#shadecursed

[eileen-crys]

I just finished reading Shadecursed • The Bestiary book one by the super talented @chaoskirin and trust me, I'm dead serious:

Y'all must read it as well.

It tells the story of a quartet of friends, each uniquely shaped and with their own quirks, who find themselves at the center of a world-changing divine plan... without really knowing how to deal with it 😅

If you're a Queen fan, Meadow, Luka, Ptery and Benji's looks and personalities might seem awfully familiar, but they're also perfectly written original characters that have a life on their own, and the similarities with Queen become just a delightful extra treat without taking anything out of the immersion. The worldbuilding mixes Fantasy and magic with modern technology and it's very creative, cured in deep detail, but also not hard to understand. I adore also how the non-human/half-human characters move around, never forgetting wings, tails, hooves, ears...

Mind you, this is not a book for children, and touches deep themes like past traumas, violence, racism and disability with depth and care, with some tints of horror when necessary. The four protagonists' friendship is wonderful, in its ups and downs as they learn to love each other during hard times.

The story and dialogues are incredibly engaging, sometimes very funny but also very deep and introspective in a perfect balance *chef's kiss*. It's seriously a delightful book that deserves more recognition and love!

(^^^ art by Sherbies, with the main characters -left to right- Benji, Luka, Meadow and Ptery.)

You can find it on Amazon as Ebook and physical copy! But if you're in difficulty, Aeryn has offered to give the digital book for free, just be sure to leave a review anyway! 💕💕💕

[chaoskirin]

It's Time for the Shadecursed Free Book Weekend!

Why, hello there! Meadow's here to tell you about a GREAT OFFER. In fact, it's so great that it won't cost you a thing! Shadecursed is on sale RIGHT NOW for the low, low, LOW price of $Free!

For those who haven't been following me, Shadecursed is the first book in a trilogy, which follows a faun named Meadow and his friends on a quest to save the whole planet! Enjoy a humor-filled adventure as they try to discover the secret behind the disappearance of a goddess!

It might seem counterproductive to give my book away, but it's got some pretty sweet benefits:

The more people download it, the more likely it is to end up in people's suggestions.

The more people download it, the more likely I am to get reviews and/or ratings, which help me with the algorithm.

I just want people to read this story that I spent five years working on.

You get a FREE BOOK. IT'S FREE BOOK ESTATE.

Check it out here, and grab it while you can: https://mybook.to/QCpQ 

Clicking on the button to get it for free is a great help, even if you don't intend to read it right now. Or ever! Help an indie author out. It only takes a few seconds and you get a free book out of the deal!

And yes, reblogging this post is an amazing help, too. <3 Thank you in advance. Let's see if I can push Shadecursed to the top 100 this weekend!

[thethingything]

thanks for the tag @wearileigh!!!

Favourite Colour: yellow and green

Last Song I Listened To: Nobody's Soldier by Hozier

Currently Reading: Shadecursed by Aeryn Christie

Savoury / Sweet / Spicy: it's hard to pick and I really like stuff that combines all three

Currently Craving: orange juice, scampi fries, and some mystery thing I can't pinpoint

Coffee or Tea: coffee, usually with some hot chocolate and maybe a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger mixed in

I'm tagging @a-bed-of-moss, @feral-bookwoom, @multiverseminded, @ephemeral-system, @cathartidae, @poltergeistings, and anyone else who wants to do it

[stumblingthroughlanguages]

I forgot to give any updates for a little while, but here's our September forest.

the cleaning stuff was mostly organising stuff on our phone and laptop, but also slowly catching up with tidying our room because things got pretty bad over the summer so it was a mess (and still is but not as bad).

we did pretty well with reading towards the start of the month but haven't kept up with it very well since then. I have been really enjoying Shadecursed by Aeryn Christie though. I'm about a quarter of the way through and it's such a fun and engaging book.

actually studying hasn't been going great but it is what it is. I still feel like I've learnt a lot just from going on iNat so much and slowly learning how to ID various species even if I haven't been making actual notes about them. I've actually been learning a little bit of the terminology used for describing plants and it's been really interesting.

I don't really have any set goals for October since things are still kinda chaotic and we're mostly just seeing how we feel. hopefully it'll be a nice month

[rose-of-pollux]

Book Quiz thing

Tagged by @carriagelamp

Tagging @belphegor1982, @threephantomrey, and anyone else who wants to do this!

