#I'M A PUBLISHED AUTHOR

[imnova]

Ok, I, huh... know that nobody actually is here for my content, just what I reblog. But! One of the tidbits in this is mine, so I'm allowed to say it, right? Can I be insane about this for a few minutes, because I am. Totally. Insane. I'm officially published, and even if it's just a little weird rant, well, it's more than I thought I would get. And you can always buy it for the actual interesting authors. ;D

[that-butch-archivist]

"Dyke March 1994" by Morgan Gwenwald

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love, edited by Beatrix Gates

[gennyrthewriter]

After TWO YEARS, the sequel to The Backwater is finally out!

Check out These Other Coasts on Amazon!

(Or, as always, hit me up for a PDF. It's MY book I'll distribute it how I WANT!)

If you like colonial-era inspired low-ish fantasy with political intrigue, moral ambiguity, and a whole cast of queer characters, give it a chance!

[reasonsforhope]

Book Publishing Resources

Well, since a few people said they were interested and/or that posting about it on here occasionally was a decent idea, here we go!

I'm MC Calvi, a freelance editor specializing in self-help, psychology, spirituality, paganism, workbooks, and LGBTQ books.

You can find out more about me at my website, where I also offer free twenty-minute book/publishing consultations, in addition to regular editing services.

I am also now offering some pay-what-you-can resources on my website and on Gumroad. I'm committed to offering pay-what-you-can resources because the odds are already so stacked against marginalized authors, and publishing shouldn't be pay to win.

I have two new booklets I'm actually super happy with! They both draw on my eight years of experience in the publishing industry to give authors a leg up.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming as I hit "publish" on another good news post!

[directactionforhope]

Might fuck around and write a book for real

[marzipanandminutiae]

god I hate publishers making authors describe their upcoming books as "X meets Y!!!!"

I know it's not the author's fault. I know they're being made to do it and they probably hate it too. but it still puts me off and makes the book sound like slick BookTok trash that's MarketableTM above all else

just read a description of a book that actually sounds really good, described as "Rebecca if the Bronte sisters wrote it." the plot was, and I cannot stress this enough, NOTHING like Rebecca or anything written by the Brontes. it was historical fantasy about two people entering into a professional relationship in a creepy haunted mansion, to break a curse. that bears zero resemblance to either of those things! it's just Also Spooky!

and now I don't want to read the book, because my brain interprets "like X meets Y" as a sign of a Social Media Besties-focused book that's not very good, despite knowing that they make all authors do that nowadays

(willing to bet the poor author was up until three AM banging their head against the wall because their publisher told them "you HAVE to compare it to two other things!!!!" and finally just said "you know what? Rebecca and...uh...the Brontes. now leave me alone")

[luceafarul-de-dimineata]

"What will you do once I pass away?" The question came out of the blue, but such strange questions were par for the course at this point. Gamigin was nuzzling to your neck when you spoke, but he wasn't phased.

"I'll revive you. Death won't be permenent in Paradise Lost for as long as I'm around to stop it." You were running a hand through his blue hair, playing with a strand of it.

"But what if you don't revive me? If you can't revive me? What will you do then?" The dragon stopped kissing up your neck and shifted so he would be at eye level with you on the bed. He looked confused and hurt which almost made you ashamed that you asked the question.

"My staff can bring anyone back from the dead."

"Ok, but I age and demons don't what about that? What if I get so old I want to die to end my mysery."

Gamigin looked even more confused by your words. He didn't quite understand why humans aged so fast. He pouted in thought and stared at the ceiling. After a while, with a stern voice he asks "How long do humans usually live for?"

You try to remember your anthropology classes and what the avarage age of death was for your country, but you just can't put your finger on it. "I don't know, 70 or something like that." "70! Only 70 years!?!" He pushed you to the bed and pinned you to it with a shocked expression. His mind was working overtime trying to calculate just how long that timespan felt like.

Finally, he turns to you and holds your hands softly kissing them both. He stares determined in your eyes. "You are going to have the most exciting life ever. I promise you. What do you wish to do before you die?"

