Idiots to Lovers, Ltd.

Writing self-indulgent spec fic and no one can stop me. Somewhere in my 40s. Itch.io Ko-fi NSFW writing sideblog @stone-jones Tags

[juliana-jones]

My co-author @writtenriley and I are thrilled to present our self-published novella “Over the Dragon’s Gate,” a dark paranormal romance/urban fantasy. You’ve heard of manic pixie dream girl, now get ready for sad pond-monster dream boy!

Summary: Treya has everything he needs in his pond: food, shelter, and other fish to swim with. It’s painful to wonder if he had another life once, so he ignores the fragments of disturbing dreams that plague him.

But when a boy falls into his pond, Treya discovers he’s more than a fish. He can also become a boy, and now he has a friend: the irrepressible Eli. During secret meetings in the garden surrounding the pond, Treya and Eli forge a bond that even dark magic can’t break. But when Eli starts asking questions about who and what Treya is, the two of them discover that questions are dangerous, answers have a cost, and their fates depend on unraveling the mystery of Treya’s past.

Comps: It has "That Story Isn't the Story" vibes mixed with "Room."

Word count: 44k

Get it:

Ko-fi

Itch.io

Books2Read

Review it:

Goodreads

Storygraph

Content warnings: violence, death, gaslighting, amnesia, mind control, underage drinking, implied/referenced drug use, car accidents, child neglect, child abuse, murder, kidnapping, imprisonment, suicide attempt

“…[A] delightful read, full of magic and touching moments of humanity in the face of darkness.”

~Arista A. Holmes, author of the Fey Touched Trilogy

“This is a rollercoaster… There are thrilling twists and turns, enough mystery to keep you going, and a satisfying payoff at the end.”

~E, Goodreads review

“It’s got… a lush fairytale manner about it but hides dark secrets.”

~Oliver Ferrie, author of Sugar People

[organicclownfarm]

I love dandelions as a symbol of resilience. You're going to get through this 🌻💝

available on redbubble

[official-dandelion-posts]

Official dandelion post

[windwardstar]

[Image description: a drawing of dandelions framed with the words: the horrors persist but so do i. End description]

[mswyrr]

[sea-mists]

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

[queriesntheories]

Reblogging this with these tags because oh my goodness

To the person I reblogged this from THANK YOU i am now going to stick this on my pinboard where I’m gonna see it every single day

“Life is long and beautiful if you make it so”

[wifegideonnav]

gonna be honest i don’t know how many more ‘enter the 6 digit code we sent to your phone’s i got left in me

[nongunktional]

if youve ever written a fight scene longer than like 300 words you'll have quickly discovered that there's a finite number of words to describe a Hit and 90% of your brainpower and wordhippo searches will be dedicated to squeezing out new ones

[nongunktional]

i think have to is a strong word but carry on i guess

[minovskyy]

you have to.

[beardedmrbean]

[moviesludge]

My beloved options

[blumineck]

Be yourself as best you can whenever you can.

[depsidase]

[quasi-normalcy]

Comparisons to 1930s Germany are actually entirely too flattering to Americans. Germany had just lost a war, been subjected to crushing reparations, and undergone economic collapse and hyper inflation, and even then, Hitler never won a majority of the vote. What the fuck is America's excuse?

[kurulover]

I hate that when you’re stressed enough your body just starts falling apart. I think it should realize you’re already stressed and don’t need that and start functioning better actually

[kurulover]

[lastoneout]

Sorry we really went from free the nipple, take back the night, slut walks, and ending gender/sex segregation in sports being fucking milquetoast feminism 101 concepts to fucking girl dinner and "I just worry about fairness if we let trans girls play against cis ones" and "it was right of that woman to call the cops on a black man for existing near here in public during the day time because men are all violent monsters" and "radical feminism isn't transphobic we just need to kill all men including trans ones those oppressive traitors" and I will legit never be able to be normal about it. What the FUCK happened. I'd say I wonder what the feminists of my youth would say about this but I'm one and lemme tell ya I want to throw up. Go fucking read bell hooks or do something else useful please because all of this learned helplessness, gender essentialism, and transphobia dressed up as feminism is actively holding us back.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I hate I when I get an idea for a novel. Like oh no here starts the slow sad slip n’ slide to dissapointment again.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You ever been 30,000 words and hundreds of research hours into a project when you realize hey wait a minute. I don’t like this. This is bad.

