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[was-andi-rigby]

So.... I know I made this crazy push to get this blog out there, but it turns out running more than one blog is exhausting, and everything I put on this blog just gets reblogged on main anyway...

Soooooo... This blog will still be here, in case I want to do something silly with it later, but for now it will probably be dormant.

You can still find me over on @andi-rigby (confusing, I know, but that's the way the URL curls?)

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If you're wondering where I went... well, this is it. 😅 Dragon Age sort of ate my soul for breakfast. I'll be back to original work... eventually. Just gotta ride this obsession out 😜

Just Another Theory In Motion

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Rook/Emmrich Volkarin

Characters: Rook (Dragon Age), Emmrich Volkarin, Myrna (Dragon Age), Vorgoth (Dragon Age), Dragon Age: The Veilguard Ensemble

Additional Tags: Background Relationships, Mourn Watcher Rook (Dragon Age), Mourn Watch (Dragon Age), Male Rook (Dragon Age), Trans Male Rook (Dragon Age) - Freeform, Arranged Marriage, Canon Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Named Rook (Dragon Age), Miscommunication, Age Difference, but no age play

Summary: Before he was Mercury Ingellvar, Rook’s foster parents arranged an academic marriage with one of the Watch’s senior researchers: a professor Rook has never met—until now. He’s sure Emmrich Volkarin doesn’t like him, and he’s not sure he likes Emmrich, either... until a disagreement reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of their relationship.

A comedy of errors and a romance of erudition.

[was-andi-rigby]

Were you anxiously awaiting the launch of this Kickstarter? Because I was! If you like Jane Austen or you like queer stories, consider backing this KS. Or if you like pretty art. Or peacocks. Or indie publishers. Or A4 paperbacks. Or...

Yeah, I don't know. Lots of reasons to back this, though! Belated Christmas gifts, anyone???

Back “A Truth Universally Acknowledged” Today!

We’re thrilled to announce that the crowdfunding campaign for our next anthology, A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” is now live on Kickstarter – and already selected by them as a project they love!

With this third installment in our Queer Fanworks Inspired By… anthology series, we set out to explore the truth by which we at Duck Prints Press live: that a classic work without a single canonically queer character must be in want of a very LGBTQIA+ makeover! A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with 21 short stories and 20 full-page color artworks, is just that. 38 creators have contributed to this project, drawing inspiration from Pride and Prejudice’s characters and story to create delightful, thoughtful, intriguing, and (of course) very queer fanworks and Pride and Prejudice-inspired original works. For this collection, we encouraged our creators to focus on Sapphic/wlw relationships and/or transgender and genderqueer interpretations for their inspiration, though those are definitely not the only types of queer we’ve fit into this diverse collection. We’re also offering an awesome array of merchandise – art prints and note cards and an enamel pin and a folding fan and more!

We’ll be posting more information about the campaign and the contributing creators throughout the next couple weeks, so make sure to give us a follow on social media.

This campaign ends on December 5th 2024 – don’t miss your chance to get all this awesome stuff! Become a backer today!

It’s also a great time to become a Patreon backer – and you’ll get a free bonus piece of merch if you back both the “A Truth Universally Acknowledged” campaign and are a $10/month or $25/month level supporter!

[was-andi-rigby]

Author Update

It's been a hot minute since I posted anything, but it's also been a crazy couple of weeks. House is still in shambles, new Dragon Age game came out, there was that thing from last week... but so far I'm on a 9 day writing streak. Admittedly, a large chunk of that is Veilguard fic, because Veilguard gave me a theater gay (gay or gay-coded character who is over-the-top dramatic but also the sweetest soul you've ever met in your life) and character creation options for transgender/non-binary player characters.

I broke my "can't finish a damn thing" streak with a goofy, spoiler-free, ensemble party-banter ficlet, and broke my "forgot to sketch today" streak with a little Rook doodle.

My hope is to make more things this week, and finally claw my way out of the creativity wasteland.

[was-andi-rigby]

Hey, all! Do you want to kickstart an amazing project? How about a 300 page full color A4 book of Pride & Prejudice themed fanworks including full page arts and queer stories?

This is going on my coffee table for sure.

Can't finance it right now? Follow anyway and help get the good word out!

Cover Reveal for A Truth Universally Acknowledge: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”

HAPPY COVER REVEAL DAY! Duck Prints Press’s next anthology, A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, will be crowdfunding starting November 20th, 2024. We’ve been hard at work on this collection for a loooong time and we are thrilled to finally be making it available for y’all. The gorgeous cover art, made by artist Aceriee, was inspired by the classic 1898 “peacock edition of Pride and Prejudice – but of course, we made it queerer. The, spectacular, cover is wrap around.

(spoilers: this art will be offered a postcard as one of the Kickstarter campaign backer rewards!)

