Writing

My Writing Process

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Ever wonder how authors write? Well, wonder no more. Writing, it’s as easy as sitting at your keyboard and bleeding continually until something good happens. I wish that were hyperbole. It really isn’t, though; writing is tough, writing is difficult, writing is occasionally terrifying. But writing is also immensely fun and satisfying if you stick at it. And writing comprises far more than the simple act of sitting at your keyboard and hammering away on the keys. Here, I’ll be sharing a bit of the process behind how I write and what goes into the whole business from start to …

Sales

The I Heart LesFic Christmas Mega Sale Starts Today!

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This special offer is now closed. Thanks to all who took part! Merry Christmas, all! Hope everyone had a fun day, regardless of how or if you celebrate it. With any luck, a whole bunch of you probably picked up new Kindle e-readers, hmm? Well, good news! The fine folk over at I Heart LesFic have organised another mammoth lesfic mega sale this year, so you’ll have no shortage of things to check out on your new (or, indeed, existing) device! If you’re into lesfic (if you’re reading this, I assume you are, since that’s all I write…), you should …

Random Thoughts Writing

How Anime Saved My Life

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You’re probably looking at that title and thinking it’s hyperbole. It really isn’t. There’s also a damn good reason for me writing this particular post now. Because, as I noted in this post, I’ll be talking about anime a fair bit going forward. There are a whole bunch of great—and not-so-great—shows out there, and I enjoy picking stories apart. The problem? Anime gets a bad rap. Sometimes deservedly so, I will admit. The likes of your generic, low-grade harem trash are hardly likely to set the world ablaze with their literary value. But I also don’t find them particularly objectionable. …

Random Thoughts Writing

Decluttering My Life & Rediscovering My Passion

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This is going to be a pretty long post, fair warning. First of all, let’s talk about decluttering your life. This isn’t so much about real world stuff. I actually don’t have all that much crap, I got rid of physical media years ago (yay, digital… ripped from physical, because I don’t trust streaming services) and only have what I absolutely need as far as everything else goes. No problem. No, my issue is digital crap. Images, music, video, all that stuff. And I have OCD as well, which doesn’t help my situation at all. In the real world I …

News

Kyoto Animation Fire – Please Help if You Can

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I woke up this morning to the news that one of my favourite animation studios has been burned down by some idiot with a grudge. Over the years, I’ve had innumerable hours of pure joy from this studio, especially the show I still consider to be their magnum opus, K-ON. So far, reports are that at least 33 people have died and dozens more injured, and the awesome people over at Sentai Filmworks have set up a GoFundMe to raise money for those affected by this tragedy. If you can spare a few dollars, please do so. Here’s the link: …

Writing

Getting Started as a Writer

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How do you get started as a writer? Simple question with a simple answer: just do it. I realise this isn’t particularly helpful advice, however, so let’s expand the simple answer into something a bit more useful. I’ll link a few good resources, both free and paid, at the end of this post as well. First, the most important thing: to be a good writer, you should be a good reader. This is an absolute truth of the writer’s craft, simply because without having read a lot of other authors’ works, how can you expect to write anything worth a …

Gaming World Building

Youthful Problems

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Have you ever played Rise of the Tomb Raider? If not, no worries, there are plenty of examples of what I’m about to talk about in other media. Anyway, in this specific game the main character of Lara Croft talks about a MacGuffin that can unlock the secrets of immortality for humankind, talking about how it would change everything, stop sickness and disease, and all the usual nonsense people think up in these situations. So let’s think for a moment about why this line of thinking is naïve and catastrophically flawed. First, yes, the basic premise Lara is discussing here …

Releases

The Love We Lost – Starlight Book 1 Published

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After some two years, the first book of my magical girl (urban fantasy/paranormal) Starlight series is complete. The book, titled The Love We Lost, is soft-launched on Amazon, if you’re into this kind of genre, and especially so if you like stories with a Japanese setting/flavour. Completing a novel is always a great feeling. Many people talk about writing a book, but very few actually manage to start, and fewer still finish, so getting that first draft completed is a really big deal. And taking it through editing and polishing and actually publishing it? Few things come close to the …

World Building

Post-Apocalyptic Lesbians

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I have an odd relationship with post-apoc settings. I love the general idea, the concept of post-apoc, but often find the execution to be lacking. For every Mad Max, there’s at least one Aftermath or New Gladiators. Some nice ideas in the lower budget movies, sure, but the obvious issue is the ‘lower budget’. By nice, I do of course mean awful, because… you know, post-apoc. Similarly, for every Fallout: New Vegas (one of my top 5 games of all time), you have… well, something like Fallout 76, which completely misses the point of the franchise it’s aping off, exactly …

Visual Novels

Do You Read Visual Novels?

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A long, long time ago I read my first ever visual novel. I think it was around 2007, maybe? Alas, my memory isn’t what it used to be. But I remember the visual novel itself, it was a drama-heavy high school romance called Yume Miru Kusuri. It was your standard ‘boy meets several cute girls, ends up with one of them’ story Japan very much likes to tell in this particular medium, but I enjoyed it well enough. It wasn’t until much later that I finally found a few good examples of Japanese yuri (百合, lit. ‘lily’, the Japanese term …