprite expressions coded in Yuu's route

One additional sprite finished and added

The Ramble:

So...I have finished sprite expressions for Yuu's route. 😵

It was gruelling.

It took me a while to realise why it felt like so much more work than the last couple of routes and I realised it was due to the fact that it's Endgame.

The Endgame routes tend to have a lot of huge group scenes as the characters have group training sessions, missions, and lots of meetings.

When I thought about it, I realised that the last three routes I coded were Lance, Quill, and Reuben. While there *are* group scenes in those routes, none of them happen with as frequency or as many characters as a lot of the Endgame group scenes.

So yeah. This was pretty tedious and I gave myself several headaches (LoL).

But the expressions are complete.

I have a few more sprite images to complete and put in the game but all the expressions are coded so once the images are done, I should be able to just plug them in and have them show up properly. That said, I'll still need to go through and double check that nothing is broken and no one is randomly stripping or losing their face (which is what happens if I typo something. LoL)

So yeah, the main remaining things are the sprite and CG art.

Upcoming Weeks:

As I said, it's really down to the sprites and CGs. I do have a few other small things to do like the ending card and other minor stuff. But the *big* thing is the art.

That's what I'll be working on in the upcoming weeks. It's really difficult to gauge how long CGs and sprites will take. Sometimes I can finish an entire CG in one day and sometimes it takes three days for one CG.

And of course it comes down to how much my hand cooperates.

Once the art is done and coded, we'll move into the beta stage for Yuu's route. =O But I don't think we'll quite be there by my next update here. But we shall see! 

I'll basically be in drawing-mode going forward! 💪💪

When Stars Collide:

There isn't a whole lot to talk about for WSC this time around - I got the new "bridge" background for The Ophelia. It has a really different vibe than the old image but it makes me excited to see all the new ones.

I decided to add in a "Music room" in the extras which is not something I've done before. But since this game won't have a consolidated OST anywhere, I thought it would be useful. And I'm planning a fun little feature for it.

I haven't written much more than what I had two weeks ago. Maybe 10,000 words or so (a little less, I think). But I have done a lot of planning regarding the new character and new chapter. And I have started making edits to existing scenes to account for Kav's presence. 

I have written all of Noel's chapter 5 scenes, and all of Raif's chapter 5 scenes, and started Yren's chapter 5 scenes as well.

So yeah, that slow-moving train is....slow moving still.

That's all for now - see you in a couple of weeks!

[topazadine]

Common Writing Issues that Reduce Readability

A short little Monday post so that we stop pissing readers off!

Beyond the usual issues that are easily fixed, like typos, there lie a few more pernicious problems that can drag readers out of a story kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, they happen to nearly everyone, no matter their skill level, and must be watched for carefully.

Now, I want to note that I am never attempting to prescribe how you should write. However, I want you to think back to the last time you read something that made you roll your eyes and give up - it's likely that at least one of these problems was present.

Here is the sum-up, and then we'll talk details. I will be showing examples of my own writing that include these deadly sins, so feel free to point and laugh.

Double describing

Overly long sentences

Overexplaining

Head hopping

Again, a big disclaimer.

I can't tell you how to write, this is just my opinion, you are the crafter of your own story, take what you like and leave the rest.

Alright, let's get into it.

Double Describing

Describing the same thing in two different ways right next to one another feels repetitive and annoying; it comes across as self-indulgent, like you're more interested in showing off how smart you are than telling a story. I have been a perennial offender in this, as shown by my story "Beyond Mortal Sight."

Here, I've highlighted the things that were double-described in blue. This includes:

The underworld

Higekiri

The crypt

The room being mostly empty

Pick the strongest descriptor and cut the other ones. You might think that this makes your writing weaker, but it actually strengthens it, as you're not diluting the description and can move along faster.

If you're not sure whether you're double describing, try removing one of the selections and see if you're still describing what you wanted to. Maybe you just need to tweak one of them, but both of them can still stand on their own; in that case, differentiate them more, or move them so that they are not right next to each other in order to provide better emphasis.

Now, sometimes you really do want to linger on a specific description, and that's fine. However, you need to ensure that you're looking at different aspects of the same thing.

I do end up lingering on the moths for a long while, and it doesn't get too repetitive (at least I don't think so) because I'm describing different elements of them.

Overly Long Sentences

The longer a sentence is, the harder it is to emphasize certain things, and the more likely that a reader will get lost aong the way and need to reread things. Of course, we want readers to take our time with the work, but paradoxically, readers are more willing to linger and reread with shorter sentences because they're not getting frustrated and glossing over key elements.

Take a look at this section of my story "A Tale of Two Citadels," which I've been meaning to rework for ages because it has chronic logorrhea. The sheer length of these damn sentences!

Right off the bat, we see that the first sentence blasts past the typical "four lines max" rule. The second one is slightly better, but it still has way too many clauses and can be confusing. The third one can easily be cut up into at least two sentences, maybe three, without losing the rhythm.

When reworked, you can see how much better it flows by the color coding.

The sentences are still complex, but they're more manageable for readers. The longer a sentence, the more difficult it is, and the more likely that your reader will get lost.

At the same time, you do want some complexity and variety in your sentence lengths. These are all about the same length, which can become a bit boring.

If I were really committed to editing this, I'd go further and add some very short sentences too.

Reading your sentences out loud, or using an auto dictation tool, can be very helpful to see whether you're overdoing it with sentence length. If you have to stop to take multiple breaths while reading a single sentence, then it is probably too long.

You can also color-code while you are editing to see whether your sentences are all around the same length. If so, see if you can cut a few of them up.

Overexplaining

This issue often shows up more when we are explaining why something happened, but it can start to feel boring and repetitive. As an example from my story "Shattered Pieces:"

This part happened right after someone was stabbed and, frankly, takes away a LOT of the tension from the story.

Is it really necessary at this exactly this second, when someone is lying on the ground bleeding, to explain why the incident happened? No, it's not. Half of this could be removed and the story would read so much better, like so:

Now we can move to the juicy stuff of Uguisumaru lying on the ground bleeding to death. Much more important.

A crucial element of writing is to reveal details as they become important, not before. This doesn't mean hiding things from your reader, nor throwing in things at random whenever you feel like; rather, it's about not forcing your reader to do the work of holding onto this information in the hopes that it will become important at some later time.

Is what Mikazuki thinking about here really that important to the overall story? No, we don't need that information. Maybe they can talk about it later, or maybe it will never be discussed.

Now, a quick sidetrack about foreshadowing here. Great foreshadowing works by not feeling like toil and by not beating the reader over the head with the information. They pick up on it, but they don't feel like they need to hold onto it. Careful foreshadowing sprinkled throughout a story feels effortless and natural, without imposing a cognitive load on the reader.

