Summer and Its Sweltering Grasp
You may notice that this email looks different and comes from a slightly different source. Don’t panic! It’s still me.
July has come and gone yet again.
I wish I could say I was productive and that I have a ton of exciting announcements. Alas, I really… can’t. Because, in truth, I’ve been struggling a fair amount.
I still have announcements, of course, and some cool things to share. Just. Not as many as I had hoped.
Anyway. Let’s talk about July.
Misc. Professional Update
First, the change in email. No, your eyes do not deceive you. I have changed newsletter providers. Gone are the days of Substack. Say hello to Buttondown!
This has been a change a very long time in the making, just one I was struggling to make. I am inept when it comes to the particulars of website making or hosting or what-have-you, and the transfer this time was as stressful a process as all the rest of them.
But it’s done. You SHOULD be receiving this email without much issue. That is the hope. If not… I’ll just cry.
Let’s get the really big, really heartbreaking, really awful one out of the way next. How about that itch.io update?
If you have not been online in the last week or so, you may not have heard about the utter betrayal that is Itch.io bowing down to its Visa, MasterCard, and Stripe overlords and removing or “de-indexing” a ton of its catalogue of indie games and authors. This is because of Collective Shout, an organization of people from Australia who self-identify as being against sexualization of women and girls in games and media. In actuality, what they are doing is making the lives and jobs of indie game devs and authors everywhere absolutely fucking miserable, because they have gone directly to the lines of Stripe, Visa, and MasterCard—the most frequent shadowy entities behind most of our online purchases.
All of this makes for an ever-slippery slope for creators of dark and queer works.
A lot of creators saw their works removed outright or deindexed. I was one of them, purely for the crime of being responsible and tagging my work as “adult” because it is all aimed at adults and grapples with mature content. And just like that, my largest source of income and cohesion with fellow indies has been well and truly kneecapped.
To say that I am devastated by this turn of events is an understatement. And, as of right now, I'm wholly uncertain where my books will go next. Updates on this front as I have them.
In other news, I recently made up a new website, which you can view here! I’m quite proud of myself and how it came out.
The rest of the month was fairly quiet and disappointing on the professional front as well. I attended a local street fair and didn’t do that well, sales-wise, but I still had some fun at. I now need to figure out a new plan for selling my ebooks online. A lot kind of… happened all at once, all of it exhausting to deal with. But I’ll get there—eventually.
One bright spot, though: I received an incredibly kind and glowing review of A Sharper, More Lasting Pain from the Lesbrary! I was truly blown away by what was said and what the reviewer took away from and related to in terms of my book. I’ve thought for a long time to reach out to the folks at the Lesbrary, but was always… uncertain. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if they hated? Safe to say, though, that I had nothing to worry about.
As for August, there’s a couple of things I’m incredibly hyped for! Firstly, I’m hosting a panel! “Sapphics in SFF—What WorldCon is Missing Out On” is a direct response to an abysmal panel WorldCon had on its schedule about strong women in SFF and how we're apparently making them all lesbians. Frankly, I want to know where all these strong lesbians are. For my own needs.
In any case, the panel goes live SUNDAY, August 3rd and will feature five authors of sapphic fiction—and also myself—as we talk all about sapphic SFF and the characters within them. It's going to be a hell of a time! Tune in to watch the chat!
Secondly, I am going to WorldCon! Not as a panelist or anything, but it's still something I'm doing. Like I did for ECCC, I'm going to go to as many panels as I can and take a lot of notes. One in particular is a panel about mistakes WorldCon has made… I'm prepared to make some noise. If you’re in the Seattle area or coming to WorldCon at all, come say hi!
Lastly, I have listed my short story collection, When the Stars Were Brighter, as free for anyone who subs to my Patreon. You don’t even need to be a paid subscriber! You can sub completely for free and have it to read. Interested? You can sub and download the files here.
Writing Update
Things further dwindled on the writing front, I am afraid. I’m working on an essay about it, but suffice to say I was struck by an extensive mental health episode and needed to take a step back to recalibrate. This is not ideal, obviously, but the alternative is… not desirable, and so a break was taken. I’m mostly back to sorts as of writing this, at least.
Regardless, I did peck a bit more at The Distance Between Stars and Salt, which now sits at 49,385 words!
