doddbowen17

[kiwikiswia]

💙💚 (🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

[burn-before-reading]

Fanpages

Joost klein x goth! plus sized! reader

It was only inevitable your relationship would become public. unfortunately, not all attention is good.

wordcount: 700ish

warnings: fatphobia, cyberbullying, google translate Dutch

a/n: First request ive gotten, thanks! haven’t written for a plus sized reader before but i really wanted to take a stab at it so i hope i did it justice at least a lil. Also most of the time i try to write gn readers but this one ima be leaning more fem. hope you enjoyyy (Im so bad at titling things you guys)

RPF BELOW. Dont read if not comfortable with that k thnks :)

it was unlike you to go on such a deep dive into the comments of some random fanpage for your boyfriend, but it was only inevitable regardless the recent events. After Eurovision, Joost’s popularity just seemed to have skyrocketed and with that your guy’s relationship became a lot more public.

Fans figured out you two were dating quite quickly. Piecing together screenshots and matching posts, but it wasn’t until some fans took a picture of the two of you kissing at a bar last night that your socials truly went haywire. Most fans were supportive, you had seen a cute fan edit of the two of you already, but of course with every few lovely comments, there were always gonna be jealous fans.

- can’t believe hes dating this fat bitch

- i know right?! she looks so tacky and weird compared to the rest of his friends

similar comments kept popping out at you, all under the slide of fan paparazzi photos with the caption: JOOST GIRLFRIEND CONFIRMED?!

You didn’t even wanna look at your dms at the moment. fans taking it upon themselves to tell you you weren’t good enough for him, like you hadn’t already been together for years. You knew you shouldn’t let the comments of strangers get to you, but it brought up all the insecurities you’ve had about your relationship in the past.

your little media spiral had led you to where you were now, hiding in your bedroom, under the covers, away from the world. You were too busy doom scrolling on your phone and blasting Bauhaus to hear the knock and jingling of keys from Joost entering your apartment.

He had gotten the news probably even before you did that morning, his mentions filled with the same few screenshots and reactions that he learned to ignore. He had stopped by the store to pick up a bouquet of flowers and coffee and pastries from your favorite cafe you two frequent. He followed the sound of the music to your bedroom to find the lump of blankets on your bed that was you.

"oh Schatje..." you heard him call out. Your head popped out from under the covers to reveal to him your tear stained face. Eyes red, you did your best to put on a smile for him.

"Hi love, Im guessing you saw the news.." you sniffle and glance at his full hands. "You really didn't have to come by today, I'm okay I promise."

"je gezicht zegt iets anders, liefje" (your face says something different, love) He set down the flowers and small feast on your dresser and crawls onto the bed next to you. You sit up in your blanket cocoon and lean on his shoulder, Joost wrapping in arm around you and pressing a kiss to your forehead. "What did they say?"

"people are assholes." you mumble. "Its nothing I wasn't expecting.. just wasn't how I thought this week was going to go.."

"I know and im sorry. I saw some of the bad comments already, you know I love everything about you right?" he pulls out his phone and opens tiktok to show you a post he had saved. It was another edit, this one of pictures of joost in his lowlands performace with his mime face paint and you that same day with your matching trad goth makeup. The caption included the hashtag # couplegoals and it made you smile. "See, not everything is bad, they love you Schatje, I love you."

"okay okay, can we just stay in today? and tomorrow, and maybe the whole week..."

"Today for sure, why do you think im in sweatpants?" he gestures to his cozy attire. "Now share the blankets, your place is always so cold."

you open the blanket to wrap around the two of you and Joost repositions you so your legs are resting over his in his lap so he can be all the more closer to you. You look up at him and his right hand cups your face, wiping away and remaining tears, before leaning in and kissing you. You lean closer and move your lips with his as you feel him grab your side to move you more onto his lap. you break the kiss, faces still inches from each other.

“The coffee is gonna grow cold.” he just smiles and murmurs against your lips.

“fuck de koffie”

[colubrina]

what does querying mean

Ah! OK. I forget that normal people don't know what this process entails.

So, if you want to be "trad" published (which basically means the kind of published that gets your book into bookstores) you will probably need a literary agent. Some small presses do not require that writers submit books for consideration through an agent, but pretty much every book you've ever heard of went through both a literary agent and a publisher that requires authors use them. So, how do you get a literary agent? You send a very specialized letter called a 'query letter', often with the first few pages of your novel, for them to read and decide if they want to 'represent' it, which means try to sell it for you in exchange for a 15% commission. The query letter I used for the 6th book I queried was this...

Dear [agent],

NO GOOD WITCHES is a 90,000-word YA speculative that will appeal to readers of A Deadly Education and Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s a ‘girl goes evil and gets shit done while awe-stuck boy holds her purse so she can do the murders’ kind of book with popular tropes including found family, female friendship, dark academia, morally grey characters, power corrupts, and a romance where the boy is bad but the girl is worse (you could save him, I could make him worse; we are not the same).

