#the full list of books is breaking the tumblr post editor

[dvar-trek]

Romance Roundup: Part 1

this summer, after succumbing to my knitting injuries, i fell into a romance novel rabbit-hole. they are like candy for me. they're low-effort, fun, a quick source of joy, and keep me from endlessly scrolling jpost for israel news. also i can usually finish one in a day or two. so all in all, i ended up reading a total of 90 romance/kissing books.

the stats:

84 queer

13 novella-length

4 that i really feel i gave a fair shot but didn't finish

the top 7 (in no particular order):

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland- a fantasy book wherein the prince and his sworn bodyguard fall in love. some light (as in dangerous but not overly complex) political intrigue. plenty of world-building, but the author doesn't ever bore you with explanations you don't want. the writing is a little clumsy at times, but in spite of myself i found this book and the characters so utterly charming.

Enlightenment Trilogy (Provoked, Beguiled, and Enlightened) by Joanna Chambers- takes place in regency-late georgian scotland. two men who are dedicated to their respectable (but very different) lives. in order to keep what's important to them, they each plan to go through life just having anonymous, one-off encounters with other men, and needless to say, they upend that for one another. features radical politics, arguments about what matters in life, george iv's visit to scotland, and confronting your past. i thought about this extensively, but i simply do not think i can describe the plot in a way that will be helpful. you are just going to have to trust me. a linked short story and bonus-epilogue-novella are also availble on the author's website.

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall- man sort of accidentally fakes amnesia to keep his asshole boss from firing everyone. only they end up sort of falling for each other for real. modern setting, funny and sad, and the kind of slow-burn romance that makes your chest hurt. it does take place over christmas, but not in a fluffy, christmassy way. like, even i, America's Number One Christmas Hater, who would never have touched it had i known about the christmas element going in, found it to be completely tolerable amount of christmas, and a thoroughly enjoyable book. i read everything on my top 7 list multiple times, but this is one that really rewards your second read-through.

Captive Prince Trilogy (Captive Prince, Prince's Gambit, and Kings Rising) by C.S. Pacat- fantasy setting wherein a prince is kidnapped and enslaved in an enemy realm, and eventually has to ally with his cruel captor in order to save his own kingdom. plenty of political maneuvering, military skirmishes, court intrigue, and secret night mission shenanigans (with disguises). another chest-aching slow burn that rewards multiple read-throughs. there's also a linked short story collection, The Summer Palace, which includes a bonus epilogue.

A Rulebook for Restless Rogues (book 2 in Lucky Lovers of London) by Jess Everlee- victorian-era romance, featuring drag, lifelong best friends, and some of the best (hottest) sex scenes on this list. the proprietor of an underground gentlemen's club for queer men fights to keep his club open and his people safe, both from the law and from the volatile aristocrat who owns the place. he also definitely doesn't have feelings for his best friend. anymore. probably.

England World (Think of England, and prequel Proper English) by KJ Charles- two excellent books; one a houseparty/treason investigation and one a houseparty turned murder mystery. as everyone knows, it's extremely dangerous to attend a houseparty while single, because you will fall hopelessly in love, but you will also be in mortal peril. i am. too fucking feral about these characters to say anything useful. i am completely aware that this does nothing to help my case, but i cannot help it. i am unable to be normal about them, even in the effort to convince people to read these books. also please note that even though the covers are. quite bad. the writing is excellent and well-researched. also also, there's a bonus epilogue on the author's website, featuring additional sex, good jokes, and bad poetry.

An Unnatural Vice (book 2 in Sins of the City) by KJ Charles- the whole trilogy is worth reading (in order!) but this is definitely the strongest of the 3, and i found it to be the most compelling of the romances. a victorian-era mystery/suspense series, featuring an inheritance plot, murders in the fog, and fake séances. a "spiritualist" who defrauds the wealthy and the investigative jouranlist determined to expose his tricks find themselves hate-fucking, running from murderers, arguing about class politics, and both saving and upending each others' lives.

honorable mention:

Sailor's Delight by Rose Lerner- #1 brain-rewiring book of the year. 1813 sailing master in the british royal navy and his naval agent fall in love. the book takes place over 1 week of shore leave (which coincides with the high holy days), although they have known each other (and known that they can never be together) for almost a decade. uh. listen. this book is both fun and well-researched, but it is not, like, Good™. there is a shirtless man on the cover and there's not even any fucking in the book. the main characters are named Elie and Augie which is completely unsexy. BUT. they changed my brain chemistry and i've plotted out their entire lives in my head from the moment they met and i'm fucking feral about them.

romance roundup part 2

[nim-lock]

Art Career Tips, 2021 Edition

Here’s an edited version of my 2019 answered ask, because... this feels relevant. 

It is a problem of capitalism that folks equate their income as a judgement of their value as people; and let me preface. You are worth so much. You have inherent value in this world. Your income is not a judgement on who you are (plenty of billionaires are actively making the world worse). LARPing self-confidence will go a long way to helping you get paid more for your work, because clients will believe that you know what you are doing, and are a professional. 

& real quick—my own background is that I’ve been living off my art since 2018. I went to art school (Pratt Institute). I work in a publishing/educational materials sphere, and a quarter of my income is my shop. Not all of this information may apply to you, so it is up to you to look through everything with a critical eye, and spot pick what is relevant. 

So there are multiple ways of getting income as an artist; 

Working freelance or full-time on projects

Selling your stuff on a shop

Licensing (charging other companies to use your designs)

This post primarily covers the freelance part; if you’re interested in the other bits there is absolutely info out there on the internet. 

IF you are just starting (skip to next section if not applicable) dream big, draw often (practice helps you get better/more efficient), do your best to take "a bad piece” lightly. You’re gonna RNG this shit. At some point your rate of “good” works will get higher. Watch tutorial videos & read books. A base understanding of “the rules”; anatomy, perspective, composition, color helps you know what the rules are to break them. This adds sophistication to your work. One way you can learn this stuff is by doing “studies”—you’re picking apart things from life, or things other people have done, to see what works, and how it works. 

Trying to turn your interests into a viable career means that you are now a SMALL BUSINESS; it really helps to learn some basic marketing, graphic design, figure out how to write polite customer service emails; etc. You can learn some of this by looking it up, or taking skillshare (not sponsored) classes by qualified folks. Eventually some people may get agents to take care of this for them—however, I do recommend y’all get a basic understanding of what it takes to do it on your own, just so you can know if your agent is doing a good job. 

Making sure your portfolio fits the work you want to get

Here is a beginner portfolio post. 

Research the field you’d like to get into. The amount people work, the time commitment, the process of making the thing, the companies & people who work for them. 

Create work that could fit in to the industry you’re breaking into. For example, if you want to do book cover illustration, you draw a bunch of mockup book covers, that can either be stuff you make up, or redesigns of existing books. If you’re not 100% sure what sort of work is needed for the industry, loop back into the portfolios of artists in a similar line of work as whatever you’re interested in, and analyze the things they have in common. If something looks to be a common project (like a sequence of action images for storyboard artists), then it’s probably something useful for the job. 

CLIENTS HIRE BASED ON HOW WELL THEY THINK YOUR WORK FITS WHAT THEY WANT. If they’re hiring for picture books, they’re gonna want to see picture book art in your portfolio, otherwise they may not want to risk hiring you. Doesn’t have to be 100% the project, but stuff similar enough. If you aren’t hired, it doesn’t mean your work is bad, it just wasn’t the right fit for that specific client. 

If you have many interests, make a different section of your portfolio for each!

Making sure you’re relevant 

Have a social media that’s a little more public-facing, and follow people in the career field you’re interested in. Fellow artists, art directors, editors, social media managers; whoever. Post on your own schedule. 

Interact with their posts every so often, in a non-creepy way. 

If you’ve made any contacts, great! Email these artists, art directors, editors, former professors, etc occasional updates on your work to stay in touch AND make sure that they think about you every so often.

Show up to general art events every once in a while! If you keep showing up to ones in your area (when... not dying from a sneeze is a thing), folks will eventually start to remember you. 

Industry events & conferences can be pricey, so attend/save up for what makes sense for you. Industry meetups are important for networking in person! In addition to meeting people with hiring power, you also connect with your peers in the community. Always bring a portfolio & hand out business cards like candy. 

Active job hunting

Apply to job postings online.

If interested in working with specific people at specific companies, you could send an email “I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio/relevant experience”, even if they aren’t actively looking for new hires. Be concise, and include a link to your work AND attached images so the person reading the email can get a quick preview before clicking for more. 

Twitter job postings can be pretty underpaid! Get a copy of the Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines to know your rate. I once had a twitter post job listing email me back saying that other illustrators were charging less, and I quote, “primarily because they’re less experienced and looking for their first commission”. This was not okay! For reference, this was a 64-illustration book. The industry rate of a children’s book (~36 pages) is $10k+, and this company’s budget was apparently $1k. For all of it. 

Congrats you got a job! Now what?

Ask for like, 10% more than they initially offer and see if they say yes. If they do, great! If not, and the price is still OK, great! Often company budgets are slightly higher than they first tell you, and if you get this extra secret money, all the better for you. 

Make sure you sign a contract and the terms aren’t terrible (re: GO GET THE  Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines) 

Be pleasant and easy to work with (Think ‘do no harm but take no shit’)

Communicate with them as much as needed! If something’s going to be late, tell them as soon as you know so they aren’t left wondering or worse, reaching out to ask what’s up. 

And if all goes well, they’ll contact you about more jobs down the line, or refer you to other folks who may need an artist, etc. 

Quick note about online shops/licensing and why they’re so good

It’s work that you do once, that you continuously make money off of. Different products do well in different situations (conventions vs. online, and then further, based on how you market/the specific groups you are marketing to), so products that may not do well initially may get a surge later on. 

Start with things that have low minimum order quantity and are relatively cheap to produce, like prints and stickers. 

If you are not breaking even, go back to some of the earlier portions of this and think about how you could tweak things as a small business. Ease of access is also very important with this; for example, if you only take orders through direct messages, that immediately shuts off all customers who don’t like talking to strangers. 

Quick resource that you could look through; it’s the spreadsheet of project organizing that I made a while back 

Licensing is when people pay you for the right to use your work on stuff they need to make, like textbooks or greeting cards. This is generally work you’ve already made that they are paying the right to use for a specified time or limited run of products. This is great because you’ve already done the work. I am not the expert on this. Go find someone else’s info.

“I am not physically capable of working much”/ “I need to pay the bills”

Guess who got a hand injury Sept 2020 that messed me up that entire month! I had a couple jobs going at the time that I was terrified of losing, but they were quite understanding when I told them I needed to heal. So:  Express your needs as early as you know you need them. Also do lots of stretches and rest your hands whenever you feel anything off; this will save your health later. Like, the potential of a couple months of no income was preferable over losing use of my hands for the rest of my life.