You've never seen him so stern, but the question was one that you've many times asked yourself yet never seemed to have an answer to. Gamigin's glare was starting to intimidate you so you gently slap his face.

"Don't look at me like that! You're making me nervous! I don't know what I want to do before I die. I just kind of want to see where life takes me."

Gamigin smiles like he usually does and pins you to the bed with a hug. His staff, which he kept in one hand at all times, jiggled lively as you both collapsed on the cottage bed.

"Well then, I want to cuddle with you and rewatch the 'How to Train Your Dragon' trilogy. And then we can play blackjack and whoever wins has to wash the dishes after dinner!" Gamigin proclaimed before kissing your cheek and nuzzling into it.

"Who tought you blackjack?" It was strange hearing your usually innocent boyfriend putting forth the idea of blackjack of all things.

"My brother Buer. He also thought me the dishes strategy as well. Jokes on him, I won." His giggle was contagious and you two ended up just cuddling and watching movies for the better half of the night.

If your relationship with Gamigin thought you anything, it was that you didn't have to live through bombastic experiences to enjoy life. You were having the time of your life just being close to him.

[wernerherzogs]

the thing is. i can't even fully make fun of bucktommies for their tommy takes given what continues to be done to my man eddie diaz. like at least tommy's a canvas blank enough that even batshit insane headcanons with zero basis in show's canon are like. eyeroll worthy to me at most. because that man does not matter longterm at all. but with eddie it's like some of you can't envision gayness if it doesn't fit a Recognizable Media Stereotype. so he's been repressed his whole life and hasn't lived a single genuine experience ever yet and everything he does is a performance and he doesn't know how to be A Man because he's secretly an elder sister. despite nothing in canon even remotely indicating that as he's been perfectly normal about being a man who's a single parent all this time. he literally only worries about the emotional side of him not meeting the societal/parental standards of Being A Man Who's A Single Father. his ptsd is a not mental or canon enough a canon mental illness you guys are now forcing an entire dsm-5 on him. he secretly longs to be a weho fag who wears cashmere sweaters and has a purse dog or a cat and he's only overcompensating with his truck because god forbid his fashion sense or current hobbies were genuine. meeting kim was a psychotic break instead of a network procedural character dealing with seeing a dead copy of his late wife in a genuinely the most normal way possible under the circumstances. like why are you twisting this guy into shapes he's not because otherwise you just can't buy him being queer/gay like... do you only know bi sluts and formerly repressed broadway gays in real life with no in between? is that it. because buck is another fascinating part of this. his characterization seems fairly consistent no matter where on the top-bottom spectrum people put him. is it because bisexuality has a smaller amount of stereotypes associated with it so you don't feel the need of implying he's been performing everything his entire life like what's going on. and being a Bi Slut has actually canon room to exist here, so it's naturally never been an issue. but he can be a late bloomer bi and yet no one accuses him of only overcompensating with his truck or being a passenger princess despite tommy driving him around and he can be your dom top while still regularly displaying an affinity for things stereotypically viewed as female-coded (as cooking/baking, even for his girlfriend taylor, or cooing after newborn babies like a fic-worthy omega in heat). those specific things either get ignored or dialed up to eleven in fic but he's still ol' good fun buck who aches and wants to be loved and has his abandonment issues and sex issues and so on and so forth but remains fairly recognizable and mostly true to canon every time in the eyes of bajillion different writers. why is he immune while eddie isn't why are you respectful of canon when it comes to buck but eddie's suddenly in a hbo show and not a network procedural when transported into the fic realm can someone explain this.

[see-arcane]

Speaking of Widespread Fanon in Dracula media... they keep depicting Renfield as this servile minion when not only was his devotion to Master conditional, but Mina's influence overrode Dracula's influence so fundamentally...

