wingedcatastrophe

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My story "See Now the Misfortune of the Thinking Tenax" is in this month's issue of Lightspeed!

Beast, monster, destroyer—the tenax has been mysteriously granted sapience, and on its quest for knowledge, it seeks out a cult of surgeon-priests.

You can read it now by purchasing the ebook, or wait until 6/19 to read it for free online.

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Read black books all year long. Keep talking about them, fighting for them, and the people who write them.

Most of these are queer, but some of them are not.

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waitingforthebusintherainintherainwaitwaitingforthebusintherain

waitingforthebusintherainintherainwaitwaitingforthebusintherain

waitingforthebusintherainintherainwaitwaitingforthebusintherain

waitingforthebusintherainintherainwaitwaitingforthebusintherain

waitingfortheb u s i n t h e r a i n

waiting for the bus in the rain in the rain wait waiting for the bus in the rain

waiting for the bus in the rain in the rain wait waiting for the bus in the rain

WAITING FOR THE BUS THE BUS IS LATE WHERE IS THE BUS WAITING FOR THE BUS IN THE RAIN IN THE RAIN WHEN THE BUS COME WHERE THE BUS AT GOT MY BUS PASS BUS IS MUCH BETTER THAN A TRAIN THAN A TRAIN TAKE PHONE PICTURES WHILE I'M WAITING AT THE BUS STOP BUS NOT HERE WHY THE BUS SO LATE I'M WAITING FOR THE BUS IN THE RAIN WISHING I WAS ON THE BUS WHEN THE BUS DRIVE AROUND YOUR ESTATE OH GOOD HERE COMES THE BUS OH SHIT IT'S A DIFFERENT BUS NOT THE RIGHT BUS NOT THE BUS I NEED NOW I'M WAITING FOR THE BUS IN THE RAIN AT ANOTHER STOP BUS AINT GOT A REAL HIGH SPEED

WAITING FOR THE BUS TOOK A PICTURE OF ANOTHER BUS WAITING FOR THE BUS IN THE RAIN I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE BUS SINCE THE SUN CAME UP BUT THE SUN AIN'T UP NO MORE CAUSE IT'S GREY WAITING FOR THE BUS THERE'S A GREY ONE BLUE ONE A RED ONE ALL OF THEM TURNED AWAY I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE BUS GOTTA CATCH A BUS GOTTA WATCH NEWS GOT A REGIMENTED PLAN FOR THE DAY

BUS

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In memory

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[staggering to my feet and wiping a single perfect drip of blood from my mouth] i have to get back on my bullshit. no matter the cost

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I want to KISS the person who made this display, that is AMAZING

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i cant quit tumblr because i get good life advice from other maladjusted adults on here

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writing is so funny because i could write nonstop for 9hrs and then hit a block where im like "how do i transition between this moment and the next?" and then i just dont touch it for 6 months

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That Time a Published Author Told Me to Un-Queer My Novel

So, I don't think I ever shared this story on Tumblr before.

As you may know I've spent the past ten years turning my old Welcome to Night Vale fanfic into a stand alone novel called Echo of the Larkspur. Now, I haven't been working on it ten years straight. I'd pick it up, do a bunch of editing and rewriting, submit it to agents/publishers, get turned down, put the book away, wait 2-3 years, dust off the book, re-edit and rewrite, etc etc. A cycle that repeated itself far too many times that I would like.

Well, during one of these cycles when I was in the 'get rejected by every agent and publisher I submit to' stage I asked the writing group I was in what I was doing wrong. Because at this point I had reached a hundred total rejections and I was starting to suspect that the issue was with me.

One of the members of this writing group, a male author who was traditionally published, offered to read my first chapter and give his advice on how to fix it. This was, in retrospect, a mistake. But I was desperate. I sent him the first chapter and waited for his response.

Folks. The email he sent me changed my life.

First he said that agents wouldn't publish my novel because it was Sci-fi with hardcore gay erotica in it. This is curious because while the book certainly is queer, at no point in the conversation with this man did I say it was hardcore erotica. Nor did the first chapter feature any. It's almost as if he assumed that just because something was gay, it had to be hardcore erotica. Interesting.

He went on to say that a Human/Robot pairing was weird and that there was "No Way" my story could seriously address the issues of a relationship like that. Once again, he only read the first chapter. He just...assumed I wouldn't think of that? And that my book wouldn't cover it?

The author then said “I also felt that the LGBTQ inclusion really seems to cloud things.” Direct Quote.

