they/them • 24 • minors dni • writer • self published author (wip) • witch • Theodore’s Blog @teddiiandii • writing dumpster fire @nonsenseramble • gamer • parent • please do not perceive me (okay perceive me a little bit)
It is an autobiographical collection of poems titled Faith, Love & Grape Juice
And I wanna get some people on the hype train ( Please :) )
In return for your digital and emotional support, (please share maybe probably?) I'd like to reward those who helped get word out with some advanced copies.
I plan to go through Lulu Books because they offer print-on-demand (as well as many great features for self publishing authors like myself).
This isn’t a way for me to generate income, this is a way for me to heal (the money is just a bonus achievement).
When being abused sequesters you from the world, some people similar to me find solace in screaming from the rooftops about what happened.
Hence why I wrote this book.
Not quite sold yet? I understand, so here's the back cover to entice you.
If you’d like to consider helping out a fellow creative, please follow and reblog!
I haven't quite figured out how to distribute my advanced copies as I am still proofing everything for print and distribution (if y'all have any tips please lemme know) but trust when I say that I will figure out a way to do so (signed advanced copies?👀)
Anyway, thanks for reading, have a great day/night/whatever it is for you 💖
Ayo I’m not dead but update to my mutuals who might’ve wondered what happened.
I got sick, I had a urinary tract infection and my fever peaked at 102.1°F/39°C for a week straight. Once it finally passed it took a couple days for me to recover, only for me to start dealing with the unfortunate disposition of owning a uterus. I was progressively drained of more and more energy until, unfortunately, my Mirena IUD was rejected and expelled. So I was driven further into listlessness until a couple days ago where everything has finally stopped attacking my body.
I’m still recovering from running on fumes for literally over a month, but I will return to my regularly scheduled shit posting here soon.
So I was tagged in this by @elizababie but swiftly forgot until @brilligbroilledbooks tagged me!
Sorry Elizabeth but new friends take priority. Thems the facts
Last Song: I Like It Like by Cynnamin on Spotify
Last Movie: The last movie I fully finished was Unstoppable but the most recent movie I need to finish is The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland
Currently Watching: Hubby and I just finished his first and my second watch of Arcane. Now we're on to Death Parade and Highschool of the Dead
Currently Reading: Uhhh....Cry for the Devil by The Sad Crow Man (formerly Piper Sweeney) and uhhhhhhhhhh....The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani (follow my Goodreads if you wanna)
Currently Craving: fucken SOUL FOOD. I haven't had a good plate in do long
Last Thing I Searched For Writing: I was using Thesaurus.com to search for synonyms and antonyms because I can't often think of them on my own
Three Ships: Vi x Caitlyn from Arcane; Hitohito Tadano X Shouko Komi (sfw ship); Zuko and Katara (sfw ship. Argue witcho mama)
It's Worldbuilding Wednesday! How do you organize your worldbuilding notes?
So...I have no set of best practices for this...
For my God's of Creation WIP, I started that in a scrivener project along with all the other world building assets I wanted to include. Since the WIP is more of a character study and not necessarily canon, there are A LOT more folders and documents that detail other aspects of a MUCH LARGER story line.
For Theodore's story...I never really properly planned a world build or timeline of events. And recent shenanigans have made me reconsider his entire being and personality. He's been tossed from one fun little project to the next as a main or supporting character and has really evolved (SUPER huge thanks to @elizababie for torturing my boy with the Vahara's)
Lastly...The Saint's Dollhouse. Any and all world building is determined by whatever fever-minded tangent @elizababie and I go on while dm'ing each other. There is no plan, only vibes.
I need someone to read all my books and tell me what the content warnings should be. It shouldn't take too long. It's only 1,809k words total. I did the math just for you! Any volunteers???
Hi guys, I'm an aspiring writer who has recently joined a discord bookclub. (I'm yet to do a proper intro on tumblr though)
It's called the Little Red Writing Hoods, this is a book club which also dabbles heavily in writing.
The club is run by @fleurtygurl and @joinourbookclub.
Meetings happen every sunday (18:30 GMT or 10:30PT), they will likely start happening through a voice channel in-server.
Monthly tasks (optional) include:
-> Prompt of the month (in case you'd like to wiggle your writing fingers)
-> Book of the month (we pick a book, we discuss it, we let chaos ensue)
There are forums to discuss wips and books (they don't need to be the monthly tasks).