As I've mentioned before when discussing fantasy in general, we do not want our reader to feel like they are doing work. Few of us are at the level of someone like Mark Z. Danielewski, where we can create a book that is all about doing work but readers will still enjoy it because it is that entertaining. (I did not like House of Leaves personally, but that's just me.)

Therefore, our goal is to reduce friction as much as possible while still developing a fun, compelling, thought-provoking piece of fiction. We do this by avoiding infodumping, as I did in that above passage, and revealing information as it becomes important without seeming like things just come out of nowhere. That's where foreshadowing becomes crucial.

Head Hopping

This one is discussed often, but it's also really easy to accidentally do when you're working in third-person limited (my preferred POV). In small cases of dipping into someone else's head, it doesn't really cause concern for the reader, who might not even notice it, but it does make it harder to keep track of the main POV.

It's also important not to dip too often into peoples' heads while you're doing omniscient POV, either. Here, in this segment of "Dreams Within Dreams," we have at least four partial POVs, which I have color coded:

This is technically fine for an omniscient POV, but dipping into too many heads too quickly can become overwhelming and exhausting for the reader. Thankfully, it is an easy fix by simply removing the assumptions of judgment and focusing entirely on the actions.

I mean, it's still not the greatest writing, but we have a more opaque, birds-eye view of everyone, rather than constantly jumping in and out of everyone's head.

This is especially hard not to do when you have numerous characters all together in one scene, which is why it is often easier to avoid having a huge group of individuals together, especially if you're not confident in your skills yet.

The more characters you juggle, the more you need to ensure that you're not leaving anyone out and that everyone gets at least one line without it feeling choppy. This scene definitely could have used a lot more work so as to feel more natural. But that's the joy of fanfiction! It's all about learning and growing as a writer.

Nowadays, I try to limit my scenes to two "main" talkers and then add at least one line for other side characters if I have a big group, but I specify that they're off doing something else so people don't wonder where the hell they went.

And that's about it for today! Again, my posts are never about telling you how to write. I am sharing what I have learned as both a reader and writer so that you can make the choices that best fit your story. Happy writing!

If you enjoyed this, perhaps you'll consider purchasing my book, 9 Years Yearning, a gay coming-of-age romance set in a fantasy world. Which does not include any of these sins. Only $2.99 or ZERO DOLLARS with Kindle Unlimited!

If you're not sure about spending your hard-earned money, check out this review to learn more.

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

For the WIP game, do you have plans to add add any more to Outside the Lines from the Outside Chance universe? You single-handedly got me shipping Prim & Rye(n) hard b/c of this fic 😂 And from in progress, You + Me and/or The Cold Side of the Bed?

Alright, we'll cover all three. <3 Below the cut because it's a lot of text.

Friend. I am totally going to throw my beta under the bus on this one. PRIM AND RYEN WERE NEVER PLANNED. I was not gonna go there. Buttercupbadass, however, had other ideas. "Wouldn't it be funny if Prim's 'spa day' was her sneaking away to be with Ryen???" she asked. "Oh it's so cute she had a crush on him!" she says. "Screw it. I want them [Prim & Ryen] to get married," she puts in her edits/comments on ch 17 of Outside Chance, and not on a Prim and Ryen interaction even. That's what bba commented when Prim is saying goodbye to Eirik when she and Katniss are leaving Skaid after their summer visit!

Thus began an entire barrage of her reasoning, possible scenes and dialog, and then... THEN bba mentioned how funny it would be if Katniss accidentally saw a naked Ryen in the background of a Skype call one day and I lost it. So much of that story has roots in my personal life and well... so does that, unfortunately. But after that, the whole concept became too delicious for me to resist. And also, bba was right. They belong together.

I absolutely plan on adding more to Outside the Lines. At the moment, I feel the need to finish writing the next chapter of Outside Chance because that's the root story. I build Outside the Lines and Outside Expectations around what's in Outside Chance, and in a lot of ways, Otl and OC are kind of written simultaneously. So here's a snippet from the next chapter of Outside the Lines and lord help me if bba sees this, I won't hear the end of her prodding to get it done lol ;)

--

“So you’re the flavor of the week. Is there anything you can tell me about Ryen’s mental state going into this competition?”

“If I were really just the flavor of the week, why would you think I’d have any insight into his mental state?” I retort. There’s not much I remember about Agnes Mellark, other than a vague impression of cold aloofness. But how much of my idea of her has been stained by what Katniss and Ryen have told me about her? I don’t know.

I can’t even tell if she recognizes me right now. Maybe it’s too soon to play this hand, but I can’t resist. Maybe because it’s proof that I know Ryen far better than any of his previous flings. Maybe even better than the woman confronting me right now.

“Aren’t you his mother? You should have a better idea of his mental state than me,” I say with a smile. Really, I’d like to stab her in the jugular, but with what? Couldn’t smuggle in a knife, and am unfortunately not wearing my favorite four inch heels, which would be a perfect weapon.

Agnes purses her lips and her eyes wrinkle at the corners. Oh shit, I think and prepare to run, but she shakes her head and chuckles slightly.

“I wish I could say that my son were smart, but he usually thinks more with his dick than his brain,” she says and eyes me. “You’re every bit as beautiful as the others, but smarter, aren’t you?”

“I’d like to think I am,” I say.

“Good. Maybe you actually have a shot at getting him to commit, but don’t hold your breath for it. He won't admit it, but he needs someone with a brain to keep him in line, to challenge him and keep him from squandering his talent.”

“Multiple Olympic medals and world cup titles count as squandering his talents?” I ask. She takes a step back from me and I hold in my triumph that I got a response. 

“Maybe not, but his personal life is a mess. I just want to make sure you deserve him and treat him the way you should. Don’t be like that trash his younger brother keeps falling for.”

Oh no. She did not. Fuck this bitch. I don’t need a knife to destroy her.

"Oh you mean my sister?" I say with a wide smile and hold out my hand to her. "I guess you don't remember me. Primrose Everdeen."

**

You + Me is another one of my outstanding Everlark Fic Exchange prompts. This one is from 2019 (I think? *cringes in shame*), and was for either K or P as a romance novelist who secretly uses the other for inspiration in their writing. What happens when they find out?

This one has been super fun to write, if a little slow going, mainly because there are multiple moving pieces to it. Now for a snippet!

--

Katniss… we live together when we travel. I think I’m aware of all your annoying habits by now. ;)

And here I thought I was something of an enigma.

Nope. Open book to me.

Shit. 

Does he mean…?