And then this is when he said my favorite quote of them all:

The idea of a book being a sci-fi with romance AND a mystery is a Modern Art Marzipan Owl. It's just too confusing! No one can handle a story that is a mystery in a sci-fi enviroment AND has a romantic subplot! THEIR BRAINS WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE!

Thankfully he had a solution to my book problem. His answer? Turn the book into an Action Spy Thriller and turn S.A.G.E., a robot that identies as a gay man, into a sexy lady robot who needs a MAN to teach her what it means to be human.

(I assume the male lead will teach the 'confused' female robot how to be human via his penis.)

Now my favorite part about this advice is that at no point did he outright say "Remove the gay part". No, instead he sneakily changed the robot love interest into a female robot as if I wouldn't notice. Just sort of swept away the gay bits as something totally unneeded and just mucking up the narrative. Also that's not the plot of my story, I have no idea where this virus thing came from.

(Also note that the female robot can't be robotic-like at all. Must preserve the average straight-man sex drive at all costs I guess)

He then finished his email basically saying that I should remove everything that 'traditional publishers' don't like (aka the queer parts) and make it easier for 'your average reader' to digest and my book will be good as published!

When I said this email changed my life I meant it. Because it made me realize I'd rather be self published and unknown than traditionally publish milquetoast trash like he suggested. Like holy fuck. If I removed all of the "Difficult" to digest stories out of Echo of the Larkspur then there wouldn't be a book left!

So here I am. Self publishing my Marzipan Modern Art Owl of a book. I know it'll never see the inside of a bookstore or top the charts on Goodreads but hey, I'd rather it speak to one person than have a thousand people get excited for the part where the male lead teaches the lady robot how to be human (via his penis).

If a Queer Sci-fi/Romance/Mystery novel sounds like your jam then consider preordering it!

Looking for something to read now? Can't afford the book? Willing to read in exchange for an honest review? You can join my ARC book readers here!

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most important part of the writing process actually is when you loop a single song on max volume and stare at the word document and imagine the characters doing things for 14 hours. this is known as getting in the zone

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I threw this up right before I left on road trip last week (it was for a funeral, but it was a nice time all things considered) and forgot to post about it. So…

My cosmic horror short, YOU AND I ARE ETERNAL is up on itchio! An oracle is sent find an ancient power for the empire, except he intends to use it himself to bring silence back to the cosmos.🌟

It was originally part of the space horror anthology, Astrophobia: An Anthology of Space Horror curated by Vesper Doom!

This version has new formatting and another piece of art inside! And, it's 50% off (making it 50 cents! Wow!) this month as part of my Pride Sale going on over at itchio!

Check it out!!

EDIT: okay, it seems like you cannot buy it for 50 cents because of itchio and processing fees. I'm not taking it out of the bundle its in, so I guess it's just here in the bundle unless you wanna tip! Sorry about that.

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I fucking love repetitive lines that change meaning over a piece of writing yes slay

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I've been guilty of this in the past, but I'm old now, and tired of seeing a bunch of little shits on every author's post going "okay so you mention the representation and some tropes, but what is it ABOUT???" Gee, if only there was some way for us to figure out what the book is about beyond the author-provided trope map? Mayhaps the author-provided link to where the book is being sold, which also contains the blurb? Maybe we do an ounce of work instead of filling ops replies with the same comment?

Maybe we can also acknowledge that trope map/rep-based book advertising gets more attention, and far too many people will see a promo post with full blurb and go "hmmm that's too many words." Maybe we can acknowledge that self-pubbed authors are working with a very different beast in the publishing industry and might need to promo their books in ways you don't prefer, and you yourself can help by clinking a single link? I promise, in the time it takes for you to bitch about a struggling author marketing via a trope map, you could have already read the blurb.

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ohhh we love a good “forced to torture your friend while undercover as a bad guy” don’t we

like. when you meet their eyes and you both know you have to do it and you have to do it well

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if i was trapped in the time loop i would do the correct sequence of actions to break out of the time loop on my first try, thus resulting in me unaware of there being a time loop in the first place

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jk i immediately came up with a good name false alarm

playing around with a sci-fi odyssey themed story idea, think it might be a serial release story once i get a few chapters written. the hard part: i need to name my MC so i can write the beginning bits to get a feel for it.

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playing around with a sci-fi odyssey themed story idea, think it might be a serial release story once i get a few chapters written. the hard part: i need to name my MC so i can write the beginning bits to get a feel for it.