This continues to apply if you have any other life situation. Ask for extra time. Ask for clarification. If you tell people ahead of time, folks are often quite understanding. Know how much you are capable of working and do your best not to overdo it. (I am.. bad at this)

Do what MAKES SENSE for your situation. If doing art currently earns you less money than organizing spreadsheets, then do that for now, and whenever you have the energy, break down some of the tips above into actionable tiny chunks, and slowly work at em. 

The original ask I got in 2019 mentioned ‘knowing you’re not good enough yet’. Most artists experience imposter syndrome & self-doubt—the important thing is to do your best, and if anything, attempt to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. If he can apply to this job/charge hella money for Not Much, then so can you! 

Check out this Art Director tumblr for more advice!

Danichuatico’s Literary Agent guide

Kikidoodle’s Shop Shipping Tutorial

Best of luck!

–

Once again disclaimer this post is just the ramblings of a man procrastinating on other things that need to be done. I’ve Long Posted my own post so that it turns into mush in my brain if I try to read it, but I wrote this so I should know this content. If you got down here, congrats. Here’s a shrimp drawing.

Yee Ha. 

My reference post tag My tip jar

[chrisstevenson]

The Lows of High Book Prices

A thousand pardons if I come off like a rant. I'm a mashup between J.A. Konrath and Harlan Ellison. I'm a writer advocate and defender of the written word. I also watch the industry like a stealthy Sasquatch. These articles are always meant for Guerrilla Warfare for Writers, my down and dirty blog. There is no BS here. Maybe some inaccuracies. I don't even like posting these articles to my YA website--no one reads me there anyway. I hope you suffer me well.  

First and foremost, if you are a celebrity author you don't need to be reading this. If you are an A-list author, pass on by. If you are a very popular author with a huge reader fan base and have a enormous mailing list that draws purchasing customers in like flies, audios. If you have a break-out or bestseller, you can kindly leave by through back door. There will also be some outlier exceptions. This article is not a call to arms for you. You are profitable, consistent and probably comfortably set in the mighty realm of book sales.

If you are new to writing with a minimum number of releases, an old-time mid-lister like me with a ton of books out there, or a new writer launching your first book, I think you better read this and make some grave determinations. It's unlikely a publisher is going to read this, but I've been with and seen too many that need to know what is working and what is not as far as ad pricing. This warning goes double for authors who just don't care that their e-book prices are going to be placed high regardless. It goes triple (as of this writing) because of the corona virus and the financially stressed atmosphere it has created.  People are buying essentials. As far as entertainment, they are streaming movies and playing games. Who started the the rumor that they were buying books hand over fist? Do you remember when this news was sent out on the wings of doves at the very beginning of the pandemic spread?

I would like you to read three paragraphs (below) which come straight from the keys of most of the advertisers I know and have dealt with. The wording might not be the same but the implications all point to the same conclusion. They don't want your high-priced book. They want rock-bottom cover prices and freebies. The reason is twofold; Shoppers want bargains, plain and simple. That's why W-Mart and Amazon rule the nest. Yet the second reason is that the company itself doesn't want to lose a potential customer. That means you won't be coming back for seconds if there are flat sales. They are also competing with other promotion and marketing sites that have the same mindset policies.

Here's my statistics for two YA fantasy/thrillers that had excellent covers and blurbs. Both of these ads were run before and during a Halloween special (the horror factor was quite evident).. Both books were priced at $2.99.

Book one ran for 15 days on a $45 budget. It received 5,391 impressions; total clicks--5--and a CTR of 0.09%

Book two ran for seven days on a $100 budget. It received 10,195 impressions; total clicks --13 and a CTR of  0.13%.

I don't think I have to do the math for you. Except for the takeaway, which was $145.00 from me and some wide-eyed experience. I later changed companies, dropped the e-book price to .99 cents, and still fell flat--no sales. We could argue all day long about what I did wrong with these two companies. I did not stop there. I enlisted in seven of the companies listed below, with very low, rock-bottom prices. Please excuse my spelling on the names.

Just Kindle Books

Fiverr--bkknights

Fussy Librarian

FreeBooksie

E-book Hounds

Robin Reads

Kindlebook Review

Book Barbarian

Booksends

BookDealio

Ebookdiscovery

Ereader IQ

Ent

Book Reader Magazine

Pretty Hot books.

Out of my promotions, I received three apologies and full refunds. I think I sold two books from Ent. That was it. I won't go into which seven, but I did do my research beforehand. They were my best picks.  

Have you ever heard that it wasn't the gold miners who made money off their digs, but the merchants who sold them the supplies, tools, products and other services? We basically have the same thing going on here, with grandiose claims of the promotion and marketing companies talking about going to the top of the sales charts, breakouts, unlimited exposure and guaranteed results. Results. Not sales. Impressions and clicks are a normal state of business and you'll see them. What you won't see are voluminous click-throughs--buys, sales, mullah.

There are many Indie writers who are exceptions to this rule because they have targeted outfits that payoff for them. Might be some trade published out there too. This comes from a lot of trial and error--R & D--and it NEVER ends because the books can go through an insufferable amount of tweaking to fine-tune the results. This happens when an author watches his/her ups, downs and in betweens--the stats that govern peak sales. Self-published authors also get a larger percentage cut of the royalties than the small trade-house authors. Many of the elite Indie authors pay thousands for ads a months, but they reaps thousands plus in return. So it is a revolving door for them--huge investments that garner huge profits. You want to make money, you have to spend it. That's not my quote, lol.

Look, all I'm saying is be wise and careful with your expenditures. You are going to see, if you already haven't, self-proclaimed experts that can do all forms of editing, covers, formatting, book tours, pod-casts, trailers, page ads, listings, book-to-movie deals, screenwriting, agent introductions, publisher submissions, blurbs, illustrations, writing courses, query letters, one-on-one instruction, translations, ghostwriting, expedited (paid) reviews, synopsis's, proof reading, evaluations and all other manner of Internet blasting services. Can you pay for some of these services without losing your shirt or blouse? Sure you can! It's up to you. But be aware, unless you really need and believe in any of them, you'll lose out every time.

I often wonder if we are just giving our books away because the sea is awash with them. So many tens of thousands of books are published each year that the numbers keeps compounding and burying the authors under tons of pixels. Nobody can find you, lest you post on FB that you will commit suicide if somebody, anybody doesn't buy one of your books before you take that leap. Well, if it goes viral and you were bluffing, it would work. I think you get the idea. Dear gawd, I've often entertained the idea.

1. Your deal price should be as competitive as possible (This is a company motto BTW).

"We promise our subscribers the best deals available. The better the deal, the more appealing it is to our subscribers, and therefore the more likely it is to be selected by our editors/readers. We rarely feature books priced above $2.99, and even $2.99 is an unusually high price for many of our categories.(I JUST LOVE IT WHEN THEY SAY $2.99 IS UNUSUALLY HIGH).

"While your deal price should be based on your book marketing goals, pricing as low as possible will entice more readers to download your book. The lower the price, the higher the conversion rate of a Deal. Knowing this, our editors prefer books that are competitively priced, since those will drive a higher volume of reader engagement. They’re also able to select a higher percentage of discounted books. If you’re not selected for a deal between $0.99 and $3.99, consider resubmitting your book for a free promotion, as this can be a really effective way to increase your chances of getting selected.

"Keep in mind that the competitiveness of your price depends on your category. While it’s normal to see a higher priced book in Cooking, for example, prices are usually lower in the Mysteries or Romance categories (THOSE TWO ARE THE BEST-SELLING GENRES, BTW).. Browse through books in your category to see what’s competitive in your own genre. Again, if your book is not selected at one price, try resubmitting at a lower price or for free. Your chances of being selected will be higher."

Note the last sentence. They are going to select you in accordance with how profitable they think you can be.Sounds to me if you don't go low enough to suit them, they'll politely blow you off.

I've heard some positive news about AMS, BookBub featured ads, and in a blue moon, FB and Twitter boosters. I've used all but the grand daddy feature ad. While these might still show some profit, they certainly aren't working like they used to. Profit has measurably declined, and I mean this in a general sense.

What does my crystal ball tell me for the future? I can only take a wild stab at it and say that the heavy visual sites like Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and others are driving a wedge between the other competitors. They could be the wave for future book exposure. I know their swords are drawn against Amazon

Anybody have any solutions or ideas about gaining some profitability in this industry? I'd love to hear it. Or any promo/marketing site that has fulfilled your dreams. BTW, just like FB put the whammy on My Space, do you see another FB type site in the future? I dooooo,

Blessed wishes, please stay safe and healthy.

Chris and Christy.  

[ginnyzero]

A Reason Why I’m Indie

Traditional publishing isn’t for everybody. And I’ve seen attitudes that if you don’t conform to word counts and genre conventions and all the rules, then you’re never going to get anywhere in publishing/as a traditionally published author. So, I guess you should suck it up and do it. Then, I’m proudly never going to get anywhere.

Before we go any further, I want to make a disclaimer. Agents do hard jobs. They became agents (most of them) because they love books and reading and want to see authors succeed. They don’t get PAID unless an author succeeds. They are as invested in an author’s book as much as the author is. Or, at least, the good ones are. (Yes, there are a few bad apples that you must be aware of.)

BUT

Agents can’t sell your book if there is no one in their contacts/on their list that will buy it for reasons.

And these reasons may not have anything to do with your writing quality, your world building, your storytelling or your creativity. These reasons have everything to do with the publishing world and the little arbitrary writing rules that they impose on well, everything. I’m squeezing my hands together so hard right now my knuckles are turning white because these rules make me angry.

It takes a lot to make me angry. I get frustrated sometimes fairly easily. But angry?

Well, bullshit makes me angry.

I have spent time going through the querying process. I have helped and watched my best friend, writing bff, collaborator and editor go through her querying process. And I have comforted and I have encouraged and I was there for her last night when she figured out that her book was being rejected not because of writing quality and or bad story or because she had unicorns.

Instead, it was being rejected because someone in the last four years decided that the themes of the types of stories she tells belong and only belong to a certain age group category younger than what she writes. And if she wants to write the type of stories she wants to write, the type of stories that she loves and she needed at the YA age level, she would have to change essentially everything about her story that she adores to get it traditionally published.

Or self-publish.

And as we know, self-publishing closes a lot of doors.

All because, she isn’t writing the “correct” theme for the “correct” age group.

And this pisses me off. (My friend is devastated because the book series she’s lovingly crafted and all her other ideas now won’t supposedly work for traditional publishing all without her knowing because someone instituted new rules. She's been in limbo for months over this.)

Because these things aren’t written down anywhere. And if they are, they’re in weird little articles that aren’t being taught in schools because probably the teachers themselves don’t know them. Or, they were things decided in the last half a decade and no one decided to you know, spread the word in such a way that authors querying would hear it.

