So I just got an email from someone named Aimee Ann who runs The Red Headed Book Lover Blog. She said she loved my book and offered to review it—which was weird bc she seemed to know absolutely no details about my book and all the reviews on her blog are of really famous mainstream books, so it felt off that she was reaching out that enthusiastically to a gay indie writer.
I googled her, and lo and behold, she’s a scammer. Here’s the link explaining what she does:
http://www.victoriastrauss.com/2018/03/21/two-solicitation-bewares-aimee-ann-red-headed-book-lover-blog-book-writing-inc/
But in summary, she offers to review your book, you accept, and then she charges you 75$ for a shitty review and tells you oops, she forgot to tell you about the fee in the beginning 🤷♀️
So authors, if u get an email from her, block block block!!
Dad: Look, I don't understand the gay thing, but I'm not kicking you out
Me, still hiding that I've been engaged to a woman for a year: Gee thanks, dad (seriously, I actually do appreciate my dad for how well he took it when mom outed me)
Dad: But there's still 2 things you can never, ever do. 1st, no drugs.
Me, thinking abt my stoner fiancee, my stoner friends, and the number of times I got taken out by a single bong rip: Uhhh sure.
Dad: 2nd, no tattoos.
Me, thinking abt my tattoo artist fiancee and our plans to get tattooed wedding rings: Sure, dad.
A lot of my issues with being a lesbian involve feeling wrong and broken bc of what others told me... but currently my rly material concerns stem from my trans gf possibly losing her home and me being unable to prevent it if my family cuts me off financially as the black sheep.
Oh wait shit did I tell y’all?? I dont think I did! Book 2 is fully drafted, and I said I’d wait a month after completing the draft before revising it again (bc otherwise I’ll never be able to look at it with fresh eyes)— it’s almost been a month!
In a few days I’m gonna start the new round of revising with help from comments from some amazing beta readers. And then once that round of revising is done, I’m gonna actually look at getting an editor—I’m broke right now so it’s kinda iffy, I’m totally willing to pay an editor what they’re worth and I really don’t wanna skimp on this stuff (esp on an 80k-word book), but I’m also just crossing my fingers reaaaal hard that by the time I finish the next revision round, I’ll have enough paychecks stacked up to pay for the editor that I want.
If i do end up needing extra money, I might try to finish MAIL-ORDER SWEETS and put it up on Amazon. Idk, I’ll have to look up Ao3 rules about having content on there that’s also available for sale—I don’t want to take down free shit ive already posted bc that just seems mean-spirited, but i also dont wanna be that asshole who posts half a story online for free and then makes you pay for the rest—and Im pretty sure Ao3 has strict rules against that anyway. But i could make it a more optional thing, like “hey, you can read it for free online here, but if u wanna support me with a buck or two and also have this sexy story available on ur kindle, go to amazon!” Idk, that’s a nice little fantasy to have.
But also, while I’m working on revising BLOODBATH, I’m probably gonna be ping-ponging across all sorts of projects. A lot of them are porn, admittedly. I might end up putting bits and pieces online—most likely that’s gonna happen on my website, stephanie-ahn-books.com . Tumblr has been instrumental for me in finding my people and craft and I’ll always be grateful for that, but y’all, this place has horrible format for posting writing. So if you really enjoy my shit and wanna see more but dont want the hassle of checking tumblr or twitter and scrolling past reblogs and shit, go subscribe to my newsletter!
Uhhhh I think that’s it??
Oh, but also—I did just draft a whole new chapter of THEODORA. So for those of you pervs who are looking forward to that...... ohohohohohooooo ( ͡° ل͜ ͡°)
Some writing stuff I talked about on twitter that was actually really gratifying to put into words.
Transcript: under the cut:
Harrietta cries a lot. It’s a trait I specifically kept to avoid making her a copy+paste replacement of a grimdark toxically masculine dude protag. I’m aware men cry too, but tons of women in male-dominated genres can’t cry without relinquishing “strong female character” status
I mean Harry generally isn’t a good “strong female character” by those standards–she bumbles, she loses fights, she doesn’t hold sexual power over men, she’s submissive to other women, the problems she solves are often of her own making, she always needs help…
And while I respect those out there writing badass female characters who don’t rely on violence and can save the day in a hoopskirt while twirling a parasol, I didn’t go that route bc I didn’t want to write a female character “reclaiming” society’s version of femininity
More like, I want Harry to be the kind of woman who confuses ppl, but also can’t be written off as “oh she’s just a man with the pronouns replaced.” And I want her to be that while vocally, explicitly insisting she’s a woman.
(And no, I don’t mean that she’s a woman just bc she’s cis and assigned female at birth, pls nobody interpret it that way, and also if u’ve got that gross transmisogynistic attitude pls block me immediately)
Ultimately, I want to express that womanhood is what you make of it. Harry feels closer to her identity as a lesbian and therefore as a woman when she’s in a necktie+slacks. My own identity is… rapidly approaching that point.
And so far I’ve never seen an Asian-American character in a novel representated that way, so that adds to my motivation. Harrietta Lee is… very important to me.
……..wow this thread went a lot of places I didn’t expect it to. Um. The end?????
Aaaaand there it is! I don’t have a lot to say about it, except that it’s a way to financially support me that isn’t buying my book--I mean, I’d still be thrilled if you bought extra copies of my book for your friends, but you know, it’s another option! At the moment, the main purpose of the Ko-fi will be saving up to pay for an editor + having the liberty to take fewer work hours, because oh my god being a parking attendant in a hospital full of angry old white people is soul-sucking and my thumbs are so cramped from writing on my phone between transactions.
No one should feel obligated to donate! I’m not in an urgent, fundraiser-needed-immediately-to-survive situation. If you want to keep up with my work and support me without spending money, you can do that just by talking about my writing on social media, subscribing to my newsletter, etc. But if you’re thinking, gosh, I can’t fucking wait for Book 2 of the HARRIETTA LEE series or the next chapter of THEODORA or MAIL-ORDER SWEETS and I’ve got 3 bucks to spare--buy me a coffee? :) <3
While I agree that all romances in books should have good (or at least believable) build-up, sometimes I can’t help but laugh at book reviews that say stuff like “How did A, a girl, fall in love with B, another girl, so quickly even though A had never even considered liking women before? it’s so rushed and unbelievable! B was probably using icky mind powers on A!!”
Like... y’all have no idea how quickly women can fall for each other, ESPECIALLY when they’ve just discovered the joy of being able to love another woman. It’s not icky mind powers, sometimes it’s just, you know, being attracted to each other and being able to say “I really like ____ about you, you make me happy, “ out loud without weird mind games.
