Can't believe I've been on here for over a year (two years?) and never written up an intro post…
Hi! I'm a queer writer with way too many WIPs! Blog name is my pen name but it might not even be what I go with in the end.
My cat's name is Salem and my hobbies include perler beads, reading, and playing video games. I'm currently playing TotK. (I only started a couple months ago cuz I was busy with other games…)
I've been serious about getting a novel published for the last ten or so years now. You'd think I'd have more polished drafts in that time, but I keep getting distracted by shiny new ideas, so five billion rough drafts it is…
I'm autistic and sometimes use my hyper focus to just sit and write for extremely long stretches. It's great until I remember food and water exist 👍
Employment wise, I currently work in a library, but in the past, I've been a writing tutor and a freelance ebook editor. I have a BA in English and Japanese and have done basically nothing with it.
My stories tend to be heavy on found family or exploring friendships. Since realizing I can't focus on a plot unless there's at least one speculative element, I now write exclusively paranormal, fantasy, or (occasionally) sci fi. My characters tend to be almost all some flavor of LGBT. I have some preferred archetypes that I reuse a lot: the fool who knows more than people think they do, the fool who actually knows nothing, the comic relief with deep-seated trauma, the quiet observer who notices things others miss, the blatant self insert, the one with all the secrets (don't worry about it), the trans metaphor, etc.
Think that's about everything! Or all the stuff I can think of right now, at least.
Below the cut are some short descs of a small handful of my WIPs, specifically the ones I'm currently thinking about the most. It's…far from a complete list… Things listed will likely change over time, too, as I get new ideas or change focus.
Genre: Adult fantasy
Forest WIP: The world has ended, and the gods who caused it are sealed below the ground. The survivors of the apocalypse, all elves, live in a city deep in a magical forest that protects them from the monsters supposedly lurking outside while also keeping them trapped within its trees, unsure if the outside world is now safe. But one day, a stranger appears from the forest. He has no memories, and no one recognizes him, which should be impossible. Various members of the community try to solve the mystery of this stranger as best they can, but each new answer only unlocks new questions, and soon after his arrival, the gods who destroyed the world slowly begin to awaken…
POV: Third person present, multiple POV characters
Volumes: 3
Status: Completed rough draft
Rain WIP: When the queen is murdered, her eight children leap into action, making and breaking alliances as they rush to find the killer. But as accusations fly, their distrust of each other slowly leads them to tragedy. Meanwhile, a shadowy force known only as Arc has created a massive, magical rainstorm that might just doom them all. Told from the POVs of Tempest, crown princess and mighty warrior who is the main murder suspect; Brennan, the child of a failed diplomatic marriage which has led him to become the black sheep of the family and who has killed relatives before but planned to leave the queen alive; and Cole, the useless youngest prince who was happy to drink his life away but now suddenly wants to prove his worth, and in doing so, might accidentally create something bigger than himself.
Genre: Adult fantasy
POV: Third person past, 3 POV characters
Volumes: 1
Status: Currently drafting
Werebear WIP: With sudden pressures from his father to live as a woman, a trans prince flees to an enemy kingdom, disguising himself as a wandering bard as he travels with his best friend. But as he adventures, secrets are revealed. His friend isn't who he first assumed, and it turns out the family he abandoned has committed horrific crimes–and is in terrible danger. If he's to save his family and homeland from war, he'll have to confront the atrocities committed by his ancestors and find a way to undo the damage they’ve done.
Genre: YA fantasy
POV: First person present
Volumes: 1
Status: Completed rough draft, started revision notes
Zidriya series WIP: Strange things are happening in the land of Zidriya, everything from missing siblings to sinister necromancers. Each book focuses on a different set of characters and a different issue in the world, culminating in a final book that brings everything together. Some of the stories: a pair of gay bards accidentally save the world while flirting the whole time, a group of mercenaries are tasked with making sure the old gods stay chained, a band of misfits try to live their lives while stopping an evil plot in their spare time, and a murder mystery where one of the people on the case is the culprit but doesn't even know it.
Genre: Various, but all are fantasy
POV: Various, but mostly third person past with multiple narrators
Volumes: 16 as of right now with the potential for more
Silverblood WIP: Damen, a werewolf, has lived his entire life in a secret community for weres. His twin brother Arden, on the other hand, lives among humans, and they haven’t seen each other in years. After Arden’s sudden death in a car accident, Damen gets a letter from his deceased brother: “If you receive this message, I’ve been murdered. You must find my boyfriend and protect him at all costs.” Desperate to learn why his brother died, Damen hunts down his brother’s human boyfriend, protecting him from shapeshifting dragons, hacker werelions, and vampire assassins all while trying his hardest not to fall for the guy. But as the two get closer, they uncover a truth about their world that will change everything.
Genre: Adult paranormal romance
POV: Third person past, multiple POV characters
Volumes: At least 5
Status: Completed rough draft of book 1, kinda technically shelved but it keeps invading my thoughts
Blast WIP: Meet the WIP that's so weird and gross that my boyfriend recoils at the merest mention of it! In space, no one can hear when the government accidentally creates a fungal zombie apocalypse that infects over 95% of the population, or however that saying goes. But whatever it is, Rak, an alien life form colloquially known as an angel, is pretending it never happened. Holed up in xeir mansion, xey’re living out the end of the world in the only way xey know how: a massive party. But when a demon brings said party to a screeching halt and blackmails Rak into stealing the cure, Rak has no choice but to save the world.