Or maybe, just maybe, restricting themes to a genre or an age level is such extreme limiting and inappropriate bullshit it needs to be burned in a fire.

-Takes a deep breathe- See. Angry.

There are certain themes and certain plot structures/character constructions that defined or launched each genre. Romance being the most heavily structured in the traditional publishing world (and a lot of indies following the same rules/structure.)

Science Fiction (as we know it) was born out of the Cold War and the space race and the feeling of alienation and how is having world destroying weapons going to guide us as a species. It was a lot of “humans versus alien invaders” ID4 type of storytelling. Shelley’s Frankenstein started it. And there were different views of it in the beginning, Asimov delved into the perils of robotics and space flight. Herbert talked about ecological scifi. Heinlein tended to go political and then time traveling sexual hijinks. Star Trek was Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE.

Fantasy, especially high and epic fantasy, was born of the retelling of old legends, myths and religions and the triumph of the goodness of mankind in the hero's journey. Star Wars and stories like it (Andre Norton, Anne McCaffery’s Pern) merged the two into science fantasy (my favorite.) Urban fantasy became Sherlock Holmes solves/fights crime with vampires, werewolves and the rest of the fantasy kitchen sink.

Just some examples here.

Much of the science fiction I’ve seen on the shelves still follows the formulas of Asimov and Heinlein and Orson Scott Card. The lone soldier against the terrible aliens must fight to save humanity. (In some instances, these are still the top authors hogging all the shelf space, add Herbert and Bova and Brian Sanderson the successor of Robert Jordan and LE Modesitt. And…….. yeah.)

And it’s boring. It’s tiresome. It’s time for a change. Our culture is changing and the media on our shelves isn’t. Tumblr is full of posts about how Earth is Space Australia and aliens that are simultaneously fascinated and accepting of the oddities of humans because their culture isn’t like that! We adopt strange little vacuum robots as easily as we bond to small furry creatures that OMG OMG it could KILL US. (And some not so furry creatures.) We have different types of friends. We do stupid shit for the fun of it. It’s funny. It’s heartwarming. It’s different.

People don’t want angry patriarchal werewolves anymore. They want more than dwarves that just love mining and speak in bad Scottish accents. (Best one I saw was Australian accents actually.) Readers are tired of gratuitous rape. They’re tired of abusive and bad relationships being portrayed as good. Toxic masculinity is getting old as is misogyny. Princesses no longer want to be rescued by dragons, they want to be protected by dragons from being forced into marriages they don’t want. Why must readers go through a sewer when they open a book to escape?

No. Not a lot of these new ideas have conflict or plot. But that’s not really up to the idea thinkers on Tumblr, that’s up to us the writers to see what the idea makers are looking for and come up with plots to fit those settings (if we like those ideas/settings.)

I doubt you’ll find it on bookshelves.

Fantasy has fallen into the grim dark crap sack worlds looking for the next GRRM. Storytelling that hasn’t advanced past trying to emulate Tolkien. Authors that emulate Lackey and McCaffery in the style of romantic fantasy being passed over for grim dark fantasy with assassins and the hot “urban fantasy.”

And understandably, Urban Fantasy is pretty new. LKH and Jim Butcher and other writers like Kim Harrison, Seanan Mcguire and Patty Briggs have been instrumental in making urban fantasy a ‘big deal.’ And I’ve read a lot of urban fantasy and finally I had to give up. I couldn’t take it anymore. Because it was all the same thing in different trappings. And I’m down for the same thing in different trappings to an extent. I really am. I’d just hope that at some point we can have more than Urban Fantasy mysteries. But no one is selling them on traditional shelves because publishers decided that Urban Fantasy people SOLVE CRIME is what the genre is.

This kills innovation coming to publishing houses. We see it in movies as well as books, new ideas, good ideas, are being passed over for the rehash of something from 20 to 30 years ago. (Think closer to 60 for some scifi, more for fantasy.) Because publishers have "genre rules" and are risk adverse because 'what if it doesn't sell?'

There are writers out there that are willing to turn themselves into pretzels to make their story fit a certain word count, a certain genre theme or follow these arbitrary rules to “get their foot in the door” and then they are told and believe that “once they are established” they can “break/bend the rules.”

It’s a lie. It’s a tasty lie. It’s so good of a lie you want to believe it. You want to delude yourself that “if I pretend I’m a man, get my book under 80,000 words, follow the exact conventions of my genre, that one day I’ll get big enough to break all of the rules and innovate my genre.”

That’s when you’ve sold your soul to the devil. You’ve stripped yourself of all your self-respect in order to chase that dream of the “traditional publishing deal.”

Indie is pushing back at traditional in good ways and in bad ways. Traditional with either adapt or continue its pushing back and rigidly holding onto the genre structures it has to its own downfall. The readers will decide on what they want to see/read. That, as an indie author is no longer my problem and completely out of my control.

My problem remains with the fact that traditional publishing houses, and agents aren’t being open and honest about their expectations for these genres that they’re pushing onto shelves. Get together. Form a consensus. Get that information out to authors by putting it on agent websites/blogs. Don’t expect newbies to just know it.

We’ve had enough dream crushing. Being rejected is difficult enough. There are enough gates to go through and hoops to jump. Don’t make lack of information that “everybody knows” yet another one. It's about doing the right thing. Anyone can write a fiction book. Anyone. There is no degree necessary. So, do the right thing, the moral thing and be clear about expectations for what you represent and the "rules" of the genre on your website where querying authors can find it.

(There is going to be writer blaming going on here. Writers/Authors aren't at fault. They can't know this if they aren't told it. You can't just "know things" out of thin air. If there is an expectation, then state the expectation clearly and where it's easily found. As agents, as publishers, putting the information out there that will get you the material you want to read and can sell to publishing houses to make it to stores is on you, not the writer. /soapbox)

Now, if you’re a lucky sod and not like me and does write in the box and naturally writes inside the box. Then, you know what, I’m happy for you. Honestly, my life as an author would be so much easier if I could write “X the werewolf solves crime and saves the world.”

I can’t. It’s not in me.

My job as a writer is to put out the best story that I believe in as a person. A story that is true to me, my feelings, my life journey and what I want to see on shelves/would want to read. If that story has too many genres mixed up, doesn’t follow genre conventions, is too long, isn’t the right “theme” or focuses on the wrong thing for the wrong age group, then, fine, it’s probably never going to be traditionally published. I can deal with that.

I’ll self-publish. I’ll continue to self-publish. I’ll be indie despite the reputation that comes with being indie. I’ll do the work to get my books out there to the world and appreciate the few readers I have and support my indie friends even if it's just with a "you can do it. Hang in there. I'm rooting for all of you." Because, it's all I can do and can control.

I still reserve the right to be mad. Cause that's my friend.

[muggle-writes]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What are some ways you organize your notes/writing thoughts?

thanks for asking! Sorry I'm answering late, I had a rough headache and tried to sleep it off for most of Saturday so it's like 2am Sunday now (3am when I finished because I'm tired enough to have very little filter which means it's ramble time) but I'm awake so I'm answering.

to be honest, it depends on where I am and whether I have free time where there's nothing else I "should" be doing.

if I'm out and about, or if I "should" be doing something else I'll be writing on my phone. usually with a program called Quip, occasionally with a program called Bookstack. I'm out at my QP's right now, and she and my wife are talking video games, and I don't have my laptop handy so I'm writing in Quip. it's kind of a dropbox/google docs alternative, and it has a not-terrible app. I sort everything into a personal writing folder (i used to use quip for other things too, which I kept in other folders since it has a decent checklist ability) and if I expect something to be a long story I'll create a folder for it and put different scenes in different documents in that folder. if I expect it to be short, I'll just create a document straight in the writing folder and hopefully remember to give it a descriptive name. If I'm intending to write something especially short and post it immediately, like this, I won't usually give it a title. sometimes this bites me in the butt but mostly it's fine. I write things in quip rather than directly in the tumblr editor for two related reasons: tumblr mobile has a really annoying habit of eating my longer posts instead of posting them. i haven't figured out if this is more related to the length of the text added, or the length of time I have the draft open. on top of that, if I type it in tumblr mobile and try to make a backup copy, the largest unit I can copy at a time is a paragraph, not the whole document, so it would be a hassle to copy out. often, for posts this long, I wind up copying in three or four paragraphs at a time, saving the draft again, and waiting for tomorrow to display my changes before I click edit draft and add another few. it's easier to copy text into tumblr than out of it

if I'm on bookstack (a mediocre Google docs/scrivener alternative but it's open source and my wife runs an instance so I've tried it out. among other problems, it doesn't have an app so I have to write through my mobile browser and I have to have internet. quip stores locally regardless and syncs with the internet when possible so I tend to use quip instead) When I'm using bookstack, I'm forced to use its organization system. broadest to narrowest categories: shelves books, chapters, pages. you can put pages directly into books, or into chapters. I usually use pages as scenes, and keep them sorted into chapters. in theory I like bookstack but it needs some major improvements (options for variable theme, offline mode, general mobile UI, etc) before I would actually recommend it.

If I have my laptop I occasionally write in bookstack but more often Microsoft Word (I got a free student copy when I was in college and whenever my current laptop dies I'm going to get Open Office or Libre Office instead rather than pay for Microsoft.)

I sort my writing into fanfiction and original works. there's very little in the original works side, sadly. Within fanfiction, since I generally publish to ao3 as I go, I separate it into folders incomplete and completed. within each, I sort it into fandoms, within incomplete, I then have a folder for each fic, and then documents titled "published" and "unpublished" within each. within completed, there's individual documents for each fic (equivalent to "published" within incomplete) I cut and paste things between documents, or move documents around as necessary

for editing, it's a different story:

in Word, if I'm writing a variant of a scene I've already written, and I want to keep the old one and decide later which one I like better, I'll strikethrough the old paragraph and write another. If I get several of these I'll color code the old scenes so I can tell which one's which (sometimes I reuse parts of sentences in like. 3/5 variants so they're usually intertwined. my drafts get colorful) If I'm going in a really drastically different direction, sometimes I'll create a new document and in the title describe what the difference is.

In Quip (actually, in bookstack too, when I'm on mobile, so probably it's just my phone keyboard not playing nice with long documents. somehow I never have the same issue when I'm writing directly in the tumblr app) if I try to select large sections and replace or delete them, it deletes significantly more than I want it to, probably twice as many characters? twice as many minus one? idk. if I'm not happy with something in quip, it's a little glitchy about strikethrough so I'll just put a few blank lines, a line of squiggles (~) and/or an all caps "ALTERNATELY" and another line break and then the replacement.

anyway. that's all for when I'm composing prose (or publishable poetry)

when I'm scribbling down notes to keep them because I'm plotting a longer story or because I want to write but don't have time, I'll open up one of the above programs (usually quip or word) and create a bullet point list of sentence fragments and notes. I put major points at the top level of bullet points, indent for the next level of detail under each one. the top level bullets are usually vaguely in chronologial (or storytelling) order, but flashbacks/"this sets up for..." often show up in the nested bullets.