How many books did you read this year? Too many to keep track of...

Did you reread anything? What? That's All Folks: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation--this was a book on the history of the original Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies that I first read as a kid when it was in my elementary school library--it was way, way, way over elementary school reading levels (it's a grown-up nonfiction coffee-table sized book about the history of the WB cartoons and all the technical stuff) and I honestly have no idea what it was doing there aside from someone looking at it and going "Oh, Bugs Bunny? That's for kids, right?" But no one stopped me from reading it then and I was a high-level reader--though some stuff went flying over my head, but when I found the same book at a used book sale earlier this year, I got it to see what I might've missed back then.

What were your top five books of the year? The Writings of Paul Frees: Scripts and Songs from the Master of Voice -- Paul Frees You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To: The Letters of Paul “Buddy” Frees and Annelle Frees -- Paul & Annelle Frees That's All Folks: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation -- Steve Schneider (hey, I enjoyed that nostalgic reread, especially now that I could understand all the intricacies...) Not Dead Yet -- Phil Collins Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show -- Daniel De Vise

Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? If by "new," you mean "new to me," then, yes--Paul Frees! Yes, he's an amazing voice actor and the best Ghost Host ever, but he's also a great writer!

What genre did you read the most of? Nonfiction

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? *laughs and then cries*

What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate? Don't have that

Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? I don't really set any goals, I just read when I can.

Did you get into any new genres? Nope

What was your favorite new release of the year? Shadecursed by @chaoskirin

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read? The Writings of Paul Frees: Scripts and Songs from the Master of Voice

Any books that disappointed you? I started Wicked since I love the musical, quickly realized it was not what I wanted and bailed.

What were your least favorite books of the year? I didn't remember anything I didn't like--if it didn't do anything for me, I bailed after the first chapter; I only remember Wicked because I sought that out.

What books do you want to finish before the year is over? It's December 31, I'll never make it 😅

Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them? Don't think so...

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? Wicked

Did any books surprise you with how good they were? I knew I was going to enjoy Paul's writings, but I was underestimating just how much.

How many books did you buy? ...A Lot 😅

Did you use your library? Sadly no; I should remedy that.

What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations? I wasn't really anticipating anything.

Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama? No, but I watched ReviewGate from afar.

What’s the longest book you read? Andy & Don. I think.

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? One day.

Did you DNF anything? Why? Anything that didn't capture my interest, plus Wicked.

What reading goals do you have for next year? Not setting any, whatever I read, I read.

[boredliondisorder]

hey so I'm about to start reading Shadecursed and I just want to say thank you so much for including content warnings at the start, but also I absolutely love that there's a glossary and pronunciation guide too. it's been so long since I've seen a story with a glossary at the end I think that's such a wonderful addition

No problem! Some people won't use the content warnings, but for those who need them, I thought it was very important to find a way to include them. I figured I could probably appease the "NO ONE WANTS CONTENT WARNINGS" crowd by putting a spoiler page first.

(and to those people: a lot of readers like content warnings!)

And yeah, a couple of my beta readers suggested a glossary because of the pretty in-depth worldbuilding. I set it as an early Kickstarter reward, but honestly I would have done it anyway. I think it'll make it easier, and people can refer to it if they get confused.

I hope you enjoy it!

[ofbesaid-a]

          ❛ please, put your faith in me. i know i may not look it, but i am strong. ❜

@shadecursed ♡’d for a smol starter

[chaoskirin2]

How many drafts do you usually write?

Usually quite a few! With Reality Breaker it was only 3 because it’s relatively short and I knew exactly where I wanted to go right from the very beginning. But with a book like Shadecursed, I’m on my 4th draft, and there might be another after this for cleanup purposes. I’d wanted the 3rd draft to be a final draft, but I found some issues that needed to be addressed.

Usually my process is:

Very rough outline

Detailed outline

Relatively quick stream-of-consciousness first draft

Second draft where I increase the wordcount by about double (this is sort of what’s called the “pantsing” phase of my writing, AKA I “write by the seat of my pants, LOL. I don’t like that terminology, but that’s what it’s called)

Third draft where I cut the unnecessary stuff and get the book to my desired wordcount.

More drafts (if necessary) where I deal with problems in the pacing or fill plotholes.

Cleanup draft.