[fassina]

Ok adding to this though that even though it is extremely relatable, this is a KNOWN thing with professional writing. 10k is often referred to as "having a pot boiling" or "having a stew" - it's the point where you often see an idea coming together and it's exciting! But THEN... 30k-50k is the point where that fun has to start coming together. In theatre, it's usually week 3 of a 5 week rehearsal period where you have to stop talking about the play and really get it all up on its feet and cohesive. In art, it's committing to what are going to be the final visible layers of colour and texture, in sculpture the moment where you're truly at the point of no return with carving out the shape.

It usually feels really bad. Because this is the point it becomes real craft. It's so, so difficult to really be able to identify if it's truly not going to be anything or you're just in the hardest part of the process, and really the only way to know is to... write through it. Write it badly. Or, if you really can't, put it in a drawer and come back to it after a few months of breathing space. Remember, you can fix so much in the edit, but you can't fix nothing!

(I say, fully looking at my latest draft of my book and considering throwing it in the bin. But my editor said exactly this to me, so I'm passing it along.)

[tjalexandernyc]

this is 100% true. I've written 6 complete novels at this point and every single time around the 40k mark I feel lost in the woods. Nothing seems to be working. I feel awful; I can't sleep. I keep going even though I'm convinced I'm going to fail. And then... It's like leaving a tunnel and getting back out in the sunshine. Stuff starts coalescing. Things that weren't working have obvious fixes. I "can write" again, except I was writing the whole time. It just felt hopeless in the moment. It's not. You just gotta get out of the woods.

[ariaste]

Ah yes the Slough of Desponds. Professional author with 13 books, and this is normal for me as well. (Checking for tension issues usually helps!)

[sainamoonshine]

Lmao I literally wrote a whole blog post abt it once.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/writing-advice-1-82451675

Writing Advice #1: The 90% project completion Dark Night of the Soul | Marie Blanchet

Get more from Marie Blanchet on Patreon

[bumblebeeappletree]

Because I absolutely love joan_de_art’s sustainable city series I’mma share it in one post since I see the art scattered about.

[nchntd]

In the club

[vacuously-true]

I think I’m literally never gonna be sick of this masterpiece. I think watching it on a loop for eight hours could fix me. Dancing’s what clears my soul. Dancing’s what makes me whole.

[dimmadoome]

I just love that this very video is an accumulation of thousands of years worth of art made by people who have never met each other. The concept of this video was so completely unfathomable to every single artist who made the sculptures and yet they’ve all put something toward the creation of it.

[i-restuff]

ITS BACK ON MY TIMELINE

[hillbilly---man]

I feel like I should make a post about this because it’s not something that’s very well-known, and that Americans in particular may need to know about given the uncertain state of our healthcare system at the moment. I’ve wanted to write this out for a while, It’s kind of a long post, so sorry about that!

If you have an emergency and have to go to the hospital, you’ll owe the hospital a lot of money. (I got into a car wreck and broke my ankle and my arm. My hospital bill was around $20,000)

You’ll also owe the ambulance provider, if you need one. (My ambulance bill was about $800)

You may get separate bills from the anesthesiologist or surgeon. (My anesthesiologist bill was $1,700)

You may need follow-up appointments. (My orthopedic surgeon billed me for the appointments and his surgery together and it was about $1,000)

You’ve also got to pay for medical equipment you need afterward, like crutches or a walking boot. (Mine cost about $75)

Altogether, I ended up with almost $24,000 in medical debt from one car accident. That’s a really scary number for someone like me who makes $10/hr at a 12 hour a week job.

I got my debt down to $1075 by making some phone calls and submitting some paperwork.

The first thing I did was contact the hospital. They don’t make it easy to find, but many hospitals (perhaps most hospitals?) have financial assistance programs for people who can’t afford medical bills. I don’t make a lot of money, and I have bills to pay, so they were able to help me. I called the billing department and asked if they had any assistance programs for low income people who can’t pay their bills. I had to call multiple times, and I got transferred in circles by people who didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, I got an appointment with someone in “Eligibility Services” (I don’t know what other hospitals call it, if it’s something different). I had to bring my pay stubs and copies of all of my bills. When I got to the hospital for the appointment, nobody knew what I was talking about so I had to wander a little to find where I needed to go. I spoke with the guy in Eligibility Services, and I waited for a decision on how much of the bill they would forgive. A month later, I got a call telling me it was totally forgiven.

I did the same thing for my ambulance bill and my anesthesiologist, but the process was a LOT easier. I just had to mail some paperwork and it was totally forgiven.

I didn’t bother with the medical equipment suppliers, since the bills came from separate companies and I didn’t feel like going through the process twice for $75. I was assured at the hospital that they had similar programs for debt forgiveness, so I could have probably avoided paying that too.

