#perth shifters series

[not-poignant]

hiiii! have you considered releasing tradewinds as a single purchase through a site like gumroad?

Hi anon!

So the reason Tradewinds was shelved and not published like 8 years ago, is because I couldn't find an Aboriginal sensitivity reader willing to read m/m with disturbing themes. I had sensitivity readers for the other side of things (like Matan and his heritage), but I kept either not finding anyone, or the one person I found took my $200 USD deposit and vanished and never spoke to me / responded to any of my emails.

As a result, I was uncomfortable distributing it anywhere broadly, even though I was relatively confident the novel isn't offensive, because I just don't know 100%.

I am a lot more confident releasing it via subscription as an exclusive novel, because the people who pay for subscription are often folks who are a) already used to my style of writing and b) generally know what to expect from me, vs. cold audiences who don't. I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't realise that Tradewinds would make a great exclusive/paywalled release for subscription, because it means it's only ever going to find a very narrow bandwidth of readers.

Basically if I could release it for single purchase - as basically an ebook - I would have released it like 8 years ago, anon. And the reason I have actually released it this specific way is down to the fact that I'm just not really confident offering it for broader distribution.

That might change one day, if I happen to stumble across a sensitivity reader who is okay with my style of writing, who is reputable + has references (i.e. so I know I won't lose a fair chunk of money in the process, because that burned me pretty badly, not gonna lie). But until then, having Tradewinds be limited is the only way I'm comfortable releasing it at all.

Folks are more than welcome to sign up for one month, download the book (and read any other early access they want) and then leave. They can even just put 'I only wanted one thing and now I have it' in the exit survey so I know what they were there for if they want. Then it's still a single purchase (with some early access extras), and they still access the downloadable file. :)

[falkenscreen]

Japanese Film Festival 2019 Program Lands Across Aus

“We can’t wait to see what next year has in store for Japanese cinema!”

The Japanese Film Festival, boasting one-off screenings and Festival showings throughout the country, will soon enjoy week-plus runs in Sydney and Melbourne. With the stretches boasting a wide selection of Japanese cinema, segments of which have already or will soon play in different cities including Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, the Festival’s Anna Lee sat down to chat the marquee program and all things JFF 2019.

“I believe there are a number of recent trends in Japanese cinema that you can see reflected in this year’s Festival program,” said Lee. “Female directors are gaining more and more visibility in Japan, and we have the honour of having ‘Blue Hour’ director Yuko Hakota as a guest in Sydney for a Q&A.”

“’Blue Hour’ is her first feature film, and Hakota has already won a number of awards, including Shanghai International Film Festival’s Asian New Talent Award for Best Director. Along with this, we’re also seeing stories that aren’t often given a chance in the spotlight taking centre stage in this year’s film selection, such as ‘My Father, the Bride’ (directed by Momoko Fukuda), which features a girl struggling with accepting the fact that her father wants to marry a man and become a bride.”

This year’s JFF features a mix of comedy, live-action, dramas and period films, including ‘Samurai Shifters’ where bookish Samurai Katagiri has to convince his entire town to Marie Kondo and relocate across the water on a very tight budget. #JFF2019 will also host a number of animations; long a staple of the Festival.

“Japan is certainly known for its animated feature films, and for JFF we focus on selecting films that an Australian audience would likely not get a chance to see in cinemas otherwise,” said Lee. “The widespread success of the Japanese animated film ‘Your Name’ (2016) also increased interest in Japanese animation and film at an international level; boosting revenue for feature films in Japan in the years since.”

“’Ride Your Wave’ and ‘Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire’ are both related to films that screened as part of JFF 2018. ‘Ride Your Wave’ is ‘Night is Short, Walk on Girl’ Director Masaaki Yuasa’s latest film, while ‘Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire’ is the 23rd feature film in the Detective Conan series… it is the first Detective Conan film to be directed by a woman, Tomoka Nagaoka, and also the first in the series to be set outside of Japan, with Conan’s latest mystery taking him all the way to Singapore…‘Ride Your Wave’ features Masaaki Yuasa’s signature vivid animation style in a slightly less psychedelic narrative compared to his previous works; he’s known for never really doing the same thing twice.”