My brain is scrambling, but I take a deep breath and manage to reign it in. He knows I’m a published writer. His words could merely be a reference to that. This can’t be good. Has he already figured it out?

Before I start plotting a heist to break into his house for a book burning party, I manage a decent, mostly innocuous text.

Hey what’s the title of the book you’re reading? Maybe I know it and can spoil the ending for you. ;)

Not on your life, Everdeen.

Just reached a plot twist in between your texting barrage. 

A delicious plot twist. ;)

Oh?

The hero is not who I was expecting. Dun duh dun!

The wheels squeal and I rush off the train as fear rises up in my throat. Oh god, he’s figured it out. What gave me away? The food porn passages, probably. He’s got to be reading The Thrill of the Hunt. That’s the only one I can think of where I pulled a bait and switch with the hero. 

The street is crowded and I have to tuck my phone in my pocket to navigate the crowds. When I get there, I’m still unable to answer him because even though I’m early to meet my editor, she’s ready for me.

“Katniss, darling! Welcome, welcome! Have a seat please. The cappuccino is fresh,” Effie trills as I’m ushered into her office and offered coffee.

Oh this cannot be good. Whenever Effie has liked my pages, she forgets her manners. Excitement precludes etiquette. But when a writer needs a kick to the creative pants… that’s when she’s the picture of perfect manners.

“That bad?” I ask when her assistant is finally gone, the door shut and a hot cappuccino gripped in my hands.

“They were...how to say this…?”

“Shit,” I supply and she scowls at my language.

**

And finally, since you asked about it, The Cold Side of the Bed was something I started for one of the "This Would Have Happened Anyway" challenges. I don't remember which one, only that the prompt was for Everlark in District 13. I never managed to finish it, in fact I've barely started it beyond a vague outline and the opening scenes, mainly because I was still finishing my degree at the time and pretty much would crash after finals then not be able to muster up the energy to write fanfic. But also because it kind of turned into an epic story. Short synopsis: Non-reaped Everlark winds up married to different people after their last reaping. The rebellion still happens and 12 is still bombed. Some of the story would be about them getting to 13, but the juicy stuff happens while they are in 13.

--

When I wake, the other side of the bed is cold. I reach out through the rough material, seeking a shred of the warmth that would exist if Primrose didn’t still climb into our mother’s bed after a nightmare. Not that I am surprised she had a nightmare last night. This is the day of the reaping, after all. I slowly lift my head to peer across the room at them. The three of them curled together for comfort. My mother, my sister who grows more achingly beautiful every day, and the ugliest yellow cat in the world. He sees me watching and hisses at me.

“Yeah, I know you’d be happy if they called my name today. Lucky for you, they just might.”

After all, my name is in the bowl 28 times today. I dress and join Gale in the woods, relaxing as I make my way through the thick summer foliage to our meeting place.

“How’re you planning on celebrating your freedom?” he asks as we make our way back towards the fence when we’re done hunting. It’s been a glorious day and we’ve got quite the haul. I’ll need the woods to keep providing like this in a few weeks. When the Games end this year, I start working in the mines.

I shudder slightly and give Gale a look. He just shakes his head and laughs. I don’t need to say it. It’s not exactly freedom, aging out of the reaping and into working down in those mines.

“You thought about what I said?”

“Gale,” I say and stop walking right before we reach the fence. He stops too and sighs, looks up at the sky. “I told you I can’t think about that right now. Not when Prim will still be—.”

“And I’ve got Rory still eligible and Posy about to start in a few years, but I’m still thinking about it. How’d you explain that? How about Nathan Dawson and Lilah Bronski? They’ve already decided they’re getting married some time after the reaping if they both make it through. Lots of people think about it, Catnip, and lots of people do it.”

“Well lots of people are stupid then,” I snap and Gale sighs.

“Alright look, just forget I said anything. Let’s go make our trades before we make you late.”

[13leaguestories]

March 2023 Forecast

The break is over and I'm back to faithfully working. With that being said, this doesn't mean Superstition is off of a break. I'm going to of course attempt to write it but the few times I tried to write anything, it failed and my brain just pointed to other works. So, we'll see. I'm not posting a return date until the majority of the season is done anyway.

Throne of Ashes

Makaio's demo (fingers-crossed) should be out this month. She is so close to being done that it's not even funny that I'm not done with her yet. Otherwise, Nour is still receiving the bulk of the love as I try to get their chapter five up and out and then working to complete their story. Along with Makaio's demo being released, Ozara and Zarik fixes will be pushed out to relieve them of some bugs and fix some story shifts.

Insight

I'm still working on editing the last chapters of Insight, only chapter five is needed. Once I get that out then any bugs can be sent to me and I'll just be continuing trying to update Insight so that next time I look at it, I can actually add to it.

For the Crown

Has been taken down from itch.io. It still exists but it makes little sense to keep it up when I know I won't be editing it in its current form. The story is going to have to be completely rewritten and probably in a different way. Whether that's me doing routes like how ToA is or something else, don't know.

Sea of Stars

Nothing much on this as it ended up being met with a bunch of editing needs to bring it out of a rough alpha draft and more into a beta area. It may be worked on this month but unless my brain shifts to it, it's not my focus right now. But I will continue to post the last two species that's coming out as well as the LI art. By the time they're all out, maybe it'll be ready.

[cee-grice]

Writing (related) plans for 2024

slightly belated, but!! better late than never haha

happy New Year's, everyone!! this year is gonna be our year. I can feel it. no other option is available, sorry!

anyway, I have a lot of writing (related) plans for this year. a lot to be done!! ok maybe not that much, but I still plan to be pretty active. hopefully when I look back on this post a year later, all these boxes are gonna be ticked off :))

in 2024, I want to:

finish rewriting and editing wwcc

I'm almost done with the second rewrite, but I can tell this is definitely gonna need more work... still, it's already looking pretty good!! I hope ??>?../?

have a couple (at least) of beta reading rounds of wwcc

hopefully, I can begin the first one sometime next week... when I say anxiety is already kicking my ass lol... I'm gonna survive! it's gonna be! ok! anyway. then, I hope to have the second one in spring. after these two, I'll decide if I need more :v

start querying

optimistically sometime late spring/early summer, but we'll see how the beta reading goes, so! regardless, definitely this year. (oh boy this year is Not looking great for my anxiety lmao....)

make an author website

I've been wanting to do this for a while, but can never get around to it... I have ideas for what I'd wanna post there and such, I just need to! get to it! it does feels a bit silly to get all Professional when I'm not even agented yet lol, but heyyyy who caressss (haha cries)

write the first draft of wwcc part 2 (name to be decided....)