Seventeen-year-old Calla watches the witch burnings on television along with everyone else in the United States. Witches can move things with their minds. They know what people are thinking. They’re terrifying, and dangerous, and the shows are a nationwide reminder that witches will not be tolerated. Her friends have never suspected Calla is one, and she needs to keep it that way. But when she answers a question before it’s asked in a history class, her future goes up in flames. She can read minds. She’s evil. Game over.

Caught and terrified, Calla is surprised when she isn’t dragged to a pyre, but to a hospital where she’s poked and prodded to find out how powerful she is. Turns out, good witches—compliant witches—don’t get sent to the stake. They get trained in hidden schools and sharpened into weapons. Their ability to manipulate matter powers the electrical plants and their mindreading gets used by the diplomatic corp. Calla doesn’t feel like getting burned alive, so she learns everything she can.

Including how she—and her new witch friends—can burn the system down rather than let powerful men exploit their magic.

By the time she’s done, there won’t be a single good witch left.

I was mentored in both the Pitch Wars and Author Mentor Match programs, and I was previously represented but my agent and I have amicably parted ways and this manuscript has never been on submission. I live in Connecticut with cats, my family, and some unhappy plants. I am not a witch.

Thank you,

Collie

I sent 69 versions of this query out, 2 of which were referrals (meaning a current client of the agent recommended me)

17 times the agent ghosted my query.

43 times the agent rejected at the query stage

7 times the agent requested more materials. (This is about a 10% request rate and is not great but not terrible either.)

2 times the agent ghosted the requested materials

3 times the agent rejected the additional materials

Once the agent offered me what's called a "revise and resubmit" where she sent some detailed edits I could do and then she would reconsider whether she wanted to rep it. I disagreed pretty strenuously with one of her suggestions (she wanted me to cut the romance) and so I didn't pursue it.

The whole process is tedious and unfun and pretty much necessary if you want your book to be in, say, Barnes and Noble. I do not enjoy it. I am going to do it for the seventh time starting this fall. Maybe I'll do a 'querying diary' the way I do a log of what I've written. That would be fun.

Ask me anything about querying. I am a bona fide expert on this.

[indierpgnewsletter]

What do you see when you look at a game?

What do you see when you look at a game? When we talk about visual art like a painting, we look it and we see line, colour, composition, pattern and so on. And we could talk about that stuff when we talk about games but then we’d be talking about a book’s graphic design. Which is important but there are better people to do that – better eyes to see through.

Normally, when I talk about games and art, I’m drawn to what you can’t see: what play feels like, the design lineage, the artistic statement, the political and social context in which it is made, etc. But I’m asking myself something different now: if there is a game in that book, what do I see when I look at that game?

Games do have a form. When we talk about Apocalypse World as innovative, one of the big things we are talking about is an innovation in form. It was the form of a work-in-progress Apocalypse World that caught the attention of a series of game designers in 2009-2010 – so much so that Apocalypse World 1st edition could’ve lost the race to be the first PbtA game to be published. It is this innovation in form – the form we see in those early offspring like Monsterhearts, Monster of the Week, Dungeon World – that most people think about when they think PbtA.

What is this form? Well, it’s stuff like how a move is written (its shape?) and what the Bakers refer to as the structure of the game, including stuff like agenda, principles, GM moves, the conversation, etc. The image from Vincent Baker’s post here captures the big picture.

The form of Apocalypse World is different from the form of the trad games that inspired it, like Ars Magica – even as the actual playing of both of those games (depending on whose playing it) could be the same. Or to put it another way, people (including the Bakers probably) were playing games in the style of AW before AW existed. The innovation wasn’t in the outcome, it was in the form.

Did that innovation in form lead to the spread of a culture of play that people now think of as the PbtA style? I think so! But that’s the power of form, right? The design of AW made an obscured style much more visible and accessible.

You know which game didn’t necessarily innovate in form? Blades in the Dark. Controversial? Not my goal! For me, part of the appeal of Blades in the Dark is that it actually looks like older games like Vampire the Masquerade (at least morethan AW does). Obviously, Blades in the Dark is innovative (in form and other ways) but parts of it look so familiar that it actually feels more approachable than PbtA to people who have played other trad games. You have what look like skills and you roll them. Easy. We could play right now.

(How much of Apocalypse World‘s popularity can be attributed to what it didn’t change? You know, XP, damage, gear, classes, etc. How much of Blades in the Dark‘s popularity is due to its familiar guise? The psychology of novelty and familiarity is fascinating but I won’t get into it because I am completely ignorant on the subject and maybe that is for the best.)

I hope I’m not unnecessarily complicating things by using the word “form” to refer to a part of a game’s design. I think if I said For The Queen or Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast were innovative in form, it would be more clear because I’d be talking about the game’s physical look. But Apocalyse World just looks like a book, right? The reason I’m using the word is that there is a difference between the innovative stuff that AW does design-wise (safety-first asymmetric PvP, for example) and its innovations in form. And it would be good to look at them separately and see that divide.

