Actually crazy that I just got engaged on the rooftop of the Vienna Opera while we were there to watch an opera written by Mozart in the 18th century. Like it actually could not have been more perfect 🥲🥲🥲

I am doing an unhinged amount of prep work for my revisions, and it ALL BETTER PAY OFF because my brain has been eggs for a week.

Keeping up with posting on bluesky is so hard wow. I always forget it exists 😔 Doomed to forever only be able to focus on one (1!) social media platform at a time.

Honestly my author dream isn't to have a lot of money or fame, it's to be read *just* widely enough that I get to write what I actually want to write instead of constantly worrying about it being marketable enough to sell.

Hit 100k on my WIP ✨️✨️ it took me TWO YEARS to get to this point with my last book, but I hit 100k with this one within five months. Let's gooooo!! So excited for the future of my Baroque art magic fantasy, all about love and creation and candlelit betryal

One thing I learned that has changed my brain chemistry when trying to write active characters is to make sure every major plot point happens because of your MC's decisions. The major plot points cannot just be happening to them, THEY are the ones who have to make them happen.

Does anyone else have an absolute bonkers file for their WIP on their phone's notes app that's just pages upon pages of 4am thoughts, hastily jotted down plot notes, quotes, names for people and places, and random research facts all complied together with no rhyme or reason?

Heads up! The @aclu.org Immigrant Rights Project has an EXCELLENT online resource available in multiple languages to walk immigrants or advocates through various scenarios of encounters with immigration officials or police. It includes contact #s for local ACLU offices. www.aclu.org/know-your-ri...

There is something so unmatched about going to your local Barnes & Noble and finding one of your dearest friends' books 😍😍😍 also had to buy it because you can never have too many copies 🤌🏻

Leave positive comments while beta reading! Critique is super important, but it's arguably just as important to tell the writer what is working about their book. They need to know if the beats are hitting and the correct emotions are coming across. All negative is never helpful.

Does anyone else every write sections of their book that they KNOW are going to get cut immediately upon revising? Idk sometimes I just have to add some unimportant stuff to get the words flowing, even if it's entire scenes.

Nothing hurts more than spending hours writing a 3k long chapter only to realize the next day that it's completely irrelevant, and the entire thing can be deleted.

How do people actively post on social media multiple times a day???? I can barely manage to post once a day 😩. I'm not cut out for this marketing myself as an author lifestyle just let me live and write my books in peace I beg.

I love girlie pop characters so much. Girlies who love dressing up and who know they can save the world and be unapologetically feminine at the same time. The characters who are happy to be just like other girls. Please keep them coming because I can never get enough ♥️

*clears throat* My sequel, THE ASHFIRE KING, is now available to request on both NetGalley & Edelweiss! 💙 I've been immersed in this new world for a long time, so it's very exciting for me to finally share it with others! See below for some of the things you'll find in these pages... 👇

PSA for authors: if you have never studied screenwriting, start TODAY. I'm so serious. Read screenwriting craft books. Read blog posts and listen to lectures by screenwriters. Read screenplays!!! There is a 100% chance that it will help the way you write novels so much I PROMISE.

hello friends! my colleague, the brilliant Lorna Hemingway, is on the hunt for new projects! she represents everything in the children's space from board books to YA and is specifically looking for: - contemporary romance - coming of age (especially BIPOC) - gorgeous, punchy graphic novels #mswl

"I really need to cut thousands of words on my first revision pass of this book because it's going to be WAY too long," I say as I add in a 2k+ chapter that I thought up on a whim that completely diverges from my plot notes.

Wrote 3.2k today and feeling pretty proud of myself as a turtle writer ngl

Does anyone else have to carefully plan out their big writing days? Not because of responsibilities, but because writing completely consumes every facet of their being once they get into a groove, and they cannot think or function like a normal person after a big writing session?

Is anyone else's first drafts always just The Most Dramatic Thing Ever™???

For those taking the leap and querying for the first time this year, here are a few things to remember: - Do NOT sweat about miniscule typos/mistakes. - Only query when your book is READY - Treat agents with respect and remember you deserve to be treated the same. - Stay positive! You got this 💕

Honestly, my writing goal for 2025 is the same as it is every year: just keep going and don't give up.

Local author devastated to learn that she forgot the bomb-ass line she came up with in bed one night that she didn't write down because she was CONVINCED she would remember it later 😔

I think everyone in the writing world underestimates how huge of a motivator pure, raw spite can be.

