 Synopsis Laika, a werewolf, lives in an old manor house that is either sentient or haunted, along with a debonair dwarf, a recalcitrant selkie, a shy orc, and a grubby cryptid of an elf. That's a lot of personalities for one house—and then one night she stumbles on a miserable vampire named Kyle, who's just been kicked out of his nest by his sire. Laika might have a bite just as bad as her bark, but she's not so heartless as to let a vampire face sunrise with only his snapback for protection...so she invites him over. These are their (mis)adventures. Characters Laika | a female werewolf, named unironically after the famous dog. Grumpy, tall, could bench-press a truck. Secretly as sweet as her sweet tooth. Kyle | a vampire, disturbingly and sincerely committed to the fratboy aesthetic. Scared of the dark. Turns into a bat when startled. A Disaster™. Aurelius | a dwarf and a prolific author of poetry. Extremely and genuinely charming. Equally handsome. A veritable font of patience. Orla | a selkie, transformed half the sunroom she lives in into an underwater habitat perfect for her seal form. Will bite you. Will not warn you about it. A silversmith, runs an online store selling her jewellery and knives. Mogdur | goes by Mog, an orc, very shy, very large, very gentle. An artist who likes working on his webcomic and gifting people with his sketches of them. Thistle | an elf, though he's often mistaken for a very pretty gnome. Never formally moved in; they found him in the back garden digging a hole and he just stuck around after that. His actual government name is Ben. He won't answer to it. Author's Notes I've been calling this WIP 5 for literal years and as per usual with my story ideas, I had only characters and a vibe and no plot in sight. But today a friend asked me about it and in the course of talking to them, I realized...I don't actually need a plot? I can just write a series of interconnected stories featuring this cast of characters? So that's what I'll be doing and I'm excited for it!
Technically this is more of a concept than a WIP, so that's where you'll find reference to it, because I don't really feel ready to work on it. Still, I wanted to put this intro post together and see what happens with it!
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Reflective of my headspace of late, I've taken to writing short excerpts for Glitch wip and [mostly] out of order bits for Oracle wip. I've also done some brainstorming for my Reaper wip and written odds and ends for wips that don't exist yet. Here's everything so far, in case you missed it. Glitch in which there is a cyborg named sacha and a shapeshifter named cipher [[ cw: cyborg slavery and related issues of agency ]] .01 -- sacha’s jerked rudely and abruptly out of stasis, which immediately puts her on the alert because fitz may treat her like a thing, mostly, but he wakes her like he would anyone, with a nudge to the shoulder and not a zap to her temple port.
her eyes fly open and she’s met with a figure dressed in and masked by glitch-wear, which only heightens her alarm. her arm whirs as it calibrates, the pump in her heart picking up speed and filling her with adrenaline. she doesn’t swing immediately only because she doesn’t have enough intel on what’s happening to know if that’s the right move. the stranger raises his hands palm outward in that universal sign that means ‘i’m harmless’ and also ‘don’t attack’.  Original Photo by Valerie Blanchett on Unsplash I made a post like this for 2021 and I thought it would be nice to do the same this year too. I have a hard time remembering and/or focusing on the positives rather than the negatives, and an overview is usually pretty uplifting. So let's get into it! * ✧.* January
 Photo by Trifon Yurukov on Unsplash It's November, known to some as National Novel Writing month and I...will be participating, albeit in my own way. Rather than aim to write 50k this month, my goal is to write for 15-20 minutes a day at minimum, and to write specifically for Legends of Mourra, and hopefully have a whole (if undoubtedly raw) draft completed by December!
Writing sprints have always worked well for me, and this way I'll be relieved of the pressure of trying to meet a word count. Sometimes, writing 1000 words is as easy as breathing, and sometimes it's a laborious and disheartening undertaking that inspires temper tantrums and dramatic declarations of hating writing, myself, and the world. But I'm excited about this! LofM feels ready to be told, and I feel ready to tell it, and I got started this morning on the way to work, scribbling away in my notebook. I have no concrete plans; I wasn't even sure who's perspective to begin with, or where in the plot to start, but what ended up flowing from my pen was something folktale-esque, something you might expect from Arabian Nights and other legends, and I'm thrilled about it. It's already showcasing some of my world building and I can already visualize a neat little segue from 'legend' into Plot Happenings™. You can expect excerpts from me at least once a week. Are you doing NaNo this year? How are you making it your own, if you are? What other project are you doing/doing instead? I'd love to hear. Oh, and before I close this, I wanted to mention a couple of things. Firstly, I've restarted my writing tumblr, and you can find me here, where I collect inspirational posts, writerly advice, fellow writers' works, and talk in a more shorthand and informal way about myself and my writing. There will be some cross-posting but for the most part my tumblr and my site will remain distinct spaces. Secondly...I sort of failed at Fictober this year, obviously. I don't like the word 'failed' but I did not end up writing every day this month, as was the goal. However, I did write for half the month, and wrote more original work than I had all year, and had fun doing it, and refused to pressure myself with it or get down on myself about it when life events and my health served as barriers to writing, so I will say all in all it was a good, solid effort, and I'm proud of myself. I hope you're doing well! Happy reading and writing!  Photo by Laura Rivera on Unsplash Well, I'm back after another long absence. Raise your hand if you're surprised. No hands in the air? Yeah, I didn't expect there to be. You know the drill: I had a crisis, shut everything down, ran away until I felt better, and came back, shamefaced but determined not to pull the same stunt again.