Also, I think it helps us understand what parts of the game we’re talking about when we discuss a game without playing it. All in the quest of being articulate about what we see when look at a game.

Yours, having read one book on art,

Thomas

PS. It’s been a couple of dry weeks for the newsletter so glad to be writing again. I’m not an art historian but I was inspired by my conversation with Huffa (who is one) on the Yes Indie’d podcast to think like one.

PS2: I know “safety-first asymmetric PvP” could potentially sound like I’m casting some kind of gibberish spell. If you haven’t played AW, this explains a part of it.

[pangur-and-grim]

This is 100% my opinion so you're welcome to ignore me, I just work in book marketing so I wanted to offer my two cents after your latest post.

You'll probably have a better time sending your book to indie publishers just based on the subject matter, since the traditional publishers absolutely want a specific "type" of story that they are confident they can sell in the current market, while an indie pub is more able to place niche books, which is how Everything Bad Happens to Cameron All the Time has been reading to me from the excerpts/query letter.

This is not to say you can't get the book trad published, but going that route is likely to involve a crap ton of editing to make it meet the market standards, which can involve losing elements of the story that make it almost unrecognizable of what it is now. It really comes down to what your goals are with publication and what you're comfortable with edits-wise, and you clearly have an audience with the book on Tumblr, so indie might be the way to go since it's faster and there's already interest in it.

Again, only my opinion, and you're welcome to ignore 😂

no I think you're completely right!

every bit of feedback I've gotten from an agent so far has been in line with that. I appreciate you sending this, it's another nudge to get me in the right direction!

[greenconverses]

do you feel like there's more pressure from reviewers on booktok, who often get PR boxes along with ARC copies, to expect these fancy things from indie authors (especially if they are unknown and debut) like candles and plushies and art and bookmarks and limited edition signed sprayed edge hardcovers?

Oh 100%. It’s all just a symptom of the rise of book boxes, special editions, and collecting books as the hobby vs reading as the hobby.

Like, I’m shocked PR boxes are a thing for debut self-published authors. Trad publishing houses save PR boxes for the big titles and authors, the ones they can easily recoup on the costs on, not your average debut.

And here you have a bunch of people who got into writing two years ago (who, lbr, should probably still be posting on wattpad) spending upwards of $5K to send out a box of junk to influencers whose promo maybe, just maybe, might get them break even on the promotion costs. I’m sure it started because someone with money wanted to have cool art and fun trinkets for their book, and it was successful for them so it became a ~marketing hack~ for everyone else. But the fact that it’s trickling down to point where I’m seeing a bunch of nobodies talking about getting PR boxes together or needing to buy extras to promote their first book ever is wild.

In some ways, I feel like a lot of people in indie and self-pub industries are consumed with the marketing of books instead of actually producing a good product. The compressed timelines for writing, the constant four month release cycles, always needing to produce content content content even if your production isn’t finished. Like babes, some of you haven’t even completed the first step of FINISHING YOUR BOOK and you’re already trying to sell it to people with interchangeable canva graphics? C’mon.

They’re all trying to keep up with the Joneses on the chance they hit it big with the right BookTokker at the right time. Some of them will be rewarded, but most of them won’t. And that makes it a huuuuuge market for scammers at all ends of the process.

[shai-manahan]

Hollowed Minds Progress Update 1/02/24

Hi! I hope you're all having a good year so far! I planned to post this last night but I was too anxious over having to return to work lmfao (with the holidays being over and all). Anyway, I know it's been a year since my last update; believe me, I'm upset about it, too, and I'm trying to make up for that.

To be completely honest, aside from my health, one thing that's been stopping me from progressing steadily was my attempts at improving the way I write. I was struggling to find my own style the entire year, experimenting over and over (sometimes without rest, like an idiot), and I know that probably sounds stupid, but writing as a craft is so special to me that I want to be better at it.

It did backfire, though. A lot. Mostly because I couldn't maintain a balance between this and irl stuff.

The thing is, I plan to write trad novels and short stories in the future. I plan to go back to writing screenplays, too. I don't think I'll ever stop making IFs, but there are things I want to write about that I can never do through this medium (and the same is true vice versa). This is also why I tend to keep editing HM while trying to push through with newer updates; this is the only way I can learn more about what I wish to do in the future. This is my chance to practice and experiment, before I get anything published and make the kind of impression I aim to make.

And I think I finally found the style I love to use the most this time.

I feel ready now to post progress updates regularly at least every two weeks (this one doesn't count). I was ashamed of my slow progress for quite a while, but I know I can start moving forward again. I'm also just eager to show you the story I've always wanted to share, and that'd never happen unless I push myself so :').

You're free to ask for progress in case I miss doing this btw, just. don't be an ass about it lmao. And feel free to send asks as well!

