I've been posting my novel, Love Minus Zero, free of cost at AO3. We're four chapters in; if you're interested in reading more porn in my style I'd recommend checking it out.
Love Minus Zero
"A love story with major consequences. Tristan Lind is a dropout artist with movie star parents and a mother running for President of the United States. Eli Murphy is a trans political science major at Princeton with high ambitions. When the two of them meet at an art exhibit, sparks fly and don't stop, even when circumstances should keep them apart."
Read it here (Tumblr's link function is broken again): https://archiveofourown.org/works/63879073/chapters/163825372
Hi there! Welcome to Royal Flowers, the blog for all things related to our project!
What is our project?
Royal Flowers (or the Flower Gardens) is a book series in planning about one of my favorite things: gay royalty! More information will be in a different post, but what does Royal Flowers include? Well, let me tell you!
We have two main couples, Amara/Maeve and Nikandr/Andrei! We also have a number of other background characters, including a nonbinary pirate named Felix!
If you’re interested in lgbtq+ fantasy with plenty of adventure and lots of ups and downs, join us here as we go along, and come along with us!
Members of the project: @sky-neverending @twistyyyyyyyyboo @chancellor-reno5 as well as Isla and Shoto!!
just realized i’ve never shared my original work here so uh, here’s a bit of the first chapter! if you want to see or know more, let me know!!!
here’s the premise, and the little bit is under the read more!
so basically it’s about a teenage prince named Charlie, and the son of the royal photographer, Lucas. Lucas teaches Charlie how to live a normal life and what it means to be his own person, and the two fall for each other.
ok here’s the beginning!!
There are rules when it comes to being a Prince. For one, sit up straight.
Charlie was already failing rule one.
His mother coughed at him, pressing her fingers into his back and sending an apologetic look to the photographer across the room. Sighing, Charlie straightened up, his upper back aching from the position he had been in for the past hour.
He let his eyes dart around the room, exploring his surroundings for the tenth time. It was relatively empty, a large arching ceiling making the space seem larger than it was. Antique furniture was scattered near the windows and walls, including the patterned red couch Charlie and his family were currently sitting on. Most of the space was taken by camera equipment and a large horde of staff ready to rush forward and deliver anything he or the royal family needed.
This is an anthology of original stories written by fanfic writers. One of them is my own. For so long, fanfic writers have been discouraged from sharing their links to fandom in the original stories world and from disclosing they write fic to the publishing industry. Fic writers have been told many things. We're told we are inferior writers. We're told fic isn't real writing, but practice for originals and, simultaneously, that our originals will never fly because we cling to our beloved tropes and the conventions of our genre.
I took these things to heart, for a long time, even as I knew there was an audience out there for the kinds of stories I wrote. Folks who would love the slower, more character driven adventures I wrote with fluff scenes interspersed throughout the action. Who consumed character studies and emotional prose as if they were as necessary to life as food and water. Who were desperate for the sort of inclusiveness in origfic that fanfic has always had. The same inclusivity the publishing industry has barely begun to tap into.
So many of my fandom friends can point to a 200k word story they swear is better than any published novel and that it would suffer greatly from being forced into the 100k word or less box Big 6 publishers insist on to reduce risk.
It can seem impossible to get your name and your words in print when you want to tell your stories, not those of the publishing industry, and you don't want to stop writing fic, much less renounce it. Self publishing, too, can seem like an insurmountable mountain of work and self-promo.
I could sit here and talk about indie presses and niche zines and how they are, for the most part, a friendlier place for fanfic writers, but I mostly want to get the word out that there are two (that I know of) who specifically only take on fanfic writers and have built platforms around supporting those of us who want to be published: Duck Prints Press (@duckprintspress) and OFIC Mag (@oficmag).
In the interest of full disclosure, I am both published with Duck Prints Press and became a part of the editorial staff after my story and contract were finalized for printing. I don't speak now as a staff member, but the author I am. I don't ever want to hoard opportunities, because we all benefit when there are more stories out there for us to read. I've got no affiliation with OFIC Magazine and haven't submitted a story to them (yet), but they appeared on my wall and inspired this post.
I truly, deeply, down into my very core, believe in the missions of these companies and want to see them succeed (it's why I accepted a staff position in the first place). Publishing needs diversity; not just in authors and characters, but also in style and structure. It needs new stories. Fresh stories. The kinds millions of fandom folk already love to read. We don't need to grow out of our tropes or write something to Market with a capitol 'M'. It's not the only market, and it excludes so many people and so many beautiful, impactful stories.
And I am glad there are people willing to put in the time and effort to publish books, anthologies, and publications to showcase all of these amazing tales of adventure, sorrow, intimacy, fluff, and love.
If you're looking for paid opportunities to write the kind of stories you love, please check out https://www.oficmag.com/ and https://duckprintspress.com/ for upcoming opportunities. As I learn of more fic-writer-friendly publishers and zines, I will try to share them here as well as my fic-friendly general writing advice and answers to Asks on writing, making the transition from fic writer to origfic writer, and how my birds/guinea pigs/child/wife are doing.
And, if you aren't interested, pass these opportunities along and keep on writing and reading. You're all amazing.
I don’t expect the story to write exactly like this, but... here’s a bit that came to me of Jason panicking about a problem in his situation. Bear in mind I’m using the rule of thumb, “start your idea for what the character thinks of with what you know out of your own head, then research to find out if it’s actually a good idea.”
