romance

LGBT WIP

Standard

Hey everyone, long time no see!

I’m just writing in to tell you about the #LGBTWIP tag going on via Twitter this month. A lot of LGBTQ authors are responding to this tweet to talk about their latest WIP. I guess I’m band-wagoning onto the idea, because here I am.

So one of my WIP is about agender plant-aliens who are meeting humans in order to do a trade deal. The story goes that they are trying to make a trade, with a secondary goal of making an alliance, but then a radical xenophobic group gets involved and tries to mess up the tentative agreement. My MC is a scientist who does a lot of her own experiments on herself. She is a biotech engineer who is working on making their species more hardy in order to survive longer, healthier lives. Because of her work, she is added to a diplomatic team that includes her “mother,” the main diplomat and negotiator. 

The premise came from a very famous Tumblr post about how aliens might see humans as the scariest ones in the universe and not the other way around. My plant-aliens are very peaceful people who worship nature and the balance of life. Meeting war-like and aggressive humans is a bit of a culture-shock for them.

Anyway, a lot of the plot is yet undecided, and there’s a lot of work to be done on it. 

If any of you are wondering about my Across Borders rewrite, I haven’t exactly worked on it in a while, mostly because of grad school. 

I’m also working on a free read on Wattpad called Text Me. Feel free to check that one out, since it’s free. Notice I’m using the word “free” a lot? Yeah, it’s free. It’s not finished yet, but I’ve been updating it fairly regularly.

Anyway, hopefully I will finish my thesis fairly soonish and I will be able to write again. 

I keep saying that, but “soon” is a relative term.

Anyway, drop into the comments if you have anything to chat about!

Ttyl

Dev edits

Standard

Hello everyone,

My dev edits are currently driving me up the wall. Dev edits, or developmental edits, are supposed to help you with the structural aspects of the story you are trying to tell. My story, Yaliana, is a sci-fi lesbian romance. I love this story, but right now, it’s making me crazy.

First of all, I have an issue of nomenclature. I am talking about a different planet with different animals and plants. They are not really named, and my editor tells me that I need to come up with a system of naming these things. The main problem is that these characters have no frame of reference for these animals and plants. My characters have never lived on earth, and most of these animals are dangerous, so my characters’ main concern is not calling them by a name, but rather, staying alive.

Secondly, I have a character who I created who contradicts himself with his actions and words, and this was not done on purpose. I have to rewrite dialogue and different scenes in order to make him more consistent.

Thirdly, I have two stubborn characters who need to either show or reflect on their feelings for one another more openly. Right now, most of the story is focused on the action, whereas romance readers are concerned with the relationship. I need to get them to talk more to each other and more to themselves about their developing love story.

Those are my three problems, and as you can see, they are rather extensive and systemic problems. I’m pretty sure that I can fix them, but it requires a lot of time and energy. Dev edits are really important for worldbuilding, especially in sci-fi and fantasy worlds. I hope to ensure that my novella makes sense by the time I finish.

Text Me Part 1 and 2 are up on Wattpad!

Standard

I’m writing a short story that I will be updating on Wattpad.

Summary: Shy Spence is an English major at university, and he has a major crush on his roommate Matt, and even though Matt has been showing signs that he might like Spence, Spence hasn’t made a move.

Instead, he sends text messages to an old cell number that he used to have before getting it changed. He thinks that he’s texting nobody… until somebody texts back.

Read it on Wattpad now!

Weird Unicorn story

Standard

So I’m almost finished my trans girl unicorn story. It’s probably going to end up being between 10-15K words, so it’s not too long. I feel like I should have been able to finish this one a long time ago, but between chaos at work and general stress, it’s been rough going. Not to mention, I’m just a procrastinator. I’m going to have to do a really quick editing job, which isn’t ideal, but it’s better than sending in a rough draft.

My very first story with Less Than Three was a rough draft, and you could definitely tell. My entire manuscript was returned for editing absolutely covered in revisions and cross-outs. The more you edit it before you send it in, the less you need to do after! I’ve learned much better by this point, and I’ve never sent in anything that was just a rough draft ever since.

15K isn’t a big deal to edit and revise, though. I am looking forward (NOT) to editing my 50-60K cyberpunk story that needs a lot of revisions (according to my beta reader, and we must always listen to our betas) and a lot of editing (according to me, because when I get tired I put in too many excess words).

Anyway, my trans girl story with unicorns is for an anthology, so it doesn’t need to be too long. My cyberpunk is going to be submitted for general release, however. It’s going to be interesting. I usually go with collection calls and anthologies so that I have a deadline to finish things by. But I have miraculously almost finished the cyberpunk story, so that seems like a point in favour of general release, right?

Anyway, my writing life really needs to step it up. I feel like I haven’t really accomplished much these past few months. Anyway, I will write again when something interesting happens. Such as my next story comes out with Less Than Three (very soon, actually).