This awesome book features 21 stories each up to 5,000 words long and 20 full-page color artworks. Our campaign features six merch items, too, with peacocks standing proud on much of the art.

Want to be sure you don’t miss the campaign? Follow our Kickstarter pre-launch page now!

Become a Patreon backer to get behind-the-scenes access to sneak peeks and more!

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Monday Update

Pre Halloween update? Something like that.

Full disclosure: I have managed a page and a half of outline on The Library. My goal is to finish the draft during The November Writing Event Which Shall Remain Nameless But We're All Doing It Together Anyway. (If there's only one good thing to come out of the downfall of the official NaNoWriMo organization, it's the writing community's collective decision that although November is one of the worst months of the year to try to write a novel--second only to December itself--we're gonna do it anyway.)

The rest of the... time since my last update (has it been a week? I think it's been about a week) has been trying to unfuck the disaster that is my house after a bedroom remodel. It's still a mess, but I finally got some more furniture back into the room! (I also don't have a lot of energy for housework after my day job, so a lot of my evening time is spent doing unwinding activities like playing Hades and building virtual Lego sets.)

Anyway, enough about the absolute nightmare box of unscanned and unsorted paperwork that I'm avoiding--let's talk apocalypse. Or, you know, people who survived it.

Like Kaylen! They're a young nerd whose obsession with books might be a form of escapism from the hardscrabble life they've lived. In their defense, the world kind of ended when they were young. I'd want to escape into books too.

Even when they're on patrol or out scouting with Wallace, they have a book with them. They don't often get to keep books they find, and their dream is to one day live in a place long enough to have more books than they can carry.

[was-andi-rigby]

Monday Update

Pre Halloween update? Something like that.

Full disclosure: I have managed a page and a half of outline on The Library. My goal is to finish the draft during The November Writing Event Which Shall Remain Nameless But We're All Doing It Together Anyway. (If there's only one good thing to come out of the downfall of the official NaNoWriMo organization, it's the writing community's collective decision that although November is one of the worst months of the year to try to write a novel--second only to December itself--we're gonna do it anyway.)

The rest of the... time since my last update (has it been a week? I think it's been about a week) has been trying to unfuck the disaster that is my house after a bedroom remodel. It's still a mess, but I finally got some more furniture back into the room! (I also don't have a lot of energy for housework after my day job, so a lot of my evening time is spent doing unwinding activities like playing Hades and building virtual Lego sets.)

Anyway, enough about the absolute nightmare box of unscanned and unsorted paperwork that I'm avoiding--let's talk apocalypse. Or, you know, people who survived it.

Like Kaylen! They're a young nerd whose obsession with books might be a form of escapism from the hardscrabble life they've lived. In their defense, the world kind of ended when they were young. I'd want to escape into books too.

Even when they're on patrol or out scouting with Wallace, they have a book with them. They don't often get to keep books they find, and their dream is to one day live in a place long enough to have more books than they can carry.

[was-andi-rigby]

My deepest apologies for the delays. Turns out baseboards are finicky and take forever to install properly. But the remodel is more or less complete which means I can finally put my house back together and focus on writing 😅

Short Story Update

Good timezone, friends! How was your Monday? Hope it gave you minimal amounts of trouble.

Quick update on the poll story. As you may have seen, the winner was The Library. That means in the upcoming weeks, we will meet, among others, Kaylen, their dad Wallace, and Sergeant Dixie Donaldson, or Sarge, whose name is courtesy of our follower lottery winner @geektasticjustine.

I'll have more on the characters and setting beginning later this week, after I've finished remodeling my bedroom (which has taken twice as long as I had planned, like any good home improvement project does).

Another round of thanks for everyone who interacted with the poll, and especially those of you who followed.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go install some baseboards.

[was-andi-rigby]

I agree 💯💯💯% with all of the above. AND I would like to add that for the few like myself who have published reams of fanfiction for niche audiences... Like, I personally just want to share my stories! But it's virtually impossible to get people to read original fic on AO3, even if it's geared toward fan audiences. Marketing myself takes way more time than I have in a week, because I work full time and I have kids, and I can barely find time to write the damn things, let alone be a nuisance on the Internet long enough to be considered a good effort at marketing. Admittedly, I'm doing more "marketing" now (this blog, for example, and also last week's short story poll), but I also just don't have the bandwidth or the industry experience to get my work out there.

I am so, so, so grateful to have a job that mostly doesn't suck my soul out my nose, and a spouse who also works so we don't need to rely on the cosmic lottery that is the fiction market. This means, though, that I still have to balance working 40 hours a week at my day job, the 20 or so hours a week that is parenting two grade school kids, and occasionally sleeping a few hours a night. I don't have the luxury of devoting half my waking hours to writing and marketing, so I appreciate and adore smaller presses like Duck Prints who are not so focused on the cosmic gauntlet lottery initiation-rite of "breaking into" tradpub (I mean, just the fact that you have to break into it says something...).