It's very small, and everyone is very new to the whole dynamic, but it would be great if more people could join and we could help each other grow as writers and/or readers. Everything is very casual, but it has already helped me a lot (doing a prompt every sunday has made me write more than ever before),
Omg yess!! As the little red writing hoods we're all about beating up the big bad wolf that is writers block... writing is so much more fun and productive when you have people you can bounce ideas off of and hold you accountable for your writing goals. So excited to see who'll join us in the future.
Reblog if you're comfortable receiving crabs on Crab Day (July 29th) so all your beloved followers know who they can comfortably crab on crab day (July 29th) without feeling nervous about crabbing someone 9n Crab Day (July 29th).
Right now, you have to be a team player. You cannot complain about AI being used to fuck over your industry and then turn around and use it on somebody else’s industry.
No AI book covers. No making funny little videos using deepfakes to make an actor say stuff they never did. No AI translation of your book. No AI audiobooks. No AI generated moodboards or fancasts or any of that shit. No feeding someone else’s unfinished work into Chat GPT “because you just want to know how it ends*” (what the fuck is wrong with you?). No playing around with AI generated 3D assets you can’t ascertain the origin of. None of it. And stop using AI filters on your selfies or ESPECIALLY using AI on somebody else’s photo or artwork.
We are at a crossroad and at a time of historically shitty conditions for working artists across ALL creative fields, and we gotta stick together. And you know what? Not only is standing up for other artists against exploitation and theft the morally correct thing to do, it’s also the professionally smartest thing to do, too. Because the corporations will fuck you over too, and then they do it’s your peers that will hold you up. And we have a long memory.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking “your peers” are only the people in your own industry. Writers can’t succeed without artists, editors, translators, etc making their books a reality. Illustrators depend on writers and editors for work. Video creators co-exist with voice actors and animators and people who do 3D rendering etc. If you piss off everyone else but the ones who do the exact same job you do, congratulations! You’ve just sunk your career.
Always remember: the artists who succeed in this career path, the ones who get hired or are sought after for commissions or collaboration, they aren’t the super talented “fuck you I got mine” types. They’re the one who show up to do the work and are easy to get along with.
And they especially are not scabs.
*that’s not even how it ends that’s a statistically likely and creatively boring way for it to end. Why would you even want to read that.
How would you like to see the book I can't publish? It's a book about disability and societal injustice and gay teenagers and terrible diseases. I'm proud of it but I wrote it in a time before OwnVoices and I don't want to take money away from writers who actually are physically disabled. But maybe it's okay to share it for free. YA fantasy that would definitely be banned in Florida.
CAST OUT
CHAPTER ONE
The smell was like nothing I'd ever encountered. It filtered through the hood of my cloak and the silk mask over my nose and mouth, and it filled my lungs the way the sun fills your eyes when you stare at it.
On my shoulders, my parents' hands weighed heavy and warm. My father's trembled.
I was not trembling. I was sixteen today. Full-aged. Full-aged women walked with their heads held high and uncovered. They looked at the world around them, at anything they liked, without worrying they'd see something that would blight a growing mind.
It wasn't gawking to stare around at the gold-plated columns, the silk-draped ceiling, and the obsidian stairs. It was being adult.
We mounted the stairs, my parents a step ahead of me.
At the top, sentinels framed the ivory entrance. Straight whole tusks made up the door, each twice my height and lashed together with silver wire. As we reached the top landing, the sentinels seized silver handles and pulled. They moved like mirrors.
The doors swung wide. A fire smoldered in the entryway, set in a grate lined with silver fish. We walked around it, onto a tiled platform that stretched into the heart of a triangular chamber. Down below, twelve robed men and women sat cross-legged on the floor. White triangles of linen capped their heads.
The Justry.
I took a deep breath. The smell was stronger here. It was a mineral scent, but sweet, almost cloying. I felt a little dizzy.
My parents' hands squeezed my shoulders. Then Father pulled my cloak away. Mother stripped off my mask. For the first time outside of my home, I stood exposed in nothing but my linen camise and baggy calsounds, which belled out all the way down to my slippers. My scalp felt the kiss of fresh air, even with my black hair braided and bound tight to my head. I stood proudly. I wore my best clothes, dyed red with madder and embroidered by Father's hand. I'd even scraped the paint from under my nails.
