Fiction Writing - Tumblr Posts

Snippet from Book 2: Since his mom was out, Corey sent her a text saying that he was heading to Yulia's, then messaged Yulia to say he wasn't feeling well and was staying home that evening. With any luck, he'd be back before they found out he'd lied to both of them.

tfw you're still working on a second draft of a novel and you have the almost undeniable urge to write fanfic of your own novel because you've got Some Trans Shit To Work Through

The thing that helped me go from "no motivation to write" to being on track to have written 200K words of fiction in one year was unlocking

the power of spite

by reminding myself that writing cozy stories of successful queer romance where nobody dies and everyone gets a happy ending will really piss off the fascists.

My cat insists on "helping me" edit

Am I the only person who hates editing first drafts more than any other part of writing?

I'm 80% done with editing the first draft of this novel and I'm honestly, genuinely in hell. Forcing myself to finish feels like peeling my skin off.

Update: my co-editors are providing moral support

Am I the only person who hates editing first drafts more than any other part of writing?

I'm 80% done with editing the first draft of this novel and I'm honestly, genuinely in hell. Forcing myself to finish feels like peeling my skin off.

Things I have Googled while writing fiction recently: * History of foot orthotics * When were wrist watches invented * Do lesbians hate beards * Puffin symbolism * Fancy word for sucking up * Boring historical subjects * Slutty dandy fashion * Can crows eat pizza

I would like to add:

🚗 being stuck in traffic 🚗

Why would I need plagiarism software to brainstorm ideas if I already have:

💻Daydreaming during work💻

💤Insomnia💤

✨The Shower✨

AND

Info-dumpling my poor mom like

Update: WELP. IT HAPPENED.

Apparently I'm writing a multi-chapter fanfic of characters from a novel that hasn't been published yet to work through That Trans Shit idk

---

[Set in the universe of Community Witch - my queer polyamorous romance novel that I'm currently working on getting published.] Dee jumped as Corey dropped onto the couch beside them, having been too lost in thought to register that he had returned from his errand.

"So," he said ominously.

Dee looked at the sketchbook in their lap and winced at the blank page staring up at them. "Yes?"

Their partner patiently took the sketchbook and set it on the coffee table, forcing Dee to look up at him. "You're doing that thing again," he admonished gently. "Where you have a crisis and refuse to talk to anyone about it."

"I don't... I mean. It's not--"

Corey gave them a Look. "You do," he said irritably, tapping his chest in an oblique reminder of their magical bond. "And even just getting the edges of whatever it is you're worrying about is enough to give me a headache. So stop shutting me out and just... talk to me?"

Dee's resistance crumbled at the softness in his infuriatingly beautiful brown eyes. "Is Yulia...?"

"She'll be working outside for a while, but we could go upstairs if you like."

Dee nodded jerkily, the thought of being interrupted by the old woman who had essentially adopted them both still somehow completely overwhelming.

Corey's lips twitched into a smile as he abruptly slung them over his shoulder, lifting them effortlessly to carry them toward the stairs. Dee laughed despite themself and didn't bother to pretend, as they usually did, that they didn't enjoy it.

Once upstairs, he tossed them onto the bed before kicking the door behind him. However, when Dee stretched provocatively and batted their eyes flirtatiously, he just settled onto the bed next to them with a look that said he wasn't going to fall for their stalling tactics this time.

There was a long, horrible silence.

"This is the part where you say things," Corey finally prompted.

- - -

Dee felt as if they'd been pounded flat and hung out to dry by the time they were done crying. Once they'd cleaned themself up, they lay listlessly in Corey's arms, too physically miserable to really feel any of their emotions.

"So. Wanting to do more transition," Corey prompted. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Dee confessed. "I know that I want a dick, but I don't want surgery. Eighty percent satisfaction rate isn't high enough. And. I think I want top surgery. But I'm not sure." They paused to take a deep shuddering breath. "I'm not sure I want to give up what it feels like when you. Um. Touch them."

Corey made the thoughtful noise that Dee had long since learned to interpret as his "processing" sound. When he finally spoke, his tone was cautious. "You might not need surgery. I could... if you wanted, that is. Look into using magic?"

Dee blinked. "I thought you didn't--"

"I don't." He grimaced. "I mean, witchcraft doesn't work for that kind of thing. But I know some very highly placed fae who, as you may remember, owe me some pretty fucking big favors."

Dee couldn't help but goggle at him. "And you'd be willing to use them... for me?"

"I want you to be happy," Corey repeated earnestly. "Just." He smiled and brushed a stray hair away from their eye. "We're talking about fae, so the devil is very much in the details here. You'd need to take time to decide what you do and don't want."

Dee nodded. "I will. And." They picked anxiously at his shirt. "You'll still want to have sex with me? If that's what I want?"