Psychic boyfriend WIP (~BRAND NEW~): Told entirely in texts, chat room logs, and forum posts, the MC and his two friends must figure out how to get close to a complete stranger and stop him from dying in the way the MC foresaw in a psychic vision.
Genre: …does this count as paranormal romance???
POV: ???? Is there an official name for this style?
#1 thing you can do to be a better driver is to be at peace with going the wrong direction for a little while.
like it is not the end of the world if you miss your turn. all the roads are connected to all the other roads. you will find your way very quickly.
unless you're experiencing a genuine emergency, dont even think about making a sudden movement, ESPECIALLY across one or more lanes, just to avoid missing a turn
just relax. be at peace with the way the universe has led you. who knows you might discover something you never would have seen, like a nice restaraunt or a park you didn't know about. just. fucking relax
The best driving advice I ever got was "you get there when you get there."
Miss a turn? It's okay. You get there when you get there.
Left the house late? Nothing you can do about it now. You get there when you get there.
Stopped by a train, or an accident on the highway? It's out of your hands. You get there when you get there.
I know all of these things can be anxiety-inducing. But by the time you're in the car experiencing them, no crazy maneuver will make a meaningful difference in the time it takes to get where you're going, and that maneuver will be at the cost of your safety and others.
This is a reminder for those who handmake Christmas presents that now is not too early to start. It may in fact be a good time to start if you have a lot to make/your craft takes a long time. You should maybe start it now, whether that's brainstorming or actually doing the crafts!
90% of google search ai summaries feel like this guy leaning uncomfortably over your shoulder and pointing at stuff on your screen reading out the exact same text you're already looking at
maybe i like pulling out my debit card instead of using apple pay. maybe i like untangling my wired headphones. maybe i like typing something into the search bar instead of using siri or whatever. maybe i like curating my own social media feeds over an algorithm. i just don’t think everything has to be perfectly streamlined and efficient i like it when things feel tethered to the real world.
Wow, love how Tumblr doesn't seem to show me when I have new asks. Will get to them eventually. I wasn't ignoring anyone. I just didn't know anything was in there...
being a humanities major who’s friends with stem majors is so funny because you’ll ask your friends what they’re doing today and they’re like “UGH it’s so stressful i have to stabilize the reactor core for my nuclear power midterm and then i have to build the supercomputer from i have no mouth yet i must scream for my electrical engineering homework :/ what about you” and you’re like “oh well i have to read a fun little book and write an essay about gender.” and they still think you have it worse
Being a stem major who's friends with humanities majors is ALSO funny bc you ask what's goin on with them and they're like "oh yeah my day's pretty good! I only have to read 50 pages for this one class today and half a book for another one. It's much better than last week where I read three books and wrote a 10 page paper about their overlapping motifs for one class while also researching a niche period of time that our library doesn't have any resources on. How's it been for you?" and you're like "oh I have a lil packet of fun math puzzles due tomorrow." and they look at you like you're carrying the weight of the universe on your back
This is your reminder that just because something falls within the skillset you've practiced, so you can do it and you don't find it particularly hard or stressful relative to other things, it doesn't mean it isn't actually hard work you should be proud of yourself for accomplishing!
Today I woke up at 2 AM. Instead of falling back asleep my brain decided to conjure up these images which haunted my mind palace until properly expelled
This seems to have vibed with a lot of folks, so as encouragement: after posting this, I did in fact write a whole chapter. So you can do it too! You ARE capable of putting sentences together!
#the fact that 'can prove access to an online account at least 12 years old' or even 'account to be verified is itself fully 18 years old'#AREN'T accepted methods of age verification is such a telling sign of what the real purpose of age-gating laws is:#data harvesting and deanonymization and the buildout of state-controllable ways to restrict both content and internet access itself en masse (via @shinelikethunder )
I know i've said it before, but if you are concerned it could be real and not a scam, the best way to avoid getting scammed is to return contact separately.
Here's how that works:
say you get a text from your internet provider, let's say it's Comcast (whom i hate). So you have this text that says it's from Comcast about your bill with a contact number and a clickable link -- could be real, could be a scam.
Don't touch anything about this text. Open a web browser and look up the customer service number for Comcast. Or get the number from the bill they send you. However you do it, get the contact info for Comcast from a trusted source, like an official phone directory or the Comcast website itself.
Get in touch with them using that information.
So. Let's run the example both ways it could go.
If it IS a scam: you reach out to Comcast and tell them you were contacted about a problem with your bill, they look you up in their customer database, and they tell you there is no problem with your bill.
If it's NOT a scam, you do the same thing, they look you up, and they explain the problem. In this case, neither Comcast nor the employees involved give a single shit whether or not you clicked the link in the text vs. going through their official website.
This works the same for the your bank, the IRS, Amazon, political causes, charities, everything.
By handling any questionable incoming calls to action this way, you significantly protect yourself from scams and malware and shit
Tired gay writer @andrewbelindo - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