So far, this is what I'm trying to improve for the posted demo:

conciseness

strengthening the settings and the descriptions involving them

revising a few dialogues that do not fit the characters at all

readability and making some details clearer

overall pacing of ch2's first part

the nightmare scenes

reassessment of which variations would be most important to the plot and MC's characterization.

everything else I cannot think of right now

I think I'll dedicate a week or two into finishing whatever needs to be cleaned up so there'll be less game-breaking bugs that might happen for the new content. But after that 👀

That's all for tonight!

P.S. recently bought a lampshade and damn. this is definitely much better for my eyes when I write.

[walks-the-ages]

Hey nanowrimo, what the fuck does this mean. What is this article about.

Why do you have an article that sounds like an angry tumblr post that is *clearly* about some incredibly serious allegations, but you're trying to sidestep them by..... acting like people questioning your endorsements of clearly shitty people/company is somehow the same thing as belittling the romance genre or people who became published authors after starting out with fanfic??

Full text from September 2nd, 2024 so they can't edit it later:

"I can't believe NaNoWriMo is endorsing a person/company who does ______________!"

3 days ago Updated Not yet followed by anyone NaNoWriMo is not in the business of telling writers how to (or how not to) write, taking a position on what approaches to writing are legitimate vs. illegitimate, or placing value judgments on personal decisions that are a matter of free choice. Opinions about "correct" ways to write or "right" vs. "wrong" kinds of writers should not be brought into our spaces. Our priority is creating a welcoming environment for all writers. There is no place for that kind of virtue signaling within NaNoWriMo. This position extends to our partnerships with sponsors and affiliates, with authors who we invite to write pep talks or serve as camp counselors, and to people who we invite to participate in events. NaNoWriMo is a global community of more than 550,000 writers who we fully expect to have different values, different needs, different preferences, and different curiosities. Because Wrimos are not a monolith, we don't cater to a specific author archetyope or ideology.  We take this position firmly, and we take it seriously. NaNoWriMo is a 25-year-old organization with staff that has been in the writing community for a very long time. We've seen tremendous harm done over the years by writers who choose to pick at others' methods. We've seen indie authors delegitimized by traditionally published authors, highbrow literary types look down their noses at romance authors, fanfiction writers shamed for everything from plagiarism to lack of originality; the list goes on. Not only is this sort of shaming unnecessary and often mean. It's proven itself to be short-sighted. Some of the most shamed groups within the writing community are also the most successful (e.g., Romance is one of the highest-grossing genres; an increasing body of data shows that indie authors do better than trad-pub authors, and some of the biggest names in publishing started out in fanfic). NaNoWriMo's mission is to "provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page." We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. That means not judging them and not allowing judgmental dynamics to enter into our spaces. 

this just reads like an angry, desperate attempt to downplay a serious issue by pretending people are just being misogynystic or looking down on indie authors when clearly that's not what they're responding to lmao, considering probably 99% of Nanowrimo's participants are aspiring writers who probably started out with fanfiction and are probably going to be self published?????

[olderthannetfic]

What benefits does trad publishing even really give anymore? The knowledge that you're expected to do your own aggressive marketing gives me hives as an introvert. I'm guessing that's where that almost incestuous circle-marketing comes from, where trad authors keep posting about heaps of random books by other trad authors almost daily. The quality of editing has gone to shits. Spelling errors. The grammar doesn't get fixed. Blatant errors. No quality control. If I ask a friend or even just do it myself I'd probably still end up with less errors by the end. Shit pay, and month long waits, and even then it's not a done deal. Deadlines, which you have to keep up with while doing your own marketing and starving from the tiny pay you got. Unless you obviously have a big enough name to just say you need extra time. I guess you get a cover and the physical book options, but I know at least 5 reasonably affordable online places that turn your novels into physical books. I also know that there are tons of small indie artists with a great portfolio one could commission for a book cover. Even the prestige of having a publishing house feature you doesn't seem as great with all the stress. And what about how quick your book might get pulled from the physicals if you don't make enough sales?

--

They can place the book in locations you're never going to get your selfpub book into. If you do start to take off, they can do a lot for you.

To me, it boils down to: do you see this book doing well at Target and the other non-bookstore places most Americans actually buy books nowadays, or do you see it as more niche than that?

[profilepictur3]

OCT (Original Character Tournament) taking auditions!!!!

This is a project I forgot to continue, but here's the text and the DA link!!!!

Have you wanted to join a Original Character Competition, but you're really late to the trend, or just got into Endzone/Law of Talos and got inspired and decided to join one? (definetly did not happen to me just now.) Whatever your situation, I bet you want to join one, if you're viewing this journal. Well no fret, for I'm opening auditions for a (very late) OCT,

Combatacademy!

Currently there's 1/16 places taken, so submit your auditions if you're intersted! I will update this as we get more contestants.

LORE (PLEASE READ THIS!!!)

Combatacademy was founded by two people, currently unknown, who had a strange idea of making a competition in a big old school. They hired some teachers and janitors to act as the faculty members, and chose the competitors very carefully and with care.