Anyway, you're not here for my personal woes, you're here for writing! Presumably. I don't know if anyone's still around, actually, but if I shout into the void, perhaps the void will shout back a welcome. So. You may be wondering what's with this post's title. Well, it references both my recent mental state and also the states of two of my wips: Chronicles of Mourra and Wonderland. Guess what! The plans I had for both? Shattered. On purpose. I picked up both wips, threw them at a metaphorical wall (aka my debilitating writer's block), shuffled through the pieces, picked up the shiniest, prettiest fragments, got a new frame and some glue, and made two different mosaics. This extended metaphor is getting away from me, so let me speak plainly. Neither of these wips were working for me, so I took what I liked best of them and made something new. Wow, that sounds way easier than it actually was. In reality this took me literal months and serious angst to do. Let's jump right into it, shall we?  Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash Hey hi hello and happy new year! Every December I tell myself I won't bother making resolutions because I rarely meet them, and every January I make them anyway. But! I've decided this time to make 'intentions' rather than 'resolutions'. It feels a bit more flexible, hopeful, and aspirational that way, instead of a commitment I already foresee myself breaking, y'know? As Hyba noted in her positive productivity post (one of a series of three, I encourage you to read them all!), it's important to treat ourselves with grace and compassion. So here's a non-exhaustive list of my writerly intentions for this year: ✧.* Chronicles of Mourra
There you have it! These are manageable intentions, I think, but also listing them like this is making me a little anxious, not gonna lie. I calm down when I remember this is supposed to be spread out over a full year, and my main 'goal' is to work towards these things, even if I don't finish them! I need to have something to aim for, at the end of the day.
Have you set resolutions and/or intentions for this year? If so, what are they? Comment below so we can support each other! Best of luck this year babes, and as ever: happy reading and writing. It has been...a year. Apparently. As this tumblr post put it:  So anyway, it's December and 2022 is around the corner, which means it's time for my year in review! (Shoutout to Hyba for reminding me this is a thing I can do lol).
I did something similar last year and it was fun to see how much I accomplished or what changes occurred that I just plum forgot about, because I have brain like swiss cheese (full of holes).  Photo by Misael Moreno on Unsplash For a few years now, I've had this image in my mind of an oracle figure sitting in a dank little cell, and then that same oracle figure on the run, being hunted by pursuers. I think it came about after watching Minority Report (2002) years ago with my dad. These two scenes were the beginning of a story, I could tell, only they were lacking something to truly bring them from the 'spark' stage into 'development' mode. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was talking with my friend Hyba about isekai stories (specifically in webcomics). I have long been a fan of portal and isekai stories, and I love mashing up tropes and adding twists to them. Talking to Hyba got me wanting to dabble in this genre. For those who don't know and don't want to click on the link, isekai is a Japanese term for a genre of story where a person is transported into another (often fictional) world; sometimes this involves reincarnation. Some of these stories are portal fantasies, however not all isekai stories involve portals. Some examples of both that I've personally enjoyed include Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, John Carter (2012), Inkworld, InuYasha, and Fushigi Yugi. (The latter two are manga turned animes). Hello hello hello! I have something super exciting to share, and that is that...I PRINTED MY BOOK! I've heard about and known of Lulu.com, but I finally kicked myself into gear and sent Rivener (draft 1) to get printed! What actually spurred me to act was that the lovely June shared one of her short stories with me, and I loved it so much I told her I wanted it on my bookshelf, and would she mind if I printed it out? She said yes! Initially I was just going to do it myself, but then I thought I'd rather have it done with proper book binding, and once I saw how easy it was to do, I decided to do Rivener too!
Yes, that is hardcover! I splurged because why the heck not. I looooooove it. The quality is impeccable, and the only 'issue' is that I didn't know how to format the manuscript for printing, so the chapters don't all begin on their own page. But the affordability (which I just got an email about them changing due to increased demand for their services, so bear that in mind) was well worth it! I almost teared up, holding my book in my hands. My actual hands. Mindblowing! I'm going to get all my short story collections and my fable printed next! And now, a word from the author of Muscle Memory...
I’ll be honest, being a Vietnamese American is kind of weird. You know there’s a bunch of others like you, but sometimes you can’t see them? Y Nhi and Vinny are both part of a church youth group. In my head, this is a very real organization, the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement aka TNTT (you can look it up! It’s actually international, but you might encounter the US-based VEYM.net first). I’ve been involved with them since I was in kindergarten. Very instrumental to my development as a person. The general program involves intersecting faith formation and cultural roots, since that’s been fading at an alarming rate. And lastly...My friend and fellow author Hyba is not only writing several books in various genres, all intriguing and varied, she is also writing a thesis! It's on the viability of enhanced fiction ebooks (a fancy way of saying ebooks that make use of multimedia). To complete her study, she really needs people to partake in her survey! It's very quick and not at all technical—anyone who reads using a medium other than physical books can participate!
