Eterna

my name is shiloh! (they/them) this is the blog for my queer sci-fi fantasy novel, eterna https://shywrites.carrd.co/ pfp by @onegigglebyte

[shy-writes]

📢🏳️‍⚧️📢 new queer sci-fi alert!!!! 🚨🏳️‍🌈🚨

Eterna is an nblw enemies-to-lovers story about magic, aliens, and the terror of falling in love. Interested? Keep reading, and follow this blog for updates and sneak peeks!!

NOTE: my main acct is @shytoadsapphic, so if you get likes or follows from that blog but your post/blog is centered around writing, know that it was for this acct!

Eterna follows two aliens—Chia, who moonlights as the supervillain “Nyx”, and Clay, who struggles against them as the superhero “Eterna”—trying to carve out their own stories after crash-landing on Earth. Unfortunately for humanity, neither of them are particularly good at this whole “good guy/bad guy” thing. And, to make matters worse, they’re discreetly, desperately, and detrimentally in love.

When a covert official from the government sends Clay on a mission to infiltrate a seven-day-long party on a private island, seemingly with the intention to expose the host’s plans to ignite a global war, Chia smells a conspiracy dangerous enough to destroy the world. So, of course, they ambush Clay and crash her party, fully expecting neither of them to walk away with their lives.

Their Romeo and Juliet plan goes horribly wrong, however, when Clay and Chia unearth evidence that the supposed celebration and its host, the mad inventor Dr. Atticus Hartwright, are not all they appear to be. As they discover the dark secrets of Dr. Hartwright’s estate, they’re forced to face the sins of their home planet head-on while digging up old feelings that neither of them ever wanted to revisit—and that threaten to destroy them both.

Inspirations: The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, the Simon Snow trilogy by Rainbow Rowell, and the Gearbreakers duology by Zoe Hana Mikuta, as well as a million different cartoons and movies that had queercoded villains or homoerotic tension that never came to fruition

Praise for Eterna:

"I am feeling destroyed!!!" -director of my high school writers club, Heather

"YEAHHHHHHH this is delicious you COOKED with this one" -my friend basil, who is in medical school and knows everything so you should listen to them

"It sounds like a dream based on a person searching their conflicting perceptions of self." -my grandmother

"I don't get it." -my father

Stay tuned for more!!!

[shy-writes]

writing day 12/27

sorry for the hiatus guys i have no excuse :'') anyways i am still working on nyx but i'm also writing a short horror story borne from spite about this book i just read that was very bad. enjoy my fav part from it so far (sorry it's long) and also pls let me know if you think it's scary

"The whale fall was coming toward me, and there was no one there. There was no one left. The whale fall would end me, and a new era would begin."

[purple-dinosaur27]

New writer tag game

with this picrew, make your ocs before and after their story

starting it off, we’ve got Sammy (top) and Beatrice (bottom)

Yea… so a lot of things happen :)

No pressure tags: @dehydratedtransformer @forgthetheaterkid @rayne143 @whenthestarsspeak @aspenindatree @tayrn-everwood @frooglet @askyaphelion + anyone who wants to

[mer-acle]

nice idea :D

This is my character Marielle, at age 15 before the story and age 30 at one of her later appearances in "Nemori". She does not turn into a vampire, but she's losing blood on a pretty regular basis so she's chronically anemic and her hair got a little thinner from being unwell, too. We don't worry about the blood on her :)

npt: @grape-jucie-dog @missdarhk @dyingroses @fangirlmenace @animehaircolors @themostrandommoon @quanta-44 @figureitoutinthemorning @aceyjujube @sarnai4 @circe-puppeteer

[sarnai4]

Actually, mer-acle, we DO worry about the blood on her face...but okay 🤣. I remember hearing a little about this poor girl. (Still very excited to read Nemori one day! Don't mind me as I become that occasional bug, buzzing in your ear that there are already fans waiting 🐝)

Thanks for the tag too! I'll do this for my main duo from Changing Waters.

First up is Kostas! The second character is Adara. (Can't show the mermaid tail, but she's got one). The story starts off with them at 14/about to be 15. A couple of years pass during the trilogy and I have a little time skip at the end. Now, they WOULD have scars, but thankfully, there is healing sorcery. Otherwise...the 2nd image would have to be ☠️

Open tags for whoever wants to join in!

@steph-manser @meharker @kalea-meadow @writingingraves

[meharker]

Sooo my character designs don't change during their story... (It's a shorter movie-length kind of novel!)

...But they do have very fun designs to make in PicRews ;)

I tried to stick to the default options (that's part of the challenge!) but I did edit to make them more accurate ^^

Millie's probably the most off-brand, just because her actual design is really unique (need to get around to drawing it!)

also don't trust millie's smile -- she's about to steal your car

~ Bonus Round ~

Now don't tell me I don't spoil you ;)

Characters from this book! PicRew artist: https://www.baydews.com/ Thank you @purple-dinosaur27 for the original tag and at @sarnai4 for tagging me! Open tag to anyone who'd like to join :D @steph-manser @the-archivist-14 @a-forlorn-crow @theriu @shy-writes @foyle-writes-things

[shy-writes]

okay sorry for the late response on this one but i'm obsesseddd

so here's chia before and after:

and here's clay:

as you can see things go very well for them :)

bonus, them at the start of nyx:

[shy-writes]

writing day - 11/3

happy writing dayyy wrote some deep lore! from nyx

"Others speak of a gossak whose wandering journey through unlife ended in the plains, her dress fanning out to encompass the whole of the land and corrupt it into bogdom."

