A Bee Writing a Fantasy

This is a blog for my creative writing! Feel free to ask me anything about it. Pic is by offbeatworlds

[fantabee]

I wrote some gay balatro fanfic.

Superposition. After a night of partying hard, Lusty Joker realizes he's lost his precious Bloodstone ring. Unfortunately, the only person who knows where it went is his nemesis, Wrathful Joker.

Tags: bully dynamic, Praise Kink, hate to love except i never really hated you i just didn't know what to do with my emotions, Dom/sub, Pressure to drink, References to Drugs, alcohol consumption

[fantabee]

I was inspired to write a short story about picking strawberries and feeing nostalgic after I ate a Really Good Strawberry.

[midnights-dragon]

[phoebeamorryce]

Question for my writer/artist friends:

When developing new stories, which usually comes first for you?

Conflict/Concept

Characters

Setting

Secret Fourth Thing

heheh buttons (not a writer/see results)

Voting ended onMar 11, 2024

[fantabee]

Submitted my very first query letter!!! Can't wait to be rejected a million times <<<333

[fantabee]

my third draft is complete!! Just about 135k words!! Now to just go through query hell LOL

[hwhwgwhnwnwbwbwg-deactivated202]

Donna Tartt

[fantabee]

I finished editing draft 2 earlier today!! Considering that it was basically a rewrite from the ground up, I'm pretty proud of myself for it only taking as long as it did. I will take a short break to write smut give myself a mental break and then it's back to editing!

[jdotsodomite]

i hope you write (i hope we both write)

[fantabee]

July reading overview! Aka the month I finally downloaded libby and entered the world of audiobooks. Aka not all reads are pictured. I'm posting this a few months late, so let's see how well I remembered everything. Reviews are below the cut

Let's get audiobooks out of the way first, which is actually a bunch of memoirs read by the authors. I listened to Know My Name by Chanel Miller, What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, and Hunger: a Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay. They were all fantastic in their own ways and I'd recommend them all, so long as you're in the right headspace. Onto everything else.

Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater: 3.5/5. I read this as an e-book and picked it up specifically because it fulfilled a prompt for reddit bingo. It was a cute, low-plot read that I kind of already forgot about. Oh, but I did like how all the angels were gender fluid.

The Curse of Saints by Kate Dramis: 3/5. I thought this was a pretty good debut with a complex world and religious system. The lore dumping at the beginning was a little rough, but once I got through all of that I found myself enjoying the drama.

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder: 3/5. This book had me at the first half, I'm not going to lie. The writing and message really hit right. But by the end, it felt pretty repetitive and a lot more like a very specific kind of project for the author. Which is fine.

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson: 2/5. I am just as disappointed as everyone else. My favorite part was the story told by the doodles in the margin. Moving on.

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russel: 4.5/5. This was a really hard read because it made me so deeply uncomfortable. The only reason I could push myself to finish it was because I listened to the audiobook on a long drive and literally couldn't turn it off. I liked that there was realistic nuance in depicting Vanessa's emotions and states of mind in both timelines.

The Will of the Many by James Islington: 5/5. This book absolutely slapped. One of my favorites of the years for sure. Massive in scope and scale with an intriguing world and magic system and a main character I loved following. There are so many layers to everything and the ending???? I need the sequel asap.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang: 4/5. Yes, it was heavy-handed, as Kuang tends to be. But this whole book was like a trainwreck you can't look away from. There was also so much secondhand embarrassment I had to keep putting the book down.

Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko: 5/5. This book is so hard to review because it's just So Much. It wasn't at all easy to read and it's definitely not for everyone, but for me it was absolutely worth it. Sasha's drive and naivety made her the perfect protagonist for this story. The slow pace really lets your feel all the things she does: the monotony, isolation, and fear of higher education. The desire to learn and to achieve, to give up and overcome at the same time. The writing style was super distinct and captured the almost haunted atmosphere of Torpa perfectly. I had no idea where the book was going once we got to the school, but just like Sasha I just wanted to keep reading until I found out. The more she learned, the faster the book went until suddenly it ended with the wildest reveal. 

[orions-shiny-belt]

The blue underline in Google docs is the bane of my existence. Sorry I phrased something in a way that conveys the emotion, image, and syntax I wanted instead of adhering to grammar guidelines should I kill myself

[fantabee]

Finally finished editing part 2 of my work! 38k words down, ??? to go!

[fantabee]

All the books I read in June! I tried to focus on books with queer rep because of pride month. Reviews/ratings below!