When my parents returned to my side, smoke choked the air, and the cloak and mask were gone. I would never wear them again. I wanted to skip and jump, but the eyes of the Justry were on me.
The youngest of the Justry rose, a woman no more than seventeen. The justa's skin was the same brown as the powdered cuttlefish ink Mother bought me. A touch lighter than my own.
The woman spoke, but I fixed my eyes on the crimson pillow she held. On the pillow sat a little golden jar.
Mother nudged me. I looked up.
The justa's mouth moved with ritual words Mother had already taught me. "As I have seen revelations, dear one, and been made pure, so will you. The first revelations are always the strongest." She smiled, revealing teeth a shade brighter than her white lip salve. "Are you ready?"
I nodded.
The justa reached down with white-nailed hands and lifted the golden lid. I caught a glimpse of a little cone, which sent up tendrils of glowing green like the essence of life itself. Oracle ore.
Then the smell caught me.
It swept me out of my body and up to the ceiling and through it, like I was no more substantial than a soul. It sparkled and churned and danced in my lungs, and I danced and churned and sparkled in the air above the city, a leaf on the wind. A grain of sand being melted to glass.
I felt as though I could shatter.
Lights burst behind my eyes like lost stars, and they showed me wonders that flashed by so fast I missed half of them. Underground caverns and winding tunnels that burned with their own greenish light. Gold-fronted mansions that lined the curve of a manicured hill. Huge automas, in shapes of animal and human and nothing living, with joints that moved smooth as oil. Their intricate, glowing guts.
A pale-faced woman with a jutting chin and stub nose, her low cheeks framed by mousy brown hair. Her eyes were the green of malachite pigment and old copper and the little cone evanescing on the pillow in front of me.
I fell into them.
I fell into myself.
I knelt between my parents on the platform. I had not moved except to fall. The justas still surrounded us, and the woman with white lip salve had replaced the lid on the golden jar.
Her smile at me was tender. I was too dazed to read her lips, but I could envision in signs what she said; Mother had drilled it into me. "Well? Child, tell us of what you have seen, and be welcome to adulthood."
I let my parents haul me to my feet. My knees felt like pudding. I closed my eyes, and Mother and Father steadied me with their hands.
"It was amazing," I said to the justa. And I laughed. "It was beautiful. More beautiful than anything I've ever seen. And the taste– it was like waterfalls in the mountains, or the way a diamond must taste. I've never seen either, but I've read–"
Mother's hand clamped down on my shoulder. Father's had fallen away. Something was happening. Something was wrong. I opened my eyes.
The justa's mouth was moving. I'd missed the first part of the sentence. But I read the last of it on her lips and guessed the rest. "–She will be cast out."
My hands clenched in dismay. "What? No, you can't! I saw the revelations! I saw!" I needed to taste it again. I needed the justa to lift the cover over that little glowing cone and let me suck its magic into my lungs.
The justa shrouded the golden case with a sleeve and stared at me with narrowed eyes. "Silence your child, perfectas. Her voice saddens this body."
Mother pulled me close. She spoke – her chest reverberated against my back – but I couldn't see, even without my hood. My eyes had frozen on the justa's mouth. I caught every twitch of her lips, as though I had known and read her face for years.
The justa replied, "She is an imperfecta. The law has no leeway." Her eyes turned towards Father. He must have said something. "Take comfort. There are always miracles. Perhaps the Great Unknowns will hear your prayers and cure her."
I set my jaw. "I don't need to be cured. There's nothing wrong with me."
The justa ignored me. "You may have one night with her before she is escorted from the city. With our blessings."
A drop splashed the back of my neck. Mother was crying.
The justa lifted a hand. "Walk in perfection."
My parents led me away.
#
They didn't speak to me until we were home, inside our own entry chamber, which I'd painted myself a year ago. I stopped just over the threshold, brushed by the draft of the door swinging shut behind me. My hands swept the air, agitated, too fast. "They aren't really going to make me leave, are they?"
My parents turned towards me. Tears glistened in the cracks of wrinkles that hadn't been there that morning. "Zisha," Mother said, her hands cupping my face. Was this the last time I'd see my name on her lips?
