Witch Unmasked - Tumblr Posts
Me: I'm sad about being done with the first draft of my book.
Miriam: Write a sequel.
Me: I dunno, it's pretty self-contained. I don't know how I'd do that.
Miriam: [These two supporting characters] fall in love in [this logical follow-up situation]
Me: ...holy shit
[Less than a week later]
Me: *drawing those characters smooching*
Same characters as last time
Really happy with how the shading turned out on this.
I swear writing/drawing queer romance (and smut) is keeping me sane until the light comes back
While I'm waiting for a small list of folks to read through the second draft of my FIRST queer romance novel, over the weekend I just broke 20K on the rough draft of the sequel - because I've been feeling really fucked up about the death of Nex Benedict and apparently I process queer trauma by writing now.
(There are worse coping mechanisms, I suppose.)
Last February, I found out that I'd lost my ability to connect with my audience for publishing tabletop games, and my brain, being dumb and stupid, decided We Were Done Making Games Then. (I know it's stupid. I don't get it either.) I didn't make a single thing that wasn't for work for nearly six months.
Late August last year (not sure of the exact date), I said fuck that, and started making notes for a novel inspired by a friend's weird, wild, and wonderful multiplayer journaling game about witches. It was finished before the end of the year, and after EXTENSIVE revisions is currently being queried with seven literary agents (not including the one who already rejected me).
AND NOW, I've just finished writing the last scene of a SECOND novel, a sequel, and it feels SO. GOOD.
I'd say I don't know what demon of productivity possessed me, except that's not true. It's NICE pouring my energy into cozy stories about weirdos like me, who are too weird and broken to fit into any of the usual boxes we draw around sexuality and gender. It's NICE writing honest depictions of mental illness and trauma fucking up people's relationships, and having people find happy endings anyway. And it's NICE writing meaningful, found family relationships that matter just as much as the romance. There's so much completely unavoidable, awful, tedious bullshit in the world that I have to wrestle with as a trans person. It's healing pouring my feelings about that into something positive.
Two novels in less than a year! Man. Now I just need someone to publish them so I can share these wholesome disaster bisexual dumbasses with the world.
(NGL, I also had a lot of fucking fun writing the smut. That was pretty good too.)