The Japanese Film Festival screens across Australia

on FalkenScreen

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I just reread The Gentle Wolf and was reminded how much I love that universe and how interesting Hunter's story was to me. I know you were really disappointed with how it performed which means the odds of getting another book in that format are slim to none, but is there a chance we might get it in a patreon serial one day? I would love to see what Hunter's happy ending is like! 🥰

I had a response to this and then deleted it and have to reply again and I'm like SADFACE fdslakjfas

Okay but! I'm so so glad you enjoyed the universe, and tbh, I haven't abandoned Hunter's story, it's more like on very long hiatus. I always wanted to write Hunter's story most of all, so he's definitely not forgotten!

It would definitely be a serial first, I think, and probably break a bit from the previous books tbh which were designed to be more broadly appealing (which I'm very bad at, because it's like a cardinal sin to dare and have ace representation in an MC in a romance, lol).

I have no actual plans in my schedule to write Hunter's story, but I wouldn't consider the story abandoned either. But it also means I can't give you any kind of ETA on when it would start, unfortunately. It doesn't help that I'm writing a more 'ideal' kind of omegaverse for me in the Underline series, which I enjoy more because it's more overtly darker and crunchier in its themes.

If I don't write Hunter in the Perth Shifters verse, I might drag him into the Underline universe one day. We'll see! :D

[not-poignant]

This was probably asked before, but did you ever consider releasing print copies of your serials like Fae Tales or FFS, or even an anthology of the oneshots and shorts? Not necesserily on amazon, but maybe your own shop?

Hi anon,

I've been thinking about this question for a few days trying to reason it out, and basically the reasons I wouldn't consider releasing print copies of my serials on my own website are the same reason I wouldn't consider releasing print copies of my serials on Amazon, with one exception (the Amazon TOS, lol).

If I'm not drop-shipping, which is a pain to organise re: quality control, I have to host the books at my house, which is a cottage where we already don't have enough room to store things. Not to mention shipping anything from Australia to the rest of the world (especially books) is prohibitively expensive.

Game Theory and The Court of Five Thrones are not normal 'books.' They are each about 5 standard novels in length (in romance, that shoots up right up to about 6-8). I would not want to make the font size small because that makes accessibility hard for everyone, and at best I might be able to publish the books as a set of maybe 6-8 books. So people would not be buying two books to get two installments in a series, but 6-8 really heavy books. Realistically, if I made the books like, nice to look at and factored in shipping and stuff, that means people would easily be paying over $300~ (and realistically much more) to get a series they can right now...read for free. Shipping books in particular is...like...the biggest killer for authors and why so many, almost all authors, do not organise shipping themselves. Even then, ordering 8 books at once is still a lot of shipping from most smaller distributors.

Amazon is not the main problem, anon. I can publish my books on Smashwords right now and there wouldn't be an issue with the content. Amazon is only a small part of the problem. Tbh hosting books on your own website is considered one of the worst ways to distribute in terms of getting interest. Which I would need, because of the next part:

Finally, the years it would take to edit these books to a standard that I would consider publishable would not really be worth the fact that I would never ever earn that time or labour back. If I was a rich person who could just spend my time doing whatever I wanted, then I'd be able to do this, but I barely have enough time as it is to write the things that I do which actually do make me a living. Paying someone to edit those books would cost easily in the bracket of around $15-20k AUD ($10-14k USD), for extremely cheap (and therefore not guaranteed good quality) editing - that's an entire year's worth of income for me. Doing it myself or in tandem with someone else takes a huge amount of time. Like, realistically, I would maybe sell 200 copies of the books at best. It's a little like taking thousands of dollars and flushing it down the toilet. I would love to be privileged enough to do that, because I would like to see my books on my shelves more than anyone else would, for probably obvious reasons. But this is the path I've chosen, and I do not have thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours of time that I can afford to flush away, anon. And right now I don't see very obvious reasons beyond 'it would be cool' to do it. I hate talking about these practicalities, but I have to consider them. The editing in particular is the biggest killer, because if it was just typos etc. I could maybe get it done in a year or so. But I want to make some structural and continuity edits to Game Theory in particular, and that will take a lot of time.

[not-poignant]

Would you ever try your hand at self publishing m/m romance/erotica as, like, a career on the side? Your stories are amazing and the self published mm authors I've found are doing pretty well on amazon even though they don't write as well as you.

Would you ever consider self publishing an original series in ebook form? I've read (and loved) the perth shifter series but they could sorta be read as standalones. I'm thinking of a story that ends on a cliffhanger until the next book comes out 😆

Hi anon!