I'd really appreciate if you guys could help her out! Plus, by completing the survey, you get to have a free copy of her incredible thriller novella Apartment. Which is honestly such a bargain, that book is amazing. One day I'll share a proper review of it! Well, that's all I have for you today! As always, happy reading and writing! Many moons ago (lol), I was talking to my friend Trade about Rivener, and they asked me a fantastic question. I'm paraphrasing here because I don't have my old blog with the record of it, but essentially they asked me what the worst versions of my characters would look like. And I said with Wren, she'd be something like Cormac (my main antagonist). Brutal, unafraid of her own power or using it, and utterly devoid of empathy. I said she'd become like that in an alternate universe where she met Cormac while young and was raised by him and his ideals. But then...as much as I like angst, I couldn't just leave it at that. I love happy endings! No matter how hard it is to get there! (Sometimes the harder, the better, you know?) Anyway, we ended up talking through what would happen if that version of Wren met Kai, how they'd meet, if he would help her change, and what their story would look like. Ultimately, the world would still be the same—post-apocalyptic, though leaning more towards sci-fi than urban fantasy—but certain events would change, impacting the characters and their development.  Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash Several months passed where I stopped writing almost entirely but didn't stop thinking about this, and after some more recent chats with Trade and Hyba, I decided to scrap my first rewrite of Rivener (which, if you don't know, I'd been sort of attempting to do) and properly pick up this AU. And now it's an actual thing! I've written 6k for it so far over the past couple days, planned a good chunk of it out, and have the writing bug again (such a good feeling, when you just wanna write and write and write, like an itch). It's going fantastically, if I do say so myself. However... I was (am still? sorta?) a little nervous to share this version of my story (creatively titled Rivener 2.0) because...this Wren is awful. She does awful things and is complicit in awful things. Internet purity culture has me worried about what the response will be to this character who can lightly be described as ~problematic~. She changes, of course. This story is still about two very damaged people healing, the journey they go through together and because of each other. But it's also a lot darker. Or I delve into the darker aspects more. Wren is not exactly a villain, but she's not a hero either, not for a long while. She is, in fact, closely aligned with the main villain. Not entirely of her own free will, but...well. Some may think she's irredeemable, which is valid. But I think it's rare that people are truly irredeemable. I do believe everyone has the capacity to change, if they want to, if they decided to, if they commit to it and keep trying and learning and unlearning, if they work hard to not repeat their mistakes or the way they've hurt people, if they apologize by word and action. I don't think anyone is owed forgiveness, but I believe everyone can earn some sort of...grace? I don't know if that's the word I'm looking for, maybe redemption is closer to the mark. So yeah. Wren will have a pretty significant redemption arc. I hope I can do a good job conveying the complicated person she is, with pretty severe faults but equally admirable qualities and depth to her. Her journey is not easy. She can never erase the things she's done. But I hope you cheer her on as she grows to be a better person, even if she can never fully make up for who she was. I hope you understand where she's coming from, even if it doesn't excuse her actions or beliefs. Now this AU is not all about Wren, and Kai too is changed from the original story. Firstly. we're meeting him in vastly different circumstances, when he's arguably a much rawer character? In the original, he'd been enslaved to Cormac for a while by the time he met Wren, and a few years before that he was "stock" on a "farm" (for spoiler reasons, I won't explain what that means). In this AU, he meets Wren having just been removed from the farm. He's less docile, but at heart, still the same sweet, gentle, traumatized Kai of the original. They have a long way to go before they like each other, given who Wren is and how they meet in this AU. She treats him pretty terribly. Not as terribly as she could've, and not as terribly as others, but...oof. They have an uphill battle ahead of them. Still! I'm really excited to write this story, difficult (in topics and tone) as it is! I get to explore the world a little bit more, flesh out Cormac a lot more, and write some scenes I always wanted to, which didn't end up having a place in the original! I hope you guys will come along with me on this journey! Have you ever written or read a character who starts out as awful and slowly transforms for the better (or the reverse)? How did it go? Do you think they managed to become sympathetic or appealing to the reader, despite their faults? Do comment below, or drop me an email, and let me know! I'd love to talk about this! In the meantime, have an excerpt: Cormac listened quietly to this report, and the only indication of his rage was the wreaths of fog coiling around his feet like cats, which swelled and billowed behind him like a cloud before he hissed out a breath and it quieted to nothing more but tendrils of mist, cold and spreading across the floor. Wren braced herself against the reach and touch of it, felt a grim sort of perverse pleasure at the way Threader flinched, the way the others fidgeted, discomfited. Stay tuned for P.3 of my writing updates, where I will talk about my Glitch wip! Happy reading and writing!
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