Ten Things We Hate About Trad Pub

Often when I say “I’ve started a small press; we publish the works of those who have trouble breaking into traditional publishing!” what people seem to hear is “me and a bunch of sad saps couldn’t sell our books in the Real World so we’ve made our own place with lower standards.” For those with minimal understanding of traditional publishing (trad pub), this reaction is perhaps understandable? But, truly, there are many things to hate about traditional publishing (and, don’t get me wrong - there are things to love about trad pub, too, but that’s not what this list is about) and it’s entirely reasonable for even highly accomplished authors to have no interest in running the gauntlet of genre restrictions, editorial control, hazing, long waits, and more, that make trad pub at best, um, challenging, and at worst, utterly inaccessible to many authors - even excellent ones.

Written in collaboration with @jhoomwrites, with input from @ramblingandpie, here is a list of ten things that we at Duck Prints Press detest about trad pub, why we hate it, and why/how we think things should be different!

(Needless to say, part of why we created Duck Prints Press was to...not do any of these things... so if you’re a writer looking for a publishing home, and you hate these things, too, and want to write with a Press that doesn’t do them...maybe come say hi?)

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1. Work lengths dictated by genre and/or author experience.

Romance novels can’t be longer than 90,000 words or they won’t sell! New authors shouldn’t try to market a novel longer than 100,000 words!

A good story is a good story is a good story. Longer genre works give authors the chance to explore their themes and develop their plots. How often an author has been published shouldn’t put a cap on the length of their work.

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2. Editors assert control of story events...except when they don’t.

If you don’t change this plot point, the book won’t market well. Oh, you’re a ten-time bestseller? Write whatever you want, even if it doesn’t make sense we know people will buy it.

Sometimes, a beta or an editor will point out that an aspect of a story doesn’t work - because it’s nonsensical, illogical, Deus ex Machina, etc. - and in those cases it’s of course reasonable for an editor to say, “This doesn’t work and we recommend changing it, for these reasons…” However, when that list of reasons begins and ends with, “...because it won’t sell…” that’s a problem, especially because this is so often applied as a double standard. We’ve all read bestsellers with major plot issues, but those authors get a “bye” because editors don’t want to exert to heavy a hand and risk a proven seller, but with a new, less experienced, or worse-selling author, the gloves come off (even though evidence suggests time and again that publishers’ ability to predict what will sell well is at best low and at worst nonexistent.)

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3. A billion rejection letters as a required rite of passage (especially when the letters aren't helpful in pinpointing why a work has been rejected or how the author can improve).

Well, my first book was rejected by a hundred Presses before it was accepted! How many rejection letters did you get before you got a bite? What, only one or two? Oh…

How often one succeeds or fails to get published shouldn’t be treated as a form of hazing, and we all know that how often someone gets rejected or accepted has essentially no bearing on how good a writer they are. Plenty of schlock goes out into the world after being accepted on the first or second try...and so does plenty of good stuff! Likewise, plenty of schlock will get rejected 100 times but due to persistence, luck, circumstances, whatever, finally find a home, and plenty of good stuff will also get rejected 100 times before being publishing. Rejections (or lack there of) as a point of pride or as a means of judging others needs to die as a rite of passage among authors.

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4. Query letters, for so many reasons.

Summarize all your hard work in a single page! Tell us who you’re like as an author and what books your story is like, so we can gauge how well it’ll sell based on two sentences about it! Format it exactly the way we say or we won’t even consider you!

For publishers, agents, and editors who have slush piles as tall as Mount Everest...we get it. There has to be a way to differentiate. We don’t blame you. Every creative writing class, NaNoWriMo pep talk, and college lit department combine to send out hundreds of thousands of people who think all they need to do to become the next Ernest Hemingway is string a sentence together. There has to be some way to sort through that pile...but God, can’t there be a better way than query letters? Especially since even with query letters being used it often takes months or years to hear back, and...

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5. "Simultaneous submissions prohibited.”

No, we don’t know when we’ll get to your query, but we’ll throw it out instantly if you have the audacity to shop around while you wait for us.

The combination of “no simultaneous submissions” with the query letter bottleneck makes success slow and arduous. It disadvantages everyone who aims to write full-time but doesn’t have another income source (their own, or a parents’, or a spouse’s, or, or or). The result is that entire classes of people are edged out of publishing solely because the process, especially for writers early in their career, moves so glacially that people have to earn a living while they wait, and it’s so hard to, for example, work two jobs and raise a family and also somehow find the time to write. Especially considering that the standard advice for dealing with “no simultaneous submissions” is “just write something else while you wait!” ...the whole system screams privilege.

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6. Genres are boxes that must be fit into and adhered to.