I'm thinking of a story that ends on a cliffhanger until the next book comes out

Unfortunately, this is one of the most hated things you can do in publishing romance, lol. Even worse than first person perspective (which I don't hate, but a lot of readers do). And it breaks with the most fundamental rule of romance which is ending stories with a HFN (hopefully for now) or HEA (happily ever after).

And while I write fantasy romance, and dystopian romance, and science fiction romance, it's all still romance. I don't mind cliffhangers on individual chapters, but cliffhangers in a series in the romance genre is very very bad etiquette and it's Not Done (TM). It's more appropriate in horror/thriller/science fiction series etc. that don't have a strong romance basis to them (and a lot of readers still hate them and refuse to read them!), where you're not primarily rooting for two characters to get together in a relationship and that's what I write!

Even romance series that only focus on two characters across multiple books, will give each book a HFN (hopeful for now / happy for now) ending, instead of a cliffhanger. Each book is still resolved, and the idea is you can read them on their own, that's kind of the point!

My published books already do very badly financially compared to my serials, so I'm not about to like... break one of the most fundamental rules of all romance publishing just to end a book on a cliffhanger, I have my serials for that. :D (And even they have happy/hopeful endings).

And like you said - I have published m/m romance/erotica on the side. It won't ever be a career for me, because it doesn't pay as much as the original serials do. My work is too niche, people don't want to read m/m romance with as much trauma recovery as I write, or asexual characters etc (I make more from a single month of Patreon - even during a bad Patreon month - than I have from the entire 2 years that The Gentle Wolf has been out). And I like noncon BDSM and that's straight up against Apple's and Amazon's TOS, so things like Fae Tales are against the rules there anyway. But my published works earn me about $200 USD a year, which is not nothing, but it's also...not great. I don't think the answer is breaking even more romance rules though x.x

I'm glad you enjoy my writing anon! But a lot of folks who read published m/m actually don't love my (published) writing, so it's serials for me, because that seems to do a lot better. :D Besides, people can download all my original serials as ebooks for their ereaders whenever they want, so they can read my stuff like an ebook whenever they feel like.

[not-poignant]

I was reading your book from the shifters of Perth series and this right here made me guffaw:

‘Yeah, good. I’m glad people have his back. Honestly, what I know of Hamish? People should. And you don’t know me from a bar of soap, mate. So, I appreciate it. Also, your nails are cute.’

Like, that was so wholesome and adorable.

Also, I want somebody to tell me my nails are cute, damnit. ALL THIS SPARKLE AND NO ONE BUT ME TO APPRECIATE.

Anywho, dudes need let folks know how cute their nails are, more often

Coll would absolutely tell you that your nails are cute!

I enjoyed so much writing this gruff, older guy who falls into a lot of masculinity tropes but then subverts so many at the same time (especially for an alpha).

I love how receptive he is to Aodhan, and how much he cares about Braden having access to support and friends. You know that Coll would run a solid pack, just through the way he cares about everyone. But also, I do think he thinks the nails are genuinely cute and he's not just saying it to be nice.

I don't think anything intimidates him aesthetically no matter how femme it looks. He's a dude who would be all kinds of impressed if Braden was in a dress or in jeans, because clothes are clothes, accessories are accessories, and while he has his own personal taste, he's open to admiring everyone else's too :D

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

I'm really enjoying Tradewinds so far! Udir is such a baby, I have such soft feelings for him. And Matan is so sweet, definitely one of your more gentle tops.

I'm trying to pace myself with reading it because I don't want it to end too soon but it's a struggle lol

Yeah Matan's definitely one of my gentler tops! For people who really only like vanilla with very little kink, Tradewinds is the place to be (for now, lol), because like the Perth Shifters series, it doesn't really go in that direction.

I reread it myself recently and it's like, the hints are there though, and they grow over time heh - but I think Matan would always be gentle, regardless.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia. I've been a fan of your work for a long time now and was wondering if you'd ever write an original sci-fi story or an original contemporary

Altho I know FFS probably classifies as contemporary 🤔 But I just saw that as a human au loosely based off Fae Tales

Fae Tales is an original series with my own original characters, and Falling Falling Stars is an entirely original contemporary story that features only some of those original characters, so technically, it is an original contemporary story. I'm not using someone else's IP, so it's not really fanfic. Something being an AU doesn't make it fanfic, for example, if an artist who draws a superhero character decides to draw them as a merman for Mermay, they're not doing 'fanfiction' of someone else's character - they're doing original art of one of their original characters, y'know? It's just another way of looking at them. Plenty of authors have re-used their characters in other things, this is especially common in comics, but it also happens in fantasy writing a lot too. Also doesn't mean those things become fanfic! Still all original, just has an AU component. :D

But AUs aside...