I have, like.... 20% of it??? and a pretty good idea of what I wanna do for the rest, soo this should be achievable lol. I did add some plot stuff in the first part on this rewrite that I know already is gonna give me a headache in the second part, but... somehow. I will survive

start posting more art of wwcc

I ALREADY HAVE ART but I'm holding out on posting it because I have Plans for it ok. I have a lot of art plans, actually! I just need to Start. Doing. Them. the biggest issue is that drawing makes me feel worse about my writing (for some fucking reason???), so I can't do both at the same time. but! since beta reading is gonna take a while! that'll be my chance to draw more finally lol

read at least 24 books (putting this here for. accountability)

yeah. just. read. I desperately need to read more fr.

[illleavemymessageinmysong]

“Demons Dance’? Lord knows what that’s about!…”

I get a feeling that Paul keeps tracks with some of his most personal lyrics away from centre stage: released as bonus tracks on separate editions of albums, as additional tracks on various formats. This goes back to ‘Same Love’, a track written in 1987 but only released as a b-side of the 1997 single ‘Beautiful Night’. A track so glorious that, by any rational standards, it should have been front and centre of an album release.

The usual proviso applies that the lyrics might just be words to go with a tune but, really? The song deals with thoughts of rekindling a past love, with all the complications and uncertainties that would go with that. “Though it may not be as good as new, well, still, it must be better than the pain that I went through”. Listen to how he sings the word “pain”. If he’s not being real there, he’s a much better actor than he’s given credit for.

But what about a few of his by the way tracks from more recent times? Let’s look at ‘Demons Dance’ and ‘Struggle’.

‘Demons Dance’ was recorded during the sessions for ‘New’ but was only released in October 2014 as part of the Collector’s Edition of New. The Paul McCartney Project blog tells us that during his Twitter Q&A on October 30 2014, Paul was asked what was the meaning of ‘Demons Dance’ and what inspired it. He swiftly batted that away with “Demons Dance’? Lord knows what that’s about!” Well, quite. None of the regular tactic of saying that the lyrics have no particular meaning.

The song’s narrator has a desire for a connection with someone, and the feelings that go with this are so strong he likens them to his personal demons. This goes deep. Only by connecting with this person, can he get peace of mind.

“I can't wait much longer 'til you tell me baby, there’s some chance we'll get together maybe, sooner or later I'll be in with half a chance”

This has been a long term feeling and he’s desperate for some message of reciprocation. Only that can ‘exorcise’ his demons. The guy’s got it bad. “Girl I want you to do it, I’ve been waiting so long”. Yep, this goes way back.

Do you write lyrics as intense as this if you don’t really feel them? I’m going with nope.

What about ‘Struggle’, first released on the Japanese version of ‘New’? This one doesn’t hang about getting to the point: “ Want to get you in my heart again, want to love you once more”, it begins. It sounds like the same narrator we heard in ‘Demons Dance’. Again, and even more explicitly, this is addressed to someone the narrator used to be with.

“If you wanna love, if you wanna fight, it doesn’t really matter, I want you tonight”. So maybe this past relationship had its’ ups and downs, was a bit volatile. “I can think of something when I get you home tonight”, he adds. See previous post for the possible importance of “home tonight”, a phrase that turns up in five Macca songs.

“It’s the same old story, it’s happening again”, he declares. This longing is something that has been a feature through the years for the narrator. It has peak periods of intensity.

“Anytime you want me, I’m not hard to find”. This person is out of his current orbit but could contact him easily enough.

“We can work it out together, we'll get through this somehow”. Yeah, we can work it out…..

It ends with “It's the same old story, it's happening again. Life’s eternal struggle”. It may ebb and flow but this feeling isn’t going away.

Jumping ahead to tracks from the Egypt Station sessions, we’ve previously had a look at ‘Get Enough’. One of his most emotionally raw lyrics. Snuck out on streaming platforms as the clock struck 12 at New Year 2019.

Then there’s ‘Sixty Second Street’, released on subsequent editions of ‘Egypt Station’. Set to a pretty tune, this is a lighter take than the other tracks we’ve looked at but, again, describes a desire to connect with someone. Our narrator wants to meet up with this person, just a minute of their time is all he needs. Mind you, he then suggests they “grab a bite”, so maybe a bit longer. A lighter take, yes, but meeting up with this person would make his life complete, so it’s a big deal.

A recurring theme going on here, I reckon.

[pumpkinyay]

indie canon & oc multimuse, multiship/multiverse, muses from genshin impact account created on May 29th 2024, written by pumpkin (she/they, 18+)

MUSES !

Each character has a doc, if you want to learn more about them or how I portray them, feel free to click on their name to see their document. One of the characters you will likely see more often here is Apollo.

OCs: Apollo, Estelle

Genshin: Traveler Aether, Columbina, Abyss Lumine

RULES !

My rules may change in the future. I may add more or edit some if I see fit, based on how others will interact with me.

Some of my rps may contain darker topics such as panic attacks, mentions of a family member's death, mentions of blood, depression and more. They will all be properly trigger warned, tagged and put behind a "read more" for viewer discretion. I am open to rping NSFW only with my OC Apollo for the time being.

I'm open to writing with 18- and 18+, but please remember that I'm legally an adult. If you're 18- I won't rp NSFW with you, whether it's here or on discord.

If you prefer rping on discord I'm definitely up for that! Just message me and we'll figure it out.

When I'm talking ooc I will use the tag #pumpkinspeaking or the #ooc tag in order to make things less confusing. At the top of each reply I will put the name of the muse I'm replying as.

No proships, thank you.

Don't push ships on me, please. If you're interested in our characters being shipped, please let me know beforehand so we can discuss it. I will list down below what ships I prefer, but I'm open to discussing others.

Avoid involving me in drama. I don't want want anything to do with it.

In character asks are welcome, please do make sure to specify who you're talking to and who you're talking as.

If I do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, please tell me. I want to respect everyone's boundaries.

Triggers: Incest, pedophilia

SHIPS !

Apollo: at the moment I only ship him with Lyney, because of how interesting I find their dynamic.

Estelle: my preference is Lynette, but I'm open to other wlw ships.

Traveler Aether: Xiao and Wanderer are my go-tos, but I'm open to others, such as him and Ayaka.

Columbina: Arlecchino is my favorite so far, I'd love to try out with other fatui women as well and maybe some other characters. Keep in mind that Columbina is not as innocent as she seems. She's the third harbinger and has done terrible things.

Abyss Lumine: I don't have any particular preference with her. She's very different from Aether and will act cold, especially at the beginning.

thank you so much for reading all the way through. I can't wait to meet other writers!

[cybernecromancer365]

A/O Hospital Headcanon--Part 2

Part 1 here

A.N. A little more to add. Another quick write, not edited.