The only thing I couldn’t get taken care of was the surgeon/follow-up appointment cost, but they were able to put me on a no-interest payment plan.

Medical debt is scary because it’s something that can come from stuff that’s already really scary. I didn’t need the burden of $24,000 in debt on top of trying to get around on a crutch with a broken arm (it’s not easy, believe me!).. but I can’t imagine what it would be like with a bigger debt or a more severe medical emergency. I see lots of people in even worse trouble than I was in, both financially and medically. Please know that there are options for you when that GoFundMe doesn’t do enough. Even if your income is higher than mine, it’s worth a shot even for partial debt forgiveness.

[pyroteknich]

I am about 900% sure there are people who don`the know this. 

[aquadraco20]

PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU LIVE IN AMERICA AND HAVE MEDICAL BILLS

[wintermoth]

I had to do this once as well and I can ABSOLUTELY confirm that this is true.

Get in contact with the hospital. Don’t just…sit there and let the anxiety grow and panic and then ignore it in an effort to find peace.

[lunamugetsu]

Reblogging this because they don’t teach us this in school

[juliana-jones]

@quillheart-blog might be useful

[juliana-jones]

[juliana-jones]

WELL YOU KNOW WHAT? *lives in community with you because it is human nature to help each other survive and thrive*

BITCH.

[amorphoussystem-deactivated2024]

How much longer until the utopic Solarpunk future where Capitalism is dead and we all live in ecologically sustainable high-tech forest cities? Asking for a friend.

[plantyhamchuk]

Until we make those ecologically sustainable high-tech forest cities ourselves. It’s going to take a lot of us to do it though, so best to spread the word (and gather native tree seeds).

[samiholloway]

And, like, get started now. Then our “weirdo houses” will be the only thing functioning when everything falls apart!

[plantyhamchuk]

The only reason why we don’t live in a solarpunk world right now is because no one has bothered to make it yet. 

We’ll have to make it ourselves, and we’ll have to help each other make it. That’s why it is solarpunk. 

Some resources to consider creating or joining or doing:

Repair cafes - create or join your local repair cafe! Repair stuff, learn how to repair stuff, teach others how to repair stuff.

Map of Makerspaces - make some things! learn how to make some things! teach others how to make some things!

Community Garden Map (note that this is US-only, and not a complete list) - join a local community garden

Support your local farmers / local economy (US only link)

Support or create a local Food Not Bombs chapter

Support or create a local Food Not Lawns chapter

Grow food in 5 gallon buckets

Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity (as a bonus you can learn extremely practical skills)

Volunteer via 350.org to help the environment / the planet / the place we live and depend on

Excellent-and-still-growing wiki from reddit’s awesome r/zerowaste community - great resource to learn how to live more lightly on the earth

Spread the word about solarpunk, especially to engineering students. Show them projects like Open Source Ecology - Global Village Construction Set and Bridges for Prosperity 

Learn how to Patch a Hole, Mend a Seam, and Fix a Hem

Learn how to repair a hole in the sole of a shoe

Learn some basics on passive solar design - clever use of the sun can create extremely energy efficient homes and buildings. You can use these principles to save on energy bills, even if you’re renting.

Free USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision - cut down on personal food waste! Learn how to safely preserve food. Very useful if you suddenly harvest / purchase for crazy cheap in season / dumpster dive a ton of perishable food.

Donate to One Acre Fund, which provides training and capital to farmers (making them more productive and pulling them out of poverty) in various east African countries

Donate to Bridges to Prosperity, which provides technical expertise, money, and volunteers, to help local people build and maintain their own footbridges in extremely isolated rural areas 

joining r/solarpunk, and sharing links/ideas/art/music with the community. Also, upvoting stuff for greater visibility. There’s over 900 members!

[anarchopuppy]

Adding a few!

Replant scraps from your produce

Graft fruit-bearing branches onto ornamental trees in your area

Turn plastic waste into pretty much any plastic thing you need, in your garage, with machines built out of cheap and accessible parts

Make your own paper out of recycled paper or cardboard

Build a composter or a wormery

Harvest rainwater

Mod your toilet to flush gray water (used sink/shower water, or even that rainwater you’re harvesting)

Build a solar collector on the cheap

Build a wind turbine on the cheap

Build a hydroelectric water wheel on the cheap

Get internet access without going through cable companies using cheap, low-tech equipment

Make your own beer, cheese, soap, wine… really anything you can make rather than buy is a success!

And HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS! Don’t just build/grow/mod/repair your own stuff, help them do it too! Share it! Depend on each other! Work together and grow closer with your community!