Your protagonist is 18? Then obviously your book is Young Adult. It doesn’t matter how smutty your book is, erotica books must have sex within the first three chapters, ideally in the first chapter. Sorry, we’re a fantasy publisher, if you have a technological element you don’t belong here…

While some genre boxes have been becoming more like mesh cages of late, with some flow of content allowed in and out, many remain stiff prisons that constrict the kinds of stories people can tell. Even basic cross-genre works often struggle to find a place, and there’s no reason for it beyond “if we can’t pigeon-hole a story, it’s harder to sell.” This edges out many innovative, creative works. It also disadvantages people who aren’t as familiar with genre rules. And don’t get me wrong - this isn’t an argument that, for example, the romance genre would be improved by opening up to stories that don’t have “happily ever afters.” Instead, it’s pointing out - there should also be a home for, say, a space opera with a side romance, an erotica scene, and a happily-for-now ending. Occasionally, works breakthrough, but for the most part stories that don’t conform never see the light of day (or, they do, but only after Point 2 - trad pub editors insist that the elements most “outside” the box be removed or revised).

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7. The lines between romance and erotica are arbitrary, random, and hetero- and cis-normative.

This modern romance novel won’t sell if it doesn’t have an explicit sex scene, but God forbid you call a penis a penis. Oh, no, this is far too explicit, even though the book only has one mlm sex scene, this is erotica.

The difference between “romance” and “erotica” might not matter so much if not for the stigmas attached to erotica and the huge difference in marketability and audience. The difference between “romance” and “erotica” also might not matter so much if not for the fact that, so often, even incredibly raunchy stories that feature cis straight male/cis straight female sex scenes are shelved as romance, but the moment the sex is between people of the same gender, and/or a trans or genderqueer person is involved, and/or the relationship is polyamorous, and/or the characters involved are literally anything other than a cis straight male pleasuring a cis straight female in a “standard” way (cunnilingus welcome, pegging need not apply)...then the story is erotica. Two identical stories will get assigned different genres based on who the people having sex are, and also based on the “skill” of the author to use ludicrous euphemisms (instead of just...calling body parts what they’re called…), and it’s insane. Non-con can be a “romance” novel, even if it’s graphically described. “50 Shades of Gray” can sell millions of copies, even containing BDSM. But the word “vagina” gets used once...bam, erotica. (Seriously, the only standard that should matter is the Envelope Analogy).

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8. Authors are expected to do a lot of their own legwork (eg advertising) but then don't reap the benefits.

Okay, so, you’re going to get an advance of $2,500 on this, your first novel, and a royalty rate of 5% if and only if your advance sells out...so you’d better get out there and market! Wait, what do you mean you don’t have a following? Guess you’re never selling out your advance…

Trad pub can generally be relied on to do some marketing - so this item is perhaps better seen as an indictment of more mid-sized Presses - but, basically, if an author has to do the majority of the work themselves, then why aren’t they getting paid more? What’s the actual benefit to going the large press/trad pub route if it’s not going to get the book into more hands? It’s especially strange that this continues to be a major issue when self-publishing (which also requires doing one’s own marketing) garners 60%+ royalty rates. Yes, the author doesn’t get an advance, and they don’t get the cache of ~well I was published by…~, but considering some Presses require parts of advances to get paid back if the initial run doesn’t sell out, and cache doesn’t put food on the table...pay models have really, really got to change.

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9. Fanfiction writing doesn't count as writing experience

Hey there Basic White Dude, we see you’ve graduated summa cum laude from A Big Fancy Expensive School. Of course we’ll set you up to publish your first novel you haven’t actually quite finished writing yet. Oh, Fanperson, you’ve written 15 novels for your favorite fandom in the last 4 years? Get to the back of the line!

Do I really need to explain this? The only way to get better at writing is to write. Placing fanfiction on official trad pub “do not interact” lists is idiotic, especially considering many of the other items on this list. (They know how to engage readers! They have existing followings! They understand genre and tropes!) Being a fanfiction writer should absolutely be a marketable “I am a writer” skill. Nuff said. (To be clear, I’m not saying publishers should publish fanfiction, I’m saying that being a fanfiction writer is relevant and important experience that should be given weight when considering an author’s qualifications, similar to, say, publishing in a university’s quarterly.)

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10. Tagging conventions (read: lack thereof).

Oh, did I trigger you? Hahahaha. Good luck with that.

We rate movies so that people can avoid content they don’t like. Same with TV shows and video games. Increasingly, those ratings aren’t just “R - adult audiences,” either; they contain information about the nature of the story elements that have led to the rating (“blood and gore,” “alcohol reference,” “cartoon violence,” “drug reference,” “sexual violence,” “use of tobacco,” and many, many more). So why is it that I can read a book and, without warning, be surprised by incest, rape, graphic violence, explicit language, glorification of drug and alcohol use, and so so much more? That it’s left to readers to look up spoilers to ensure that they’re not exposed to content that could be upsetting or inappropriate for their children or, or, or, is insane. So often, too, authors cling to “but we don’t want to give away our story,” as if video game makes and other media makers do want to give away their stories. This shouldn’t be about author egos or ~originality~ (as if that’s even a thing)...it should be about helping readers make informed purchasing decisions. It’s way, way past time that major market books include content warnings.