If I have a really thorough outline, with a full sentence for every scene, in word I'll make a copy of the outline with a page break between each outline point, and then I'll skip around between scenes based on my inspiration and write the scenes in their corresponding place in the draft so that the end result is pretty effortlessly in order. (in bookstack, I'll create "pages" for each scene. in quip I put three or four line breaks between the scene prompts or occasionally split them into separate documents.)

[rainwindandstars]

Queer book recommendations!

Here is my promised list of queer books! I’ve included a small plot summary, what I liked about the books, what kind of representation they have (queer, disability, POC etc.) and warnings for common triggers. If you want to know more about a specific book, feel free to ask me! The order is random and says nothing about how much I liked a book. All the links go to the books’ goodreads pages, unless it is available for free online, then the link goes to where you can find it. Some of the authors have tumblrs, I’ve added those as well in case you want to follow them (I might have missed some, though). I have included a few novellas/novelettes in this posts, but I will probably make an additional post for queer short stories. Shoot me an ask if you want to be notified when I have done so!

The Second Mango by Shira Glassman  @shiraglassman (Fantasy/Romance)

Young lesbian queen Shulamit is looking for a girlfriend with the help of her bodyguard Rivka (who is a woman pretending to be a man) and the bodyguard’s shapeshifting dragon/horse, when they learn about a sorcerer who is turning women into stone and decide to rescue them.

This book is the first of the Mangoverse books (there are three others and one short story collection) and I really liked all of them. While the characters’ queerness is obviously important to the plot (especially in book one and two), the plot isn’t just about that and the characters also have adventures that have nothing to with their orientation (in book three they get to solve a crime). These books are very fluffy, not overly serious in tone (but also not too silly), with happy endings for all the queer characters. Ideal when you just want to read something lighthearted. Most of the characters are Jewish and later books also have bi and trans characters. There is some homophobia in the setting, esp. in book two, but for the most part the queer characters don’t have to suffer for being queer.

Shira has also written a bunch of other books which I’ve heard are very good, but I haven’t read them.

To Stand In The Light by Kayla Bashe @kayla-bird (Fantasy/Romance)

Shadow, a nonbinary transfem superhero with a tragic past saves the life of Bean, another young superhero and they quickly become friends. While Bean goes to superhero school, Shadow is away on adventures, and when they come back after a few years, they both have developed feelings for each other, but are too insecure and too scared they are not good enough for each other to admit it. And then a supervillain shows up…

This book deals with some quite heavy themes like different kinds of trauma, mental illness and disability, but it’s never grim and I actually count it as another “feel-good” book, because it also has the different characters be wonderfully supportive of each other. The character interactions are definitely the focus of this book, the superhero part is mostly just a background for them. Besides queer main characters, this book also has a lot of other minority representation- Shadow has PTSD and chronic pain, Bean has ADHD and is a Korean transracial adoptee, and there are also otherwise disabled characters, characters if colour, one Jewish character and one DID system (there were probably more, but those are the ones I remember). IIRC, there is no homophobia in the setting and only one minor case of transphobia. Tbh, this book isn’t actually all that great from a purely literary point but for me the characters and themes more than made up for it.

Pantomime by Laura Lam @lauraroselam (Fantasy)

Gene is intersex and runs away from home when his parents want to force him to have surgery to make him “a normal girl”. He joins a circus disguised as a boy and calls himself Micah. While he’s getting used to his new life, he finds out that the circus has some bad secrets and also starts to have strange visions.

This book is the first in a fantastic trilogy and my summary there doesn’t do it justice at all. Pantomime starts out with relatively few magical elements, but book two and three have more of those. This trilogy is more plot driven than my first two recommendations, and it’s probably also the closest to your typical fantasy novels.

Micah is intersex and bigender, one of the other main characters is a gay man and there was also a minor trans women character. Micah’s has to deal with intersexism, mostly in book one, but otherwise the characters don’t suffer for being queer. TW for domestic violence.

This is easily one of the best books I’ve read lately, so go read it!

Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe by Benjamin Sáenz (YA)

Ari and Dante are two very different teens who build an unlikely friendship that very slowly develops into romance. (I realise that this probably counts as a spoiler, but this book wouldn’t be on this list without that, so you would be able to guess it anyway.)

This is a beautifully written book, almost poetic. It doesn’t really have an overarching plot, it just tells us about the lives of these two boys and everything that includes. It’s not a romance book, and while romance does happen, it’s actually just a very small part of the book. I would have liked a bit more focus on the romantic relationship - the way it is the ending felt a bit incomplete to me, but there’s a sequel coming out, so hopefully that will help. Both Ari and Dante are Mexican-American. TW for violent homophobia and one very bad accident.

The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (Sci-fi)

A bunch of humans and aliens have adventures in space.

This is another fantastic book, that is both very well written and the kind of book that makes you feel good while reading it (when it doesn’t make you cry). It’s not as fluffy as some of the other books on this list, but while bad things happen it is, ultimately, still optimistic and never grim. The cast is a very diverse mix of humans and aliens, including aliens with a nonbinary gender, unusual family structures disabled characters. There is a f/f romance happening, but it’s only a subplot, so if you’re reading it only for the queerness you might be disappointed but this book is good enough it might even be worth reading if everyone was straight. ;)

Capricious: Gender Diverse Pronouns Edition - A.C.Buchanan (Editor, lots of different authors) (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)

This is a short story anthology in which all stories feature a major character who uses gender neutral pronouns, including singular they but also several different others like ze/hir, per/pers, e/eir etc. Some of the stories have pronouns/gender as a topic (like “Sandals full of Rainwater” by AE Prevost where a person from a culture that doesn’t have gender moves to a culture that has three genders and pronouns that change depending on both the speaker’s and the other person’s gender, or “Ad Astra Per Aspera" by Nino Cipri, in which the protagonist is pretty sure their gender “left me for someone else”.) while others are typical SFF short stories which just happen to have a nonbinary protagonist.

A few of the stories are really fantastic, but all of them are worth reading.

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (YA)

Craig and Harry want to break the world record for the longest kiss, Tariq was beaten up by homophobes, Neil and Peter are a happy couple, Avery (who’s trans) and Ryan are just starting a new relationship and Cooper suffers from crushing loneliness, stuck in the closet. This book tells these vaguely related stories about different gay teens, narrated by the ghosts of the gay men who died from AIDS.

This book is definitely an interesting read that contrasts the lives of gay people during the AIDS crisis with that of gay teens now, showing both how much things have improved but also how hard it can still be, not shying away from the darkest parts of queer lives. TW for violent homophobia, depression and suicide.

Documenting Light by E.E. Ottoman (Contemp./Romance)

Wyatt and Greyson try to find out who the two men in an old photograph are, while dealing with various difficulties in their lives. Romance happens.

This is a very short book (novella?) that describes the slowly developing romance between Wyatt, a closeted nonbinary person, and Greyson, a trans man who was cut off by most of his family after coming out. It’s not as lighthearted as the other romance books on this list, but it’s still optimistic and I really liked it. TW for transphobia.

Freya Snow series by L.C. Mawson @lcmawson (YA/Urban Fantasy)

After Freya finds out about her magical heritage, and learns to use her magic, she gets into various adventures, starting when some demons show up to kill her.

This is a series with currently ten books, with a total of 13 planned, and there are two spin of series with other main characters. These books have several queer characters (Freya is bi), which does come up often, but the focus is more on the action. There are several autistic characters (Freya is one of them), one deaf character and one character in a wheelchair, also several POC. I don’t remember how much homophobia there was in the setting, so if there was any, it wasn’t much.

These books aren’t literary masterpieces, so don’t expect too much, but they are still enjoyable to read. The first one is free, so you can give it a try to see if you like it.

All that also goes for the spinoff books.

Love/Hate by L.C.Mawson (YA/Sci-Fi/Romance)

Emotion-fueled superheros protect the last few existing cities from monsters. Claire just got chosen as the new aspect of Love, but she’s in love with the aspect of Hate - which is a very bad combination.

There are currently four books in this series, I don’t know how many more are planned. Like the Freya Snow books, they have a lot of diversity but especially in later books the focus is on the action. There are again several autistic characters, including Claire, and several queer characters including a trans women and an agender character. Most of the cast are POC. There is no homophobia or transphobia in the setting.

Like the Freya snow books, these aren’t super great but still a fun read (though I don’t like how the third book ended and where the plot is heading, but that is just my preference. I also haven’t read the fourth book yet.)

Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire @seananmcguire(Fantasy/Mystery)

What happens with the children that were pulled in other worlds when they come back? Nancy is one of them, and she gets sent to the Home for Wayward Children where she finally meets others like her, who understand her wish to return to her other world. But then a gruesome murder happens and it’s up to Nancy and her new friends to find out who did it.

I absolutely loved the premise of this book, the characters and the first half of the story - it is really beautifully written-, but I really didn’t like the mystery stuff- it changed the tone of the story completely in a way that just didn’t work for me. (You’ve probably noticed by now that I prefer fluffy stories and this one turned from fluffy to grim very quickly.) So if you don’t mind that, you might like this book, I know a lot of people do, that’s why I’m including it on this list. Nancy is asexual, and one of the other major characters is a trans boy. There was probably more diversity that I’m forgetting because I didn’t reread the book and it wasn’t the focus of the book. There were mentions of transphobia, but no cases during the story. TW for murder, gore etc. (It probably wasn’t as bad as I make it sound, I was just really upset when I finished the book so I’m remembering more of the negatives.)

Iwunen Interstellar Investigations by Bogi Takács (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)

Ranai and Mirun, two autistic nonbinary people solve magical crimes in space. There are a lot of cupcakes. The prequel season shows how Ranai and Mirun met and includes some political intrigue. The first (current) season deals with health issues Mirun is having and mysterious accidents.

This is a web serial (updates once per week) which I totally fell in love with when I found it last week. That description makes it sound more silly than it is- it’s another story where a lot of bad things happen but that still feels good to read. It has some very interesting worldbuilding. The majority of characters are nonbinary, autistic and POC. Mirun and Ranai are also both demisexual and Mirun is physically disabled. The book also has some nonsexual kinky elements. There are mentions of discrimination against trans and neurodiverse people, but nothing of that actually happens in the story. TW for lots of medical stuff and major injuries.

Bogi Takács has also written several short stories that also feature queer main characters and which are also worth reading.

