New pen name alert! Traina was great grandmother’s maiden name before immigrating to the US, and I’m so honored to be adopting it for my writing career 💕

Draft 1 of Queens of the Sun is complete! My messy little lesbian time loop is at 95k and ready for editing 😎

didnt get much writing done today but i did finish my fantasy football draft plan spreadsheet so. not wholly unproductive.

absolutely ridonkulous catch by kyle isbel. myyyyyy goodness. #Royals

A fun challenge of writing is trying to find names that I like enough to give to characters but not enough to save for a future child

Happy Laufey 'A Matter of Time' release day to all who celebrate

also hello writer friends <3 sorry for not being around more often; I've been in mega-drafting mode and am almost done with my first draft of Queens of the Sun!! We're at 78k with 2-ish (very long, meaty) chapters left :0

goodness gracious can Tyler Tolbert run

Writers, we have to let go of synonymizing everything. A little repetition is okay. Not all nouns even have exact synonyms, and we dont need to invent them. I would rather read the words “ice cream” three dozen times a page than the “sweetened coolness” I just read.

Poor August, her love interest is so much hotter than she is...what ever will she do... #WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

this is so stupid but i love it. they're in their optimistically nihilistic (aka, nothing matters so we might as well party) era of being stuck in a time loop and the sexual tension is starting to become unbearable. Oh, and August still thinks Kenna is straight. #SnippetShare #WriteSky

imagine giving up a grand slam in the first inning oh wait i can because i am a royals fan

baseball commentary is such a gift...nats commentators talking abt salvy and saying he smells good (???) and then a few minutes later when the nats strike out of the inning: "well the catcher might smell good, but this score stinks!" I need to level up my dialogue game...

i love when my mc gets mean

Fantasy! I have so many brainworms of fantasy story ideas I cooked up as a teen that I think could probably be developed well if I had the time to dedicate. #WriteSky

adding the most niche floridian things I can think of to this manuscript--today, it's the stretch of highway chock full of anti-abortion PSAs interspersed with ads for Cafe Risque

It took like 3 major rewrites before Addie had a real character arc, and I’m worried it’s happening again with my current WIP. I think I focus too much on getting plot down bc I’ve struggled w it more in the past, so character work often doesnt come through at first. #WriteSky

can the royals outfielders please learn to yell “mine”?

Keep writing that stupid book

When reading, I do somewhat because there are some tropes I don’t love, and theyre very well advertised in romance. But I try not to when writing—except that my current WIP was borne of, “How can you have real true enemies to lovers in a non-fantasy setting?” #WriteSky #PretendPanel

catching up on last night’s big brother…this cast is amazing tv lmfao

ok so it’s not the face and it’s also not really a caress, but i do love this semi-accidental neck touch from literally the second time Addie and Jacob meet. #RomanceWriters #WriterSky

what the hell is going on in this royals red sox game why have 5 royals players been hit by pitches???

Addie would be deeply upset to learn that the boy band driVe never existed here. Jacob (former member of driVe) would be thrilled. #writersky

spent the last four days packing and then moving my grandma from one old folks home to the other. it’s averaged about 95 degrees each day. and my car has no ac. and her old apartment barely bad ac. point is i am so hot and so tired.

According to my data so far this year, about half of what I read is romance. The other half is spread out—anything from fantasy to horror to poetry to nonfiction. I find other genres, nonfiction in particular, to be such fonts of inspiration. Also i just like reading, lol #PretendPanel

Yes! You gotta! It’s the best way to learn the genre, especially for romance, which has a few specific requirements and expectations.

currently reading The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild by Bryan Burrough and enjoying it a lot!! Some good nonfiction every bow and again is healthy for my brain lol. Totally recommend! #BookSky

This is how i look when I write:

i'm am good writer

a bit more than one line, but some context is needed. this is from the current middle of my #WIP, so about 25k in. August and Kenna are in a time loop and know that Madison is walking off to be murdered. #HumpDay

i love baseball commentary bc why are we talking about how big jac caglianone's feet are

That perfection is better than honesty.

insane things happening to the cubs defense rn

In Seeing Stars, Jacob is a former member of the disbanded boyband driVe, and Addie is a former fangirl—still would be, if they still existed. Now Jacob is a semi-successful solo artist, and Addie is a hater. Here’s a glimpse at their Spotify profiles: #A #Q #R #UnhingedPit

Seeing Stars is not fanfiction—I swear. But it is inspired by a decade and a half of fangirling over groups like One Direction and Seventeen. So what if, in the world of the story, it was fanfiction? #A #Q #R #UnhingedPit

i am about to spend so many hours in canva working on something so stupid

evening weeding because it’s the only time working outside is bearable

SO close 😅 this is all for Seeing Stars, my fangirl x idol romcom that I’m currently querying! #WriteSky

mother.

rewatching/listening to critical role campaign 2, and am currently experiencing the PEAK of WidoJest….”I am the transmutation wizard but you are the one who changes people” knocks me on my ass every. time.

From Seeing Stars: I reach my hand across the divide to shake his. “Friends and fake dates, and nothing more.” (I promise the weird way that’s phrased makes sense in the context of the scene, lol) #WriteSky #AmQuerying #WritingCommunity

every time the royals bring out daniel lynch the fourth, an angel loses their wings

taemoo is unhinged in the most formal ways he is so delightful to me

It is so hard sometimes to know when feedback is worth implementing and when it’s not, and whether I think it’s not because I’m taking it too personally or because it actually really is not 😅

Rewatching Business Proposal…man this show is so stupid and I love it so much

Kenna is a bratty rich girl who lives off a trust fund and bullies everyone around her. At the same time, she’s a closeted lesbian, full to the brim with justified rage, and wants to make a better world than the one she’s grown up in. She’s also the love interest ;) #LGBTQWriteAThon

what you have to understand is that we are simply so incredibly up

Because I write to entertain, and to me, nothing is more entertaining than a good romantic comedy.

many of August’s recent choices are bad ones: coming out via drunk insta story, assuming she’d get into med school on the first round of applying and not finding a job, breaking into a building to figure out who won the pageant after it ended early…simply too many to choose from. #LGBTQWriteAThon