Thank you for joining us, this has been our extended rant about how frustrated we are with traditional publishing. Helpful? No. Cathartic? Most definitely yes. 🤣

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Have a question about writing? Drop us an ask!

Like what we do and want to support us? You can buy us a ko-fi - or get access to exclusive content by backing us on Patreon!

[was-andi-rigby]

When you say "artist", what do you usually mean?

Someone who draws or paints, only

Anyone who makes "traditional" visual art (i.e, painting, drawing, sculpting)

Anyone who makes any visual art

Anyone who does anything creative, NOT including creative writing

Anyone who does anything creative, INCLUDING creative writing

Something else

[was-andi-rigby]

Short Story Update

Good timezone, friends! How was your Monday? Hope it gave you minimal amounts of trouble.

Quick update on the poll story. As you may have seen, the winner was The Library. That means in the upcoming weeks, we will meet, among others, Kaylen, their dad Wallace, and Sergeant Dixie Donaldson, or Sarge, whose name is courtesy of our follower lottery winner @geektasticjustine.

I'll have more on the characters and setting beginning later this week, after I've finished remodeling my bedroom (which has taken twice as long as I had planned, like any good home improvement project does).

Another round of thanks for everyone who interacted with the poll, and especially those of you who followed.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go install some baseboards.

[was-andi-rigby]

THE VOTES ARE IN! The winning story is:

The Library

I will be reaching out a little later this weekend for the lottery, so keep an ear out for your inboxes. (It would be right away but I have to emergency paint and refloor my bedroom? It's been a wild weekend.)

A huge thank you to everyone who voted, reblogged, followed, and liked the poll this week. It's been a great blog launch and I'm excited to share the process with you guys as I put this story together.

And with that... I'll be back soon. I have to go, uh, paint my floor. 🏃💨

Alright, y'all. Poll time. Synopses of your choices are under the cut, if you want them. I can't decide between my upcoming original stories (I'm gonna write them all eventually), so I'm inviting y'all to choose for me.

On a related note, if I hit 15 followers before this poll expires, I'll do a follower lottery and the lottery winner will get to name a character in the winning story! (More details on that also under the cut.)

Synopses

Adventures in the Gaywild, a queer contemporary portal fantasy with an ensemble cast of queer & disabled adults just trying to live their lives, but who have said lives interrupted regularly by their hometown’s proximity to the fey realm. Beronsgate is a cute little coastal town with a major problem: sometimes the door you open doesn’t lead where you wanted it to. Monster-of-the-week episodic sitcom installments with an overarching denial-of-destiny arc. (If this wins, the "winning story" will be the first installment of the series.)

The Death of Santa, a sapphic Christmas adventure with a transgender Mrs. Claus who’s unhappy in her role as the token female holiday persona, and escapes the North Pole only to find herself in a strange land of eternal winter. Kristina takes shelter in a fortress built over a gate, and finds deadly traps, warped Christmas monsters, and the woman she married 900 years ago. Transgender themes, trans joy/power, and mistaken identity feature heavily in this high-action novelette that tries not to take itself or Christmas too seriously.

Liberty, a gay cowboy friends-to-lovers between a cattle baron’s heir and a gifted horse trainer. Aaron and James have kept their romance a secret for almost a year. When Aaron’s mother makes a big stink about him turning down yet another farm princess, he’s got a tough choice to make: follow the herd, or follow his heart. Forget coming-of-age—let’s talk coming-out, love and support from unexpected avenues, and being true to yourself.

Double Tide, a seaside low fantasy adventure about a dockworker and the inquisitive merrow they met in the local tidepools, who become fast friends despite language barriers and local taboo. When a new fishing technique threatens the local merrow population, they discover whether a lone dockworker and a social pariah can really make a difference. Try this gender-agnostic, hopeful Romeo and Juliet (without the tragedy) that explores the meaning of love and friendship.

The Siege of Helen, an exploration of neurodivergence and (mis)communication in a romantic relationship. Helen’s new pregnancy has made her mood a thousand times more volatile, and her husband is spending more and more time at the office. Hephaestus, already overstimulated and dysregulated from trying to provide for his now-growing family, realizes in the nick of time that there’s only one way not to lose the woman he loves: he’s going to have to talk to her. About his feelings. Short story companion to my novel-in-progress, By Any Other Name, following Ambrose’s parents as they try desperately to keep their marriage from falling to pieces.

The Library, a heartwarming zombie survivor tale about a weary now-single dad and his last remaining foster teen who fight to preserve the ruins of a great library against those who would destroy it for their own short-term survival. Take refuge in the Charles J. LaRose Memorial Library, and let Kaylen tell you about the time they fought off zombies and men with guns to make a safe place for travelers like you to rest and recuperate in the desolate hellscape of the zombie apocalypse.