(Nurse walks in on Alex and Olivia hugging. Alex is sitting on the bed with Olivia practically in her arms)

"Doing good detective?" The nurse picked up the chart at the foot of the bed and jotted down hourly vital readings as Alex and Olivia split. "Yeah, thanks." Olivia answered. Nurse looked to Alex. "I just need a signature on some papers. Are you her next of kin?”

Alex and Olivia's eyes widened. They stayed quiet, until Olivia turned to Alex with a smirk. "What's taking you so long to answer?" Alex glanced to her and stumbled. "W-We're...fri-Coworkers. We're coworkers." The nurse looked between them blankly. "Oh, wow...the whole staff thought you were her spouse." A tight smile stretched across Alex's face. She hung her head and put a hand over her eyes to hide the warmth creeping to her cheeks, and Olivia's hand on her thigh didn't help. Reassuring or not, Olivia's squeeze only made her heart thump faster. "Well then, we'll need to talk to whoever she's going home with." The nurse turned to Olivia whose smile weakened as the moment passed. "Is there anyone you want to request detective?" "I'm good." With a scoff Alex stood, taking the clipboard from the nurse to both women's surprise. "Where do I need to sign—" "Alex it's fine—" "Don't listen to her. She's delusional if she thinks she'll be walking out of here on her own in a few days." Alex kept her eyes on the paper, scanning the legal agreements, then signing where the nurse pointed. The nurse looked to the detective. "She is right." "Of course I am." Alex scribbled her signature.  "Due to her obvious lack of judgment…" Olivia scoffed under her breath and looked away. "…I am acting within the scope of the law by making the decision for her." Alex handed back the clipboard and the nurse looked to the frowning detective with a soft smile.

"See you in an hour detective." Olivia didn't acknowledge the nurse as she left but Alex exited the room and caught up to her. "Excuse me." Alex called, stopping the woman in the hall. "Yes." "Do you know exactly when she'll be released?" "We have her on track for the end of next week. Provided her pain is in a manageable state without the morphine. But her wounds will still need to be re-dressed every 4 hours."  Alex nodded. "Thank you." Alex headed back into the room; Olivia's eyes closed as the detective rested with slow easy breaths. "Hey." She tried to rouse her with a soft tone. If Olivia didn't respond she'd try again tomorrow. The detective’s eyes cracked open and Alex slipped her fingers gingerly under Olivia's good hand, loosely entwining a couple of their fingers. Hopefully Olivia wouldn't remember this in the morning. "So...How would you like to come home with me? Not that you have much of a choice." "Asking a little after the fact, huh?" Olivia closed her eyes and barely smiled. "You didn't have to." "I'd rather get you out of here before this place takes away that wonderful sense of humor you seem to have adopted." "Maybe they shocked me too much when they brought me back, rewired some areas of my brain." Alex had to chuckle. "Or...it's constant drip of morphine." "I would’ve been fine Alex." "You were shot 3 times. You're not fine." Alex looked at the morphine drip. It was only a matter of time before Olivia had to deal with the pain. "Having an extra set of eyes on you is a good thing." Olivia chuckled gently at that. "Piercing blue eyes watching my every move, how comforting. "

"Is that your way of complimenting me?" Olivia gruffed. "Compliment accepted, detective." The room quieted as the look on Olivia’s face turned stern. Olivia didn’t walk around with her nose stuck in the air, but she was a proud person, and one who’d now come to terms with her loss of freedom. "It's not easy to take care of me Alex." "I don't plan on it being easy." Alex paused. "You're stubborn, sometimes grouchy--" "I'm grouchy--" "And I can only imagine you're worse when you're in pain." A tired smile stretched across Olivia face as much as she let it. "I'll see you tomorrow." Alex leaned in, placing a hand on Olivia's shoulder, wanting to kiss Olivia on the head but shutting down those thoughts when she realized what she was thinking. "Get some rest."

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Can I be honest?

I really do not care about Missing Link.

I'll admit that the most recent trailer probably made me more interested in it than I ever have been before, but even then I'm just kind of like... ehh.

And this is for a few reasons, I think.

A large one being that it's a mobile game. And I shouldn't have to explain why that's a huge reason as to why that's helping to kill my interest in this game, even though it looks like this game should be a lot better than KHUX and Dark Road, thankfully (but I'm also somewhat reserving judgement on all of that until we get it).

The fact that it's a game like Pokémon Go was also sort of ruining things for me, since I really can't walk well anymore. But according to the trailer and Nomura, it seems like that you don't really have to travel in order to do things in the game. So we'll see how that pans out.

But I guess I'm just getting to the place where some casuals were before, were--in some ways--if it's not about our main cast, I almost feel like I can't be bothered (and I do feel bad about that, in some ways).

I'm somewhat tired, I suppose, of having to play a million different games, in order to understand the next mainline installment. And I know this is just one between III and IV (if you don't count the Re:Mind DLC and Melody of Memory), but it does sort of feel a bit like "same old, same old" to me.

I also just... I don't know. Really feel like we didn't need this part of the timeline filled in? And I would almost prefer if that wasn't happening, so it could be a mystery and we could imagine it for ourselves? I feel like the only reason it's being filled out now is because of the Scala ad Caelum stuff in KHIII. And probably because this next saga is partly going to be saving the people from the KHX saga. But if we didn't get Missing Link, that plot point could have been delivered in another game.

Now we're just going to get more characters introduced, and clutter up the roster even more, and gah!

I know this game is surely to partly tide us over until KHIV, which is definitely nice. But IDK. I, personally, would have rather had one of the plot lines they teased at the end of Re:Mind as a game (Kairi's training with Aqua, Mickey in Scala, the Wayfinder trio in the Realm of Darkness, or Naminé looking for clues about Sora's whereabouts in Roxas and Xion's memories). Or waited a bit more and just gotten KHIV and then the Verum Rex game (both as console games, of course), because you know they have to be making both of these games right now.

I really don't mean to complain. Because I know a lot of time and work has surely gone into this. And it's something. And I'd rather take something over nothing (for the most part. Don't start giving me KH NFTs, Square). But unless something changes, there's nothing about Missing Link so far that's really grabbed me, personally.

And maybe it will. I'm sure it will, eventually. It won't take much to do it. But the fact it's a mobile game will always hurt it. It's weird to say, but I kind of miss the days of the handheld KH games. At least they were better quality. Oy.

Edit: And back to my one point, I feel Missing Link is going to add even more to the KHIV stuff now, when there's already so much it needs to conquer that I have no idea how it's going to do it all. Like, I was thinking that maybe some of the point of Missing Link was to flesh out this new saga... but there's already so much going on here.

