Trying to Write, Failing

Aspiring Writer of Sapphic Fantasy Books | Lesbian | She/They | Professional Blog ||| Terfs/GenderCrits/Exclusionists are NOT welcome

[h-d-bolteress]

Blog Introduction and Masterpost

Hello fellow readers and writers! I'm H.D. Bolteress, an aspiring sapphic fantasy writer, working on the first manuscript of their current project (tagged as sq story).

This blog is where I keep myself motivated, answer questions about my story, and update you all. My asks are always open if you want to ask questions.

The Skeleton Queen is an adult, slow-burn, sapphic romance set in an epic fantasy world with classical elements (Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, etc.) but with new spins on the mythos. The story, as of now, is a character-driven, slower-paced narrative with a focus on a second chance at life and healing. Tropes in SQ: opposites attract, healing together, hurt/comfort, idiots in love, mutual pining, battle couple, found family, slow burn, useless lesbians

Carrd

Book Playlist: Spotify

Tiktok: h.d.bolteress

Twitter: HDBolteress

Current Progress on SQ Story First Draft:

61,500/~140,000 words (43.9%)

13/~40 completed chapters (32.5%)

Masterpost about SQ Story:

Tiktoks:

1 - 2- 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

Characters:

Serafain: 1 -

Valdys: 1 -

Worldbuilding:

Elves: 1 -

[nicijones]

Ao3 version that lets you open the 'director's cut' where I, the author, explain every detail in excruciating detail to you and what it is in reference to.

[awordwasthebeginning]

@bonsaibovine being absolutely correct in the tags

[dreamtigress]

Legit. Ask me anything you want to know about my fics.

[robotpussy]

tweet 1: "happy international lesbian day, if you use the orange and pink flag i designed and have a few bucks to spare i would really appreciate any help at all"

tweet 2: "ive been skipping meals to afford to see a specialist so even $1 helps. i have no family to ask for help."

This international lesbian day I hope some support can be extended to Emily Gwen. The flag they have made has been used by many corporations and they do not receive any money made from those sales. They are also dealing with housing insecurity and have many financial problems

their ko-fi:

Support Emily on Ko-fi! ❤️. ko-fi.com/emilygwen

Support Emily Gwen <3

[write-on-world]

[wordfather]

your wip just called. hey man your wip just called. its asking where you've been man.

[anexperimentallife]

Or as Strunk and White said in Elements of Style (to the best of my memory), "Feel free to ignore everything in this book rather than write something inelegant."

[keepcalmandwritefiction]

A cool thing about writing is that the better you get at it, the more you're aware of what you want out of it, which means it gets harder, which means you actually feel like you're getting worse.

And by "cool thing," I mean "what the fuck, man"

– Sam Sykes

[novlr]

Don't stop at your first draft

If your first draft doesn’t feel finished, that’s because it isn’t. Your finished project will look very different.

Don’t like what you read? Edit it! Then keep editing until you have a book you’re proud of. A great work of fiction is only an edit away.

[jonquilandlace]

[the-lil-red-panda]

You have a place in the community regardless

[ad-wills]

[jaded-stag]

I keep seeing people making fun of using growled, hissed, roared, snarled etc in writing and it’s like.

have you never heard someone speak with the gravel in their voice when they get angry? Because that’s what a growl is.

Have you never heard someone sharply whisper something through the thin space of their teeth? Or when your mother sharply told you to stop it in public as a kid when you were acting up/being too loud? Because that’s what a hiss is.

Have you never heard a man get so blackout angry that their voice BOOMS through the house? Because that’s what a roar is.

Have you never seen someone bare their teeth while talking to accentuate their frustration or anger while speaking with a vicious tone? Because that’s what snarling is.

It’s not meant to be a literal animal noise. For the love of god, not every description is literal. I get some people are genuinely confused, but also some of these people are genuinely unimaginative as fuck.

[damienthepious]

watching @nanowrimo within a single hour:

make an awful, ill-conceived, sponsored post about "responsible"/"ethical" uses of ai in writing

immediately get ratio'd in a way i've never seen on tumblr with a small swarm of chastising-to-negative replies and no reblogs

start deleting replies

reply to their own post being like 'agree to disagree!!!' while saying that ai can TOTALLY be ethical because spellcheck exists!! (???) while in NO WAY responding to the criticisms of ai for its environmental impact OR the building of databases on material without author consent, ie, stolen material, OR the money laundering rampant in the industry

when called out on deleting replies, literally messaged me people who called them out to say "We don't have a problem with folks disagreeing with AI. It's the tone of the discourse." So. overtly stated tone policing.

get even MORE replies saying this is a Bad Look, and some reblogs now that people's replies are being deleted

DISABLE REBLOGS when people aren't saying what nano would prefer they say

im juust in literal awe of this fucking mess.

[airplanned]

☕️

[tgraywrites]

Woooow

[magess]

NaNo When It Started: Join our challenge to bootstrap your own creativity. Write! Let it be bad! Trying is the point and will feel good when you are done!

NaNo Now: Skip the effort. Cheating is for everyone. Get that badge. Pay us.

[magnus-rhymes-with-swagness]

hey reminder that connecting humanity is extremely low on esims rn and desperately needs esim donations and also that there are a lot of cool things you can get in exchange for a donation

[thegrimmlibrarian]

PSA for anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year

[the-pen-pot]

So it looks like NaNoWriMo are happy to have AI as part of their community. Miss me with that bullshit. Generative artificial intelligence is an active threat to creativity and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in creative fields.

Please signal boost this so writers can make an informed choice about whether to continue to take part in such a community.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

NaNoWriMo Says Condemning AI Is ‘Classist and Ableist’

The organization that runs National Novel Writing Month, a November challenge to write 50,000 words, said "the categorical condemnation of A

Happy September everybody, NaNoWriMo has decided to go "no YOU'RE the baddies" because no one likes their AI-ridden sponsor, lmao. In other news, multiple authors are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement.

[no-sleep-just-phd]

^ This

[insanitysilver]

[josephine-meis]

Storyboard sequence I made from the video game "Baldur's Gate 3"!! Love Karlach.