The OCT is located in a big old school, with three floors. Each floor has many classrooms, closets, and other rooms schools usually have. The school also has a big gym, a cafeteria (that works as the main hang out space for the contestants), a pool, a massiye yard with large, almost 9ft tall electric fences, a basement with a large, dirty, maze-like sewer system, and some teacher's rooms. More info about the school will be revealed later, remember that the OCT is a WIP still! ^^

The judges will be my friend group and me, and the OCT will be held on my personal DA account, which is this one you're viewing this journal on! So be sure to stick around if you're interested!

We will allow any kind of digital or traditional art, as well as literature. The main art types that are recommended are:

- Comics and animations, as usual

- Still art, as long as the winner can clearly be figured out from the art.

- Those but trad art is also fine

But the main factor is that you had fun doing it, am I right? ^u^

Anyways, be sure to watch (follow) me if you want updates, as I will probably make some more stuff about this before the OCT really starts. Let's hope we can bring this genre back!!

(Auditions can be posted here on Tumblr, on DeviantArt, or on X (Twitter)! You can post a piece of art of your oc, and tag me on the post! Have fun! ^v^)

Edit: Honestly, I forgot to mention that I will personally draw every character that joins!! So you'll also get a free commission at the same time. I'm also so happy that we have some people joining! It really makes me happy to see that people actually care about this ^^ Thank you to everyone who has joined already!

Discord: mmegaddict

DA link: https://www.deviantart.com/da-vey3/journal/OCT-taking-auditions-1063211214

[loki-is-my-kink-awakening]

Lokius Bang Poll

Right, let's get this thing moving.

Last time, I asked if people wanted a big or mini bang. This time, I wanna ask:

More details under the cut

Trad bang: writers come with an idea for their story and artists indicate which ones they vibe with and everyone gets matched up.

Reverse bang: artists come with an idea for their art and the story behind it and writers indicate which ones they vibe with and everyone gets matched up.

Looking to include a wide range of art for the bang, so suggesting it includes:

Digital art

Traditional art

Comics

Gifs

Video edits

Social media edits

Playlists

Podfics

And there's probably more things I've missed in the list above.

Nothing is set in stone, so open to suggestions.

[skyfallscotland]

25 & 49! 🤗

25. What's your revision or rewriting process like?

I like to be 3-4 chapters ahead of what I'm posting because I go back and re-read the previous chapters for continuity, so like, currently I'm writing Ch33 of Remi's Version (I'm on fire, I know!) but I'll do one write through, then go back and read like 31 and 32, editing as I go, then 33 and edit as I go.

Then when I start 34 I'll write that and when it's finished I'll read over 32 (which generally won't need edits by then) and then 33 will get edited again, then 34 and so on.

And the entire time I'll be complaining to bouncing ideas off other people (usually @justallihere and @widebrimmedhatsblog). It's labour intensive but I wouldn't be happy with the end result otherwise. I usually will go through one more time before posting as well.

49. Do you want to be published some day?

Yes! I'd love to, though I haven't decided if self-publishing or trad pub is more me. I get demand avoidance so deadlines would absolutely ruin me and I'm very sensitive about feedback, so I think self-pub is probably the way to go, but...marketing 😭

In any case, I have outline ideas for a sports romance novel and a romantasy series that I've been dreaming up for years, but the romantasy series has dragons and an MMC named Caden, which seems to be everyone's jam now so I got annoyed I missed the boat and tossed it aside for a while 😂🖤

[mayakern]

Soooo is it worth picking up Spitfire now are better to wait for the new version?

i guess that depends on what kind of reader you are! if you are someone who either enjoys rereading stories or doesn’t mind some inconsistencies between books in a series, it’s fine to go ahead and read!

but if that’s not you, you’ll probably want to wait. while the over all story is not changing, a lot of the edits we’re doing involve restructuring some events in the book and either changing or expanding upon previous world building.

you won’t be completely lost if you read the legacy version of spitfire and then continue the rest of the story later, but some things will be different.

and, maybe more concerning, the gap in read time will be significant both due to the editing itself* and because after i finish editing book 1, i want to try and shop it around to pubs. i have no idea if anyone will pick it up, but i want to at least give it a try. smaller pubs can be pretty fast, but trad pub tends to be somewhat slow over all.

*once edits on 1, which is half of legacy spitfire, are done, then we’ll edit 2 and THEN i’ll resume writing 3 and 4; i’m currently halfway thru writing 3

[1800duckhotline]

glance, motion & formal for any oc of yours 🤍

oc asks: character design edition

I'm gonna talk about Madonna for this one!! Since I think she is more than deserving of more spotlight !!

glance: At first glance, what stands out most about your OC’s appearance? What’s their distinguishing feature?

Setting aside that Madonna's primary objective at all times is to stand out among the crowd with her make-up and fashion, I think her actual most distinguishing feature is just how tall she is? You would not think it but Madonna is at least 180cm tall, and with heels she's even taller sometimes. She is a big woman and she herself takes a lot of pride in this - her size becomes only more blatantly obvious when she isn't wearing big coats (which she is a huge fan of, and is rarely seen without).