A Portrait of the Desert in Personages of Power by Rose Lemberg (Fantasy)

I’m just going to copy the description on goodreads: “This is a Birdverse novella told from the viewpoint of the Old Royal, who is a bigender trans person. A queer, kinky survivor and exile who struggles with his ethics meets the ancient bigender ruler of the vast Burri desert...they hit it off. This has many trans/non-binary people, advanced discussions of consent and sadistic desire, mythic grandeur, non-gratuitous engagement with trauma, a giant flaming bird, and the magical history of Birdverse. CWs for kink, edgeplay, and discussions of trauma.” Both of the main characters are POC (I think), and I think also not neurotypical. Also, additional TW for brief cases of transphobia that gets called out in-story.

This is a novella, also available as an (amazing) podcast, and I really loved it. It is a very kinky story, but it is all non-sexual kink, there is no genital sex happening. I also wouldn’t classify it as erotica, because I think it wasn’t primarily written to be hot, it’s more about exploring the complex emotions of the characters, trust and about discussions of consent. And I think this worked out really, really great. All in all, if you aren’t completely squicked out or triggered by kink, I definitely recommend this.

Geometries of Belonging by Rose Lemberg (Fantasy)

Mind-healer Parét is asked to cure an autistic teenager- who really, really doesn’t want to be cured. At the same time, he’s getting entangled in political intrigue concerning his partner (who happens to be the Raker from A Portrait…, but many years later).

I absolutely adore this novelette, and I think I reread it about three times in the first week after I found it. It has the strong focus on the characters  and relationships and the slower pace that I like in stories, and it just really stayed with me. I think it dealt really well with the topic of a potential cure for autism (the author is autistic themselves). I also liked how it portrayed both a very queerphobic society and one where trans/queer people and polyamory are completely accepted. This story deals with some difficult topics, and it’s not a fluffy story, but it’s not grim or depressing in any way. (If this was posted on AO3, it might be labelled Hurt/Comfort). There are several queer characters, autistic and mentally ill characters and some POC. The MC is in a D/s relationship, but it’s not as graphic as in A Portrait… TW for ableism, transphobia, homophobia, parental abuse, suicidal ideation.

[frederator-studios]

Kate Leth: The Frederator Interview

One of our top-most frequently asked Qs is: “Do I need to study art or animation to become a creator”? Our long-winded answer could really be replaced with: “Look up Kate Leth”. For many of you, this intro itself will be redundant. Since she began posting her personal Kate or Die! comics in 2011, the growth of Kate’s now-ginormous online following - as well as heaps of talent and hard work - opened doors for her to become one of the most exciting comic book creators and animation writers working today. It was awesome talking with Kate about her adoration for Plum, the rising tide of female and non-binary voices in animation, and witches - lots ‘n lots of witches.

Kate: So now, where are these being posted?

Cooper: On our Tumblr! We have a long-running Studios blog. Do you know the Frederator // Tumblr origin story?

K: Maybe??

C: David Karp launched Tumblr from his desk at Frederator when he was an intern! Fred Seibert was one of its first bloggers and investors.

K: Oh that’s funny! I still use Tumblr sometimes, as like a less stressful platform than Twitter. Which it used to be much more so?

Yeah, Twitter’s really taken over, huh? Do you like Twitter or does it feel like a chore?

Half and half! I like the fun side of Twitter but it is also pretty depressing. I’m starting to use Instagram more, cause it’s just happier. It’s like a nice break, scrolling through pictures of my cute friends!

Has social media been very important to your career?

Oh yeah - all of the work I’ve ever gotten has pretty much been through social media. I come from a super small town in Canada, which makes it harder to network and connect with people. It used to be you’d meet people at Cons, but now you meet everybody online. So many of the connections I’ve made and so many of the jobs I’ve gotten have been through Twitter and Tumblr. I don’t know where my career would be without those platforms!

That’s amazing. Did you know those opportunities were out there when you started posting?

I got into Tumblr just to follow people. I worked at a comic book store at the time, and my boss knew that I was drawing and encouraged me to put my stuff online. So I did, and slowly started to amass a small following. It got bigger, and that was how I got discovered by BOOM!, which is how I did my first published comics—including the Bravest Warriors comics, which is kinda funny!

Whoa, cool! From comic book store employee to comic book writer - how was that transition?

I started working there in like... 2009 or 2010? It was part time; I was also working at a dress shop. But I got fired from the dress shop (laughs) so I became full time at the comic book store. My boss, Calum Johnston, was a really engaged member of the arts community. He pushed people to make comics and share them, and that’s how I got started.

He must be so stoked to see where your career is now.

It’s really wild to look back on. When I wanted to self-publish my first zine, I had no money. I was a super broke art student. Cal sold his original art of the cover of the first volume of Scott Pilgrim and used the money to help me and a bunch of other people self-publish our comics. He’s a really good dude.

That’s so generous! Do you stay in touch with people there?

Yeah, I try to! His daughter is in animation school now. I’ve known her since she was like 14. It’s cool cause now I can promote her work and help her get a foot in the industry, so it comes full circle!

When you got the job at the store, were you just a fan? Or did you know you wanted to be a creator?

Just a fan! I was really big into autobio and self-published comics. Kate Beaton, Lucy Knisley, Erica Moen, and Jess Fink were all creators I was following at the time. Kate Beaton is from Nova Scotia like me, and I watched her get successful on LiveJournal and things as a comic artist—and yet she had studied history! She had no formal arts training; she’d just started making comics for fun. I had always thought that if you didn’t go to art school, that wasn’t an avenue for you. Seeing what she was doing made me realize, “Oh, people can do that!? Maybe I could too!” I’d been reading web comics since junior high, but it was never something that I thought I could do, until I started doing it. Being on Tumblr was also really encouraging; seeing so many other people just starting out and at a similar skill level with their art.

How did the path from self-publishing to BOOM! go?

It was sort of accidental. An editor came across Kate or Die!, and I was offered a backup strip in one of the Adventure Time comics. Only like 2 pages - super short. And then they came back with an offer to write a whole graphic novel? I’d never written anything longer than 4 pages in my life. But I was like, “Sure, I can do that!”. So I wrote Seeing Red, my first Adventure Time comic. And it did well, so they asked me to write another one. And all of a sudden that was my job! I was like, “Oh, okay, I better get good at this.”

Wow, so you taught yourself how to write comics? And to screenwrite?  

Oh yeah, I didn’t go to school for any of this. I went to school for makeup and photography. I was a professional makeup artist for a couple years. Then I studied photography for two years. Then I dropped out. A college dropout made good! At first, I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing. I’ve been writing comics for 6 or 7 years, and I only now feel like I’m good at them (laughing) I know people will disagree! I’m very self-deprecating. But I definitely feel like I understand what you need to craft a story now. When I started, I didn’t think about stories as a whole: knowing where you’re going, how you’ll get there, the themes you’ll touch along the way. I did a lot of improv in high school, so I felt fine sitting down and just starting! I'd make stuff up as I went. But that doesn’t make for as good of stories. So over time I’ve learned to sit down and really figure out the world, the arcs, the timing for big moments. I fill books with outlines!

Do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on?

Spell on Wheels, which just came out from Dark Horse last year, is something I’m really proud of. It’s about witches on a road trip. Megan Levens and Marissa Louise, the artist and colorist I’m working with are so awesome; I’m really happy that we’re gonna do more of it. And it’s nice to have an original series out there, because I’ve worked on so many other people’s properties.

What are the biggest differences there?

It’s very freeing to write an original. You’re not beholden to any corporate standards or licensers, so it’s easier to tell the kind of stories that you want to tell. Especially in terms of things like diversity and queerness, there’s nobody saying, “Oh, we can’t do that because it’s not in the TV show”. It’s nice to not have to worry about things like that. Dark Horse has been very supportive of it, which is cool.

Is Spell on Wheels your main project right now, or what else is goin’ on?

I work in animation primarily now, so I’m working for Hasbro and some other places that I can’t talk about yet, as is always the way. But I’ve been with Hasbro for about a year and a half, as a sort of jack of all trades writer. I’ve worked on My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, Littlest Pet Shop, and a bunch of other things that haven’t been announced yet. As for comics, I’m currently working on the Mysticons graphic novels - the first one comes out in August.

What do you like best about being a writer?

I love it. I think it’s amazing to create worlds and characters and stories and see them brought to life by so many different kinds of people, with so many different artistic styles and talents and specialties. It’s just like magic. Animation is so exciting. You write a script and then you wait... like a year... and then it’s animated! And there are voices saying your jokes! I feel like the thrill of that might wear off at some point, but it definitely hasn’t yet.

What are your favorite cartoons?

Sailor Moon is top of the list. And Cardcaptor Sakura - any magical girl anime I would just eat up as a kid. I watched Disney’s One Saturday Morning religiously, Doug and all of those shows. And now Steven Universe is a big favorite. I got to write an episode for Craig of the Creek, which is great, and I’m really excited about that. And I’m a huge fan of Bob’s Burgers!

What is your episode of Craig of the Creek about?

Witches. I’m very into witches! I grew up on Buffy, Charmed - every YA book I could get my hands on. Practical Magic is my favorite movie. I feel like there were so many movies and TV shows about witches in the 90s. I’m ready for that genre to loop back, in a BIG way. And for the episode of Craig of the Creek, I created characters that ended up becoming part of the recurring cast! So it was neat to contribute to that world a little bit.

What is your favorite thing about Bravest Warriors?

Plum. Just Plum, in general. She’s my favorite character to write - she’s just so fun. She’s silly and weird, and once you get her voice right, she’s such a laugh. She's so blunt and harsh, but in this innocent, unintentional way.

Your episode “Chained to Your Side” has the Scaley Williams Dance - what inspired your play on Sadie Hawkins?

We don’t actually have Sadie Hawkins dances in Canada, which is funny. But I’ve always been kind of fascinated by the concept: “Oooh it’s so rebellious cause the girls ask the boys.” Which is so outdated! So I thought, what’s the futuristic version of that… and got: ‘the girls ‘dart’ the boys’. And we had this conversation, like, “Okay, they dart the boys - but it has to be consensual! They have to say yes!” That was very important (laughing) I could only take that joke to a certain point. But I knew the dance idea would let me do a lot with Beth and Plum. And I love beating up Danny. Like that’s my favorite thing to do in the comics. Just let terrible things happen to Danny. He’s such a goofball.

What are the themes that recur in your characters and stories the most?

Surface level, the obvious: witches and gay stuff. In a deeper sense, things I come back to a lot… there are a lot of characters I’ve written that work retail or minimum wage jobs. Because that’s what I grew up with—I moved out when I was 17 and started working, and did that up until 4 or 5 years ago. So that’s a huge part of my experience. Definitely characters who aren’t borne of privilege and are struggling to prove themselves. Like Hellcat especially, is very much about someone in their 20s just trying to get by. And I talk about self-acceptance a lot. I like genuine moments between people. Amid the comedy, I like there to be something real - especially if it’s something difficult to talk about. Hellcat is this really upbeat superhero, Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe—but I did an entire arc about how people misinterpret and mistreat men who are bisexual, and how that’s different from how bisexual women are treated. So it’s this funny comic, but still touching on real topics. I like to try to say something. But not, you know, hit people over the head with it.

