Author: Hope Zane

Longform content vs. the mob

Hope ZaneGeneral

Today I’m looking back at some longform essays I’ve written as blogs on other parts of the internet and thinking that the world—or at least my world—was better when that was the way we primarily communicated before shortform content rotted all of our brains (and here I am @ing myself).

I think the thing that skeeves me out when it comes to writing longform content, which is to say exposing more of my innermost thoughts and feelings than can fit into an extremely cultivated PR-friendly soundbyte, is the fact that the internet is forever and the things we post here never really die. It’s less that I’m afraid I’ll say something offensive and more that I’m afraid my cringe will live on forever, long after I’ve stopped believing whatever it was I’ve said, or that saying it is a good idea.

But you know, as cringy as I find some of the things I’ve posted on the internet two, five, ten years ago, it’s fascinating to see the record of who I’ve been and what I’ve believed so strongly as to write it down and make it public. And often, too, there are little bits of wisdom there that I’ve forgotten, or else I think that past version of me is braver than I am now.

My therapist would point out that if you were to ask that old version of myself, they would say the same thing; it’s easy to glamorize the past and harder to admit that more or less, we are made of the same stuff in perpetuity. Same cringe, same bravery, same heart.

I am cringing already.

But cringe is dead, or something. And it does occur to me at times that no one will really know me if I never let myself be known. Maybe there’s another essay coming sometime soon about how the recent insane-person drama in a fandom I’m involved in has seriously wigged me out and given me a stomachache for the last week, and how I have inexplicably found a new hobby this year and that hobby is “pencils.”

I’m basically always just trying to make interesting work, share other people’s interesting work that I find, and to generally be a force of kindness and goodness in the world. You know, no big deal.

Thoughts about art, writing, and imperfection

Hope ZaneWriting

I took a kind of sabbatical from author spaces and spent a lot of time drawing over the last couple months, while also dealing with my health.

In the meantime, I wrote a lot of the next chapter in Lira and Willow’s story, which then got cut up and edited into about 30k words as of now. This book has been fighting me harder than any book I can remember in recent memory, but I hope it’s all worth it in the end.

I’ve been wanting to do more with my art lately. It’s something I’ve wanted for a while, to be able to integrate it with my writing, to be able to see my characters and worlds come to life. I haven’t felt “ready” or “good enough” for a long time, and in many ways I still don’t!

My breakfast/lunch today!

But I’ve also been having some thoughts about “professionalism” and what it means, and how in some ways, I think it’s what’s led us to where we are, re: gen AI art and the way some people feel like they need to use it, or that it’s more desirable than their own imperfect efforts. And I do believe that human art is good and vital and necessary, despite and maybe because of its imperfections. So I think I will at least try to begin cultivating the visual world of my novels, in whatever way I can.

Maybe it will be a growing experience for both of us!

Willow

Hope ZaneBook Release

I really need to get my website in some semblance of better order at some point. Sometimes I look at other author’s websites, and I think, ‘Ah, so organized! You can see where everything is. You can learn about their books easily,’ but my page is… well. Like this.

I finally published the first part of Lira and Willow’s story. You can find it as Will-o-the-Wisps on a few different ebook stores. There is more to their story coming! I have some of it written already, but this felt like a good place to pause for now.

Some of you might remember Willow from the Allister High AU I wrote a while back, featuring Nice. It might be some interesting background on him~

For the time being, I am trying to get all my WIPs and finished manuscripts a little more organized. I have a lot of stories to show you, including the next chapter in Laurel’s story in The Fox and the Rose. tbh the eternal limiting factor is always book covers, but I am working hard.

Here’s a little WIP of Willow. It doesn’t look quite like the Willow I imagine in my head, but I think you always have to start somewhere:

An illustrated image of a Caucasian youth with light brown hair, long eyelashes, blushing cheeks, and delicate features. They are wearing an open collared shirt with a loosened black tie, and there is a necklace of thorns around their throat. A single line of red blood is dripping from their throat to stain the collar of their shirt, and they are touching the necklace of thorns with two fingers.

Haruka Often Dreams of Drowning

Hope ZaneWriting

Haruka stands at the edge of the ocean with the wind stinging his cheeks. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here; it’s long enough that he can’t feel his fingers or his toes in his sturdy leather boots.

He opens his eyes when the icy cold of seawater starts to fill his shoes, trying to drown him and making him panic.

He almost drowned himself in his sleep again.

Continue reading “Haruka Often Dreams of Drowning” →