She'd always had custom clothes made for her even before her embrace, so I would imagine this is still a thing in her new unlife...

motion: How does your OC move? How does their clothing help or hinder their range of motion? Are they flexible, coordinated, clumsy?

Though Madonna often wears fabrics that don't offer the largest range of movement, such as leather and stiff cottons, it is not that much of a hindrance as her range of motion generally stays within the lane of shooting firearms and performing Thaumaturgy - which doesn't require flexibility to perform it properly.

Madonna is fat, which means she's had to make a lot of adjustments to how her clothes fit and how to move around without overexterting herself - she never went to the gym and obviously isn't going to start as Kindred, but vampiric nature offers her an additional athletic streak she is still getting used to; she's not as stationary as her sire Desmond, but she never goes out of her way to put herself too much at risk like, say, Ranx would, preferring to assume the role of a sniper most of the time during combat. When she does do special stunts, though, she has a naturally coordinated way of doing things - they just click correctly. It might be sort of implicit with her having Tremere blood, one would assume.

Out of combat, Madonna has always had a very charming way of moving and gesturing as well. She gesticulates and is very emotive when she talks, which means she will often pace around with panache. To give a better example of what I mean think of a mix between Morticia and Gomez Addams?

formal: What’s your OC’s formal look? Do they like dressing up? Do they have different looks for different occasions?

Madonna has an incredible variety of choices when it comes to looks. Her passion has always been dressing up in ways to both amaze and confuse others. She obscillates often from masculine and feminine and androgynous and everything inbetween; it's a bit like putting on stage make-up for a play for her, except she does it for the joy of doing it rather than for a character per se. So she does indeed like dressing up, though not probably in the ways you'd think of as "formal".

When human though, she did dress the typical office-formal kind of look. Sometimes with skirts, mostly with suits, however, as they felt more comfortable (and they still do) for her. Typically if she wants to give the impression that she's polished herself for an occasion, she'll be extremely particular about accessories like tinted sunglasses or necklaces, watches, tie pins, and so on and so forth. She has especially an eye for color coordination.

This didn't change much as Tremere, though she dresses much more in red (it seems natural for her now) and enjoys more often than not getting all painted in her trad goth look when she's out and about, but not always.

[duckprintspress]

I feel like I need to start talking more about how one of the big things that Duck Prints Press does is open the door to people who could never even get a foot in with traditional publishing or even most medium/"small" presses (we're a small press, but we're really more of a micro-press, I see places calling themselves small presses that are fucktons bigger than we are).

I've got some anecdotal evidence that people avoid the publications of Presses like this one because they think our writing and editing standards are lower - that we're the people who failed to make it in bigger presses because we weren't good enough - and that, consciously and unconsciously, gatekeeping biases on who is and isn't qualified to write lead people to support small presses less than they might support a more established organization.

So...y'all realize that there are a lot of reasons people wouldn't pursue working with trad pub, right? and I don't even mean ethical doubts, and I don't even mean "trad pub doesn't want to publish certain kinds of stories," though those are definitely factors - we're able to give more space to play with themes and genres because we don't focus solely on "is this marketable" as a sales rubric.

But that's not what I consider the biggest difference.

Hi, I'm Claire, and I own Duck Prints Press, and I have a massive history of clinical depression, including being suicidal in the past. I'm a great writer, and I'm not just tooting my own horn, I've got almost 150,000 kudos on AO3 that suggest that just maybe, I know wtf I'm doing stringing words into sentences. I don't need a big press to tell me I'm competent, I already know that. What I do need is to not end up suicidal again. If I face the gauntlet of rejections that's supposedly "required" as part of gatekeeping trad pub, it will do severe damage to my mental health, and probably destroy my ability to write as depression-induced self-deception eats through what I know to be true.

THAT'S what's different about a micropress like ours. Yes, our founding vision was to work with fans, but the vast majority of the people who work with us have mental illnesses, physical disabilities, neurodivergence issues, and/or other "meatsuits are terrible actually" issues that strict publishing environments can't or, really, won't accommodate. We say "fuck that noise" and go out of our way to accommodate people, granting extensions and ensuring everyone can work on their own schedule. We're able to be very flexible, which means we bring in a lot of people whose incredible skills are overlooked, ignored, looked down on, kept out of, more mainstream publishing options.

If someone has trouble with deadlines? We still work with them.

If someone has an illness that flares irregularly and unpredictably? We still work with them.

If someone needs frequent reminders? We still work with them.

If someone works slowly because they can only do a little at a time? We still work with them.

If someone needs extra time, additional support, special software...we have thus far been able to accommodate literally everyone who has come to us.

As long as the creators who work with us keep communicating and keep showing at least a little progress, we will find a way to make things work, because we want to be as inclusive as possible, and because we know that most people with these challenges, no matter how good they are at writing or art or whatever it is they do with us, would face many more hardships to have these opportunities with a larger, more strict organization.

