Hey look! @hiriadunning.com is featured in this! Congratulations!!!

Today's writing session was wonderfully satisfying; I love writing conflict-laden dialogue scenes. Too bad they often end up way longer than I intended! Thank goodness for revisions. #writingcommunity

So AI provides unreliable information, creates mediocre work, enriches billionaires at everyone else’s cost, was created by plagiarism, and is environmentally completely unsustainable. But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?

Grisira is always going to be led by her emotions, for better or worse. She's gotten better at controlling her external reactions with age, but internally she's as intense as ever. Big, dramatic feelings are core to her personality. It's part of her charm. ✨️

I'm Kara, and I write very gay, very trans magical girl books. 💙📚 "Magica Riot" and "Magica Riot: Full Bloom" follow the titular Portland magical girl rock band and their new trans keytar player Claire. They're full of big action, big feelings, and classic magical girl vibes! magicariot.com/buy

I recently reread Shroud by @aptshadow.bsky.social. While he's known for stellar worldbuilding—and this book is no exception—the character work truly struck me on the second go. Taken together, the physical and psychological terrors draw the narrative as taut as a garrote. Just brilliant. #sci-fi

Thank goodness for drafts, where I can dump my venting and later delete it rather than starting a discourse.

Exciting news! I just got my first art piece of Fox and Av'ry! (From @nushdeco.bsky.social ) I love it, and am very glad to finally introduce them to everyone this way! Please meet Fox and Av'ry! 🥰 #DawnsBlood

This please. I want more protagonists in their 40s, 50s, 60s. Life does not end at 25.

i just had an "suggestion" about re-writing some sentence to "be more concise" how do you know that's what I want!! maybe it's a piece of dialogue for a character who is *not* concise! maybe it's a sample of writing that I'm using to make a point! i'm so mad we're wasting so much time on this bs

I realized why churning out and publishing GPT slop is so demoralziing. When you've spent hours thinking through and crafting a peice of writing, there's a really deep sense of satisfaction that comes from seeing it become a tangible piece. The difference between cooking a meal and microwaving one

roadtrip snack 🐟 #fantasyart #paleoart

I love horror, fantasy, the erotic. I love creating in the margins and transgressing boundaries of what love, intimacy, desire mean. I love storytelling and exploring the queer, the aberrant, the other, the liminal. I love sharing community with artists, writers, creatives who do the same!

Last year I decided to put my health first and take an extended break from paid illustration. I found I had an inexplicable compulsion to document all the birds I can see from my house in the most time consuming way possible. Some predators:

Good morning Bluesky friends! My first book THE GODS OF ATALANTIS will be coming out soon and is in need of #ARCreaders! This is the first of a trilogy about a girl & boy chosen as the incarnations of the gods in a (probably doomed) island empire. Sign up if you're interested! ❤️ #writingcommunity

Another older #theloyalones painting, Thralls on the South Front. Please see alt text for full lore, thanks!

Woke up at 4am this morning for no good reason. Now that it's creeping up on 5pm, I feel like my brain is held together with tape 💀

Updated Pin: I'm booking out editing spots for June and July! I've also added a tab column on my website: ottersediting.com that tells you my availability! Need an empathetic editor who cares about you & your story and doesn't use AI? I edit Fantasy, LGBTQ+, and Sci-Fi stories! #editing #writing

Mordred and Zaniyah creeping around a graveyard... typical vampire behavior. Zaniyah belongs to my friend choi, Mordred is mine. Sketch before I go to bed.

This depends on the type of problem. Larger plot holes/tangles I talk through with someone, or even just talk to myself out loud. Something about processing it verbally helps. Or I do something physical while thinking about it--walk, lift weights, stretch. (1/2)

I’d also add that passively reading without *studying* the art isn’t gonna do much for your writing. Watching a movie won’t make you a good filmmaker. You have to actively engage with art if you want to make art. Ask questions. Dissect it. Take it apart and figure out how it works.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 16867: Follow your own enthusiasms. Don't try to follow a trend. By the time a trend has been identified, it's nearly aways over by the time you've finished the book, and publishing has moved on to the next thing.