"No surgery means no nerve damage, which means playing with your nipples will still be just as fun. Not to mention..." Corey smiled wolfishly. "Getting to figure out what makes you come all over again sounds pretty hot."

Dee laughed tremulously as the tight knot of anxiety inside them finally began to loosen. "I should have known you'd get hot and bothered about getting to do more research."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Corey shot back, his eyes gleaming mischievously. "There are so many questions that need answering. How will you feel about handjobs? Blowjobs? Do you still want me to fuck you, or would you rather fuck me?"

Dee's mouth went dry as they were hit with a sudden mental image of Corey moaning in pleasure as their cock slid into him - something they hadn't even known they wanted until he said it.

"See?" he said smugly, pulling them down into a long slow kiss. "Research is great."

tfw you're still working on a second draft of a novel and you have the almost undeniable urge to write fanfic of your own novel because you've got Some Trans Shit To Work Through

Me, finishing a first draft: Yes. This is very good. This time, I have created something perfect.

[several weeks later, coming back to do edits]

Me: Jesus Christ.

Fucking hell

Yes. This. Forever.

the ever terrifying and exhausting cycle of “i don’t want to share my writing bc it feels disheartening when not many people are interested in it” and “i have to post the writing for people to become interested in it”

Snippet from my queer polyamorous romance novel, Community Witch - an unapologetically trope-y, cozy, and relationship-driven romance story about the healing from trauma, found family, and joyful queer relationships. (Looking to publish next year.) --- Aspen snorted. “What am I even going to do about tonight? I don’t know that it’s a date, but if it is… what do I do about coffee with Rav next week?”

Becks’ answering sigh was a mix of fond and exasperated. “First, it’s coffee, not a betrothal. Second, porque no los dos?”

“What?”

“It means ‘why not both’.”

“I know perfectly well what it means. But--”

Becks cut Aspen off. “You can date more than one person.”

Aspen scoffed. “I’m still not convinced I’m not too much of a disaster for one relationship, let alone two.”

“Look. Stop being a weirdo and go get dinner with the hot jock, okay?” Aspen heard Rachel yell something in the background, which Becks then repeated for Aspen’s benefit. “And send photos.”“I will not,” Aspen said firmly, then hung up.

Me: I want to see a variety of character types and backgrounds. Is that what you have, or do you have another queer with anxiety?

My brain: I have a new original character.

Me: You're sure. You have a new idea and it's not just an anxious queer.

My brain: That is correct. I have a totally original character.

Me: Excellent! Please give me the original character.

My brain: [hands over an anxious queer]

Apparently I'm writing a multi-chapter fanfic of characters from a novel that hasn't been published yet to work through That Trans Shit idk

Part 2 is up on AO3!

Kissing, as it usually did, led to other things. (Even after more than two years together Corey and Dee still struggled to keep their hands off one another when given the opportunity.) Corey was almost unbearably sweet as he undressed Dee, asking if they'd wanted to leave their binder on (they didn't) and urging them to tell him if something felt wrong.

However, while Dee wouldn't have said that anything felt wrong, exactly, neither did it feel right. Corey was doing all the things that used to drive them wild, but the physical sensations felt as if they were coming from a million miles away. As if they were happening to someone else. Their body gasped and moaned at his touch, but it didn't feel like it meant anything.

Read the whole thing on AO3

Read Part 1 here

Past Me, when I first realized how much my writing gave away about my anxiety, neuroses, and trauma

Now Me, leaning into it and using my writing as free therapy

Round 2 of Queries sent

I got an (honestly very kind and nice) rejection on a partial manuscript request, leaving me with one open request for a full manuscript that is still open and 3 submissions over 90 days that I hadn't heard from.

So, time for another round of submissions.

Here's how the first round went - pretty damn good I'd say. 4 requests for further material out of 14 subs is a 29% request rate, which is GREAT.

I completed another 7 submissions today. So. Now it's time for... more waiting!

Another rejection, from the agent who'd requested a partial manuscript, but this one was at least very nice.

That leaves me with one outstanding request for a full manuscript, and a lot of open queries at 3+ months, so... time for another round of queries.

Editing my current WIP, and I'm pretty proud of this sentence:

Corey's answering smile was relieved as his shoulders descended from his ears to almost where shoulders were usually supposed to go.

What If... Part 2 (blatant Trans Wish Fulfilment Smut)

Working through Personal Trans Shit with fanfic of my own characters from a project I haven't published yet. Smutty smut under the cut. Content note for bottom dysphoria.

Kissing, as it usually did, led to other things. (Even after more than two years together Corey and Dee still struggled to keep their hands off one another when given the opportunity.) Corey was almost unbearably sweet as he undressed Dee, asking if they'd wanted to leave their binder on (they didn't) and urging them to tell him if something felt wrong.