Edit 2: However, Missing Link, and all the stuff with the story of Scala ad Caelum, seems to be a story Nomura-san wants to tell. And that is most definitely his right.

[the-eyes-of-andyserkis]

"Bringin' Home the Rain" Chapter 5 progress update + some WIPs, why not!

Klaue

"Bringin' Home the Rain" - Chapter 5 - Foundations

It's definitely still a ways off from being finished, but progress is being made! I'm happy to say that it's pretty much all on the page, so to speak, and is also already just over 6k as a rough draft with plenty of filling out to be done, so it will easily be the longest chapter. And it's pretty well, uhh, all smut. 🥴

At any rate, there's no set date for this yet but at least I can really get going with the "macro" edit!

"Salvation is a Deep Dark Well" - Part two of the BHTR series

We're definitely not done after chapter five! I realized pretty early on after starting to rework this that Klaue and Reader were going to keep at it (😉), but rather than add more chapters to what is now "part one", it felt like it made more sense to create a separate fic since there will likely be a small time jump, and it'll be spread over a longer period of time as they continue to get up to ✨️shenanigans✨️.

"Find Me in the Air" - Part three of the BHTR series

I'm planning on this essentially being a sort of extended epilogue (and I do basically know how this will end). While it's still rough at this point, it will definitely be at least three parts/chapters, like a series of one shots over an even longer period of time before I wrap things up.

"Hiding From the Sun" - sub!Klaue one-shot

Self explanatory. 😉 *raises eyebrows aggressively* Also, shout out to The Next Big Franchise discord for, uh, awakening something in me/us. 😈

Alfred Pennyworth

As yet untitled Alfred x F Reader series

Set in "The Batman" universe

This one keeps changing it's damn shape on me, and the title continues to elude me, but I think I've settled on a sort of "established relationship" series. Maybe. 😂 Either way, I'm not going to settle on a specific number of chapters at this point, as I feel like this may be more open-ended. Listen, I have thots and they need to go somewhere, so I'll figure it out eventually!

"Lotus" - Yoga Instructor AU Alfred x F Reader one-shot

Inspired by the lovely @tarabyte3's AU PT!Kino idea! ❤️ Also by going to my first class in ages and after internally debating for about two seconds which Andy blorbo would make a good yoga instructor before immediately realizing that Alfred would be perfect.

Alfred started exploring yoga to help with his injury and enjoyed and appreciated it so much that he started teaching. You're taken aback by the handsome, and older, new instructor who's very much outside of the usual demographic, and when he starts offering private sessions you nervously sign up.

This will be either one or two parts, we'll see how it shakes out!

"Fealty" (working title) - Arthurian Legend inspired AU Alfred x F OC series

I just got inspiration for this one yesterday! Plot twist: Alfred is the Lord/King and OC is a Knight (so is Bruce, of course), and in this universe both women and men are Knights. I'm lightly planning for this to be three to five chapters at this point, but again this is very new and liable to change. Mutual pining, forbidden love, slow burn, all that good stuff.

I'm making a list of some books and movies for research, and if anyone has recommendations for some universe-building inspiration, I'm open to suggestions!

Damn, five months ago I had no idea I'd actually be almost finished my first fic in years (and first multi-chapter fic, period), let alone have a list of WIPs/ideas! Thank you to everyone who has commented and encouraged me thus far, it's means more than you know. 🥰

Header by me | Divider by @saradika.

[cnjosephs]

Writing/Publishing Resources

I've had a few people lately ask for the writing/publishing resources and knowledge I've collected over the past ~2 years of working on getting published, so I thought I'd just collect them all in a post that I can link people. Here we go:

What are your options for publishing a book?

The main options you'll find discussed are traditional publishing and self publishing.

Traditional Publishing: Publishing a book through a publishing house, like Simon & Schuster or Macmillan. The majority of books you see in bookstores will be traditionally published. When you traditionally publish a book, you sell the rights for it to a publisher, who then takes care of the actual publishing process for you. There are a wide variety of publishers out there, some very large and some very small.

Pros: Traditional publishing generally (though not always) gets you a bigger paycheck and gets your book in front of more people. The publisher will also pay for editing, cover design, etc—with traditional publishing, you shouldn't be expected to pay for any publishing expenses.

Cons: You often have less control over the book. It can also be very hard to get a book traditionally published—there are a lot of authors trying to publish their books and a much smaller number of books actually getting published every year. Additionally, a lot of marginalized authors struggle to get their books traditionally published, because publishers will either refuse to consider them outright or will try to say "We'll only publish you if you make your main characters straight/cis/white/monogamous/able-bodied/etc".

Self Publishing: Publishing a book yourself. While some people claim that self published books never make it into bookstores, there are actually bookstores (mostly independent ones) that carry self-published books that meet certain requirements. With self publishing, you keep all of your rights and handle the publishing process yourself. Many people just self-publish ebooks, but it is also possible to self-publish hard copies.

Pros: You retain full creative control of the book. You can publish absolutely whatever you want without needing to convince a publisher to do it. This also means that you have full freedom to publish sequels, prequels, etc, which can be hard to get a traditional publisher to agree to unless your book sold unusually well.

Cons: You have to either handle all aspects of publishing yourself or pay people to do it for you. This includes editing, cover design, managing social media, managing pre-order campaigns, laying out the book file, and of course, actually publishing it. If you're doing it all yourself, it's a lot of work, and it may not all be work you enjoy or are skilled at. If you're paying people to do it, the costs add up fast, and can easily total in the thousands by the time you're done. It can also be harder to make money and to get readers, though there are self-published authors who have done a great job at that.

While some traditionally published authors look down on self-published authors, I'm of the opinion that neither way is inherently better or worse than the other. They're both perfectly valid options for publishing a book, and it really just comes down to what works better for you, personally.

I haven't researched self publishing or nonfiction trad publishing as much, so this is going to focus on fiction trad publishing. If anyone wants to reblog with self publishing or nonfiction trad publishing resources, please do!

One last thing I want to note: many (maybe most, though I'm not 100% sure) publishers won't consider publishing a book that's been previously self-published. Others may consider it, but only under very special circumstances. If you're considering self publishing a book and then later trying to get it trad published, just keep in mind that self publishing it first could make it significantly harder (though not impossible) to get it trad published later.

How do you traditionally publish a book?