Lottery Info

Lottery will happen if the total follower count (less myself) on this blog reaches 15 before the poll in this post expires. I'll choose via random selection & contact the winner via Tumblr to confirm you want to participate. If you don't, or I can't contact you via Tumblr because your messages are closed, or if I don't get a response to my initial message within ~24 hours, then I'll choose a different winner by the same process. And so on until someone bites.

Lottery winner will receive a short bio of the relevant aspects of their character (appearance, mannerisms, and plot role), and the name they choose will be used for the described character. I will not accept names that are offensive or that would be considered offensive in the context of the story or character, and I retain the right to ask the winner for a different name if the chosen name is, for some reason, really really not going to work in the context of the story.

[was-andi-rigby]

There's ONE day left (that's 24 hours) until the poll expires, and we are still 2 followers short of a lottery!

I think I forgot to mention this before, actually, but the poll-winning story will be published right here as a FREE eBook. So if you want to read the winning story, follow @andi-rigby for updates, sketches, character bios, and exclusive sneak peeks!

Alright, y'all. Poll time. Synopses of your choices are under the cut, if you want them. I can't decide between my upcoming original stories (I'm gonna write them all eventually), so I'm inviting y'all to choose for me.

On a related note, if I hit 15 followers before this poll expires, I'll do a follower lottery and the lottery winner will get to name a character in the winning story! (More details on that also under the cut.)

Synopses

Adventures in the Gaywild, a queer contemporary portal fantasy with an ensemble cast of queer & disabled adults just trying to live their lives, but who have said lives interrupted regularly by their hometown’s proximity to the fey realm. Beronsgate is a cute little coastal town with a major problem: sometimes the door you open doesn’t lead where you wanted it to. Monster-of-the-week episodic sitcom installments with an overarching denial-of-destiny arc. (If this wins, the "winning story" will be the first installment of the series.)

The Death of Santa, a sapphic Christmas adventure with a transgender Mrs. Claus who’s unhappy in her role as the token female holiday persona, and escapes the North Pole only to find herself in a strange land of eternal winter. Kristina takes shelter in a fortress built over a gate, and finds deadly traps, warped Christmas monsters, and the woman she married 900 years ago. Transgender themes, trans joy/power, and mistaken identity feature heavily in this high-action novelette that tries not to take itself or Christmas too seriously.

Liberty, a gay cowboy friends-to-lovers between a cattle baron’s heir and a gifted horse trainer. Aaron and James have kept their romance a secret for almost a year. When Aaron’s mother makes a big stink about him turning down yet another farm princess, he’s got a tough choice to make: follow the herd, or follow his heart. Forget coming-of-age—let’s talk coming-out, love and support from unexpected avenues, and being true to yourself.

Double Tide, a seaside low fantasy adventure about a dockworker and the inquisitive merrow they met in the local tidepools, who become fast friends despite language barriers and local taboo. When a new fishing technique threatens the local merrow population, they discover whether a lone dockworker and a social pariah can really make a difference. Try this gender-agnostic, hopeful Romeo and Juliet (without the tragedy) that explores the meaning of love and friendship.

The Siege of Helen, an exploration of neurodivergence and (mis)communication in a romantic relationship. Helen’s new pregnancy has made her mood a thousand times more volatile, and her husband is spending more and more time at the office. Hephaestus, already overstimulated and dysregulated from trying to provide for his now-growing family, realizes in the nick of time that there’s only one way not to lose the woman he loves: he’s going to have to talk to her. About his feelings. Short story companion to my novel-in-progress, By Any Other Name, following Ambrose’s parents as they try desperately to keep their marriage from falling to pieces.

The Library, a heartwarming zombie survivor tale about a weary now-single dad and his last remaining foster teen who fight to preserve the ruins of a great library against those who would destroy it for their own short-term survival. Take refuge in the Charles J. LaRose Memorial Library, and let Kaylen tell you about the time they fought off zombies and men with guns to make a safe place for travelers like you to rest and recuperate in the desolate hellscape of the zombie apocalypse.

Lottery Info

Lottery will happen if the total follower count (less myself) on this blog reaches 15 before the poll in this post expires. I'll choose via random selection & contact the winner via Tumblr to confirm you want to participate. If you don't, or I can't contact you via Tumblr because your messages are closed, or if I don't get a response to my initial message within ~24 hours, then I'll choose a different winner by the same process. And so on until someone bites.

Lottery winner will receive a short bio of the relevant aspects of their character (appearance, mannerisms, and plot role), and the name they choose will be used for the described character. I will not accept names that are offensive or that would be considered offensive in the context of the story or character, and I retain the right to ask the winner for a different name if the chosen name is, for some reason, really really not going to work in the context of the story.