However, while Dee wouldn't have said that anything felt wrong, exactly, neither did it feel right. Corey was doing all the things that used to drive them wild, but the physical sensations felt as if they were coming from a million miles away. As if they were happening to someone else. Their body gasped and moaned at his touch, but it didn't feel like it meant anything.

Corey's tongue was warm and wet as he lapped at their clit, but Dee found themself reaching for their bond, for the feeling of Corey's cock, which was hard, throbbing, and entirely too untouched for Dee's liking, as he was entirely focused on them at the moment.

What was wrong with them? Why couldn't they just enjoy this?

When the answer hit a moment later, Dee felt as if all the air had been knocked from their body. They weren't enjoying it because they... didn't want to be doing it. This. Because what they wanted...

Their brain struggled to complete the sentence as Corey's hand teasingly brushed the inside of their thigh, then slowly traveled upward.

What they wanted--

...his fingers gently stroked the outer edge of their labia, before...

What they really wanted--

...he slid two fingers into them, and--

And they couldn't bear it, couldn't stand the way it took them out of focusing on what he felt and how it reminded them of what they didn't have. Because what they wanted was for Corey to touch himself, to feel second-hand through their bond what he felt with a hand wrapped around his dick. They wanted to come from feeling his pleasure, because they couldn't feel their own anymore.

"Stop," Dee gasped, bursting into tears.

Corey stopped immediately, and the sense of shared awareness faded as Corey lost his concentration. Dee felt that loss of sensation almost as keenly as they felt the pain of realizing that they didn't want to be touched - all of which was wrapped up with intense self-disgust. They curled into a tiny ball of shame and sobbed, feeling as if their world was coming apart at the seams.

"Hey. Hey, now." Corey's voice was soft and low as he wrapped himself around them. "You didn't do anything wrong, okay? So just breathe."

Dee tried to do as he said, but they were powerless against the tremors wracking them. "I wanted to like it. I used to like it so much."

"You can't force yourself to like something," Corey said firmly. "And you shouldn't try."

"But I don't want to hate having sex with you," Dee all but wailed.

Corey hesitated. "I... Obviously I can't know what you're feeling. But I promise you that we'll get through this, okay? However you feel right now isn't the way it's going to be forever."

Dee laughed despite themself. "You can't know that," they hiccuped.

"Yes I can," Corey shot back, a smile audible in his voice. "You know how stubborn I can be about pointless stuff. Imagine how much more stubborn I can be about something that really matters to me."

Again, Dee laughed, then shuddered as they were able to take one shaky breath. Then another.

"Good." Corey kissed the back of their neck. "Now. Talk to me?"

"It's probably weird, but it's like... my body is reacting like I'm enjoying myself, but I can't connect with it, because I..." Dee had to struggle to force the next word out. "Hate. Not having a dick. And when you touch me like that, I can't... I can't not think about how much I hate it."

Corey was quiet for a long moment, and Dee could feel him probing tentatively at the edge of their feelings. "You've been having these feelings for a long time, haven't you?" He finally asked. When Dee nodded miserably and tried to curl up even more, he wrapped his arms tightly around their waist. "You're okay. I'm not upset."

"It's not you! It's me! It's everything I grew up with telling me that I'm gross, and awful, and disgusting. And the Pope saying I'm a fucking war crime for having those feelings."

"Okay. Well. Can you turn and look at me here?"

Grudgingly, Dee uncurled and turned over so they could see Corey's face.

"You're not a war crime," he said sternly. "And I don't think you're gross and disgusting. Obviously. So. Set those feelings to the side for now and talk to me about this dysphoria. How did all this start, and where are you now? I want to understand so I can help you better."

Dee nodded and wiped their eyes as they consulted their feelings and tried to put them into something resembling a logical order. "I didn't realize until... pretty recently that what I was feeling was dysphoria," they said slowly. "Because it just started as thinking. You know. Wouldn't it be hot to have a dick? When you do that thing where you turn on Feelings Sharing, I liked feeling how you felt when I touched your dick. And, God, I liked feeling what it felt like when you fucked me. And for a long time that's all it was. Thinking about what it would be like to have a dick, but being fine with not having one.

"Until it started becoming... not fine. So I just... started focusing more on you and less on me when we had sex. And then finally, a couple days ago, I realized that I couldn't come at all anymore unless I was focusing on what you felt and pretending that you were me. And that's when the wheels started coming off the bus."

Corey's expression was gentle as he tangled his fingers through Dee's hair. "That's why you've been mostly wanting me to fuck you these last few months?"

Dee cringed. "I could tell you liked feeling what I felt, and I told myself what I was doing wasn't any different. Because acknowledging how I felt would have meant doing something about it, and I was scared. And ashamed."