Getting the non pride books out of the way first... (not that they don't have any rep, it's just not the main focus)

Fourth Wing: 2/5. This was 100% a fomo pick. I knew it was unlikely for me to love it but I wanted to give it a good shot. I can see why someone would like it, but I have no idea why *so many* people love it. It blows my mind. It was really easy and quick to read but it just wasn't for me. I wanted to punch Dain every time that man showed up on page. The dragons were the best part.

The Book of the Most Precious Substance: 3.5/5. This was a Weird book but I kinda dug it. Though it's marketed as a horror/thriller, I wouldn't personally put it in those genres. It felt more like a vessel to explore a specific type of grief and resentment. The writing was really raw and I felt really compelled to finish it and find out what happened.

A Dreadful Splendor: 2.5/5. I would have never picked this book up if it wasn't my book club's pick. I liked the atmosphere and was highly intrigued at the beginning, but I really didn't dig the ending at all. Left me feeling really mid about the whole experience.

All the next books have main character queer rep (and all were written by LGBTQ+ authors!)

Hell Followed With Us: 3.5/5. This book felt like it was written for a very specific person (a teenager who is dragged to church every week and would answer the question of "what would you do in a zombie apocalypse?" with "join the zombies" unironically) and I am so glad for it. I think it's really important for queer teens to have a book that so viscerally reflects the dark, bloody thoughts they might be having in our current society.

Gideon the Ninth: 5/5. Gideon my beloved. The world! The lore! The characters! The depth of it all! I loved it! Harrow you poor, poor necromancer. I'll pick up your book soon.

Feed Them Silence: 4/4. Yes, this story is about someone neurologically linking with a wolf, but it's also about someone suffering the consequences of their own toxicity. I read this immediately after Fourth Wing and I really appreciated such competent writing. I would also want to divorce Sean.

Pageboy: 4/5. A really impactful memoir about the struggles of coming out in Hollywood. It's very much stream of consciousness which meant it was a little hard to follow at times, but I still got a lot out of it.

In the Lives of Puppets: 3.5/5. I liked the first part, but I got a little tired of it as it kept going. The quirkiness of the robots got annoying and I felt like there were a lot of sexual jokes made at an ace character's expense. Still an interesting concept with some nice moments. I haven't read anything else by Klune, so I'm not sure how it stacks up against his more popular works.

[fantabee]

For a while there, I was stuck with my first draft because there was so much I wanted to go back and fix but I hadn't fleshed out all of the scenes I had outlined. After a few weeks of being too frustrated to write, I decided to just jump into revisions in draft two and I actually love it. I love taking what I've already done and undeniably improving it. I love seeing how much I've grown since I started this project a year ago.

[fantabee]

I have once again posted a new work on AO3. This time it's a monster hunter x monster (werewolf) romance!

Wren comes from a family of monster hunters who have sworn an oath to protect the local village from the cursed forest that borders it. One night, a stranger knocks on the door begging for help. This stranger is Alder, a werewolf who has much more in common with Wren than she would like to admit.

[fantabee]

May reading overview! +1 e-book not pictured (Body After Body by Briar Ripley Page). Lots of black and gold covers. I'll try to keep my reviews brief because there's a lot again.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: 4.5/5. Just a fun read with a main character whom I immediately loved as she romped around the Indian Ocean.

The Salt Grows Heavy: 4/5. A beautiful and gruesome little book that hooked my attention immediately and dragged me along for the bloody ride. Some people might not like the prose, but I loved it.

The Iliac Crest: 4/5. This book is layers upon layers of gothic, surreal horror about gender, time, language, and understanding. 4 stars because I want to read it again some day and be able to get more out of it and love it even more.

Year of the Reaper: 2.5/5. Not bad, I just need to be choosier about what YA I pick up. I wanted more exploration of the themes. I probably would have loved it when I was in middle school though.

Body After Body (e-book): 5/5. An incredibly gory body horror story where almost all POV characters are trans. It had the perfect balance of character, plot, and pace as the story melts together into one beautiful symphony. Highly recommend giving it a try if you like horror.

A Memory Called Empire: 4.5/5. What a brilliant sci-fi novel. Beautiful writing, fascinating worldbuilding, intricate and fast-paced plot, and deep characters all blended together seamlessly. I just wanted to see some of those last threads tied up.

Sea of Rust: 3/5. This was fine. Some good points, some wack ones. I didn't jive with the writing or the characterization really.

[fantabee]

Love Surrounds You

I posted a new work on AO3 that's all spice/no plot because I'm self-indulgent like that. Featuring a f/m/m relationship and "getting railed for character growth" as my friend put it.