So yes, this is all out of my head, not cross-checked with research!
----
...These are the writings of a desperate man. A man at the end of his wits, and the end of his rope. A man who (through events I’ve recounted elsewhere) is now, effectively, the guardian of an unrelated 14-year-old girl, who is understandably having a hard time dealing the realities of life in 1600s Korea.
(So am I, but I’m the grownup here. No matter how much I want to whine - or panic! - I have to keep my head. Being grownup sucks.)
Did I mention 14-year-old girl? Thank god for tea. Caffeine helps with the mood swings. And Jue Chin-san’s medical treatments help when things get painful. Or maybe Mary just wants to steer clear of getting poked with copper needles. I couldn’t blame her....
Anyway. Those help, but they’re not enough. I need to do the impossible. I need... to get chocolate.
In seventeenth-century Korea. I’m doomed.
...No, no, don’t think like that. I didn’t live through a dragon attack to get killed by cocoa cravings. What do I know about chocolate? Besides the fact that it takes the kind of processing steps that didn’t get invented for at least a couple more centuries in our timeline-
Stop panicking, and get to the basics. You’re a historian, you know chocolate. Comes from cacao beans, originally got beaten into a froth with red stuff - annatto, maybe? - so the Aztecs looked like they were drinking blood. Later spawned a lot of theological debate about whether or not it constituted food and thus breaking the Sabbath fast, which led to riots and maybe at least one poisoning in Mexico City when some priests said it did and the starving noble ladies of New Spain revolted....
Right. Mexico City. Cacao trees come from Central America and Mexico. It’s 1618, Spain’s had the Aztec Empire ground under long enough to know a good thing when they drink it, they have cacao beans. And export them.
Export them to where, though? I know the Manilla Galleons are up and running, trading silver for silk, but do they also bring cacao? Even if they do, how the heck do I get to Manilla? It’s not like Korea sends a lot of ships out! If they send any....
But China does. China sends plenty. Silver is money, and if barbarians want to trade it for silk that can be made every year, so much the better. And China trades with Korea, because Korea has ginseng. China wanted that in our history, and they definitely need it here if they want stable mages.
So. Here to China to Manilla to New Spain. There is a way.
It just might take a while. Oh god, I’ll never survive.
Deep breaths. Close your eyes, count to ten, and hopefully you won’t open them to a teenager on a weepy tear.
First things first. Talk to Chin-san. She uses all kinds of herbs, she’ll know if something new and edible - if bitter - came in by way of trade. Heck, if it’s bitter she’d be even more interested, because bitter often means alkaloids and new medicine.
Theobromine is definitely medicine in my books. Women have it, they tend not to kill people. We stay healthy.
So Chin-san may know. And if she doesn’t, or even if she does, talk to Chae. She deals with silk traders, outsiders, and people from... well, everywhere. She gets letters from Ming China, Japan, and who knows where else. She’d hear something.
And if all of that comes up empty?
...Then I need to get to Mexico. Because we have no peace in this house, and with my headache I’m getting to the point I want chocolate. Just for me.
Huh. Chocolate was associated with blood by the Aztecs. Maybe Lee Cheong could have it too?
...That is an awesome and excellent idea, the guy has too few treats in his life. We’ve got to get to New Spain.
Across the Pacific Ocean. When the Little Ice Age is messing with the winds, meaning the round trip could take a year.
A year away from a moody teenager. Not seeing a downside, here....
So I know I said I was going to do Summerchild out-takes with the bingo card, but you see, there was a dailyprompt prompt 'Paper thin masquerade', and the top-left bingo was the nine/fire combination, which they describe as 'Nine of Bows - Respect' and which I would normally read as the yearning for things to make sense or to happen in their proper season.
So instead, here's Rob Nyren, realising the Guenefyn stranger in the room isn't somebody's honey-trap pawn, she's the raparee he's been strategising against for a decade or so.
Ten short-years in Caer Guen notwithstanding, Carycoll is Rob Nyren's home ground, not hers, and that lends him certain advantages. The fact that he hasn't slept well in weeks is probably a disadvantage, but at least it's one he's used to working with.
First and foremost, he has his sister, who is as reliable an intelligencer here as Generyn is in Caer Guen. Different methods, he profoundly hopes. But Rhosyn has met the woman calling herself Hazel, and relayed her impressions: astute, politically-aware, occasionally blankly wrong-footed by the reality of the Ceriog in their own country. Might be some House's disposable daughter, might be bait in a trap, almost certainly not what she seems.
So he's forewarned, and forearmed with a letter which he knows is a trap, and which he means to use to set a less-lethal trap in his turn. He's confident in his ability to guide his king's hand; sometimes it's been harder not to; he's watching her.
He watches her see the same trap he sees, and hold her tongue. Watches her glance at the map like one who knows the land beneath. Baits her into confirming his warning, to see what words she chooses. Doesn't have to look directly at her to watch from the corner of his eye as he plays his hand. Names himself as the Free named him, and waits.
He's not expecting the Maid of the Hills to throw her cards on the table quite that clearly. Or perhaps it's only clear to him. He knows the mind behind that plan, that baits and manipulates and manouvres the opponent exactly where she wants them -
- and he's been wondering about Oisin's sudden recklessness. If his erstwhile partner is here, not whispering strategy in his ear, then a great deal of things suddenly make a great deal of sense.
She's sharp, she's bitter, she's an open book when she speaks of peace, and she always deserved more credit than the Free would give her. He can work with that.