"Hmm. Too nuanced. Better scrap it." --every Dracula spinoff director and writer for the past 127 years about -checks notes- this and every other other plot point of the novel Dracula

[crow-caller]

Angel radio is 9 years old at this point since publication. I wrote it in 2013, over a decade ago, when I was 16. I think it'd be a really interesting essay/video to reread AR. "I was a teenage author: here's what happened next" but the answer is. It would probably hit a level of depressing real life rumination that would feel both indulgent and too personal. It's kind of hard to talk about being a teenager without it

But also. It's a fascinating subject I wish I was the kind of person to do a large project on— authors and 'failure' and what it is like years later. It's hard to publish a book/be published, and most of the time, it won't become a hot classic everyone recommends. A book is everything to you, but it will likely be forgotten. I know a lot of indie authors who published and then stopped, who published with high hopes and lost those. You just move on, life continues. But the hope you feel when a book comes out is a weighty feeling.

I also wonder a lot about mainstream authors, where this still fully applies. So many authors get one series, one book, and it just doesn't do well enough. And then what? I trawl about the 2010s YA section a lot, and there's so many series that were never finished by authors I've nor heard of, books from the Big 5 that simply didn't become Anything. And then what?

As a writer you need to accept what you have, and be proud, anyway. But the feeling of "this book will change everything, I'm an author! This is it!" Versus the years later "I'm an author. I've published some books. They exist." is.... well, it's something.

[inrainprose]

please leave comments on fanfics today and forever you never know how much you can improve an author's shitty day/week/time

[that-butch-archivist]

"Bear and Aphra 2" by Jessica Tanzer, 1989.

source: Nothing But the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image, edited by Susie Bright & Jill Posener

[kazoosandfannypacks]

augh my barnes & noble cart is $1.09 away from free shipping 😭

[theharddeck]

bergamot & bygones

what's this? a pwp novel of best friends to lovers paranormal romance novel, with control issues!older sister x dirtymouthed!best friend

Leander raked a hand through his hair and he stood up. Reyna's kitchen wasn’t big enough for him to effectively pace but he gave it his best shot. “This is the biggest favor I’ve ever asked of you,” he said to her back wall. “The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable, or feel like you have to, so just tell me, and I’ll literally never bring it up again again.” “Okay,” Reyna said, aiming for encouraging, but landing on confused. Leander crossed the room quickly, sitting back in the chair across from her. He leaned forward and pushed his glasses up his nose; behind them, his eyes were slightly wide, but focused on her. “You can say no,” he repeated, earnestness written across his face and Reyna appreciated his candor, but it was halfway to giving her a panic attack. “You have to ask me for me to say no,” she said, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile before he let out a long breath, pushing back in the chair. He looked at her from his seat, expression inscrutable, and then he closed his eyes. “I’m going to go into a rut,” he said, finally, and Reyna’s mind fully stalled. She cleared her throat. "So, what, do you want me to house sit?" Leander reached for the mug again, is fingers curling around the outside of it. He was steadying himself, and when his eyes met hers again, there was something deeply vulnerable in them. "I'm asking if you'll help me through it," he said.

on kindle unlimited, or you can pre-order a paperback through your local indie bookstore!

[oramn]

I wrote a research paper analyzing gay men in fan fiction and speculate on the greater cultural reasons as to why m/m fanfiction gets written at a higher rate (compared to any other slash dynamic) for my AP Research class this year. I got a 5. Yay right? it gets better.

I share my paper with my academic advisor because I'm going to college, he says this is cool, i think you should do a dual degree program and actually do a thesis which scares people off (one fine arts degree and one academic degree (because I am going to art school)) yay! but it gets better.

He emails me back two days ago and says he showed it to the Chair of Humanistic Studies and they both agree I should be in a second year class that freshman would only have access to if they passed the AP Lit/ AP Lang exams, NEITHER OF WHICH I HAVE TAKEN. YAY RIGHT?? IT. GETS. CRAZIER.

My research paper about FAN. FICTION. might have single handedly kickstarted a policy revisal regarding how AP seminar and research credits apply at a large, well known art school.

[mysticfemme]

one day I'm going to write a story about a butch knight and a femme princess and it will be medieval and it will be romantic and it will be everything I wanted as a teenager