Do you have a cartoon project that’s your favorite?

Yeah, but I’m not allowed to talk about it yet! I have had a lot of fun working on Equestria Girls. It’s so exciting to write stuff for kids. Since I started in animation I’ve actually tried to shoehorn myself: I want to write action-adventure for girls. That’s what I want to do. I’ve managed to get to a place where that’s everything I’m working on now, and that’s really exciting. A lot of people don’t want to be pegged like that, but I’m like, “Oh, you want me to write girls punching and having feelings? Good, I’m here for it!”

It’s funny to pigeon-hole yourself! Most writers seem to want the opposite.

I doubt I’ll want to do the same thing forever! But I definitely don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to tell stories for girls. For a long time I think there was an onus to make sure your show could appeal to boys, and that led to a lot of female characters getting side-lined, because executives would say, “Boys need someone to relate to!” And I agree with that—but I really don’t believe there’s any reason boys can’t relate to or look up to girls. And I think perpetuating the idea that they can’t is pretty harmful.

In your time in the industry, have you noticed animation becoming more inclusive and diverse?

I’m lucky in what I’ve worked on. Hasbro has a huge female staff and a lot of the executives are women, so they’re very supportive of that. There’s always room for more diversity, but it’s been good. I know there are parts of the industry that are still very much a boys club, but I’ve stayed pretty far away from those, and would prefer to keep it that way. There are so many women coming into animation now. I know so many women and non-binary folks working in the field that are just going to keep rising. It’s definitely a rising tide.

That’s awesome.

Well, I have to believe that, or else I get depressed! (laughing). My boyfriend and I play a game where at the end of movies, we count how many title cards we get through before seeing a woman’s name. (I groan) Yeah, it’s wild. Usually it ends up being a producer, or the casting director, or a costume designer. It’s rarely someone on the creative end. And when you start looking for it, you really start noticing it. But it’s heartening when you see a movie that defies that. Like at the end of Black Panther, there were a ton of women’s names early on in those credits! That’s my goal, is to like (laughing), be the early in the credits female name. And then fill the rest of those credits with people I know.

Oh cool, so you would want to make a feature film?

Yeah. I have lofty goals. We’ll see what happens, but I don’t want to close myself off to any opportunities.

Do you know what that movie would be about?

Probably witches. But I guess we’ll see! ❀

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Follow Kate on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr: @kateordie

Thank you so much for the interview Kate! I’m excited for your upcoming projects, especially the ones about Girl Magic. Soo... all of them :D

- Cooper

[la1n53cta]

I’d the year 2022

I have somehow found myself using Tumblr again. Ad using it like a Xanga. I wasn’t even old enough to have a xanga when that was around. Live journal? Anyway, at this rate I might as well open up a Facebook account. My age and my sense of style are at odds I guess. No, I don’t think I will ever have a FB account, it I do have an Insta so fuck.

Anyways….at the stage in my life I know I am in desperate need of a transition. Career change, location change, relationship change maybe. Something has got to give. The song “Breaking Up the Girl” by Garbage premiered on MTV when I was in fifth/sixth grade. At the time, I thought the song was about adults pushing and pulling young women around, holding them up to impossible standards(virginal whore, chill control freak, infantilized woman thing). But now as a adult, I looked up what Shirley Manson had to say about the lyrics. It’s about knowing when to cut your losses, looking out for yourself, knowing when your life is breaking you. “One mistakes all it takes and your life has come undone. Walk away cuz you’re breaking up the girl,”.

I went to college to become a copywriter/editor. I’d like to find a job doing just that. I am also honing my data science skills. I think I would still like to get a Masters degree in Library Science, it’s just these past to years have been hard. I’d like to go back though. Who knows what skills will be market like ten years from now. Civilization could be per by then, I could be dead by then. Shit, these past two years have been so fucked up.

Kinda want to start a Goth band or garage rock/new wave band. For fun bc fuck it all. Who cares if you are acting you’re age nowadays. No one can afford to buy a house or have children anymore. Life is so dam short. Public school has failed in so many damn ways and religious schools ere expected to pick up the slack? Fuck this country. So many people are dead, so many homeless and starving yet still employed. The CDC has thrown the working class under the bus. The wealthy elites laugh at us, and somehow so many poor working class idiots still want to defend them and kiss their ass.

The public sector, at least I have my integrity. Could be making more, but there is job security. I was going to post my goals for this year, but its midnight and I need to go to bed. I don’t see a bullet list option. Fuck it:

Improve Spanish-become somewhat conversational

Master Python for Data

Freelance write/edit, build portfolio, maybe find a full time job

Change careers or at least jobs

Move-either new apartment, house, or move states

Create a TikTok account focused on Occult books(review/reading)

[outlanderfanfics]

Getting to Know Owlish Peacock

Next up in my Getting to Know series, I've interviewed another amazing Outlander fanfic writer, @owlish-peacock36!

Owlish Peacock, a.k.a. Ali, was born and raised in Kentucky, U.S.A. She has a very diverse background, being mostly German, Irish, Scottish, French, and English, with a little bit of Native American—though, you couldn’t tell it by looking at her. She can only speak English, although she did take Spanish for four years in high school, so she can understand a bit of it. She is now 25 years old and has only been writing Outlander fanfics for a little over a year. In school, she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Education and is currently working on her Master’s in Higher Education Administration. She is also currently a full-time substitute teacher for her local high school, teaching English for the rest of the school year. For fun, she enjoys reading, writing, playing video games, baking, plus being an amateur makeup artist. Her unique talents include being good at memorizing and being a surprisingly decent dancer. Her boyfriend says her talent is compassion—how sweet! If she could travel through the stones, she would go to either Colonial America or the English countryside in the 19th century.

Read on to see the full Q&A.

What inspired you to start writing Outlander fan fiction?

I had gotten into Outlander after watching the first episode of season 1. From there, I was hooked. I read the books, I watched the show. Around Fall/Winter 2016, I became curious about the online presence of Outlander. I began searching for blogs and fansites. That was when I began reading Outlander fanfiction. I had read fanfiction before, but had never written it. I had always loved writing, so I decided to take a stab at it. I had ideas, and I wanted to share them. I contacted gotham, spoke with her a bit, and she boosted me. That’s that, pretty much. I’ve been writing ever since!

What are some of your favourite quotes that you have written?

That’s a tough question, honestly. I can give you a few that I like, though:

“Wide awake, Jamie painted without abandon, and without thought. He had no outcome in mind for this cacophony of color and texture, but he knew that he had to do it. He had to put these…these feelings down on canvas.

He surveyed his colors.

Orange? Yes, orange. Fiery. Flames. An accurate depiction, he thought. His body radiated warmth, all centering around his core. His heart.

He wondered if he could recreate Claire’s skin. A soft pale color with a light, peachy glow. Long, ivory lines: her legs wrapped around his…

Red. For his hair. His colors melting into hers. His fires setting her earth ablaze.

More of her. More of him. Movement. Collision. Explosion.

Love?

Perhaps.” – Alla Prima: Chapter 5

“He couldn’t stop himself though, couldn’t turn back. His body would not allow him. So, he trudged behind this spectral being, guiding him through a valley of death.” – Ghosts in the Daylight: Chapter 3

“She seemed to glow, as if lit from within by a candle. The world around them darkened; she was the only light.” – Seek, and You Shall Find: Chapter 7

“He rolled over, then, pinning her beneath the weight of his love. He tickled her with stubble and lips, and she adored him in kind.” – Imagine Reality: Chapter 5

What is your writing process when writing your fanfics?

When I begin a story, I usually have a clear beginning and end in mind. From there, it’s a matter of filling in the blanks. I usually have a good idea where I want a story to go, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never veered off and taken a story completely off course!

I don’t have a specific writing schedule; I’m sort of a temperamental writer! I love writing, but if the mood doesn’t strike me, I can’t churn out a story. When the mood does strike me, though, I’m writing like crazy! Sometimes I’ll write at 2 am, sometimes I’ll write during a break at work. It just depends on the day!

I’m not a huge editor of my writing. I’ll proofread it, but most things I post are first drafts. For me, editing can take some of the “in the moment” emotion away from my writing. I’ll nitpick until it isn’t any good anymore. So, I just leave it alone.

What is your favourite genre to write and why?

I always feel more comfortable writing modern fics. That way, I can take some snippets from life and sneak them in there. However, I always tend to add fantasy or supernatural aspects to my writing, whether they are set in the past or in modern times. In that way, I sort of create my own world inside this existing Outlander world.

What has been your favourite season of the show so far and why?

My favorite season has probably been season 1. It seems to have that perfect mixture of romance and adventure and humor. Plus, it’s the first one, so obviously it’s going to hold a special place in my heart.

Have you read any of Diana’s books? If so, which ones? Do you have a favourite book?

I’ve read the main eight a couple times, but I’ve never read any of the spin-offs/novellas. I don’t necessarily have a favorite; I have multiple favorites! Outlander is always fun to read, simply because it takes me back to the very beginning of this adventure. But, I also love Voyager, and seeing how the characters have/haven’t changed with age. And then there’s Drums of Autumn which is great for a couple reasons: 

1) I love seeing Jamie, Claire, and Brianna together and 

2) I live on the eastside of the US, so I see places every day that make me stop and think, “Fraser’s Ridge could be here…” 

Lastly, A Breath of Snow and Ashes just makes me super emotional. Those are the top four!

Do you read/write fanfics for any other fandom?

I’ll read some every now and then, but I only write for Outlander.

What is one random fact about you that you have never revealed on Tumblr before?

I was Prom Queen my senior year of high school. It’s trivial, but kind of cool because I didn’t expect it.

I also met Jack Antonoff (musician) one time.

And there you have it. A deeper look into the mind of yet another one of our beloved fanfic writers. I haven’t added her stories to my archive YET, but you can check out her fanfiction master list on her blog. 

[scriptmedic]

How to Prep for NaNoWriMo

(Or, How I Wrote 30,000 Words in 4 Days to Finish a Novel)

Hey there Scriptaccinos! Welcome back to Aunt Scripty’s House of Mayhem, where we’re getting ready for pumpkin lattes, candy corn, and NaNoWriMo! 

People have asked me more than twice about how I manage to be so productive. I work a full-time healthcare job, and yet, in the last year, I’ve created (85+%) or curated (~15%) over 2,000 blog posts, published 3 books, and written at least 200,000 words of personal writing.

I’m not a superhuman. Actually I’m pretty average. And I’ve set myself an enormous personal challenge — write a trilogy of fiction before the end of 2017. While blogging. And helping you all with NaNo.