Otherwise, like, sure I'd consider it! My next works are likely to both be original fantasy worlds, but I like science fiction and I like writing contemporary. I've written original omegaverse in a contemporary setting with the Perth Shifters series, but straight up contemporary is definitely something I've thought up scenarios for.

Science fiction generally doesn't interest me quite as much as fantasy does, but all speculative fiction is interesting/enjoyable to me. That being said, all the next original worlds I've thought up - Daemonos, Glamour Gods, Vexteria, Mallory & Mount etc. are all respectively medieval-style science fiction (but really more like a fantasy, it's just interplanetary), paranormal science-fiction romance, high/epic/secondary world fantasy, high/epic/secondary world fantasy/psychological thriller.

It's more fun for me to sandbox in specfic, because like... I don't get to write characters who have naturally violet eyes, or shapeshifting demons, or fairy-human hybrids who are used by criminals and governments for their glamour as enslaved propaganda machines, or characters who are actually just pretty human but where magic is illegal and serial killers are super common actually.

Contemporary is easy for me to write, but it's not as appealing overall unless it's in situations like Falling Falling Stars, or Smoke in Autumn, or As Green as the Ragged Grass, or Spoils of the Spoiled, or...

Actually you know I've written a fair bit of original contemporary!

I've actually finished a contemporary novel in the past, which a few folks have read bits of through the Patreon over time, called Every Day Awake. The playlists for the characters (Allie, Brad and Jacob) are still on Spotify, as character playlists. I still plan on rewriting that book one day, but it's definitely not high on my priority list.

[not-poignant]

I admit I was trawling for some easy smut to read and got Underline the Black. Usually I back out when the story doesn't go how I expect and instead I've binged the whole thing in six hours and find myself painfully relating to Efni's gender and sexual trauma.

I don't know how to describe it but I'm AFAB and grew up Christian with all these expectations and secular ones and I was so scared I rejected everything and tried to be this person I thought I had to be. And I've done that over and over and I'm thirty now and I think I'm finally coming to terms with my place in gender and sex and all that.

It's still a long journey and idk I know a lot of trans people get squicked by ABO stuff and it's based off bunk wolf science but. Idk. This is the most I've ever felt seen I think. So thanks.

Hi hi,

I really love omegaverse, you might be surprised how many trans people are writing it on AO3 - trust me when I say it's a lot of us. :)

A lot of the reasons trans folk can find omegaverse squicky is actually a lot of the same reasons why trans folk can find it cathartic or interesting or crave reading it. Everyone's reasons for ending up in omegaverse are different, because it's really just a huge umbrella term for like, countless different genres, tropes, levels of worldbuilding, sex, and types of story.

I don't really mind that it's based off debunked science, hell, I've even written a logical explanation for that in my Perth Shifters series lol. There's a lot of science we have today that was initially based off of bad science, that scientists then went 'oh yeah, that's not great, but we might keep the terminology anyway, because everyone's using it.' So that works out just fine. It's not like all of our science in reality started off in the best places, some started off in pure medieval spaces and then just kind of...grew up over time.

I apologise for the lack of easy smut though in Underline the Black! I have a lot more of erotica / smut in my other works, like Spoils of the Spoiled or Game Theory, so far we're still a while away from anything more than the handjob that's coming up in a couple of chapters re: Efnisien and Gary, that's definitely a slowburn! :D

(You might like Underline the Red though, which has some alpha/beta smut instead!)

And yeah, gender stuff is so hard. I'm glad you're coming to a place that feels right or is starting to feel right re: gender. I know I started that journey for myself in my early 30s and now that I'm in my early 40s it's only really started to settle into place. This stuff can be rough, especially when you're raised in repressed and oppressive and harmful societies.