Just, every time I see indications that people think we're "less" because we're not HarperCollins or Penguin or Tor or something, I get so angry, because it shows so little understanding of how gatekeepy and especially how ableist trad pub is, and I wish more of the people who are thinking things like that would recognize that their behavior is, essentially, snobbery.

And to be clear I'm not saying "people with these challenges never get trad pubbed," that's clearly ridiculous and untrue, but I am saying, people with these challenges shouldn't have to be The Most Exceptional just to have a chance, and we deserve to have a place that will accommodate us instead of having to perform health, perform neurotypicalness, etc. just to succeed. We deserve to not have one flare-up potentially ruin our careers, and we deserve the same opportunities and respect as people who choose other directions.

Between trad pub, small press, and self-publishing, no one route is inherently "superior." Backing one over another doesn't guarantee you're only going to get good stories, or good editing. Trad pub publishes utter schlock sometimes, and self-publishing is fantastic sometimes, and some small presses do have lax standards, and some small presses are exceptional, and I feel like maybe people just really don't understand why places like Duck Prints Press try to exist - it's because we're trying to create spaces that meet us where we are, instead of focusing on rigid conformity, marketability, hard rules, etc.

The only way we'll get a diversity of voices in publishing is by supporting a diversity of publishers. The only way we'll be able to make space for everyone is by supporting the places that carve out new spaces to fit those who didn't fit elsewhere.

I wish more people would understand what we do and why we're here, and that folks would at least try our publications before assuming that we're "like big press but worse at writing/arting/editing."

Idk. I'm just tired, and sick, and still working even tho I'm sick, and frustrated with how hard it is to get anywhere, so here, have a rant I probably shouldn't post.

(this post brought to you by me seeing Chuck Tingle - entirely reasonably, to be clear, Chuck Tingle is awesome and I support him entirely! - celebrating the Camp Damascus release to thousands of notes, and Tor posting a poll about some Locked Tomb short story and getting 1300+ votes, and how I have to claw our way out of the background tumblr noise to get 100+ notes even on our biggest releases)

[cookinguptales]

feelin kind of demoralized today, just gotta make a vent post

So... my actual job is related to the traditional & self-publishing industry. I spend a lot of time with published authors, trad, self, small press, etc. and I know the ins and outs of things pretty well.

I have also written since I was pretty young and, not to be an asshole, but I know that I'm fairly good at it. People usually like my stuff. I've won writing contests. But at the same time I know I just absolutely do not have the temperament for the industry, so I've never tried any kind of professional publishing for my work.

Some of it is that I truly do believe that monetizing all your hobbies is not a great idea, especially if you struggle with your mental health like I do. If you monetize all your hobbies, suddenly you have a lot of jobs and very few hobbies that you can actually use to unwind. Writing is really, really important to me, and I couldn't bear if it became a permanent source of stress like it is for some writers I know.

I know several authors who love writing, like love writing, but when your writing is connected to whether you have food on the table... it becomes easy to become very, very stressed with writing. Especially when dealing with the editing process, corporate bureaucracy, a nitpicky audience, corporate obligations, self-advocacy, self-advertising, etc. It can be a lot of work to make your hobby into your job, and that work can make something you loved turn into something that's weighing you down.

And being very real with you, I know my own temperament and I know the publishing industry would probably kill me. I'm not as much of a small, nervous dog as I was when I was young, but I still deal poorly with rejection and get demoralized easily. I'm very, very bad at advertising, especially self-advertising, and I'm pretty absent-minded. I love the writing part, but when you're writing for a living, the writing part is only a small fraction of what you need to do.

I don't have enough patience for editing and I get frustrated when things are going slowly and god, the advertising. It used to be that one of the biggest benefits of trad pubbing was that they'd at least do the advertising for you, but even big-name authors are having to pretty much do it themselves these days. And some people are really good at selling themselves and their work! But uh. I'm... not one of them. It is certainly not a skill that I possess. lmao

So... I recognize my weaknesses and I act accordingly. But at the same time, I do really love writing. And I do really want people to read my writing. Some of the stories I've written are so dear to me, but just getting people to read them feels nearly impossible.

This one, though... idk, AITNISTS feels different. It does feel more "important", somehow. I can't quite put it into words. It feels like I've put more of myself onto the page and like, for once, I've written something that feels really whole. And I want people to read it so badly. But I'm so ill-equipped for it!

I've tried to keep the main story as accessible as physically possible while still introducing something like Patreon to maintain... idk, an air of legitimacy? It's something that a lot of art has found success with in recent years, that kind of split model. Offering most of it for free to facilitate a relationship with fans but still being like "yeah, but this work has value and if you want all of it, you'll need to pay a few dollars."

And honestly, I've had a lot of success! AITNISTS is not pulling in the kind of numbers that my fanworks do, but it's doing far better than my other original work has. The people who've read it really seem to like it and are feeling the things that I want them to feel. But every time I post a chapter to absolute crickets I do have A Small Crisis lmao.

Y'know, the "maybe actually this story is terrible" and "maybe actually I'm not good enough" and "who am I kidding actually" kind of vibe. I know that you never really know what people on the other side of the screen are doing and thinking, but it's still so nerve-wracking.