[was-andi-rigby]

Hey y'all! It's been about a week since I made this blog, so I figured I should introduce my passion project, my darling baby, the bane of my very existence: my novel, currently titled By Any Other Name. The art above is my own digital painting; the minimalist version is the header for the blog!

By Any Other Name is a contemporary mlm best friends to life partners new adult romance about Ambrose Morrick, a grumpy disaster bisexual financial consultant and closet bleeding-heart romantic, and Montgomery Fay, a sunshine trans theater gay and genius stage engineer.

Rose thinks he's found The One, but when she dumps him while he's on one knee, he considers that maybe he's just not cut out for romance. Monty doesn't want to see his best friend of over a decade give up on love. Unfortunately, this puts him in the awkward position of nominally agreeing with Rose's mother, a modern-day Mrs. Bennet with only one remaining child to marry off. So Monty suggests the only logical course of action: convince Rose's mom the two of them are dating so she'll stop nagging Rose about his love life.

The plan is simple: show up together to a few family functions, make a point of looking at each other more than usual, and maybe get caught sneaking off. But when Monty's mom is in a bad car accident the night before their debut performance, a chain reaction of family drama dredges up feelings both Rose and Monty thought were long buried--and not all of them are good.

Featuring such favored tropes as only one bed, grumpy x sunshine, idiots in love, and oh my god they were roommates, By Any Other Name is a cozy, romantic story about love and support in the face of thorns and brambles.

finished render of this sketch. (i love them your honor)

[was-andi-rigby]

a post about art

So I said in my intro/about that I would talk about some stuff. Namely:

Make Good Art

All Art is Good Art

Delete Your Art

And I was going to write this huge dissertation manifesto thing about art and how to be good at art and whatever but when it came down to it, I couldn't think of much beyond that when it comes to art, you should do what makes you happy. So here's what I mean about those three things.

Oh, and a disclaimer: "art" is a word which here means "the process or product of any creative endeavor by a person." Art includes drawing, painting, writing, 3d modeling, cooking, baking, basket weaving (underwater or otherwise), sewing, crochet, game design/development, napkin folding, knitting, interior design--look, you get it, right?

All art is good art

"Good" here is, in fact, an objective statement. While your skill at producing what you have envisioned in your head can always improve, art is never bad. It can be juvenile or messy or unedited. The spelling or stitches or frosting can be a little funky looking. It might only appeal to you. It might appeal to literally nobody, because it looks nothing like what you wanted it to look like.

But it's still good art.

Make good art

If this sounds like a mandate, that's because it is. Make good art. This is so easy, actually, because all art is good art. So, really, the mandate here is to make art. Just make stuff. Make whatever strikes your fancy. Make some today, and then make some more tomorrow. Take five minutes to make something, and notice that you're doing art. "I'm just following the recipe." Yeah? And? Painters paint from reference. Still good art. "I'm getting paid to do it to a specification." Love that for you. Still good art. "But it looks nothing like the thing I was trying to do." Mhm. Sometimes that happens. Look at the thing, and look at your art. Identify one specific part that didn't live up to the vision. Next time you make art, try to pay attention to that part. Practice. It will improve.

Make stuff. It's still good art.

Delete your art

Delete! Your! Art!

"Sucks" here is shorthand for "isn't living up to the vision"--and that's okay! The art isn't bad. You can delete it! (Or archive/save it and start over, which is always going to be my preference for everything, since it's hard to compare against things that no longer exist.) Sometimes when you draw or write or knit a hat, you realize the pose isn't working out or you've picked the entirely wrong POV for the scene or the yarn is actually the wrong color. Delete it! (Save it first, though, in the case of the first two.)

Anyway, that's my rant about art.

[was-andi-rigby]

Just under 3 days left to vote! And 3 followers left for the Character Name lottery!

Alright, y'all. Poll time. Synopses of your choices are under the cut, if you want them. I can't decide between my upcoming original stories (I'm gonna write them all eventually), so I'm inviting y'all to choose for me.

On a related note, if I hit 15 followers before this poll expires, I'll do a follower lottery and the lottery winner will get to name a character in the winning story! (More details on that also under the cut.)

Synopses

Adventures in the Gaywild, a queer contemporary portal fantasy with an ensemble cast of queer & disabled adults just trying to live their lives, but who have said lives interrupted regularly by their hometown’s proximity to the fey realm. Beronsgate is a cute little coastal town with a major problem: sometimes the door you open doesn’t lead where you wanted it to. Monster-of-the-week episodic sitcom installments with an overarching denial-of-destiny arc. (If this wins, the "winning story" will be the first installment of the series.)

