The problem with researching things for your fantasy book is you start out searching for old wigmaking techniques, and three days later you’re reading about the destruction of ancient archives and the discovery of sixteen charred pages of “translated accounts” by a guy who didn’t know the language.

Poll is up for silver tiers and above! www.patreon.com/posts/octobe...

Whimpering, dragging myself to the door of my job to open the place up, no coffee in my system: I don’t want toooooooooo

Every time something is described as “ghibli-esque” I have to ask whether that means it’s anti-war/industrial greed or if it just evokes the feeling you get when you see a gif of animated flowers

Yes, pirating is upsetting. We try not to think about how often our books have been pirated. But an AI company stealing our books to train its program is foul. Rancid. It’s the kind of relentless, soulless greed that a character like Sam Vimes would make grim comments about before dismantling it.

Made a book cover with public domain art and it turned out to have 90’s paperback vibes somehow

Having a sick day. Lay down in the dark to nurse a headache and my cat climbed into my arms, purring. 😭

Only one day left to pick up The Traitor’s Mercy for 99 cents!

Iris jumping in giving me PSYCHIC DAMAGE with a note about Hurt/Comfort the novel when I am at WORK and cannot SCREAM

About to have an absolutely unhinged day at work, and instead of preparing to be A Good Customer Service Boy my brain is like: “Time to unleash paragraphs of character analysis about Theron Akti on the discord with Iris”

I’m not out at work for safety reasons (too many people have flashed me their guns for me to feel like that’s a good idea) but man, it’s getting harder not to just come out regardless

Current works in progress without saying the titles: Hurt/Comfort the novel Old Man Yaoi

An indication of how writing is going today: Foxglove: Evander deserves to be relentlessly hot, too. Iris: That’s what I was saying!

I swear to god this story about a former prodigy who was mistreated for squandering his “innate talent” isn’t about gifted kid crashout, but if there are similarities…

Wow!!!!! Bluesky’s priorities re: what is censored or not sure is interesting and not at all endlessly frustrating!!!!

The Traitor’s Mercy ebook is on sale for 99c! This is a steamy dark fantasy romance about a noble who becomes a courtesan after his family is tried for treason. Check it out here: a.co/d/h5vGjQu

The Traitor’s Mercy ebook is on sale for 99c! This is a steamy dark fantasy romance about a noble who becomes a courtesan after his family is tried for treason. Check it out here: a.co/d/h5vGjQu

The Traitor’s Mercy ebook is on sale for 99c! It’s a dark MM romance with a plethora of spicy scenes, political drama, true love, and so many hot Queer people. You can pick it up here: a.co/d/bJoCON6 #darkromance #mmromance

So it turns out the mountain goats tickets were significantly cheaper than groceries, and it was very much like being transported back in time into the skeletal shell of my sister’s jeep as we drove past rows of empty high-rise condos

Xavier de Sartre stealing every god dang scene, Jesus Christ we need to give him a book before he becomes insufferable

I’m replaying Dragon Age Inquisition to avoid writing my section this weekend (I’ll get to it! I will!) and I don’t know whether to romance Iron Bull or Dorian. Yes, the Iron Bull is kinky, but Dorian has family drama and rancid opinions, and my tal-vashoth bending him over a desk should fix that.

Since this is a topic right now: I have actually seen some of the fabled…big animation company…smut art with my own eyes. I think the drawings were supposed to be in a vault or something, but they were definitely drawn by an animator. I’m not snitching re: who it was or the movie, though.

Story time: when I (Foxglove) was a teen, a local bookshop became one of the safe places I could hide in when things were rough at home. The owner was really nice and thankfully the used books were cheap. I discovered Octavia Butler’s books there. I also learned that—

Gosh, what's this? A new book?!? GASP shop.ravenswordpress.com/products/swo...

The very unusual day continues as Foxglove is suddenly in possession of 130 pizza rolls he doesn’t want or need and Iris can’t stop laughing

Went to a local office that everyone says is full of “mean people.” “Surely it can’t be that bad,” I thought. Friends, they yelled at me for thanking someone.