Being able to explore gender stuff in Underline the Black has been a lot of fun for me. I much prefer doing it this way, than doing it with the genders we already have irl, tbh, because it lets me detach a little, but it also means that the omegaverse genders can become metaphorical for a lot of different issues, and I enjoy the power of something that can work in a few different ways. :D

(Also just a note, in the future can you please write it as a/b/o or just say omegaverse, because otherwise you're just writing a horrible slur towards Aboriginal Australians and we're generally trying to avoid that. Appreciate it going forward thank you! :) ).

[not-poignant]

ah! (this is the UtB worldbuilding anon) - i see i made the fundamental error of assuming that The Facilities had any actual medically positive societal function in a fic tagged 'dystopian universe' LMAO (/genuinely, am loling at my own self HA) ; id still like to know what the in-universe justification is, esp for the more 'humane' facilities (hv?) but it sounds like we'll get that in-fic from surprise hottie Gary, so!! i am very very much looking forward to it, thank you again for the Content

Yeahhh that tag 'second class citizens - omegas' is a good one for the general direction the dystopian universe is going in as well. :D

Okay let's talk omegaverse and dystopian tropes!

As for the justification: male omegas, because they can't get pregnant, are generally more useful as trophy husbands. Like alphas generally have a biological drive to mate with omegas, most will end up with one, so the idea is to make them as polite and sweet and passive as possible. Many already are those things, but omegas that have been abused can become repressed, or too scared, or 'abnormal' in other ways and in upper class society can end up in rehabilitation centres (most of which just break them so they're at least passive - Hillview aims for something a bit better than that).

In lower class society many male omegas end up working in prostitution, or just end up with an abusive husband and it doesn't matter what they're like or how they're treated. Most are claimed young and have no option to escape their relationship.

It's really common as a trope in a lot of omegaverse content that omegas are generally second-class citizens. They don't have the same rights to jobs, driver's licences, or universities sometimes. They're not allowed to become doctors or other high responsibility jobs. (This is often blamed on the fact that they go into heat on a semi-regular basis (which stereotypically causes them to lose the ability to consent, and they will be fucked by an alpha near them, because they're desperate to be knotted to calm the intensity of a heat - which makes them easy prey for alphas in this state), and a common trope in omegaverse stories is omegas who live on heat suppressants pretending to be betas or even alphas, so they can access the same rights as others, or just don't have to deal with bullshit. This is the premise of my published novel, Blackwood, in my Perth Shifters series).

Efnisien was raised with the hopes that he would 'become' an alpha, and be treated better if he could just be good enough at it - for him that justified the mutilation, the agony, the sexual assault, being beaten constantly by Gwyn, and more - to give you an idea of just how much omegas don't always want to be omegas. Finding out that Crielle has given up on her project and has abandoned him to a place dedicated to making him a soft, passive, complaint omega to be fucked by an alpha in a relationship he has no control over with a spouse he can't choose for himself (arranged marriages are common for omega, and the norm in high society) is pretty mind-shattering for him.

Even if Hillview does it differently, even if he's away from being literally tortured by his family and has people around him who care for him, it's still a pretty profound fall from grace that he's struggling with. And because he's been raised with the worst (but not inaccurate) picture of the worst of the rehabiltation facilities, he thinks he's about to be treated worse than he was growing up.

He's not. But he doesn't know that yet, and we - as the reader (well I suppose I'm the writer but go with me here) - are only learning that over time ourselves.

The fact is, most omegas that aren't Efnisien actually are a lot more placid, docile, gentle, or easily controlled. They are easily taken advantage of. There's less omegas and alphas in this world than betas (though it doesn't seem like it because of the setting, so I need to find a way to get that worldbuilding in there), so they're often left to their own devices, because betas be out here having mostly regular relationships with each other, and the world has generally internalised 'omegas are so helpless they need an alpha to look out for them, so it's better they're in a not great relationship that isn't ideal, than being gang-raped on the streets by random alphas who will take advantage of them' (and sadly, this is sometimes true).

Gary is pretty groundbreaking as an omega psychologist who simply believes in an omega's autonomy. While he's not doing a great job of that in a one-on-one situation, the fact that Hillview is the way that it is already makes it extremely challenging within this dystopian universe. But because he's been raised in a world that has these views about omegas, he has that clash of - this is what I philosophically believe and this is what this centre is for vs. what he's internalised alongside the fact that he's not actually attracted to omegas.

We'll get more into this psychology and the nature of this world as the story goes along! But this is the cliff notes version of where we're at.

