On To the Second Half
The Cat and the Comma Issue #11
While May was an utter drag, June just kind of… flew by. I don’t really know what happened there.
Misc. Professional Update
I finished insurance school! Fuckin’ finally, I must say.
I attended a local pride event as a vendor last month! It went relatively smoothly and my dad came by to help out as well. And I sold most of the shorts I brought, too. Absolutely surreal.
I’ve been maintaining my Patreon still. Subscribing grants you some cool benefits. Lower tiers grant you access to advanced chapters and copies of short stories ($3 tier) or advanced looks at excerpts and access to shorter short stories ($1 tier). The highest tier ($5 tier) grants you behind-the-scenes posts for my works, which I’m in the process of. Plenty of options, plenty of goodies to jump on.
Which reminds me, I have looked at alternatives to Ko-fi when it comes to hosting my works. Not because I hate Ko-Fi, but because I want it to look more like a storefront. Hence, Gumroad. Here is my Gumroad page. Above all, a big thing that nudged me towards Gumroad was the ability to rate the products on a person’s storefront. Which reminds me… if you’ve read any of my short stories and have some spare time, consider leaving a rating/review on my Gumroad! If you’re able to, that is. I’m not fully certain how that all works.
As a result of this decision, I have decided at this time to close my Ko-Fi storefront. Ko-Fi is still there as a tip jar of sorts, though.
Writing Update
As of writing this, I am working on chapter 21 of A Sharper, More Lasting Pain. I have one chapter and an epilogue left after this… I almost don’t want it to end, to be honest.
Here’s a bit of what I’m currently working on:
Tears swarm their eyes in an instant. Of course he would still be… impacted. Not that it matters. “Enough with the pleasantries,” they say through clenched teeth. “Can you work with these or not?”
“Oh, most certainly.” Etienne shoves the pages into his breast pocket before raking wild eyes along his walls. Simone follows his gaze. Many of the photos he’d hung previously have been taken down. One of the three white walls bears the faintest pencil marks across its surface. It’s difficult to make out the details, but between the smudges of black and the cans of paint on the floor before it, Simone deduces he’s preparing to paint another mural.
The realization gives them pause. He was impressive enough when they thought his pieces elaborate enchantments, but he paints the whole image himself? How?
“Hours upon hours of work,” Etienne says, as if he’s read their mind. When they turn on him, incredulous, he takes a half-step back. “You were staring quite intently at my next project,” is all he says in elaboration.
At this, they frown. “Aren’t you graduating in a few weeks?”
“Hopefully,” Etienne mutters, more to himself than to them. Then, with a snort, “Of course. And these murals are not just for my amusement.”
Did you know you can read this novel online? I’m posting on Wednesdays on three different websites in the interest of being wide-spread and getting as much feedback as possible. Once I’m finished posting the story in its entirety, I’ll pull back before long 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!
Otherwise, I’m still working on outlining that Eros and Psyche retelling. I have the longer outline almost done at this point, though there are a couple of plot points I ended up changing or tweaking. I’m excited to get to actually working on this.
Also, I’ve been mulling over a completely unrelated short story, tentatively titled In Time for the Wedding, very loosely based on real events (in that the crux of the plot was going to happen IRL and then could not). This one I am also outlining. Work on this one is incredibly slow due to… everything else.
On a final note, once ASMLP is completed and I have more work done on the short stories mentioned above, I haven’t fully decided what I would like to take a look at next. I do want to take a proper crack at outlining and writing my novel set in the same universe as ASMLP, A Bitter-Tasting Blade. It’s about monster hunters and a (somewhat)reformed monster woman who go from bitter enemies to reluctant allies to… perhaps something more. Otherwise, I do have Before the Moon Sets to consider as well.
Media Update
I started reading Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee like I mentioned I got last update. It’s breaking my heart right now. I’ve also been reading Consider This: Moments In My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk. I didn’t really enjoy Fight Club by him, and I haven’t felt brave enough to try anything else of his yet, but he certainly has a way with words. I’m enjoying this book so far, and it’s given me some advice to turn over in my brain, so I’m certainly not complaining.
I did slow down with Zelda this month—and with games in general. I found games were the easiest way for me to unwind from insurance school because it took the least amount of… investment? I don’t know. It just took less brain power for me to handle, I think. Anyway, the point is, since insurance school is over, I can turn back to the activities I was dying to do before, like writing and reading.
That said, started watching House MD again. Forgot how brutal season 5 could be. I think I’m on season 6 now?
Blog Update
I started, but have yet to finish, a post on some writing advice I saw about how the biggest theme of your work should be a question you are trying to answer. I wrote a messier version of it here, but I want to clean it up some.
In other news, I’m still mulling over that post about being a trans writer with a (until recently) mostly cisgender audience. It’s taken so long partly because there’s a lot to mull over within it. It’s still coming, though. Slowly. I’m also thinking of a post exploring how I evolved as a person and a writer over the years. It’ll relate a lot to the “behind the scenes” posts my patrons get. There’s also one on the difference between different kinds of readers (alphas, betas, critics, editors) and their benefits to writers, how to write side characters, maybe even one encompassing my thoughts on mythology retellings (spoilers: it’s not all that positive). For now, at least, all of this is taking a mental backseat to everything else I’m trying to finish up. I do have a lot of writing thoughts to share, though.
The Cat Recommends
I like to use this space to shout out other indie writers, cause I think we could all use a boost from time to time. This month, I’d like to take the time to again shout out Camilla Andrew, author of When the Stars Alight! Her debut novel is free for the month of July as part of a Smashwords summer sale! Read more about it here.
The Cat Thanks
One of the perks for higher-tier patrons is shout-outs at the end of newsletters. Special thanks to my patrons: Ceph the Ghost Writer and Larkspur.
Well, that’s a wrap! Here’s hoping I get to be more productive by the end of this month. I hope this message finds you well, all the same.
Kind regards,
Alex