With Shadecursed, because this is sort of my baby, it’ll go to editors to make sure it’s nice and polished before publication.

And since I’ll need some money for that, stand by for a Patreon announcement soon!

[chaoskirin]

We have our first kobold! This is Tregna, one of my Kickstarter backers' requests.

Kobolds live in the arctic parts of Erit, and are extremely comfortable in the cold. This is typical dress for the equivalent of -35 degrees Celcius (-31 degrees Fahrenheit).

Two species descended from the now-extinct kobla--kobolds like Tregna, and orcs. Both need to wear protective clothing when traveling outside their native temperature zone. For kobolds, they wear belts, wrist cuffs, and ankle cuffs. Tregna is wearing the belt in this image, but it seems she got distracted while getting ready to venture into warmer climates, because she's not wearing her cuffs.

Kobolds are great swimmers. Their diet consists of cold-climate fish and other marine animals that can withstand the frigid temperatures of their home.

Some members of this species claim they can hear and communicate with dragons, but this has never been proven.

Create Don't Scrape Warning: This image is Glazed.

[chaoskirin]

(reposting this because I wanted to add more context)

There's a chapter in Shadecursed called "Never Write a Chapter About Travel" where the characters are traveling.

In general, never writing travel time is a good rule to follow, but sometimes things happen during travel that the reader needs to know. Or hell, sometimes you just really want to write descriptions about travel and you can do that! Just be prepared to cut those scenes if you feel like you need to (IE, you intend to publish and the word count is getting out of control, or your beta readers say they skimmed that part, etc.)

So it's up to the author to kind of learn these things. Most travel scenes can be glossed over with a single line saying "they traveled to a place." And it's really up to the genre and the audience you're writing for, too. Legends and Lattes has pacing that's too slow for me, but there are soooo many people who love it. And the author knew who they were writing for, and went with that.

Sometimes I write for different audiences, too. I just wrote a re-telling of Masque of the Red Death, which is SUPER heavy on description. I have one friend I KNOW will hate it, because she often skims over description, and that's OK. But I have another friend who is really into horror and dark fantasy, and she loved it.

I will say that A G E N T S are looking for a certain type of book, where the pacing is as described above. If you are intending to submit to an agent for publication, most of them are going to want you to follow that rule. There are some out there that will let you get away with some stuff, but agents are looking to capture the widest audience, and right now, that's people with short attention spans.

BUT. It's really important to understand these guidelines so you have the ability to break them properly. In my example above, the chapter title is a tongue-in-cheek mockery of that "rule." That chapter is necessary, but I KNOW there's a guideline that tells me not to write chapters about travel.

Because I know my audience, and because I know it's necessary, I did it anyway.

"Don't waste your reader's time" is a great way to look at things. You know your reader. Study what they want and give it to them.

I hope this makes more sense than the last time I posted. The TL;DR is really to know who you're writing for.

And if it's for yourself, fuckin GO FOR IT. :D

PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

[thethingything]

speaking of books we need to read, I desperately need to finish Shadecursed, and I want to start The Locked Tomb series at some point because I keep seeing people recommending it and also keep seeing posts about the plot that make me go "wait what the actual fuck happens in these books"

[stumblingthroughlanguages]

I figured I should post about what we did last week.

Reading

we've been reading "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay C. Gibson and we finally finished it. it was very cathartic and had a lot of useful information and advice, and I'm glad we read it.

we joined a reading challenge on Habitica and have a handful of other books we'd like to try and finish over the next few months. I think next we're probably going to read Shadecursed by Aeryn Christie. we picked it up earlier this year and so far it's been a really fun read so I'm looking forward to continuing with that.

Nature, Taxonomy, and iNat

I finally got round to working on our taxonomy project on Notion a bit more and added some Theclinae species to it, although I haven't filled out the species pages yet. I was planning on learning to identify some Ministrymon species, but so far I keep getting sidetracked.

I did, however, learn about some Hesperiidae species I'd also like to add to it and make pages for at some point because I ended up learning to ID those.

Other

I've been keeping up with journaling more frequently and I think that's been helpful. we use it to keep track of what we've done, and previously we were mostly writing journal entries as a list of each thing we did, but I struggled a lot with having the motivation to keep up with it.

recently we've been trying to focus more on noting down the most interesting and important things that happened, and talking more about how we've felt, and so far I think I'm having an easier time with this.

as a side note, I always feel a little out of place posting in the studyblr tag as someone who isn't in formal education, but it got me wondering whether there are many other studyblrs in the same position. I've definitely seen langblrs that study as a hobby, but I'm not sure I've seen the same for any other subjects

[arcane-curiosities]

My Flight Rising Wishlist!!!

