Hail and Well Met, Newsletter Friends!

The second chapter of Short Steps, Slouching Towards Heaven's Gate Café and Biscotti Emporium, has been posted---which means we finally get to meet Aziraphale!

Crowley knows that he shouldn’t really romanticize Aziraphale’s work, but on days when he has a headache from staring at a screen for six hours he envies the physicality of it. Aziraphale looks like someone who works at a bakery—soft and round, with cheeks flushed pink from the hot kitchen and thick biceps from years of sawing through massive slabs of biscotti. More than once, Crowley has spent his lunch break watching careful hands braiding ropes of dough or scoring loaves with flowers that bloom golden-brown in the oven. He knows it’s a lopsided admiration. While Aziraphale is strong and sure, he looks, well, like someone who spends all day in a windowless office building.

“One large oat milk latte?” asks Aziraphale, as if there’s any doubt about who it belongs to. As per usual, there’s a heart carefully sketched in the foam, threatening to spill out onto the saucer.

Oh, Crowley.

Confession: I had a major slowdown on this fic once December hit. Maybe it was the the crunch of real-life demands, or the end of the honeymoon phase (because there's always a honeymoon phase with any writing project), but I just felt stuck. Couldn't make the pacing work, couldn't make the jokes land, couldn't bring myself to sit down and write the damn thing because my confidence had evaporated. It sucked, especially because I really wanted something publishable by January.

Two things conspired to drag me out of my funk. One was realizing that I could use real restaurants instead of making things up wholesale (more on that when we get to chapter seven). The other was Breukelen 99, a 7k Brooklynn Nine-Nine/Hot Fuzz mashup set in the Netherlands.

It's hysterical, and weird, and clearly a labor of love and self-indulgence on the part of the author. It's arguably a cousin to Short Steps---another comedy crossover which maybe doesn't make total sense on paper but actually works once you flesh it out. Reading Breukelen 99 was inspiring, and it made me want to go back to my own writing. I think that, as trite as it might sound, is one of the coolest things about fanfiction: it trains you to look at a good piece of writing and feel excited about what you could write, rather than ashamed of any perceived shortcomings.

On the WIP docket: I'm actually almost done with chapter three of Short Steps, but I'm sitting on it for a bit to flesh out some later sections of the draft so there's no giant gaps in publication down the road.

In the meantime, the oneshots just keep multiplying. The Good Omens anchorite fic has gained a title (Not Be All Else To Me Save That Thou Art), and more ideas have been put to paper, though they currently serve more as writing breaks than serious drafts. On the Broadchurch end Pommel and Guard has seemingly spawned a whole series related to the Hardy Family, tentatively titled Little Blue House, with not only a second but a third installment planned. I'm also actively stoping myself from watching The Witcher, partly because I have a sneaking suspicion that if I watch it, I will want to write for it.

Have I mentioned that I'm also supposed to write a thirty-page thesis in the next four months? In order to like, graduate?

Help.

-unsmilingchuck