I hope that helps anon! As always, you're welcome to ask more questions and some I will and some I won't (mostly around spoilers or what I think is coming up soon in the story etc.) :D

[not-poignant]

your whole world in Underline the Rainbow seems incredibly well fleshed out, down to the thought of what dietary needs alphas would have in comparison to omegas. Is there any omegaverse fiction that inspired the world of Hillview? Are there any fics/original fiction in the omegaverse that you particularly enjoy? Your interpretation of it has been my favorite that I’ve ever read, so I’d love to know what you draw from and what you enjoy reading in that world. I can’t wait for more Underline the Blue, I can tell that it’s going to tear me into teeny tiny confetti sized pieces and then put me back together again - janusz and nate already have my whole heart

(Also I hope that whatever is going on in your life resolves quickly and easily and with the best possible outcome - it seems like you’ve been through hell lately, I hope things get easier for you soon <3)

Hi anon!

The worldbuilding is so fleshed out in the Underline the Rainbow series because I just outright stole some of it from my other original omegaverse series, my published Perth Shifter e-books Blackwood and The Gentle Wolf (you can see those on the first pinned post on my Tumblr).

And I spent like...quite some time actually - like hours and hours - doing the kind of research I've never seen in most of the omegaverse stories I've read. I dove down pretty deeply into hormonal research, before inventing unique hormones (ardolphogen, larentin etc.) - even giving them the same suffixes as known hormones - for alphas, betas and omegas to distinguish them physiologically, so I could at least make a pretence at dealing with the medical side of things re: suppressants and health matters.

What I actually haven't included in Underline the Rainbow is all the historical research I did for Perth Shifters. Because in Perth Shifters, as the name implies, the characters are wolf shifters, and there are also humans who aren't alpha/beta/omega in that universe. So some of it wouldn't apply.

There's no one omegaverse work that inspires me. I'd say I've read literally hundreds of them now - in original publishing, in fanfiction, in manwha and manga. What I actually really love about it is that quite a few of us appreciate the chance to do some unique or different things with the standards of the genre, which means I can do stuff that people have seen before (knotting, heats), but that I can also do stuff that no one has done before (no one has given omegaverse folk the names for the hormones that I did, for example).

When it comes to details like the dietary needs (more fat for omegas, more protein for alphas etc.) I literally made that up on the fly. No thought went into that beyond 'shit that sounds good.'

But what goes into being able to do this is simply that I'm an avid learner of just about everything. I know a little about hormones already because I have a hormonal cancer. I know a little about nutrition and digestion already because I have an eating disorder and see a dietitian. These kinds of things are often in the back of my mind (along with decades of research into things like PTSD, or biology, or ecosystems and ecosystem management, or...the difference between grass fires and tree fires and the heats they burn at and how to survive either, etc.) I am filled with a repository of knowledge that is often useless in my day to day, but comes in handy when I'm writing.

So while I improvised the nutritional differences on the fly, I didn't do it with no knowledge behind it, I just didn't need to stop and research it at the time. It pays to read like over a thousand non-fiction books on literally any subject, y'know? That shit is so helpful for improvised worldbuilding.

The reality, anon, is that I'm drawing way, way more from research into science than I am from other omegaverse stories for these specific kinds of worldbuilding. Spending hours reading books and Wiki articles on hormones for example, has done way more for my omegaverse worldbuilding than any fics/stories I've read. Which probably sounds pretty weird, but most of the extra worldbuilding in this comes from science and resembles more of the work you'd put into science fiction or even hard science fiction worldbuilding, than it does from...reading other books in the genre?

Because frankly most omegaverse stories don't focus on this stuff. And also, a lot of the omegaverse I've read is pretty much straight-up smut, lmao. Which I love. Let's face it, a lot of folks are here for the knotting and the heats. :D And I love that! But I also love...worldbuilding (both in advance and on the fly, lol).

I will say that Leta Blake's omegaverse work has some pretty awesome cultural worldbuilding that I've not seen before. Mine isn't based on hers, and a heads up that there's mpreg, including literally 'sex while the baby is inside and the person feels the baby moving through their dick' which is like...very much past my line of what I like reading lmao. But the worldbuilding itself in Slow Heat and Alpha Heat is pretty awesome. She often does unconventional omegaverse dynamics, such as older omega / younger alpha with significant age gap, or alpha / alpha, etc. I would definitely say that I admire her worldbuilding, even though I don't base mine on hers. (Hers is a world where women no longer exist at all, for example, with religious and cultural lore that springs up around this and the duties that then apply to omegas and alphas to procreate in a fairly extreme dystopian setting where the mortality rates for omegas re: childbirth are shockingly high and being afraid of dying during childbirth is extremely normal/appropriate).

