New WIP 6k+! Started this a few days ago. 🥺 Nothing beats the early days of a WIP.
09.02.2026 13:31
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New WIP 6k+! Started this a few days ago. 🥺 Nothing beats the early days of a WIP.
What is that strap??
A friend sensitivity/proofread my first book. Saw this interaction in the comments. LOL
I feel like writers should study or understand the traditional Japanese story structure and rhythm called 'johakyu' because its so instinctive and narratively satisfying...
WRITERS/AUTHORS...does anyone else always find verb-tense inconsistencies in their manuscript? No? Just me? Ok...
Everyone has a substack now?
Day 9 of post-book draft. Not going well. Feeling anxious and unmoored.
idk how scientific this is but the book blurb presented were fascinating. I watched myself reacting negatively, positively or worse neutrally on each. LOL
Interested to know what fellow writers / readers find themselves in.
It’s readyourcolor dot com
Okay what the actual fuck this actually looks hilarious
youtu.be/ZfNLApPCa8E
NICE COMPLIMENTS TO GIVE WRITERS • you are incredibly clever • your work impacted my soul • i'm still thinking about your book • i will read everything you ever write • honestly you are a monster • i put your book in the time-out corner • im crying why are you like this
No more writing while having breakfast. Day 8 of post-book life.
I make art using markers!
F•ck AI for making me feel so concerned about my em dashes. Because here I am reading my old substack posts and seeing the very natural em dashes and second guessing myself! Like I wasn't fully present, and crying while typing them myself!
Anyone wanna follow a writer who's suffering from post-book depression and spiraling through querying while quitting caffeine?
I offer nothing but silliness and maybe occasionally telling you to read Terry Pratchett, Susana Clarke or BL Mangas...
I'm done terrorizing people on threads. Time to expose blue sky people to the darkness that is decaffeinated me!
"Show me how your 2025 went."
Like I’ve exorcised a part of me that always wanted to scream at a world that cut, edited, and framed me but never saw me.
More editing came after, but the bones and muscles were strong. The gaze–fixed and steady.
I hope the manuscript find its readers one day. And when you do,
Parts of the second draft made me question my own sanity. But then I remembered the anger and pain.
I pressed further. I didn’t care if I crashed into walls, egos, or institutions.
In the end, I had a 63,000 word novel that felt too real to be fiction. It burned, a cathartic fire.
I even wrote a faux academic paper into the book and designed a LARP game to make the revenge complete because the women in these pages would not be believed unless she came armed with credentials. It wouldn’t do for her to be mildly menacing–she had to be terrifying!
And then a new question appeared: Why was a woman always punished for transgressing?
Justice was howling for the falsely accused.
I revived the first draft. Deleted chapters, rewrote entire segments.
I wrote an initial version of the novel. 27,000 trembling words. I was clumsy with the plotting. I thought that would be it. But it still felt sideways.
In that version, the woman got punished for staring back.
That was my novel’s main preoccupation.
But I didn’t want to replicate the gaze just to critique it. I want to turn it around, and in that turning–something looked back. The abyss, the female gaze–the female rage!
but no one will know the flicker behind the eyes. About your dreams or fears.
The man is powerful, steeped in tradition, respected by institutions, and could also be someone close enough to touch.
But no woman was exempt from it. If you’re female–worse, a girl–you will most definitely be perceived and framed by the gaze of the man. The camera lens would lust at your figure, pose your body in vulnerable positions, your face will always be begging for help,
It’s true not just because someone said it, but because I felt it through the way media perceived my form. It made me feel uncomfortable. When I was a teenager, I decided I would disappear so I would be exempted from that gaze.
I kept thinking about Laura Mulvey’s essay on the male gaze where she posits that cinema’s visual delivery is always predicated by the fact that the camera lens is male. The moment I read about it, I couldn’t unsee.
This is how I wrote my first novel
at the age of 36.
I had a harrowing break up.
Sobbed for months.
Then I went back to work–on my dreams.
When strict pool president Georgia Washington faces revolution from playful Maritza the mermaid, she must learn fun and rules can coexist and that leadership is strongest when shared, or risk losing the pool she loves. Lots of George Washington hair, pool mermaid, and pool antics. #questpit ##q #pb
My second novel’s first draft. 72400 words.
sound the alarm (but not too loud)—I hit 70k words in my manuscript! 🥹😭😩