On the most recent note, I came into October with 18,000 words of a novel written. I wrote the last 30,000 words and finished the project in four days, while answering bucketloads of blog questions (the last 10 days worth of content was also written in that timeframe), contending with a mild fever, and Life Stuff.  Oh–and I’m about 14,000 words into Book 2 already.

I have been accused of being a machine. I assure you that beep boop boo–

….uh oh. Who found my secret pictures?!

And yet the number 1 request from my readers is the desire that I clone myself. If only I were Tatiana Maslany…

You don’t have to do all the things I’ve been doing to hit those levels of productivity. But a lot of you are doing NaNoWriMo, and I want to give you some advice for how to Get It The F*** Done, Mate.

I’m also going to give you the techniques I use and some of the books that I’ve read that are helping me along the way. I’m constantly striving to improve how much work I get done with the same measly 24 hours as anyone else.

Defend Your Time

Everything demands your attention. Work does. Your cuddlemate(s) do(es). Your TV calls to you. YouTube beckons with lures of dancing cats. Tumblr will eat your soul if you allow it to. 

…establish a writing time. Get up an hour early. Stay up an hour late. Do it on your lunch. Whatever it is, establish a time and defend it. Tell your honey “This is my writing time. This is important to me. I need it.” Sacrifice some TV time. Writing Time is sacred. If you use headphones, put a Post-It on your headphones that say “Writing. Please Do Not Disturb.” (Yes, it’s dorky, but it will work.)

If you need to be in a different physical space to write, go there.

You also have to defend your time from yourself, more than anything. Set an alarm on your phone: This Is Writing Time.  Turn off your internet. Silence your phone. And, once you’ve started writing, put it in another room — or at least out of your sight.

You’ll need about an hour and a half every day for this. Ninety minutes. If you can work for 90 minutes a day, six days a week, you can write this novel in a month. (I actually recommend seven days so you don’t lose momentum.)

If your day is jam-packed, decide what’s truly necessary, and what can be smooshed out of the way to make room for your writing time.

Techniques: The Pomodoro

By far, writing in sprints is the number one way to get your stories done. But word sprints are an art form. They need to be done in a special way.

The point of a word sprint is this: For 25 minutes, you will do nothing but write. Phone Off. Butt in chair. Hands on keys. Write.

The best way to do this is to set a timer on your phone for 25 minutes. (If your phone lets you set up multiple ones, like mine does, set another for 5 minutes; you’ll use this when you’re done with your Pomodoro to take a break.) Don’t listen to music that has words. If you can, I actually recommend putting your phone in another room so that you have to get up to make the beeping go away.

For those 25 minutes, you can do nothing  but write.

When you’re done, I want you to tally up the number of words you’ve written. (I just make a note in Notepad or StickyNotes on Windows with: Starting Wordcount, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. Track how many words you write in each Pomodoro. (It takes about 4 seconds with a Calculator app.)

NaNoWriMo means writing 50,000 words in 30 days, which is scary. But a smaller target is 1667 words in a day. Still daunting? That’s fine. Do 3 Pomodoros with a target of 650 words per 25 minutes. That’s 26 words in a minute, and it will take you an hour and a half to do three of them. (If you can, I highly recommend 4 — I find the 4th Pomodoro is where I start to hit my stride.)

For productivity stuff, I recommend [5,000 Words per Hour] by Chris Fox; you can get this book for free from [his Web site].

Make It A Game.

Humans love games. Our brains think they’re better than crack. Seriously, Mrs Scripty has been playing hours of Bejeweld Blitz lately.

So make your word count a game. How many words did you do in your last sprint? Let’s top it! What’s your strongest day in the month? Top it! Push yourself to write more and write faster. You’ll get more into the zone and sooner than you think you’ll be blinking and going “Wait… did I just win NaNoWriMo?”

Know What You’re Going to Write (Before You Write It)

This is so important. I cannot even begin to tell you how much this helps. If you want to write quickly, this is how you do it. You plan to write, and then you write the plan.

Whoah! you say. Outlining?! you say. I’m a pantser, like my aged grandmother before me! We don’t need no stinkin’ outlines! 

You might not need them. But they help. Especially in a project like NaNoWriMo, or mine (12 Weeks to a Trilogy), knowing where you’re going will help you decide what matters and what has to get written.

I recommend [Take Off Your Pants!] by Libbie Hawker, [Outlining Your Novel] (and the Workbook) by K M Weiland, and [Save the Cat!] by Blake Snyder.

If you plan nothing else about your book, I want you to plan three things:

The Inciting Incident

The Midpoint

The Climax

Do not skip the Midpoint. It will help you. I swears it. (The Midpoint is a big change that causes your character to take things seriously; it’s the big Shit Hits The Fan moment of the middle of the story. It’s a huge false victory or false defeat.) Then all you need to do is get to the next big scene: Write from the “hook” to the Inciting Incident, from the Inciting Incident to the Midpoint, the Midpoint to the Climax, and resolve all the little things after. That’s it. Four easy phases.

A Basic Scene Structure Helps. Really.

A scene is a product of six components:

A Goal — what your hero wants

Some Obstacles — what gets in the way

A Disaster — something catastrophic happens that prevents them from getting their goal (or lets them get what they thought they wanted — for an enormous price)

The character’s Reaction — how they feel about it

A Dilemma — what do we do now after that Disaster?

A Decision — a plan for how to proceed.

That’s it. And the easiest, most helpful thing you can do before writing a scene is give just one sentence to an outline of what you want. Six sentences will get you so far in knowing where you need to take your scene.

Let Yourself Write Shit

First drafts are made to be awful. All of writing is rewriting. You won’t write a good first draft in a month. But guess what? All a first draft has to do to be perfect is exist.

Small Tricks That Really Help:

Research Before or After, Not While, You Write. You don’t have to know everything in the moment. If you need to research something — a gun type, a character’s favorite car, whatever — just [put it in brackets]. You can come back and work on those later.

TK will TKO Your Interruptions. The letters TK are an editor’s mark for To Come. Like brackets, they are magical. Not sure what to name the whizbang gizmo? “Stop or I’ll destroy you with my [gizmo TK].” And move on.

Eat the Elephant Bite By Bite. You’re not writing a novel and you don’t have to write 50,000 words this month. You’re writing one scene, and you’re trying to write 800 words this Pomodoro. That’s it. Miss your 800? Hit it next time.

Take Walks. Your 5-minute breaks between 25-minute Pomodoros? Use those to physically get up and walk around. Don’t stare at the Internet. Go up and down some stairs or go stare at the sunset. Get away from screens.

Leave Tags. When you stop writing, stop in the middle of

a sentence. It makes it so much easier to pick up momentum when you sit down again.

Watch The Movie and Write It Down. It can really help to just picture your scene in your head like a movie, again, before you write. (You can watch it on Fast Forward.) When you sit down to write, just write what you see.

Defend Your Space. Make your own little world. Put in headphones or earbuds and listen to music. I try to either use something appropriate and ambient (like wooden ship sounds for a pirate story) or music set up to be productive (like this upbeat productivity mix).

BONUS!

For all your Scrivener users out there, I made an outlining Scrivener doc!

It has:

A Foolscap outline (to help you with global structure)

Integrated Save the Cat! beat sheet cards (to help you figure out where things belong) with word count targets for 60k, 80k, and 100k projects

Obligatory Scene lists for Thrillers, Redemption stories, and Love stories

Scene cards which include the six-phase scene structure up above.

It’s what I’m using to write the novel I’m currently on, and I think it will help you out. [Here’s where you can download it.]

Also, the structural cards are separate from the Manuscript for the document so that you don’t wind up with random things in your exported ebook/docx/whatever.

[Download It Here]

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

[10 BS Medical Tropes that Need to Die Today]

[Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction]

[Blood on the Page Volume One: A Writer’s Compendium of Injuries]

How to Prep for NaNoWriMo was originally published on ScriptMedicBlog.com

[septembercfawkes]

Giveaway--10-page Edit + 5th Blog Birthday!

This week is a special week, because my blog turns five years old. Five!

What's funny is that a year prior to starting this blog, I hated blogs.

I felt that they were egocentric, often a poor use of time, and that most of them would fade out in a matter of years. I mean, I really never thought that I would want to start one. Sure, I thought about it, because I wanted to work in the writing industry and 6+ years ago, they were all the craze--I actually jumped on the bandwagon pretty late.

But something happened about six years ago. A desire fell over me to start a blog. I managed to resist the desire for almost a whole year, but in the end, I gave in. And I'm so glad I did.

To quote Dumbledore:

"Which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our words."

When I started this blog, I looked at other blogs and many of them were five years old; I admit I was a little envious of their backlog, their audience, their comments, their length--five years seemed unimaginably far away! (In the end, I also admit I largely started this blog for myself, to keep track of my own ideas about writing.) So five years is particularly special to me.

Giveaway!

To celebrate my blog birthday, I'm doing a giveaway: the winner gets a 10-page edit from me.

What can you possibly learn in a 10-page edit?

Well, you might be surprised! You will not only receive specific feedback for those 10 pages, but you will also receive insight on your strengths as a writer and suggestions on how to take your writing to the next level. I've said before that usually I can discern what level a writer is at within the first five pages of a manuscript. To some people, that sounds crazy, but to those who've worked in the industry for several years, it's completely believable.

Who is doing the editing?

In case you are a newcomer, here is a little about myself:

Mentored by a creative writing university professor, an award-winning international best-selling author, and a full-time professional freelance editor, I have worked in the fiction-writing industry for over five years. I have edited for both award-winning and best-selling authors and have worked on manuscripts written for middle grade, young adult, and adult readers. I hold an English degree with honors and served as a fiction editor and managing editor for the literary journal The Southern Quill. When not editing, I'm penning my own stories and running a writing tip blog. I also serve as a writing coach on WritersHelpingWriters.net.

What can I send as my 10 pages?

You can send 10 pages from a novel or a short story, or anything in between. Heck, I'll even look at fanfiction.

How to Enter

Celebrate with me by entering to win (you know I do this because it's fun to give you guys stuff, right?) It's easy to enter:

   Share this giveaway post off my Facebook profile.

   Reblog THIS giveaway post off my Tumblr.

   Retweet the giveaway tweet on my Twitter.

   Comment on this post here.

That means you can enter a total of four times.

The winner will be selected December 18th! (Winner is selected randomly through random.org)

You must be a friend or follower of me to win.

