Reflect and Progress: Writing Update

So, we’re going to try something. I have been watching an absurd amount of Ismatu Gwendolyn and have felt compelled. As well as this specific day has brought about some of this.

So, the reason why I feel compelled is that, on this day in 2017. I finished writing the first draft of The Queen of Thieves: A New Throne. I get a notification for it every year and all I truly remember is how lonely I had been on that day.

I had not started writing this book until that summer because I had not really had a clear idea, vision, anything solid about the series until that summer. And then all of a sudden everything started to materialize in a very tangible way and everything started to make sense. And so I actually started to write and I wanted to finish writing the book before I started school for the semester. And I did that. Ultimately I ended up writing it in about a month or two total. And I was so proud of myself.

But I had no one to tell.

No family.

No friends.

So that moment was full of loneliness.

Years later, this is all still very lonely.

I have some people in my life to varying degrees and too much trauma to try and share anything with them and like having hopes and expectations about how people will engage with me about things. A lot of those people aren’t readers as well, which throws a wrench in things. So getting that kind of like community cheerleading squad to like cheer me on when I don’t really I’m still not really in a place where I have that kind of thing.

But I have spaces, now.

Primarily my website, but also patreon and my vlog channel.

Spaces where I feel comfortable expressing and expressing without any of the messy hubub that comes with expectations.

I also want to share things for reasons similar to the reasons and feelings I have around publishing, to get it out there. Put my say into the world. Maybe help a person or two.

And it’s also interesting to think about it in terms of like expressing things on these sites, not necessarily for like for me to get views or encouragement or yada yada yada, but like expressing in the same way and with the same goals, intentions and ideas with which I go into publishing which is more of a “off my chest”, I say it out loud, maybe it reaches a person or two, maybe it helps a person or two, but it’s been said. I said my piece and I put it into the world. That kind of thing. I’ve been doing that a lot. I’ve been especially doing it a lot with like more political things and with the work itself. I want to try and get into the habit of doing that more and expressing more and talking more about myself as if I am a human being going through processes and going through ups and downs, trials and tribulations whilst doing all of this as well. And I think that is something I’m very interested in kind of trying trying to get into the habit of just something to reground myself in the fact that I am not a machine pumping out work. I am a human being. That’s what the vlog channel was. And it was very it’s it had always been very refreshing and very helpful to do the vlog channel. But oh my god, I’ve just been so exhausted and tired. I’ve been especially exhausted and tired and going through it for a couple years. It’s been a rough couple years, but I am a decently better place now.

Today,I just want to go and talk about some like updates, some writing wins, some just some of the trials and tribulations and work that I’ve been putting in cuz I’m also similar to how I was describing just the feeling of like why I publish and just having that desire of putting it out there, throwing something out there. Especially, it’s especially was a strong feeling as someone struggling with mental health, surrounded by media regarding mental health and talking about mental health as if it was like a quick fix and the, you know, “attempt suicide and you just get it out of your system” shit. Also since I read Everything for Everyone, I’ve been very interested in oral histories, personal histories, and just writing about what the world is like from a space outside of the central powers, you know, and so that is just that’s also part like a lot of that is going to be in my works, in my arts, in my main channel. But like again me as a human being I want to be able to acknowledge it and express it for me as a human being within the context of me as a human being you know and so we’re going to take a second to talk about things.

I, like, I’ve had this notification on my phone for however fucking many years. So goddamn long. Oh my lord. And now here today, I feel compelled to get on my spaces on the internet and scream about things I’m proud of, you know, talk about how cool I think I am. And that’s what we’re going to do.

First things first, not book related, but let’s get a W in the chat for my hair! If you were here from the beginning, if you you’ve been here, if you look at my hair in like early vlogs or early YouTube videos, she was struggling. So, if we can get some W’s in the chat for my hair specifically, I like it’s not a writing thing, but I it’s it’s important. It’s It’s ties to everything else. We’ve come so far. It’s the world. It’s… Everything’s changed. Also, cutting the bangs, the bangs, I love them. I’ve loved nothing as much as I love my fucking bangs.

I have written a lot. The Queen of Thieves #1 was my 3rd book, 4th work. By the time I published it, I had written 10 books in the series. Today, I have written 26 works and published 9. (If you are wondering why there is such a large gap between how many books I’ve written, how many books I’ve published, I just prefer having written a decent number of books in a series before I start publishing them. It helps me with continuity. It helps me with story line and story arc and just feel comfortable in the direction that I’m going.) That includes the two books I published this year. (I keep getting to late year and feeling like I’ve done nothing with my life then looking back and realizing I’ve had multiple publications in the year. I am so hard on myself lol.)

Those numbers also include my dodgeball satire romance, which is it’s it’s way better than it has any right to be. It really is. I love it. I cannot wait to share it. I cannot wait for the disability community to get their hands on it. I’m so excited. It’s great.

That also includes 5 books of the fantasy series I’ve been working on. (It’s gonna have a very classic structure. 3 series, 2 with 5 books 1 with 6). It’ll be a while still before anything’s published, but It is going very well.

That also also includes a project I want to do (hopefully by November) about Hawaii. And alongside that, I want to work on Land Acknowledgments that can sit wherever my other works are sitting. That I have no time frame for because it is a very research intense endeavor. And I will probably force myself through a few burnout cycles because I will be over stressed and over expecting of myself. But that is something I really want to work on.

I want to work on Utopic Writing. Things that help with the whole “give people something real and tangible to fight for” idea. Deeply inspired by Everything For Everyone.

Which, I have been publishing and sharing my works in a way that so greatly aligns with what I want, the future I want to go towards and that has been a much healthier experience for me. I truly feel like every second I spent chasing tiktok and instagram trends was wasted when I could have been talking about politics and doing things to build a foundation in my community to work toward a better future. And this has been so much better for me. Is it harder materially, of course. I’m not rich, not poor anymore but not rich. I’m that lovely space of the lower middle class where the people at the food pantry know me. But also I can comfortably get some nice things on a payment plan. All while working a job that is very rapidly killing me, and I have the chronic ulcers to prove it.

And along the lines of an oral history, I want to do projects that scream about the realities of being in 2025, still acting along the realities of the dangers of COVID in a part of the world that depends on its denialism. The loneliness, the frustration, the loss of hope and faith in people as they put selfish comforts over community safety. I read an article recently where someone said something along the lines of “Not fighting for disabled people’s right to exist in public, (and especially the way people are going about the opposite) is fighting for Covid’s unmitigated right to invade every space of our lives”. And I want to scream about that as a human being enduring it. Being ostracized by it. Being heartbroken by it. Because covering your mouth is too much to ask. Because “Back to Normal” was the key to welcome fascism into the “Left” and “predominantly black and brown communities” and “only impacts the disabled and elderly” helped it settle in. I’ve said as well in all of my books, Queen of Thieves 5 was the last one that I plan on publishing in which characters are not going to be actively masking, actively acknowledging COVID. Because y’all use books to escape while ignoring reality every second of every day. So I have to escape into a world where people give a fuck about each other. But I also just want to again talk about, scream about, express all of this from the space of myself as a human being enduring it. Not just talking about like and putting it into the perspective and fitting it around a different plot. So that is something I am very excited for. That is something I want to do very consistently. That is something I want to do a lot around again. Also probably over going to over push myself. It’s fine. It’s fine. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. I’m I’ve got the endurance for the whole like “progress isn’t linear”, “pit of despair before informed optimism” thing. I can do that. I can deal with that. It’s just exhausting.