A lot of people are under the impression that to publish a book, you just mail your manuscript off to a publisher and hope they respond. These days, the process is actually a bit different. The steps to traditionally publishing a book are, generally speaking:

Write a full book (called a manuscript, sometimes abbreviated MS) and edit it to make sure it's as good as it can possibly be. Ideally, you'll also get feedback from other people on your manuscript before you send it out to make sure it's super solid

Submit your story to literary agents. The exact process for this differs by agent: some agents have you submit via a form on their website, others through a form on a website called Query Manager, and others through email. Exactly what you send will also vary by agent, but basically every agent will ask for a query letter, which you can think of as being sort of like a cover letter for your book. If an agent asks that you submit any part of your manuscript, it will generally just be a small part (e.g. first chapter, first 20 pages) rather than the entire manuscript

If any agents are interested in seeing more of your manuscript, they'll get back to you and request either a full manuscript (you send them the whole thing) or a partial manuscript (you send them part of it)

If an agent who requested to see more of your manuscript thinks that your story has publishing potential and they're interested in helping you publish it, they'll offer to represent your manuscript. Generally, you have a phone call with them at this point to go over all of the details, then wait 1-2 weeks to give them a response so you can reach out to any other agents you have active queries with and say "Hey, I just got an offer of representation, if you're interested in making your own offer, please respond by X date"

Once you have your agent, your agent may help you edit your book further or they may think it's fine as is. Once you're both happy with the book, you'll go on submission, meaning that the agent is going to reach out to editors at different publishing houses and say "Hey, I've got this book, do you wanna publish it?"

Ideally, at least one editor will make an offer, and if you agree with the terms they're offering, that's it—you're gonna be published! However, it is possible that no editors will make an offer, at which point you'll have to discuss with your agent if you want to keep trying with this book, try again with another book, or stop entirely

I will caution you now that it's very hard to get a book traditionally published. Recent surveys I've seen have put average rates of agents requesting fulls around 3-7%, depending on age range and genre. And that's not even rates for offering representation—that's just for saying "I want to read the full manuscript", which may or may not lead to an offer of rep (when I was querying SISTER OF THE SUN, three agents requested fulls, and none of them ended up offering rep).

It is also possible that you'll get an agent and get an offer to publish the book, but the offer will be conditional on terms that you don't want to agree with—I've known authors of color who got told "We'll only publish your book if you make the main character white", queer authors who got told "We'll only publish your book if you make the main character straight and cis", etc. They may also have terms that aren't necessarily bigoted but that you still don't want to agree to, like "We'll only publish your book if you remove the heist subplot" or "We'll only publish your book if you can cut 20,000 words from the manuscript".

None of this is intended to be discouraging or to say "nobody should try to get traditionally published"—I'm trying to get traditionally published right now!—but just to set expectations. Getting trad published is hard, and it takes most people a few tries before they can get a book published. Not being able to publish the first (or second, or third, or) book that you write doesn't necessarily mean you're a horrible writer who should just give up. Sometimes it takes a few tries.

I also want to be clear that, despite the warning I gave two paragraphs ago, there are marginalized authors who have successfully trad published a book without making those sacrifices. While it can be hard, it is possible, especially if you have an agent who will really champion your book.

Age Ranges

At some point before you attempt to publish your novel, you'll need to decide what age range is it. Many agents only represent certain age ranges, and will reject you immediately if you query a book in an age range they don't represent (e.g. if they only represent adult books and you try to query a middle grade novel, they'll probably auto reject you). The common age ranges are:

Board Book: A short book made of thick, durable cardboard; examples include Goodnight Moon and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; typical reader age range is around 0-3

Picture Books: Slightly longer than board books and often printed on regular paper, but still contain illustrations on all or most pages; examples include Pete the Cat and Dr. Seuss’ books; typical reader age range is around 3-6

Chapter Books: Books that are longer than picture books and sorted into chapters, but still short and intended for young readers; examples include Junie B. Jones and Magic Tree House; typical reader age range is around 6-9

Middle Grade: Longer and more complex books intended for pre-teens; examples include Percy Jackson and Coraline; typical reader age range is around 9-13

Young Adult: Books intended for teenagers, fairly similar to adult but generally have a teenage protagonist and less mature themes; examples include The Hunger Games and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before; typical reader age range is around 13-16

Adult: Books intended for adults; examples include This is How You Lose the Time War and The Song of Achilles; typical reader age range is around 16+

There’s also a proposed category called New Adult (NA), intended for readers around the 18-24 age range and focusing on characters around the same age. Unfortunately, the publishing industry has largely not responded to attempts to get this to be widespread, and it’s still a pretty niche concept. That isn’t to say that stories don’t get published that do, arguably, fit the definition of New Adult (personally, I think that both The Locked Tomb series and The Magicians could be viewed as NA), but the authors generally have to bill them as either YA or adult. If you’re writing a book that fits the bill for NA, you’ll probably have better luck querying it if you can reasonably describe it as either YA or adult.

Final note: you may see some discussion of kidlit. This is short for "children's literature" and refers to all of the categories except adult (an author who writes exclusively YA and an author who writes exclusively picture books are both considered kidlit writers).

Publishing Resources

Finally, here are a bunch of publishing resources I've accrued over the past two years!

Writing

On Writing Emotion

Capturing Voice!

How Long Should a Book Be? (Note: Please read this; it may seem like an inconsequential thing, but having a book that's significantly longer or shorter than genre standards can actually tank your chances of getting published)

Editing & Polishing

Tightening Prose

When Should I Spell Out Numbers? | Grammarly

Final Editing Checklist

Querying

Querying (1): Step by Step Query Process

Perfect Pitch

Query Letter Length: How Long Should Your Query Letter Be?

Advice for querying authors (Twitter thread)

questions to ask an agent on The Call

The Query Simplified

Pitch Wars: The Synopsis … simplified

How to Write a Synopsis without Stressing (Video)

Jumping Back Into the Trenches (or, querying again after splitting from your agent)

Nudging Agents with an Offer of Representation

Publishing & Marketing

Book Graphics Recs

So, you got an edit letter

Book Launch Survival Guide

Resource Collections

(Other collections of links to various resources around the web)

Be Your Own Mentor

Kidlit resources (Twitter thread)

Writing Resources (collected by Rebecca F. Kuang, author of The Poppy War)

Resources for writers that everyone assumes you already know (Twitter thread)

Resources & Diverse Recs

[kitekki-khaos]

A Year of Khaos: 2023 Review

Welp. 2023 is officially over and we're onto another year. I wanted to put together some kind of year in review thing and since I didn't get a chance to do it during my final stream of the year, I thought I'd just put it all together into a blog post. So here's an overall look at the year:

2023 was my "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" year in an attempt to really feel out what I wanted to do with streaming. So my plan was to pick a Thing for each month, really go all-in on it for the month, and make something focused around that by the end. Then change for the next month, rinse and repeat.