(Please note that if you "share," you must share publicly so that I can see it, otherwise I can't tell who shared)

~~~

Blogging Milestones and Expansions

December 2012--Published my first two blog posts here and here.

January 2013--Published my first writing tip post.

April 2013--Got to be a guest on the Author's Think Tank Podcast

September 2013--Featured blogger on Glipho

Became a regular blogger on Author's Think Tank

December 2013--First blog giveaway I participated in.

2014--Had some posts really take off and shared online

Late 2014-Early 2015--Took on the name September C. Fawkes ;)

January 2015--Got my first piece of physical fan mail *heart eyes* (Thanks Jake!)

February 2015--Started writing more intensive writing tips, including some on breaking common writing rules. There is definitely a change here in my writing tips. I'd had a big growth spurt concerning writing in general that led to this.

August 2015--Started putting my writing tips on Youtube

September 2015--Was both a panelist and presenter at Salt Lake Comic Con (my first conference appearance as a guest), pulling from info on my blog.

September 2016--Got listed as a top writing tip blog on Writers Helping Writers *heart eyes*

October 2016--Got invited to be a resident writing coach at Writers Helping Writers.

July 2017--Added the Writing Tip Index to my blog and updated the appearance

September 2017--Opened Fawkes Editing--my freelance editing website.

October 2017--An editor from Penguin Books contacted me saying he liked my blog and sent me a copy of their latest writing book,Light the Dark!

December 2017--Five years of blogging!

December 2017--??? [some good news I'm waiting to be able to announce]

Most Popular Tips of All Time

#1--Writing Empathetically vs. Sympathetically and Sentimentally

#2--15+ Tactics for Writing Humor

#3--How to Write What's Not Written (Subtext)

#4--6 Things I've Learned as a Professional Editor

#5--5 Most Common Mistakes with Dialogue

Hopefully it wasn't weird to post the milestones and stats, but I wanted to take a moment to remember them since the number five carries significance to me.

Looking forward to 2018! There will be at least a couple of new career adventures for me.

Thank you for your support!

[thepachanga]

Lelu! 10 best fics of all time?

i’m so sorry for answering this 84 yearslater rip! keep in mind that the word best when you’re talking about art isvery subjective. i can’t tell you which are the best fics of all time but i can give you a list of my favorite fics of all time. i’ve read each one of these atleast three times, and they’re my to-go place when everything else fails todistract me. ALSO! i put two fics from the same author? i don’t know if thatcounts? sorry lol

10) escapade (buy the book there!) / reliefnext to me by dolce_piccante (tumblr: @haydolce)

rntm summary: AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via avery specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more. 

9) here in the afterglow by fondleeds (tumblr: @fondleeds)

“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.”

1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

8) neverlet me go by loveisalaserquest17 (tumblr: @loveisalaserquest17)

“Harry! I’ll tell you what,” Louisexclaims, clapping his hands together. There’s a big grin on his face. “If bothof us are still single by your thirtieth birthday, we’ll marry each other.”Harry’s head snaps up, eyes widening. “What?” 

Harry and Louis have been friends forever,but they couldn’t be more different. One night, with a little too much alcohol,they make a pact to marry in ten years if they’re both still single.Now, one month before the deadline, Louis is willing to do whatever it takes toavoid ending up with his best friend. But is he, really? | Loosely inspired byThe 10 Year Plan

7) wildand unruly / loveis a rebellious bird by gloria_andrews & 100percentsassy (tumblr: @gloriaandrews& @100percentsassy)

wau summary: Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming,and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling hisland. 

liarb summary: AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmasterof the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interimconductor/ex-cello prodigy who “has made Mozart cool again” accordingto Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why heinternet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), andNiall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.Don’t hum Bolero.

6) paintme in a million dreams by green_feelings (tumblr: @greenfeelings)

Harry’s one of Hollywood’s biggest actors,has made a name for himself in prestigious films and lives the life of asuperstar. There’s just one thing missing to make it picture-perfect, but theone Harry’s in love with is completely out of reach for him. Enter Louis, oneof Hollywood’s biggest actors himself, who just came out of the closet and tapsnew genres in the industry. When Louis sacks the role Harry auditioned for inScorsese’s next big film, their irrational feud starts. Who could have guessedit would get even worse when for promo season, their teams decide to presentthem as a couple for publicity?

In short, Harry’s in love with someone anddoesn’t care about dating anyone else, Louis never felt home in L.A., Liamwrites love songs for someone he shouldn’t write love songs to, and Niall makeseverything better with good food.

5) swimin the smoke by whoknows (tumblr: @crazyupsetter)

“What about this, Captain?” Liam asks,nudging the boy kneeling between their feet with the toe of his boot. The boyhisses and swipes at him, slurring out something unintelligible around themakeshift gag Niall had to stuff in his mouth. He misses by a mile and triesagain, just as ineffectively.

Harry looks down at him, at the way thesun streams over his face and shoulders, at the way the gag stretches hismouth, lips pink and chapped. He’s lithe and pretty, smudged all over withdirt. They had found him tied up below deck, mostly unconscious, next to abarrel full of gold. He’s clearly a prisoner, but there’s something familiarabout him, something that niggles at Harry’s brain. Something he can’t quiteput his finger on.

“Put him in my cabin,” Harry decides,turning back to deal with the rest of the loot. The boys screams out jumbledcurse words at Harry’s back, muffled by the gag, and Harry can’t understand anyof it.

4) invogue by otpwhatever (tumblr: @otpwhatever)

‘Is that why David Beckham has beenfeatured multiple times on the pages of your life’s work? Does your criteriaseriously consist of one thing – a man’s ass?’'Well the ass is a man’s best asset,’ Harry smirks, holding the Martini glasshigh up his face. 'And don’t call the magazine my life’s work. There are farmore important things in life, Louis Tomlinson, than what’s printed on thepages of a magazine.’

Fashion AU. Louis is the editor in chiefof Vogue magazine, and Harry’s running British GQ. Featuring Zayn as the crazycreative director and Louis’ confidant, Liam as the sports writer that gets tosit front row at fashion week and DJ Neil as the only sane person in the wholestory. (There are no skinny jeans in this fic)

3) thewonderlands by stylinsoncity (tumblr: @alienproof) - AND its companionfic!

“Somewhere between chaos and control— these are the wonderlands.”

Harry’s daughter, Andy, is signed toLouis’ girl band. Her path to success is marked by competition, chaos, and forHarry, a love affair.

2) sayhallelujah say goodnight by alivingfire (tumblr: @alivingfire)

Louis is an angel who is just a little toobad to be good, Harry is a demon who is just a little too good to be bad, andthey’re both a little too in love to be impartial when angels and demons go towar.

Louis has been alive since life was a mereconcept; he watched the summoning of Man into existence, he was there when Evetook the apple. He’s seen seas break the world into separate pieces, he’swatched empires crumble into dust. He’s seen wildfire consume cities, he’s seenthe world painted white with snow. He has known the most beautiful humans towalk the planet, he has watched the most powerful mortals gather their richesand influence around them and then die just like the poorest, weakest humansdo. He’s met humans whose motives defy explanation, people who use their livesas battering rams, as tools, as weapons, as chess pieces.

None of that stopped Louis in his tracks.

But Harry did.

1) young& beautiful by velvetoscar (tumblr: @mizzwilde)

Louis, to his horror, attends an elitistuniversity in which the name Zayn Malik means something, Niall Horan doesn’tstop talking, there are pianos everywhere, and Harry Styles, only son of adrug-addled, clinically insane ex-rocker, has a perfect smile and emptyeyes. 

SOMEBONUS TRACKS for you anon, because the following authors are amazing!!!!

check out everything writtenby @icanhazzalou, @lads-laddylads, @lululawrence, @myownsparknow, @fullonlarrie, @louandhazaf, @rhuubarb, @suspendrs, @southerngothicau and @horsegirlharry!!!!!!!!! 

[torontocomicsanthology]

Are you an indie creator looking to self-promote their next project? Here’s our example process:

So, we just launched our Kickstarter for Toronto Comics: Yonge At Heart, and here’s what we’ve done so far:

— Pre-marketing —

Social Media

For 30 days prior to the launch, we posted a daily piece of artwork and a countdown. We were able to significantly boost our Tweet impressions by about 10k, and gained an extra 100 Instagram followers. Tumblr and FB remains a wasteland of tumbleweed corpses.

Approaching journalists - Round 1

Two weeks before launch, we built a press package ( www.tocomix.com/press ) and fired it off to 46 different comic news sites and 31 podcasts. Of the sites that responded, we completed a number of email interviews. and helped prepare news releases to be released on launch day.

One of our weaknesses last year was not having enough press contacts, so that’s something we’ve gone full-tilt on this time. My advice is that anytime you see anyone publicly reviewing a indie comic, record their name, site and contact info to a spreadsheet. I also recommend keeping an eye on how other teams are marketing their books!

Podcasts

In the next two weeks, we’ve scheduled 10 podcast interviews, and will be aggressively seeking out more. Podcasts require a certain amount of lead-time, so we’ve tried to get them recorded in advance so that they can be launched during the campaign period.

Contacting existing customers - Round 1

We set up a mailing list using Mailchimp, and gathered 502 subscribers from our customers list. We sent an email letting them know that in a month we’d be launching our campaign. ( You can sign up here if you’re interested! )

— Launch Day —

Contacting existing customers - Round 2

I sent out another mailing list update with links to the new KS. We also included a special 16-page preview of the book that literally nobody else got! Exclusive content should hopefully keep folks signing up for our mailing list.

Social Media

I also posted an update to both our previous Kickstarter campaigns with links to the new project. I started making noise on social media, and posted to our FB group for our contributors to do the same.

Approaching journalists - Round 2

I’m going to send out a fresh wave of press releases to sites that didn’t respond to us earlier, letting them know the KS is now active, and we’ll hope for the best.

— During Campaign —

Creating content to post on other sites

The editors met with a number of local comics pros including Chip Zdarsky, Marcus To, Jim Zub, and Brian McLachlan, and interviewed them about breaking into the industry. We’ll be sharing those every few days on our tumblr and our site.

We’ll also be posting articles like this one ( hello! ) to provide content to the community, humanize us, and hopefully help other folks with their own projects!

Social Media

Any time a comic site gives us coverage, we thank them and signal boost it. We’re going to be posting multiple times daily to our social media. We’ll be covering:  * Personal stories of the creators involved * Images of the attractive rewards, tagged with the creators involved. * Images of the stories, tagged with the creators involved.

Physical Media

We’ve also ordered 1,000 business cards and 300 sixteen-page mini-comics. These will be handed out to friendly comics shops, and given away at two comic conventions this month.

Convention presence

We're doing two shows this month, the Toronto Comics Show and the Toronto ComiCon. At both, we'll be handing out the mini-comics and business cards, and talking up the new project. This should help us reach an audience who aren't part of our social media network.

So, will any of this work? Will this guarantee us being funded? I don't think there’s any guarantees in this business. I think we've done everything we can at this level, but if you have a suggestion I'm always listening!

Lastly, please check out our Kickstarter if you have a minute!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/742428467/toronto-comics-yonge-at-heart