The Big Bad Wolf series by Charlie Adara also has some pretty cool worldbuilding (though not nearly as deep as Blake's, also no mpreg), which features a human/alpha pairing. Also it's romantic suspense which is just an awesome genre overall.

Also, there's more Underline the Blue coming on AO3 this month! And also more coming on Patreon too! This is definitely an Underline the Blue month. :D

[not-poignant]

Hi! Are you planning on writing any more books in the Peth shifters series? Like one about Hunter?

Hiya!

Unfortunately, because the Perth Shifters series did badly in general re: financially (and that's the main reason I wrote them), there are no plans to write more books in the Perth Shifters series. I make more from one month on Patreon than I made in the entire lifetime of The Gentle Wolf to give you an idea. And it's hard to justify spending 5 months writing a novel that...will not even earn back its own keep.

Hunter's Luck is the next book in the series, and I have tentatively thought about releasing it as a serial first (Patreon and serials do far better for me than published e-books), but that would mean a few things would change. It would likely be longer and more in-depth, it would be a great deal kinkier and explicit, with longer sex scenes, and it would depart from the kind of formal wordcount etc. of the first two, which may alienate the (small) number of folks who read the Perth Shifters books.

So while it's not currently in my 'formal' list of projects for this year, it's not forgotten about either, or completely abandoned. I just know that if I come back to Perth Shifters, it will probably be a serial first, and an ebook second. I don't know that I'll ever go back to publishing novels like Perth Shifters, it just really didn't work out for me, but there might be lateral ways of doing it, so we'll see. I really want to tell Hunter's story, so it's not from lack of interest, the format is just wrong.

[not-poignant]

Hey pia

I've just finished reading both your Perth Shifter books in just 1 weekend because they were SO. GOOD.

Would you ever write oneshots of Braden's second heat with Coll and Aodhan's first heat with Thomas or the first time they have sex?

Also, Hunter. I think I've fallen in love with the sad alpha boi 😭 Will he be getting his own book one day?

Thanks for taking the time to answer and I hope you have a nice December/Christmas

Eeee hi anon!

I'm so glad you enjoyed the Perth Shifters books! That makes me so so happy.

Unfortunately for now, everything to do with Perth Shifters is kind of benched since The Gentle Wolf bombed financially. (To give you some perspective, I make more in a month on Patreon than I have in The Gentle Wolf's entire lifetime).

I really want to write Hunter's book, but if I do, it'll probably be via Patreon first as a serial since that's definitely the way I tend to do things! I already have a playlist and a name for his book and like... I know who his partner will be and I have a plot, so it's mostly just down to...whether I want to take a huge financial risk like that again, and in today's economic climate I can't justify it. Unfortunately my books just do not do as well as my serials! And for similar reasons writing oneshots of like Braden/Coll and Aodhan/Thomas are also harder to justify. Like I don't *only* write for money, but that was the *main* reason I wrote the Perth Shifters books, so if they don't make an income, they have to give way to the stuff I like writing most at the moment that *also* keep me going economically. :D But I have not forgotten about Hunter! He's just...having a break for a little while, lol.

If you're interested in more omegaverse from me though, I'm writing an original (and completely free) serial right now which uses some of the same biology and other worldbuilding (though it's more dystopian), and is even still set in Western Australia, in my Underline the Black series!

I tend to write a lot of the same kind of vibes in my serial writing (trauma recovery, hurt/comfort, happy endings), so you may enjoy it! And if you only like finished stories there's a lot of those there too. :D

[not-poignant]

I realize it’s not a guaranteed thing at this point but as someone who really relates to Hunter I’m so excited for his book if it does get written. His whole story sounds super interesting the more we learn about it

Honestly after being a bit disappointed in The Gentle Wolf in terms of sales, time has given me the perspective that a book with an asexual MC was never going to do well in terms of sales, but I think it did well in terms of representation, and I still really love that story.