"Okay. Well. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to Barnabus. Because honestly, that sounds pretty bad, and like something we should take really seriously. And no, I won't mention anything embarrassing. All right?"

Dee nodded, hating the way their lower lip wobbled as they did so.

"Great. In the meantime... what do you want to do right now? Do you want to stop?"

"No," Dee grumped, which earned a confused look from Corey. "I'm just mad that you eating me out is off the table because you're really good at it."

Corey's lusciously thick lips curved into a smile. "Okay, well. Why don't you use our magic while I fuck you, since you said that helps your dysphoria?"

"I mean." Dee bit their lip anxiously. "You're sure it's okay for me to use you like that?"

"Put it this way," Corey said, the love in his big, beautiful brown eyes so intense that Dee wanted to melt right into them. "Your dysphoria is clearly causing you a lot of pain. So given a choice between 'not having sex because it's painful and distressing for you' and 'using our magic to make sex enjoyable and non-dyphoric for you', which do you think I'm going to go with?"

Dee's throat closed again and they had to breathe deeply to fight off yet another wave of tears. "That makes sense," they managed.

"In fact, let's try this. Lie on your back and close your eyes."

Curious to see where he was going with this, Dee complied, and a moment later felt it as Corey invoked the bond between them. (He'd tried before to explain how he'd did it, but his explanations had never made any sense to Dee.)

Corey's voice was low and soothing as he spoke. "You don't have to touch me, okay? And you don't have to think about you. Forget the sheets, forget the pillows, and just focus on what I'm feeling."

Dee breathed slowly as they cataloged the sensations of their own body before setting them aside. They could feel Corey stretched out on the bed next to them, all of his weight on one elbow. His cock was mostly soft, but they could feel his warm rush of arousal as he began to harden again.

"You with me?" he asked quietly as he placed a hand on his cock.

"Yes," Dee groaned.

Corey's rich baritone was playing arpeggios on their spine, even as they could feel his cock hardening further. "There's no you and me like this. We're both me right now, and that's okay, because I want to share this with you. Understand?"

Dee shivered as Corey ran a thumb over the tip of his cock. "Yes."

"Good." Corey took himself in hand. "Now feel your hand wrapped around your cock," he instructed, with only a faint emphasis on the pronouns.

Dee's eyes prickled with unshed tears as the power of that phrase - your cock - sparked something big and powerful and inside them.

"Now feel yourself stroking your cock," Corey continued as he started to do so. Dee focused on the feeling of delicious opposites - the soft skin of his cock against his lightly callused palm, the hardness of it against the fleshy base of his thumb. It was easier like this, they discovered, to feel their own arousal, even as they were focusing on his.

"Do you still want me to fuck you?"

"Yes," Dee gasped.

Corey chuckled as he leaned over to get the lube from the bedside table. A moment later, there was the strangely appealing sensation of Corey applying lube to himself, and then he was on top of them, his weight carefully on his knees and elbows as he gently kissed their forehead. "Do what you need to do," he reminded them. "If that means lying still, then lie still. Whatever you need."

Dee nodded, not trusting their voice.

Corey carefully positioned the head of his cock at their entrance before slowly sliding into them, taking several second to bury himself to the hilt.

Frustratingly, Dee found it difficult to hold onto the idea that they were Corey now that he was inside them. How could they be fucking themself? But somehow, Corey divined the source of their difficulty, and said just the right thing. "You're not fucking you, right now. You're fucking me, because we switched." Slowly, so very fucking slowly he began to withdraw from them. "And I said that was okay. So that makes this your dick, that you're using to fuck me."

That did the trick.

Dee moaned as Corey... as they reversed course and slowly fucked back into Corey. And sure, the analogy didn't totally make sense, but it didn't need to as long as they focused on the feeling of their dick and how incredible it felt thrusting into Corey's wet velvet heat.

"Yes," they whispered. "More. I want to fuck you harder."

Corey groaned, the rush of arousal he felt as he obliged spilling over into Dee, who reveled in the feeling of blood rushing to their already achingly-hard cock. And suddenly, after months of increasingly-maddening struggles to connect their body to their feelings, Dee had what they needed to get out of their own way.

They moaned, and Corey moaned, and they both moaned as Dee fucked Corey. Distantly, somewhere far away, they knew they were crying, their tears leaking down the sides of their face and into their hair, but that was something they could deal with later. Right now all that mattered was the feeling of Corey wrapped around their cock and the slick, incredible friction as they fucked him. They weren't able to last long at all before Corey clenched around them... or they clenched around Corey... it was hard to hold onto the metaphor as their, his cock twitched and spilled into them, and their body writhed underneath him with the power of his, of their mutual, utterly shattering release.

(Read Part 1 on AO3 here)