And So We Emerge from the Dog Days of Winter
The Cat and the Comma Issue #6
January has come and gone. It was simultaneously longer and shorter than I expected it to be. Let’s talk about how the month went!
Misc. Professional Update
NYC Midnight has come and gone. I wasn’t sure what to expect, even though I took part in it last year as well. I definitely was hoping I wouldn’t get historical fiction… and that is exactly what I got. The gods have their knack for humor, it seems. Still, the prompt in its entirety allowed me to choose to write about something I was legitimately excited for, which was great! Still wanted to pull my hair out by the end, but… small victories.
I won’t find out until April if what I wrote was good enough to move me on to round two. Cross your fingers!
Last time, I mentioned I am almost completely on Tumblr and not anywhere else. I’ve been having a really fun time with it and continue to expand my blog. Like how, right now, you can see my entire list of projects and where to find them. I am also working on a page for the different countries in the main world I write my fantasy books in. It’s nowhere near done but I am excited to see how it turns out!
Last issue, I also mentioned having jumped ship from Revue to here on Substack. I think this will serve my needs better. Additionally, I have been weighing the idea of moving my blog onto here as well. This really is a kind of jack-of-all-trades website, and it might be in my best interest to consolidate the websites I’m posting on. Even though I bought a domain from Wordpress, I’ve discovered it’s possible to apply to my tumblr blog, which means I don’t lose out on much. Though I may opt out of doing so for a while in the interest of trying to save money. I don’t know yet.
Finally, it appears SubStack has subscriber chats now? I’ve turned it on but I’m not wholly certain how it works so… feel free to check that out, if you would like!
Writing Update
I have been busy at work writing my latest novel, A Sharper, More Lasting Pain. NYC Midnight put me more behind than I anticipated, and I’m really trying to work on a short story this month in time for an anthology deadline… So I may need to push my deadline back for ASMLP just a little bit. I am still shooting for March 1st, but I have a looser deadline of March 15th… I think the extra two weeks will be useful. That said, I currently have 12/20 chapters of ASMLP completed, which is twice as many as I had completed in my last newsletter. That’s pretty impressive!
Speaking of, here’s an excerpt from the chapter I’m working on.
He still refuses to look up, but his cheeks turn the color of a autumn moth. “I don’t know.”
“You’re lying,” she replies without missing a beat. Lest I forget we’ve had this fight before.
Lest. She represses a snort and shakes her head. Simone is getting to her. Not that she minds. If they can keep making her toes curl and bring a halt to the tedium her life has become, then she welcomes their influence.
“Need I repeat myself?”
Nadia’s brows pull together. Incredulous, she takes his face in one hand and forces him to look up. “Are you serious? You’re jealous?”
He tries to jerk away, but her nails keep him pinned. Then, “Yes.”
Finally, did you know you can read this novel online? I’m posting it once a week (on Wednesdays) on three different websites in the interest of being wide-spread and getting as much feedback as possible before I pull back and show the revised draft only to beta readers. But, until then, if you would like to read my sapphic fantasy dark academia novel about monsters and sigil magic and mind-melding drugs, you can check out the links below!
In other news, I mentioned an anthology I want to submit to a couple of paragraphs ago. It aims to discuss love in a myriad of forms, and I want to try to tackle a sapphic short story inspired by Eros and Psyche. I have a loose idea at the present, but I have time and I’m trying not to get too sidetracked from ASMLP.
Which reminds me. Despite my disdain for mythology retellings, I find myself fond of writing them. The biggest reason, I think, comes from me being a Hellenic Polytheist and I think my faith brings an interesting element to said myths when I’m reading and writing them. If I end up writing enough shorts, perhaps I’ll consider releasing a collection of my own someday.
But ASMLP comes first, as does this prospective short.
Media Update
Next month, my fiance and I are attending a Final Fantasy orchestral concert, so I’ve been playing through Final Fantasy 4 to prepare myself. I also found the setlist online and have been listening to the songs I’ll potentially hear. I am unspeakably excited, to be honest.
On the book front, I’ve been slowing reading through the first Mistborn novel by Brandon Sanderson. I haven’t read much in general, to be honest, because I’ve spent so much time lately writing. That said, I’m also reading through an ARC of Mallory Dunlin’s The Sorceress and the Incubus and have been having a wonderful time! This month, I’m also beta-reading a novel by someone from Tumblr… and I’m also trying to read Six of Crows. I’ve been very busy! Sadly, I don’t have any of these finished yet, but I’m getting there… slowly but surely.
Blog Update
Here’s what I’ve posted since last newsletter:
As mentioned earlier in this post, I have been toying with the idea of migrating my blog over to here as well. It would require transplanting my old posts and updating them as well, but it might be worth it to consolidate the places I post. I keep saying I’m thinking about it, but it’s almost certainly something I will end up doing before too long.
The Cat Recommends
I’ve started reading on Royal Road again, given I’m posting on that site, so I want to shout out a book I’ve started reading on there: Shadow’s Prey by Linaket. I’ve only read the first couple of chapters so far, but so far it is an absolute delight! I definitely recommend checking it out and showing Lina some love.
And that’s a wrap! I hope this message finds you well.
Kind regards,
Alex