Every time we write about Xavier we start rattling the bars of our enclosures trying to find a way to write a book about him (it just hasn’t clicked yet!)

Writing Xavier de Sartre from the perspective of a stranger: He’s mysterious, aloof, refined Writing Xavier from the perspective of one of his pirate friends: He’s an egotistical rich boy who hasn’t done a full day’s work in his life, and we’re all one second away from shipping him to Lukos

Writing a side character like: He’s a trans man in pirate country who protects his community with the cunning use of knives, also he was probably a doctor in his past and no, stop, we aren’t writing another book about a character who shows up for one chapter, we can’t keep doing this close the docum

WIP: The protagonist gazes moodily out at the ocean, contemplating his plan for vengeance A group of water dragons frolicking in the waves like a bunch of goofy lil dudes: We’re living in an entirely different genre! Everything is excellent!

Currently working on book edits and boy howdy do I suddenly have the motivation to write, clean the apartment, take up wood carving, learn a new language, walk into the ocean, befriend a whale, live among the whales, become a cryptid sailors speak of in hushed tones late at night when the sea is dar

Every now and then we’ll turn to each other and go, “we really need to make a map that isn’t the Frankenstein monster we’ve scribbled down in our notes” and then we realize how hard mapmaking is and start over

We might have officially created the most smitten character yet.

“I have so much free time to write this weekend!” Migraine: heyyy Tinnitus: eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee Migraine: what they said

Hey so if you're looking to support some queer authors affected by this recent itchio stuff, might i suggest starting here? go.bsky.app/LtrwERi

Also, for every agent who does note your grievance, there is bound to be at least one who feigns sympathy, leaves inadequate internal notes, and doesn’t bring it to management because they aren’t obligated to and they just need to get off the call. If you feel like you are being rushed,

How about a promo day for reasons… if you’ve been affected by the NSFW takedowns and shadowbans on itch, share the other places people can support your work below ⬇️ #WritingPrompt

We were literally talking TODAY about easing some of our writing onto itchio and apparently the site has just gone through a wave of shadowbanning writers and creators with nsfw books/games. Jesus H Christ

The hurt/comfort section of this WIP has officially turned into the revenge section, ha ha ha, a ha ha ha ha

Gesturing to the tiny glassblowing demonstration area: I’m going to the ren faire for research purposes, I promise Planning around the jousts: I mean, I need to be able to describe horses, and they’re all rescue horses and deserve attention regardless Looking through the swords: ok well naturally

I skimmed through our old notes re: the Starian Cycle and kept running across references to “Patrick.” Who was Patrick? Why did we talk so much about him? Why do I have no memory of this character? BECAUSE WE CHANGED HIS NAME TO EMILE

Current WIP is progressing! We have reached a turning point in the plot, which means I now have no excuse not to unpack all these boxes…

Autobiographical writing. It was an assignment in college and I hated every second of it, because my memory wasn’t reliable and I was too hung-up on everything being accurate to get anywhere.

Highlights of the move from hell: -trapped on a balcony for several hours -cleaning until 5am -don’t listen to a horror podcast while deep-cleaning a bathroom, please -throwing things at random into garbage bags because no thanks -“hm, it feels like I’m about to faint” x 10 -laundry room floods

Focusing on giving aid/time/effort into one thing doesn’t mean that you care less about others, but it does mean you’ll have more energy and resources to do the work.

When I was a teen, I remember Tammy saying that she realized that she needed to write more Queer characters when fans started praising her for a single line Kel said about gay people. She didn’t like being praised for scraps and subtext and wanted to do better.

Tried to quarantine the cats so they could get used to the apartment little by little like all the pet experts suggest, and woke up to find a cat standing on my head. The bonded pair found their braincell and got the door open. Uh oh.

Cat update re: the move Soap opera-level betrayal as the littlest cat (the queen) hissed at her best friend, who is now hiding under my legs and crying sadly. This is the babiest cat who ever babied, y’all.