The Nightless Night

29 | They/He | Mixed Race| Writer of LGBTIQA + romance and erotica | Monsters | Horror | Queued posts

[bornetowrite]

Check out my info page!

Call me TJ. I am 30, they/he pronouns, mixed race, based in the UK.  I am a writer. I’ve been writing fanfiction and original fiction since I was a kid and now I’m finally giving self publishing a go after years of excuses and being lazy so you can follow my little journey into all of that here.

I predominantly write [historical] LGBTIQA+ erotica and romance, monster x human stuff, taboo/dark erotica, and horror. For that reason, this blog is 18+ only and not for minors. 

I’ll do my best to tag everything not only for organisation purposes but also so that no one sees anything they don’t want to. If you do not wish to see anything nsfw, please block the tag #naughty

[pusheen]

[bornetowrite]

I haven’t updated here since April and that’s mainly because I fell off the writing wagon. I wasn’t able to finish my novella by my birthday which I’m resentful for but I’m glad I didn’t pressurise myself to finish it as I don’t think it’s ready and *I’m* not ready to write it - it’s too personal and raw for me right now and I hadn’t realised that.

I currently have a spreadsheet of other books I want to get out at some point - hopefully this year tbh but we’ll have to see. My mental state has been hanging on by a fucking ropey thread and it really needs to change before I can start writing every day like I used to.

[neil-gaiman]

I'm at a crossroads. One one side the horizon where all my dreams come true. I'm an accomplished writer, people love my work, and I'm happy. The other houses my fear. I'm being sucked into a pit of darkness where I won't ever be allowed to write what I truly want to write.

Every day it feels like the darkness is winning. Every piece I've written that I could possibly be proud of is rejected and laughed off as not working with our vision.

I write under a false name because of what I'm being pushed into creating and I'm just so worried I'll never be proud enough to scream "That was me!"

How do you face this rejection? I know it's part of the business, but it's been ten years and maybe it's just I'm not good enough.

You won't ever get to the light side if you aren't writing the things you love. You'll stay in the dark forever. Use it to feed you, and buy you time to write the things you care about, but you have to write the things you care about too.

[bornetowrite]

I brought the number of my latest novel word count down to 30,000 from 50,000. 50k was the amount suggested to me by nanowrimo and I didn’t initially question it however, it felt like i was just writing stuff for the sake of getting words down. I guess now it might not be considered a novel, more like a novella which... I guess is fine. Maybe I’m putting too much on writing my first ✨novel✨ Getting *anything* written and put out there is great, whether it be another novella or a full novel.

Regardless, I will hopefully have it done by the end of next month.

I’ve been looking at ideas I originally had for fanfics and I’m going to just go ahead and write them as original fiction because I’ve fallen out if love with fanfic. Ofc I’ll still write commissions but it’s too much hard work for 0 reward to write without an incentive now, which some people might think is bad of me in a way but *shrugs*. I feel better not writing fanfic tbh.

[bornetowrite]

it’s halfway through the month and I’ve only hit 10% of my word goal for my book :/

maybe because it’s close to me, it’s draining. writing about real feelings is a painful. i’m sat here on my own on a saturday night almost crying because i’ve prodded at an old wound and then was surprised when it hurt [insert surprised pikachu face meme]

i decided to give myself the goal of completing this book by my birthday which is the end of next month as i know i can’t do it this month (no way can i write 45k words in 2 weeks 😂) and... maybe becasue it’s close to me, i want it to be right and good, regardless of how few people will read it.

idk

[bornetowrite]

am i really considering ditching my contemporary trans romance novel in favour of a cannibal cowboy novel?

[1anonyymous1]

saying ohhhh when you still don’t get it >>>>>>

[bornetowrite]

I’m detirmined to get this new book written as part of Nanowrimo and then edited and up for sale before my birthday (the end of May.) I’ve never done Nanowrimo before bc I’ve been too intimidated but this feels like the push I need to get it done! Add me on Nanowrimo and I’ll add you back 😃

[bornetowrite]

why did it take me so long to realise that my houseboy mm story was seriously lacking ✨vampires✨?

[bornetowrite]

I’ve realised what the problem was with my original writing and why I was stalling. I wasn’t writing enough from me. I was writing stuff I liked and thought was cool and thought might sell well but it wasn’t from me. Today an idea hit me on the head like a frying pan and I can hear myself in every word I write. I know this wont be the case for everyhting I write and never has been but I’ve always found that those stories are the best, imo.

[shakarianhell]

PERFECT

[writingdotcoffee]

Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.

John Steinbeck (via writingdotcoffee)

[swordscomic]

swordle

[elodieunderglass]

Hat tip @sweetlyfez

[writingdotcoffee]

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

Erica Jong (via writingdotcoffee)

[bornetowrite]

Another weekend gone and I've hardly made any progress on my original works. I realised today that it's fear holding me back tbh.

Not being good enough isn't for me to decide, I know that now but getting the answer to that can only happen if I write and publish. The fact I haven't sold a book in 5 days gives me my answer. Even 2 of my friends who said they'd buy it to support me didn't. It's not the money it's the fact it's just there languishing is what bothers me. When I briefly had it for free, it garnered over 5000 views and now it has less that 1% of that in sales.

I guess I misjudged. And I don't want to misjudge the next one. You can't misjudge the next one if you don't write it.

I thought I wanted to write erotic shorts but now I see that's not what I write when given free reign.

I don't know what I write without the safety net of fanfiction or direction. I feel like a fraud.

[bornetowrite]

I’ve been procrastinating on my new original stories. It’s not even that I have writer’s block, I keep saying I’m just being lazy but I don’t even think that’s the case. I think I’m just apprehensive and worried of failure or something? Both of the new stories will be series, one a MM omegavese fantasy and the other a MM contemprary romance. I’m excited for both. I like both. Maybe that’s why I’m worried?

I’m worried because I have no idea what I’m doing for marketing and I don’t know where to begin. A lot of the advice online either assumes that it’s not an ebook and also seems to think I have a million friends who can erad advanced copies and review them for me and I’m like, I have 1 person at best who might do it if they even have the time.  And also an ARC would mean that I have actually finished the first installment...

I won’t say the first book flopped as I have  made a little bit from it and I understand that it’s extremely niche. Like, all the other stories I see for that genre are all hetero stories (I think I only saw one other that might have been MM on Smashwords....) I’m glad I have experience using the website and uploading and what to expect etc etc... I want to put things up on Amazon but the ToS scares the crap outta me. Someone even said that if your omegaverse features knotting then your book could be removed and that just made me want to cry. It’s like everything I write is either too niche or too taboo and that sucks. Smash is fine but it doesn’t have the reach of Amazon. I want to be able to make money from this to prove to my partner that I’m not just sitting here writing silly little stories for nothing. Prove to my friends who know that it’s not like fanfiction, it’s more than that.

Idk.

I guess I’m just burned out from my day job and tired all the time and stressed and that’s affecting my reative process. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Sigh.