I've had... let's just say many moments where I've considered just calling the whole thing off, dumping the rest of the story on the internet, and pretending I never started any of it.

(s/o to my friends who left very nice comments on my draft that I return to often when I'm feeling like I should just delete the whole thing.)

And I've had a lot of other moments like "god, no one is even READING the blogs, even the people who are paying for them, so why am I wasting everybody's time with all this?"

It's almost like... absent the presence of everyone else, I love this story. I love writing this story. I love writing the blog posts that supplement this story. But once you start posting all that and everyone just kind of stares at you in silence, you start to second-guess the value of all those things you loved. It's very hard to silence the voice in your head that's telling you that you're just annoying people and wasting their time.

It... has been both validating and frustrating to know that I was right about how I'd handle publishing, even if I'm doing a much more chill version of it rn.

But every so often I do get a comment or a message or a Patron and I'm like oh!!! they are reading it! they do like it! this person is getting a lot of value out of the blog posts!

And that fixes the problem until like. The next time no one says anything to me or reads what I write for two weeks lmao.

(And no, I am not ignorant to the fact that a lot of these self-recriminating meltdowns happen in tune with my hormonal cycle. I've had PMDD for many years and I know when it's affecting me. But I think it's probably a combination of real and imagined frustrations rn.)

It's frustrating because I'm a fairly logical person, but also just a deeply anxious one. lmao. So I can keep patiently telling myself all the things I know are true. Y'know, that the publishing industry and whether people find your work at all is based partially on persistence and regularity but if we're being real with each other, mostly luck. One person with a large following reading your work, loving it, and telling a bunch of people is generally the difference between your work becoming popular or falling into obscurity.

I keep telling myself that I'm getting quite a few hits (I'm averaging 100-200 hits per chapter now??) so someone must be reading it. And if I get zero feedback on a chapter, that doesn't actually mean that it's bad. Sometimes people don't have time to read it or don't have much to say or have stuff going on in their own lives.

Like... just because people told me they were excited about this story and told me they wanted to read it, that doesn't mean they are. That's just the way life works, unfortunately, and I've certainly experienced that in fandom, too. It's not like every person who told me they wanted to read it got a glimpse of the finished project and ran for the hills even if that's kind of how it feels sometimes. There's no such thing as a guaranteed audience, and just because someone reads all your other work, that doesn't mean they read this one!

(Dear self, they don't secretly hate you!)

I also keep telling myself that I love this story and a few of my friends whose opinions I value love this story. That's definitely not nothing. But I just very intrinsically find it difficult to find value in my own work -- which I know is a me problem -- and even though I know you're supposed to write for yourself, I just... god, I desperately want people to read this one. I want people to love these characters. Sharing this one with people does feel like sharing part of myself.

More than that, though... I feel like, while kind of niche, I still feel like this story is probably my best opportunity to find readers at all. Greek mythology retellings are pretty popular and are fandom adjacent, so that makes for an easy segue from my fandom persona to an original one. It's m/m, which makes it infinitely more marketable than my f/f, whether I like that or not. It's romance, which has a huge and very dedicated audience.

So I'll admit that a part of me is like "god, if I can't get people to read this then what hope do I have to get people to read the f/f witchy familiar shelter book? If I can't get people to read this, then what about the Medusa story? What about all the other stories that I want to tell that are even less marketable? Should I just give up on everything now?"

When I talk about marketability, i's not even about the money. Obviously the money is nice -- I'm a disabled woman trying to make accessibility renovations to my house and travel as much as possible in the limited time that my body will still let me, of course the money is nice -- but it's more that people read marketable stories. If I can't even get people to read them, how will I get people to connect with them?

I've made enough through Patreon to buy a couple books about Minoan Crete, which is gratifying, and used the rest to do a little bit of hesitant advertising in the hopes that more people will read this thing, but like. I am not good at making my own projects interesting lmao. And writing is a much harder sell than visual arts on social media these days. People do not wanna go to that secondary location lmao. Plus, attention spans are... not what they used to be, I say as someone who has written online and worked in the publishing industry for decades. It's definitely more difficult than it used to be to get people to want to read things that are longer than a paragraph or two. Every author I know is trying to find ways around that, but the fact remains. lmao

But I digress. To get back on topic... like, I know that seeing success in these things takes persistence and luck. Trying to get people to look at your art is always a gamble, and brother, I fucking hate gambling. Uncertainty makes me incredibly stressed out, and I guess I'm just feeling... uncertain. And kind of demoralized. Really kind of wondering what I'm even doing here and if I should just be putting all this effort into a different hobby or at least the work I actually get paid for.

But I guess all I can do is keep going. That's the persistence part.

Maybe I'll go write that blog post about Ancient Greek music... Maybe that will make me feel better. ;o;

It won't, but wallowing won't help me, either, so. I'm gonna eat a bagel and write a blog post. Come at me, Delphic Hymns. lmao.