The Death of Santa, a sapphic Christmas adventure with a transgender Mrs. Claus who’s unhappy in her role as the token female holiday persona, and escapes the North Pole only to find herself in a strange land of eternal winter. Kristina takes shelter in a fortress built over a gate, and finds deadly traps, warped Christmas monsters, and the woman she married 900 years ago. Transgender themes, trans joy/power, and mistaken identity feature heavily in this high-action novelette that tries not to take itself or Christmas too seriously.

Liberty, a gay cowboy friends-to-lovers between a cattle baron’s heir and a gifted horse trainer. Aaron and James have kept their romance a secret for almost a year. When Aaron’s mother makes a big stink about him turning down yet another farm princess, he’s got a tough choice to make: follow the herd, or follow his heart. Forget coming-of-age—let’s talk coming-out, love and support from unexpected avenues, and being true to yourself.

Double Tide, a seaside low fantasy adventure about a dockworker and the inquisitive merrow they met in the local tidepools, who become fast friends despite language barriers and local taboo. When a new fishing technique threatens the local merrow population, they discover whether a lone dockworker and a social pariah can really make a difference. Try this gender-agnostic, hopeful Romeo and Juliet (without the tragedy) that explores the meaning of love and friendship.

The Siege of Helen, an exploration of neurodivergence and (mis)communication in a romantic relationship. Helen’s new pregnancy has made her mood a thousand times more volatile, and her husband is spending more and more time at the office. Hephaestus, already overstimulated and dysregulated from trying to provide for his now-growing family, realizes in the nick of time that there’s only one way not to lose the woman he loves: he’s going to have to talk to her. About his feelings. Short story companion to my novel-in-progress, By Any Other Name, following Ambrose’s parents as they try desperately to keep their marriage from falling to pieces.

The Library, a heartwarming zombie survivor tale about a weary now-single dad and his last remaining foster teen who fight to preserve the ruins of a great library against those who would destroy it for their own short-term survival. Take refuge in the Charles J. LaRose Memorial Library, and let Kaylen tell you about the time they fought off zombies and men with guns to make a safe place for travelers like you to rest and recuperate in the desolate hellscape of the zombie apocalypse.

Lottery Info

Lottery will happen if the total follower count (less myself) on this blog reaches 15 before the poll in this post expires. I'll choose via random selection & contact the winner via Tumblr to confirm you want to participate. If you don't, or I can't contact you via Tumblr because your messages are closed, or if I don't get a response to my initial message within ~24 hours, then I'll choose a different winner by the same process. And so on until someone bites.

Lottery winner will receive a short bio of the relevant aspects of their character (appearance, mannerisms, and plot role), and the name they choose will be used for the described character. I will not accept names that are offensive or that would be considered offensive in the context of the story or character, and I retain the right to ask the winner for a different name if the chosen name is, for some reason, really really not going to work in the context of the story.

[was-andi-rigby]

My personal favorite is OneLook Thesaurus! It's really good for finding related words, not just straight synonyms. Also good if you need to find words from a category or whatever. There are other similar tools but OneLook is my personal favorite.

Roundtable: Our Favorite Reference Works

October 16 was the birthday of Noah Webster, and as such is now celebrated in the United States as Dictionary Day. Duck Prints Press is made up of a diverse group of authors and editors (and others), so unsurprisingly, we’re all word nerds – which means we all have our personal favorite reference materials we use when we’re writing! The people involved in this roundtable chat were Nina Waters, Rascal Hartley, D.V. Morse, Nova Mason, Callmesalticidae, Shannon, Linnea Peterson, and Meera S.

Tell us about your one (1) favorite reference work you use when you’re writing and/or editing!

Nina Waters: picking one, god. uh. I don’t think I can do that. I have three. facepalm thesaurus.com, etymonline.com, and the Chicago Manual of Style.

Rascal Hartley: Mine is absolutely reversedictionary.org. Perfect for when I know what a word means but can’t remember the word itself (this is me…. all the time…..) also functions as almost a thesaurus that doesn’t just give you synonyms but generally-related words

D.V. Morse: I am very boring and default to merriam-webster.com.

Nina Waters: m-w is also the official dictionary of DPP!

Nova Mason: I also love meriam-webster (it’s the official dictionary of our local court system). And my favorite book about grammar stuff is A Grammar Book For You And I Oops Me.

Nina Waters: that title single-handedly taught me the rule better.

Callmesalticidae: I find Wiktionary to be very useful. It’s largely a reliable source, and has lots of obscure words that wouldn’t be found in non-specialist dictionaries, and extensive etymologies and translations in other languages.

Shannon: Ten Words You Need To Stop Misspelling by The Oatmeal I never remember affect vs effect so I keep this handy haha

Linnea Peterson: I write a lot of sonnets in my personal life, so rhymezone.com is very helpful.

Meera S.: Ooh boy, does an 18th century book of vulgar slang count as a dictionary? (My angle is historical fiction)

Nina Waters: it definitely counts!

Those are our answers – what’s yours? Tells us about your favorite writerly reference materials!