So wild that when I first started writing for publication, I would show my work to anyone and everyone. And now that I have years more experience, an agent, and an MFA degree where I was awarded most outstanding graduate student of my year, I do not show my work to ANYONE but my betas and agent lmao

I love reading a book by a highly acclaimed fantasy author when they give an explanation for the way a certain thing in their world works, and it's literally something like, "idk just because." And it's fine!! Sometimes "idk just because" really does work

I fear I'm in my book buying era again after two years of holding out to finish the books I already own. Writing a new genre has opened the floodgates for me, and I can't stop devouring fantasy books 😩 But!!! At least it's helpful for my writing (I keep telling myself to justify the purchases).

My evening: wine and the CUTEST DIY set my partner got me for christmas. I've said, "This is soooo cute" approximately 500 times.

I am 100% of the mindset that publishing is not a race and taking your time is MUCH better than rushing to get a book done, but damn I'm also constantly terrified of a book with similar themes/plot to mine coming out before mine is even done and then publishing not wanting mine anymore 😩😩😩

Spending Christmas in the tent I got for my boyfriend that we set up in our living room, having a movie marathon and snack party 🥰🎄✨️

Filing this under things that sound absolutely unhinged when you take it out of the writing context.

First day of winter vacation and I SPRINTED to a cafe to have a cozy cafe writing morning. (Feat. an eggnog latte and white chocolate peppermint scone because tis the season 🎄✨️)

I adore my book, let me make this clear, but I'M SO OVER DRAFTING. I WANT TO BE DONE. I'm so tired of making messes!!!!! I just want to be at the stage where I fix those messes!!! Please!!!

people who say “why do we need [fine arts, humanities degrees, mid-budget films] when they don’t make a ton of money?” are insufferable. why do we need chrysanthemums? why do we need bonfires or baleen whales or the color blue? we just do. we just do.

Writing fantasy as a previously historical fiction writer is craazzyyy because I just had to think of a place for my characters to have an important interaction I just MADE SOMETHING UP that worked with the world instead of having to research hours for a real location. I feel like I'm cheating!!

I love seeing posts with tips to help querying authors get signed by an agent, but a *lot* of these posts fail to mention that a huge part of getting signed is luck. Being in the right place at the right time with an agent who happens to want what you happen to be writing.

Christmas market time ✨️🎄

The best and worst thing about growing as a writer is the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. I miss the days when I was so blindly convinced my writing was ✨️amazing✨️, but it's also nice learning I DO have faults and can now work to fix them.

Two seconds. I stepped off my walking pad for TWO SECONDS.

I realized I reached 72k in my that WIP I wanted to complete at 110k AT MOST, and I *just* finished the midpoint, so....

I've been feeling sick and burned out the last few days, so I made my partner watch Lion King II with me tonight because it was *the* movie I watched on repeat as a kid, and I realized THAT MOVIE started my lifelong obsession with the "I have to kill you, but I'm in love with you" betryal trope!!!

The longer I write this book, the more I realize how much work and time it's going to take to make it shine. It's definitely going to take longer than I anticipated, but this book deserves everything, and to rush through it would be a huge disservice. I'm in this for the long haul 💪🏻

Sneaky book writing when you should be doing something else just hits different

Transitional scenes are truly the smelly armpit of the writing process.

i only had one publication this year, but i made it count 🖤 maiden, monster, muse, my short story set in 1920s manila about an artist who traps his muse in a cycle of murder and resurrection is out now in the death in the mouth 2 anthology! check it out: sloane.bigcartel.com/product/deat...

Now that a lot of writers are making new connections on Bluesky (which is great!), it's important to be VERY wary of people who spend their "friendship" in a one-sided competition with you. There is a huge difference between a genuine friend and someone who forms friendships to feed their own ego.

Only 4 months left until my sequel, THE ASHFIRE KING, is out! ❤️ I'm excited to share more news in 2025, but if you know anyone who might be interested in an Arab-inspired fantasy following a ragtag team on a perilous quest…well, I like to think now is the perfect time to read THE STARDUST THIEF 😌

One thing my MFA professor told me that I think of ALL THE TIME is that to *make sure* your character is being active in the scene, just replace them mentally with a lamp. If the scene can go on normally with your MC as a lamp, they are not being active enough. You *never* want your MC to be a lamp.