Atlas - commission work 🖤

A beautiful swan of a woman coveted by Goddess allies with a Grand Archivist. Cosima, & guardian of the women abandoned by Goddess, fights divine hunger. Spurned heir Sovanna will stop at nothing to save a mortal. All versions of the GARNER FOR GOLD covers! The Pocket Gothic edition drops 3/17!

when anyone asks 'where do you get your ideas from?' say 'from you' and then absorb them

VFTDC takes place over the span of a few months. I haven't yet nailed down exactly how much time passes in the second and third books, but it will be another few months per book at least, if not more. Whether I tell more stories about these characters post-trilogy remains to be seen. Maybe!

Time for D&D! 🎲

I love it! I'm not using it in VFTDC because it doesn't suit the story, but I enjoy the sense of immediacy in present tense, and I often find I like the cadence of the prose if done well.

The whole thread, but this is evergreen

One of my publishers contacted me today to give me a royalty payment that was nearly a year late. I never want to hear the arguement that authors are better off with big publishers. We always have to beg to be paid.

An Arcane-style animated series would be perfection. I'm not deluded enough to think that's a real possibility with something as strange as VFTDC, but I can still indulge in daydreams!

VFTDC explores consciousness, the porous nature of the self, and grief, which seem to be concepts I consistently return to (esp. in projects I ultimately trunked). On the other hand, VFTDC is *extremely* different from my debut novel Ascension. (1/2)

A great thread on the nature of drafting a novel vs. work that's been revised.

$11.99 USD (plus shipping) for a paperback AND ebook. Come get your messy lesbians toppling monarchies in mass market paperback. store.dax.ink/products/sta...

I will never get over how beautiful the ribbed fins of Chtenopteryx are. Truly, they are nature's perfect ruffle chips. 🦑📷Steven Kovacs

Another prolific afternoon with the novel WIP. Not quite finished with this scene, but close. I can tell I'm going to want to scrutinize it during revisions to really sharpen its impact, but for a first draft, I'm happy with it what I have so far. #writingcommunity

Process shot from a drawing I exhibited last year ✍️ #art #drawing #charcoal #darkart #cthulhu

Today the biggest challenge facing writers is a friend saying once again, "It's not that deep." But what if you want it to be deep? What if there could be mythos and meaning and interconnectedness beneath all things? Go on, be the complicated mess you were born to be.

For Grisira's people, pansexuality is assumed until someone specifies otherwise; even so, no orientation is marginalized. Grisira (POV character) is pansexual and Deleyora (POV character, different species) is straight. Members of Khetris's species are innately aromantic and asexual. (1/2)

Boosting out of interest! I responded in the comments but the short version is: I tend to prefer aspirational, cooperative romantic relationships in fiction--couples who face external challenges together. I realize that's not necessarily the norm for romance but it's what I like. What about you?

The two sisters

Excited for the gym again today, not only for the endorphins but also because it's prime time for figuring out exactly how I want an (exciting!) upcoming scene to unfold in the novel WIP. Something about moving the body + listening to music unlocks creativity for me.

I could still use a bit of help with this 💜

"Twin Peaks by way of Appalachia" sounds like a banger.

My witchy botanical short story FOUR GIFTS FOR THE WITCH OF THE WOOD AND ONE FOR THE WOLF is out today from @indiebites.bsky.social! A witch claims her magic via gardening in this cottagecore fantasy ✨🌿 Read it and 6 more new fantasy stories for free in the Bandits & Botany issue of Indie Bites.

Looking for work! As I wrap my current batch of work I'm looking for projects for March onwards! Would love to do more book covers and ttrpg work! If you need an artist for one of your projects do reach out! ✉️ email danilluzin [at] gmail portfolio: danilluzin.com Shares are extremely helpful! 🧡

Pride in my work comes relatively easily to me *if* I'm writing what excites me, in a style that excites me. I was full of self-doubt when I was more guided by the market, but honestly, what's the point if I'm not writing what lights me up? Now I love my work; there's no feeling like it.

Both of my WIP's POV characters are creatives. Grisira is a master oil painter and Deleyora is a violinist. In both cases, their art intersects with their magic and plays a significant role in the story. (I'll talk more about magic in the future, when the book is closer to finished.)

Finding your voice as a writer is one of the hardest "easy" things you'll ever have to do. If you're having trouble, you'll find it in the spaces between all the times you are TRYING to have a voice. Your voice is really just the you that spills out on the page when you're not thinking about it.

Follow the rainbow into the deep! This Cestum sp. — also known as the Venus girdle ctenophore — is one of the largest of the comb jellies in our global Ocean. ROV pilots filmed it during the #OBVI #LivingBioreactors expedition with @schmidtsciences.bsky.social