I've always been a Jack-of-all-Trades, which is as much a blessing as it is a curse. I CAN do just about anything if I decide I want to do it, but that also means there's no One Thing I'm really good at. The only One Thing I have is something that's borderline impossible to stream, which is writing. So... Project Year. Try everything, see what sticks.

So I present, the various skills I attempted to build throughout the year and the final product they produced:

Projects Completed:

January: Fashion Design - Ironmouse Outfit Contest Entry

(List continues under Read More)

February: Blender - New VNyan Throwables

March: Variety Streaming - Trying different Stream Categories

April: Game Development - Ludum Dare

May: Sewing - Summer Wardrobe

(horrible failure, just ended up making things in blender, instead)

June: Traditional Painting - Minis

July: Minecraft Redstone - Basics

August: Minecraft Map Building - Halloween Adventure Map

September: Stickermaking - Sticker Chat Banner

October: Dance / MMD - Halloween Transition & Halloween Stream

November: NaNoWriMo - WIP

December: Thankmas & 3-Year Debut Anniversary - Charity Streams and 3.0 Reveal

In addition to the projects I was working on throughout the year, I was also working on the 3.0 model at the same time. Throughout the entire year. Which, I came to realize was kind of a mistake trying to do both. I just barely got the model done in time because my time was so heavily split between so many things. Especially when you add that I was ALSO still editing videos for Youtube all the way until September. (which was a full 12-hour day, twice a week) So I was working on completely rebuilding my models from scratch in a program I was wildly unfamiliar with (blender), doing a new project every month, streaming 3x's a week (usually upwards of 6 hours), AND editing 12-hours a day twice a week to post 2 videos and 2 shorts every week.

It was... a lot.

Last year was a lot.

Too much. Even for me.

There were even a few more things on the list that I wanted to try out this year, but ended up not being able to figure out how to stream it. Baking, for example.

But I'm hoping to find something I can really focus on for the coming year and lessen at least some of my constant uncertainty about what I'm doing with life. And maybe ease up on the work, in general. If I was awake, I was working last year. I was so burnt out and exhausted by the time December rolled around, I had no energy left for my biggest event of the year. Honestly, I'm still exhausted. I wanted to get this post out ages ago but I just had no energy to write it.

I need to ease up a bit next year. Figure out what I actually want to do. But I feel like I have a slightly better handle. Maybe.

We'll see how it goes.

As a final note, here's a list of every game I played throughout 2023, which was honestly a lot. I try to finish as many games as I can, especially the horror games, with the exception of co-op games or sims. Some unfinished games (like Hollow Knight and A Hat in Time) I plan to finish at some point. Others, like Digimon Survive, I've decided to drop for good. Whereas yet others, I'll probably finish on my own as an off-stream game. (Slime Rancher 2 I'll probably play by myself but I've played through Ni no Kuni like 3 times in the past so I'm fine leaving that one where it was).

Games Played - 53 Total

( * - Finished / + - Co-Op/Sim )

My horror game backlog is massive so Indie Horror Nights are guaranteed to return in 2024. Obviously. Horror is kind of a thing. Variety Night is also guaranteed to return because I like having a day where I can just do what-the-fuck-ever.

However, I don't know if Project Night will be a set thing in the future. Additionally, I'm considering adding a fourth stream day but I haven't committed to the idea yet. I want to get back to fashion design but I don't think I'll be picking the seasonal collections back up for this year. Maybe just do themed outfit sets, instead. I may also try making them in blender instead of VRoid this year, as well.

There are a lot of decisions to be made about 2024 still.

I'm not sure what I want out of this coming year yet. But thank you to everyone who puts up with my perpetual indecisiveness, there will be more in the future.

Here's to a new year and new possibilities.

[daisywords]

Hi Daisy! Your blog and the way you write give me such nice and peaceful feeling :)

How did you get into editing? I've been currently thinking about it and you said in your pinned intro that "you did go to school for this", so I'm curious to learn a bit more from your process.

Weirdly, editing is so much fun for me, I have to stop myself when I'm drafting. So yeah, how has been your experience working with it so far?

Sorry, this might be a bit too long? Hopefully you can shine some light on those questions, thank you!

Hi!

(1) Thank you!

(2) I'll elaborate a little on my current situation + how I got here on the chance that something might be useful:

I'm still pretty early in my career journey, but currently I work full time on the editing team at a research organization. Eventually I'd like to move to freelance work and/or lean more into the book publishing side of things (I get to work with books sometimes, but not like. fun ones) but for now I'm getting experience/building up savings etc.

I don't think it's very common, but the university I attended had a linguistics-based program specifically for editing, mostly focused on copyediting (whereas a lot of editors come from an English/journalism background).

This program plus a couple internships I did* worked out for me in terms of coming out with some specific skills/experience already under my belt, which I used to get hired at my current job. (for example, a lot of copyediting roles using editing tests in the hiring process, and I had already done very similar editing tests at school).

If you're more interested in the world of fiction publishing and such, or freelancing/contract work (which is a big percentage of editing work), I'm not really a great person to ask, since I have a very loose grasp on how all of that works. (Hoping to figure more of that out in the next few years).

I have done various levels of editing for a few different books—jobs which I got through personal connections and circumstances. Frm my understanding, a lot of freelance work comes from more word-of-mouth networking, though there are some services that people use like Reedsy. Right now I'm tentatively planning on starting a few freelance projects here and there and trying to slowly build up my clientele until I can one day transition to doing that full time, but we'll see. Right now it's nice to have a stable income and health coverage and stuff, and be able to save a little, since I finished school with basically zero dollars.

*one at a small publishing house and another with my university's editing service for the faculty

(3) Editing is so fun! Sometimes it sucks, but it's also fun. I'm one of those nerds that finds grammar and usage really interesting, so even though a lot of what I do at work is delete commas in some places and add them in others, it's still interesting to me.

I also like the more developmental/structural side of editing, though I have less experience doing that. But I love starting with all the pieces already there, like clay, so to speak, and turning a piece of writing into the best version of itself.

There are some things about my current work that I don't love, of course. A lot of what I edit is more academic writing, which can get pretty dry, and often I'll find a project interesting enough the first time I read through it, but I absolutely hate it by the time I'm done. Sometimes people want things done on unrealistic timelines and I have to deal with that. etc etc.

When I'm drafting my own writing, I usually have my editing brain turned off. Sometimes I'll skim back through my own drafts and notice really obvious mistakes or things that I correct in other people's writing in my sleep. I don't tend to spend a lot of time reworking things as I go, maybe because I keep the editing process pretty compartmentalized in my head.

Anyway that's a lot of rambling from me. Hopefully at least some of that answered your questions.

Nice to "meet" you!