Here’s a snippet of where I’m at right now:
Early in my apprenticeship at the docks, I had been allowed onto the fishing vessels from time to time, aiding in the catching and packaging of the fish we hauled in. On one such voyage, I remember there was a day when the sails were all slackened in an instant, the deck coming to a swift and unnerving hush. I was still guppy-young, then, unaware of the larger world. And so, when a rough-handed sailor tugged me for the starboard side of the ship and jerked my chin so I was forced to stare into the churning sea, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Certainly, not the dark swells just beneath the waves, like lumps under one’s skin. Nor was I prepared for the way these swells crested over the surface of the sea, revealing strange fish five times the size of the ship I stood upon. Three of them in count, splotches of white on their otherwise-black bodies. They hummed a sonorous sort of song, so loud it vibrated my very bones.
“These,” the rough-handed sailor had told me, “are killer whales.”
It was the first time I had heard that sailor speak, and it would also be the last. As I worked to overcome the shock of both these strange creatures and the sailor’s speech, one such whale flopped against the sea, great waves unfurling from it like wings.
I had never seen a creature of such magnitude before then, and was certain I would never see such enormous beings ever again. At least, not until a dragon was coming straight for us.
If you’re intrigued by this project and what comes out of it, you can currently read the whole zero draft—or up to chapter 10 of the first draft—if you become a member of my Patreon! Currently, I am sending this work to alpha readers as it is written, and anticipate opening for betas some time in September. Lastly, I am working on posting the first draft onto public writing websites such as Royal Road and AO3. You can read the first bits of draft 2 for free here or here!
Finally, let’s bring out the word tracker.
Like I said, a slower month. I did peck at some of the second draft, at least.
And now, stats:
For the month of July, I wrote a total of 9,581 words and an average of 1,596 words per session. And here’s an updated breakdown of what stage of writing I’ve spent what amount of words on, too:
Media Update
This was an interesting month, media wise. I pecked some more at Final Fantasy 12. I tried out Tactics Ogre for a second. I started rereading Eragon, of all things. I got farther in How to Get Away With Murder than I ever have before. I’ve played and sucked at every round of COD: Black Ops Zombies my spouse has convinced me to play thus far. I’ve also watched Castle for a couple of seasons, read more Name Her Holy (see below), played more of Final Fantasy 15, and thought a lot about rereading ASMLP due to a stellar review I received of it (see above). It’s all been a bit of a mixed bag.
This month, I’m rereading and annotating Warbreaker in preparation to be in the presence of THE Brandon Sanderson while at WorldCon. It’s my favorite book of his and I’m going to make him sign it.
I’m also going to see Writing Excuses live, which I am very excited about. WE is a podcast I’ve listened to for YEARS, so it’ll be great to get to see it live and talk to some of the speakers in person. A dream come true, truly.
Blog and Video Update
The biggest update here is I have changed newsletter/blog platforms from Substack to Buttondown. I may change one more time in the future (I was debating doing to Ghost, but I needed something in the interim)… but also, I’m liking Buttondown right now, so.
As for videos, the Sapphics in SFF will go live TOMORROW, August 3rd at 6PM PST. I figured out how to schedule livestreams, which you can see here, and you can opt to have YouTube notify you when it’s live.
Otherwise, I haven’t had the brainpower for writing, let alone writing blogs, so no real updates on that front… yet. Hopefully, I will have something soon.
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 time, I’m using the space to shout out Aubrey Ennis! You might recognize the name because I just talked about them, as they’re the author of Name Her Holy! Frankly, one can never have too many sword lesbians and chronically ill heralds.
A Herald has been named to mark its ascension— a woman resurrected by The Seeker’s hand and placed in the pious care of the Vigil Order. A once disgraced daughter of her noble house, Kye Liatris is crowned a living saint, one tasked with stopping the coming cataclysm. Kye has lived on borrowed time since, aiding the Vigil while quietly enduring worsening ailments.
When a strange blight brings death to the valley of Jude Arendell’s home village, she finds herself swept up in the Vigil’s fight. But in taking up her mother’s sword, Jude learns that her family legacy was not as it seemed.
As stars extinguish and the threads that bind the Vale swiftly unravel, so do the long trusted stories of history past. Now Kye and Jude must decide whether to follow their divine callings or scorn the gods and place their trust in each other.
You can read more about Name Her Holy and purchase it here!
The Cat Thanks
One of the perks for higher-tier patrons is shout-outs at the end of newsletters. Special thanks to Ceph and Larkspur. If you want to have your name here with theirs, subscribe to my Patreon!
And that’s a wrap. I wish you well on all of your endeavors and hope you stay safe. Reach out to friends you haven’t heard from in a while.
Kindest regards,
Alex