Wishlist Genes Alloy Circuit Current Filigree (x2) Lace Metallic Opal Peacock Ringlets (x3) Runes (x2) Smoke Smirch Skins/Accents Apollo's lament Cumulus Faestel Side Faerie Rings Shadecursed Squirming shadows Surgelight Bold Kiss Glitter Glam Cottoncandy Gilder Elegance M Crystaplate Stinger Sunbeam jewels Sanguis Prince Ascension Shade shiver Thundershriek Unchained corrupter Familiars Any holiday familiars prior to Thundercrack Carnival 2018 (Minus Lightning Lancer) Apparel Any Holiday Apparel prior to Thundercrack Carival (2018) Black Lace Set (minus ribbons, anklet, and collar) Celebration Sage Lantern Marva's Invisibility Cloak Rapier Roving seafarer's armcuffs Sky Blue Silk Set (minus scarf and veil) Other Breed Change Coatl (x2) Scroll of Eternal Youth

[chaoskirin]

Ugh these won't fit in comments. XD I have a couple.

"Has touched a dead body." My childhood best friend's dad had a heart attack and passed in her living room, so I came over and took a pulse and made sure he was gone.

"Published author" TWO BOOKS! :D Read them. Reality Breaker (under Daniella Gnollwood) and Shadecursed (under Aeryn Christie)

"Can touch my toes" I can lean over and put my palms flat on the floor, so yeah.

"Has found and kept fossils" Only one, but it counts.

[boredliondisorder]

I've been down for a while, and I don't really see myself improving. I'm waiting for the fog to lift, but it's really stubborn this time. I spend most of my time sleeping lately.

I think the worst hit was when I sent an inquiry to a voice actor with an offer that was way above the normal rate to record Shadecursed as an audiobook and he didn't respond. I dunno. It doesn't really seem like a long shot when the offer is far more than most audiobook narrators get paid, and it would have been nice to at least get a reply instead of crickets.

He was really the only person I wanted to do it, too. So I don't know if Shadecursed will ever be an audiobook at this point. I just can't hear someone else doing it, and hiring someone through some of the services out there is a complete crapshoot. Sometimes you get an amazing voice actor, but most of the time you get shit. And I just don't want to hire shit.

It's another case of people in my field just not taking me seriously. I don't know what I have to do to become valid. It seems like I've been trying my whole life, but I'm always fighting against a current. I'm tired. And I can't seem to pick myself up this time and keep trying.

I haven't really posted about this much, because I hate the attention I get just when I post that I'm down. I don't want that. I want something to change. I want to figure out what I've been doing wrong. I want people to want to work with me. To reach out and be like "hey, let's collab."

I'm happy for other people this works out for. But I want to know what they're doing that I'm not. What about me makes it so hard to connect with people?

I used to spend a couple days not feeling so great, then I'd pick myself up and try again. But I haven't done anything creative in a couple weeks, and I don't see myself improving. My book launch wasn't great, and I can't see the point in working on book 2 if that book's just going to fail, too. Why put the time in? Why bother for the 20 people who'll read it? And why bother if the narrator I want to do it won't even reply?

Why don't I get to be successful?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much longer I'll last. I've had a lot of thoughts lately about painless ways to end my life. I actually have a medication that'll work really well. And there's the old standby of going out to stand in the cold until hypothermia sets in. This is just ideation. I haven't really gotten to the stage where I'm going to do anything, but I've really been considering it. In fact, I already have the auto-response email written because I don't plan on posting before I do anything this time.

There's too many people who only reach out when I'm feeling like shit, and they always talk me out of it. And then once they have me out of crisis, they vanish and I never hear from them again. So this time I'm just going to put the message in my email, maybe schedule a few posts, and then just fucking do it.

I need something to give. I need people to reach out. I need to know I mean something, or why is life even worth living? It's not. I can't see any value in it. And at this point, I really don't even want to try anymore.

[chaoskirin]

Another Pin Concept!

This is Qit, the god of metal. <3 Sorry again about the low quality. Y'all know how it is.