"They can't throw me out," I signed. "Not just because I talk strangely."
Father and Mother exchanged mournful glances. Father signed, "Little bird, they knew it wasn't only your voice."
"Just because I'm deaf? Because I can't hear?"
Mother stepped back, freeing her hands. Her fingers twitched a subdued answer. "Yes, dear one."
My face felt hot and sticky. Tears ran down my cheeks. "All those years you spent coaching me on how to talk properly, how to read lips. They were for nothing?"
Father signed, "We hoped your training would fool them. But–"
"It didn't."
"You have a beautiful voice, dear one," Mother signed.
"The Justry didn't think so."
Mother bit her lip. "They are all fools."
I signed, "Tell them I'll stay inside. I won't take revelations again. No one needs to see me–"
"They know you are here now," Father signed. "They won't let you hide."
I swallowed. Sniffed. "It isn't fair."
Father shook his head. "I will pack a bag for you, little bird. Go pick your favorite books from the library." He strode away, his back as stiff as the benches lining the entry hall.
I sank into one and signed weakly, "He's thinking of books? Now?"
"You will want them," Mother signed. "You will not find any outside the Plenary Cities. They cannot read, out there."
"Can they even paint?"
"Not like you, love."
I hugged my knees to my chest, pressed my face against them. Tried my voice. "I don't want to go there."
Her hand brushed my back, but I did not look to see her reply. I didn't want to see it.
one more for the road: I HATE WRITEBLR WDYM I JOINED LIKE 154 FANDOMS JUST BY TALKING TO MY MUTUALS? MUTUALS BE LIKE "I DROPPED AN IDEA" AND ITS ACTUAL DIAMOND CRESTED GOLD. AM I SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING NORMAL AFTER THAT???? HOW DO I REST?????
The sheer fucking selfish soulless laziness of this drives me daft. Yeah, great, you can get a bot to churn you out some crappy generic ending, rather than one written with love and thought and heart by an actual human being. And you can do it in a couple of seconds, rather than having to put any thought into it yourself.
Why do they think so many stories go unfinished in the first place? Could it be perhaps because writing is hard work, and that writers are people with real lives to balance with their writing?? Question, anonymous commenter: did you bother to comment on the fic while the author was still updating, letting them know how much you were enjoying it, offering them motivation to continue? Did you get in touch with them to ask about the story and where it was headed? Did you give the author the slightest indication that they were writing a story that someone else out there enjoyed? Did you think of the author as a fellow human being and member of fandom community at all before you decided to feed their story into some fucking machine to get your shitty by-the-numbers McFanfic conclusion?
Speaking as a writer: honestly, if someone came to me and told me they’d written an ending to an unfinished story of mine - I mean actually written, with their own imagination, under their own steam - I might have mixed feelings, depending on the circumstances, but at least I would know that they had loved the story enough to actually put the thought and the effort into creating an ending for it. Honestly, I’d very probably be flattered. It certainly wouldn’t be the same slap in the face that just feeding it to fucking chatgpt would be. Maybe you could try that next time your favourite fic is languishing unfinished. Only that would take - gasp - actual effort and engagement on your part.
From the bottom of my heart: fuck AI. And fuck this lazy, entitled culture of instant gratification that enables this sort of behaviour.
You are not morally superior to tradpub authors because you go indie. You are not morally superior to indie writers because you go self-pub. You are not morally superior to self-pub writers because you go trad. There is no means of publishing that completely removes you from a system designed to devour its own young, just different means of being eaten.
I am a tradpub author. This means I get paid rarely, by corporations that will take any excuse they can find not to pay me at all. It also means my books are not dependent on my having the personal executive function to design them, format them, commission cover art, and post them for sale. There is so much effort in self-pub. I have sold books to indie presses. I experienced most of the same issues I did in tradpub, just magnified, and with big buckets of guilt poured over any complaints, because suddenly I wasn't asking a big corporation for my money, I was asking Susan, who had bills and a sick cat and needed a new roof.
Tradpub is the way to go if you don't have the skills/energy/function to do all the work yourself. Indie is the way if you're willing to give up some control in order to talk to Susan instead of AuthorBot #87. Self-pub is the way to go if you want to know everything is done the way you want it.
Please stop trying to make the way someone publishes into a moral judgement. We're all just trying to survive here.