[shy-writes]

writing day - 11/1

I'M BACKKKKKKKK!!!!!! um so i have a lot of quotes saved up which i may dump if yall want BUT today was a writing day so here's my fav thing i wrote from nyx!!

"I think I am becoming something of an animal, a tight fist of instinct and hunger with nothing to sink my teeth into. I think perhaps I should be scared of myself."

[herbariumofletters]

Gentle reminder, first drafts are for putting it all on the page and out of your head. First drafts are for telling. Later drafts are for showing. So keep writing that first draft. You've got this.

[xann-z-the-artsy-enby]

Oh how i missed getting distracted in class and worlbuilding with my friends

[novlr]

Try the Proust Questionnaire to really get to know your characters

The Proust Questionnaire is a set of personality-revealing questions popularised by French writer Marcel Proust. It originated from a popular 19th-century parlor game but became famous after Proust answered a version of it in two different instances of his life—once as a teenager and later as an adult. The questionnaire is popularly used in interviews by publications like The Guardian and Vanity Fair.

Use the questionnaire and answering them from the point of view of your characters can help define their personality, desires, fears, and motivations. By answering in your character’s voice, you can also refine their way of thinking and speaking.

Here are the questions:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

What is your greatest fear?

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Which living person do you most admire?

What is your greatest extravagance?

What is your current state of mind?

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

On what occasion do you lie?

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Which living person do you most despise?

What is the quality you most like in a man?

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

When and where were you happiest?

Which talent would you most like to have?

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

Where would you most like to live?

What is your most treasured possession?

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

What is your favorite occupation?

What is your most marked characteristic?

What do you most value in your friends?

Who are your favorite writers?

Who is your hero of fiction?

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Who are your heroes in real life?

What are your favorite names?

What is it that you most dislike?

What is your greatest regret?

How would you like to die?

What is your motto?

[shy-writes]

writing day - 8/11

okay here's part twoooo from nyx!!

"I take everything Chia gives to me. Gladly, hungrily, savagely."

[shy-writes]

writing day - 8/10

gonna post 2 today bc i've really been neglecting you guys

"Is this how the people of this world experience newness? Is it something they bring to a space themselves?"

[bambistjames]

non-writers will never understand the mental illness of writing an entire conversation in your head while doing dishes and then forgetting every word the second you open a blank doc

[sendhelpthankyou]

I have a message for anyone who uses Ai to generate their writing or uses Ai to edit their work. Your own work is good enough. You are talented enough to do it alone. that one sentence may have been bad or that one section of dialogue may have sounded robotic. But you can fix yourself. I believe in you. You don't need Ai to do great things. you are great all on your own.

[of-potions-and-blades-official]

Scarred

had to edit this one a bit using some filters but it honestly looks much better on an iPhone than a Windows computer I'll tell you that lol. i was trying to use some new colored pencils i got but they didn't really work as planned :/

Can't tell you much about this character but his name's Inigo. He's pretty important to the story.

Art tag list (lmk if you want to be added or removed): @eon-tries-writing, @shy-writes, @tc-doherty, @lux-says-hi, @memento-genistas can't believe i made another piece so fast

Reblogs/likes/comments are greatly appreciated :)

[shy-writes]

writing day - 7/30

this was from yesterday, sorry for neglecting yall

"I wonder what I could forgive for the sake of my love."

[of-potions-and-blades-official]

woaaaah. new art alert.

this is a drawing of one of my characters named grigori baranov from my wip Of Potions and Blades. the synopsis is here.

to be honest i don't really like this one as much, but it's mainly cuz of the color portion. my friend told me about how they like to use charcoal to draw in black and white, and I tried it (except without the charcoal, I would have definitely given up right away.)

also i would like to note: grigori's real skin tone is actually much darker than the patch is showing. that's cuz the patch around his eye is due to his vitiligo. i encourage you guys to learn about it if you don't know about it :)

tag list for art: @eon-tries-writing, @shy-writes, @tc-doherty, @lux-says-hi, @memento-genistas long time no see guys! ask to be added/removed

[shy-writes]

writing day - 7/24

happy writing day to you all, here's a lesson in modesty as understood by chia, who is very demure and mindful. from nyx

"Or maybe the water just vaporized the second she commanded it to. I’d be scared to disobey her, too, if I was just a drop of freezing cold bathwater."

[shy-writes]

writing day - 7/23

okay this week has been bonkers but it was a writing day today!! here's my fav bit from today, from nyx

"Maybe this is just how my body is now—slow, painful, a dying thing trying to crawl to the safety of home."