Time and health permitting, I definitely plan on writing Hunter’s Luck as the next book. It’s mostly just knowing that The Ice Plague is the most urgent thing I need to get to once burnout is over, but then I’ll probably write Hunter’s Luck between the end of book 3 and the beginning of the next serial. I don’t know when that is, unfortunately!

My brain is taken up with Falling Falling Stars and also is still just in a really tough space (to put it in perspective, I’ve recently additionally been diagnosed with some more mental disorders by a neuropsychologist, and we’re seeking pretty serious disability support alongside the disability pension I already have, though I doubt I’ll actually be given that by the government, but we’ll see). 

But like, I love writing. The only thing that really stops me from writing is my brain (self esteem issues) or my health, and sometimes I do get really burnt out and need to step back, but stepping back always - at least for the past 8 years - gives me the perspective that I love writing, and I want to keep writing stories that we’re all excited about, me and you and other folks altogether <333

[not-poignant]

What types of non-BDSMverse original works with BDSM elements are you thinking about creating?

You’ll probably want the Mallory & Mount tag for that! Or you can just read Three Choices here, which is an introduction to the characters (but not the universe, since I’ll be changing some things up).

But that’s likely what I’ll be launching into after book 3 of The Ice Plague is complete! Which if I get my act together, will either be this year or early next.

Otherwise there’s a demonolatry series (Daemonos), another fantasy series (Iverna), and *thinks* god there was one more that I’ve forgotten. So it probably is more on the backburner than these other ones. :D OH GLAMOUR GODS. How can I forget, it has its own playlist, lmao. So does Daemonos by the way, and Mallory & Mount.

Every original universe I want to write in has BDSM in it though (except for Perth Shifters, which has omegaverse, instead), including every one that I’ve written on AO3 to date. So I don’t see that changing no matter what the universe is.

[not-poignant]

I know this is out of topic right now but I just wanted to know what your plans are for the Perth Shifters series as far as whose stories you're gonna tell and the order of the books and such? I'm not into A/B/O but I absolutely loved Blackwood and I'm excited for the other stories

Hi anon!

There is no out of topic, and it’s awesome that you asked about Perth Shifters!

I actually put the draft first chapter of Little Star (Aodhan/Thomas) up at Patreon as extra content this month.

BUT, actually, okay, so let me tell you a story. I wrote Blackwood and I knew I would self-publish it. It was partly just as a ‘what the hell let’s see how hard this is.’ (It turns out my fear of success is more crippling than like, learning how to format something for .epub and .mobi but anyway). However, I never expected to sell more than about 50 copies and therefore when I planned my writing for the next few years, I didn’t really include the follow ups because, ah, well I didn’t expect it to do as well as Fae Tales.

To my incredible surprise, Blackwood actually did pretty well for a debut release. And now I’m in this wonderful area of like, being amazed, but also being in a tricky zone of ‘um I don’t have any follow ups written yet and nor do I really have the writing budget for it right now’).

BUT, anyway, the order of the books so far is:

1. Blackwood - Braden/Coll2. Little Star (possibly to be retitled) - Aodhan/Thomas3. Untitled - Hunter/Luuk4. Untitled - Seamus/??? (I know the character but not his name)5. Untitled - Jesse/Mal (we’ll meet Jesse in book 2)6. Untitled - Hardy/Dazza

So far we’ve met Braden, Coll, Aodhan, Hunter, Seamus, Hardy and Dazza. The last three may not be written depending on interest (mine and the readers). But each book kind of explores a different facet of shifter society, Little Star is a beta/omega relationship, Hunter’s book is an alpha/human relationship (with a kink factor), Seamus’ book will go back to alpha/omega, but explore some of the less savoury aspects of how humans have treated shifters directly. And we know that Hardy/Dazza is beta/alpha story, with added pining lol.

But how/when I will find the time to work on them is another matter. In good news, writing the 100k itself is not the issue (or 80k more like), it’s just...Fae Tales is my primary income, and that is where my first order of business lies. Then fanfiction, because it keeps me sane (I tried not doing fanfiction, and I quit writing for about a year as a result). And after that I...don’t have much left over, because Fae Tales is hungry.

So the plan atm is that when Spoils of the Spoiled finishes, I’ll start working on Little Star more diligently, aiming for first draft completion in about 4 months, and then a release about 4 months after that now that I know how that side of things works. But it won’t be a 2019 release, sadly. But in good news, there’s always a ton of other stuff to read that I’m writing at any time. :D