Author: Hope Zane

Thoughts from 4 months into Korean studies

Hope ZaneLanguage Learning

SO, I’ve been thinking a lot about language learning, as you do. I spend a lot of time thinking about language learning and language in general, tbh. I don’t know why I get so surprised pikachu about it— the person who is obsessed with words in English is also obsessed with words in other languages, news at 11.

I’ve been study Korean for a little over 4 months now, just coming off a month-long break where I was mostly very sick and didn’t study very much of anything, although I did make feeble attempts to keep reading 혼불 and got through about 3/4 of a chapter.

I think what strikes me, with a fair amount of glee, is how absolutely chaotic the process is. I’ve never self-studied a language before now. The fundamentals of Japanese I know were learned in a classroom, and so I think I had this idea that that was the only or certainly the best way to go about it.

But I don’t know, I have a sense that I’ve learned Korean much faster and probably better than I learned Japanese. I find the process of learning a new language fun, and funny, and incredibly satisfying. It mostly consists of me throwing myself at media that is too hard for me, struggling my way through with a dictionary, googling wtf is this verb ending that I keep seeing, then eventually tossing myself at my textbook when I get confused enough. Repeat forever.

It’s satisfying to go back to things I read or listened to before, weeks or months later, and find that I understand much more this time.

I used to be really afraid of learning things wrong. Not so much anymore, mostly because experience has been showing me that it’s not a big deal. Misconceptions happen, and they straighten themselves out over time. Sometimes understanding something wrong is the first step to understanding it correctly a little ways in the future.

Anyway, the third chapter of 혼불 is way too hard for me, but I’m going to keep throwing myself at it whenever I have the time and patience.

난 계속 한국어를 공부할게! 화이팅!

Silent Night

Hope ZaneGeneral

I have been so anxious lately. I’ve been wishing for good health. And praying—lots of that, too. I feel better and worse in a lot of ways, lately? I don’t know, I’ve been feeling very scrambled. I’m trying to keep up, and I’m trying to slow down.

I just stopped spending time with some people who were not very good for me, and yet I still miss my friends.

I’ve been encouraged every time I go outside lately. “Touching grass.” I feel like I’ve been getting peeks over the wall, little breaths of fresh air, those moments where you see that the world isn’t so bad, isn’t so unsafe. That there is help and comfort and friends everywhere.

But still, sometimes I’m anxious. I’m perhaps trying to be a little more open. I’m trying to relax. Maybe we’ll see how long it lasts.

I finished the short story I was working on last time. It’s called Silent Night, and I think it turned out kind of strange and beautiful. It’s about a painter with a single-minded devotion to his art and another painter who’s floundering his way into a new medium, manic-eyed and struggling. They get together, but I think they’re still lonely. There’s something about art school… with your dedication to your craft so big and between you, how close to another person can you really get?

It lives here on Patreon for now. It’s roughly 7k words long, and I think I would like to revisit Heechul and Kaoru again some time in the future, but I feel good about where this story leaves them.

Not a Short Story

Hope ZaneGeneral

So the Illness that I mentioned last week continued. Woof. Somewhere in all that fever-brained mess, I decided to write a short story. It’s… not really turning out to be a short story.

Well, I have my hopes, but it seems to be turning into a novel, like all things tend to do. Fairytale started as ostensibly a short story, and now I’m 100k in the thick of it. It’s funny, this was supposed to be a quick smut fic, but as I started writing the characters, there was just so much more to them. I think I tend to write long because I get curious. Curious about who these people are, what happened to them, and what’s going to happen to them. You know how it goes.

Anyway, it’s interesting because I don’t think this is a story I could have started except when I was so sick that I couldn’t possibly give a fuck about anything besides clawing onto my continued existence. Talking about art school is kind of funny that way, and it is about art school—about two painters.

Here’s a little snippet of it. I’m thinking of putting it up on my Patreon for patrons to read, and that might be the only place it lives until I have enough short stories to put together a collection.

Heechul wakes in the night with his heart pounding. He doesn’t know what time it is. Kaoru’s room is an unfamiliar place, and there are no clocks. He could have been sleeping for a few minutes or a few hours.

He startles a little when he feels a warm, heavy body beside him, its heat leaching into his own.

Of course it’s Kaoru. Who else would it be? Even so, it takes a while for Heechul’s heart to calm down.

He doesn’t have nightmares, that he knows of. Or at least, not nightmares in the way anyone else can talk about them. Since he was little, he’s often woken feeling frightened. And how do you talk about that?

Angeline

Hope ZaneWriting

Am I allowed to talk about the characters I’ve dreamed about and left behind?

Maybe it’s not right to say that I’ve left them behind, so much as I’ve left their stories on pause. I think a lot about a girl called Angeline. She’s Mag’s adopted daughter, from the world of The Poison Path—that Mag, Magdeline Blackweir, who becomes the Poison Queen of the West.

I think a lot about her story. I’ve written part of it. I know who Angeline’s birth mother is, and I know you’ll want to know, too. I know why Mag adopted her and how she raised her.

I even know who Angeline falls in love with and what kind of doom she causes.

I’m really hungry to write her story next. It’s just been hard to find the time—to find the time materially, to have space and time for myself. But also to find the time and space in my own head. It’s often so crowded in here. I have so many stories to tell.

I’d really love to tell this story next; whether I do it before or after I finish Fairytale, I’m not sure. I sometimes wish to be someone who can work on multiple WIPs at the same time. Maybe I still can. I’m actually kind of hoping the Patreon, and getting to share WIPs as I go, might be what I need to keep the fire burning as I tend to all the different irons stuck in it.

With a sickness

Hope ZaneGeneral

It’s been a hell of a year so far. I started 2024, like I’m sure everyone did, with the best of intentions of Getting Shit Done. Instead, I mostly got very sick and spent the last two weeks resting and trying to feel a little less like death.

Fortunately, I think I’m starting to feel better now, but getting back to normal has still been a slow and careful crawl.

Onto publishing news, I started posting my WIPs on Patreon, and I think I’ll continue for the foreseeable future. The format might change as I figure out what works for me and for my readers, but I really like the idea of letting people read along as I go.

Since I was feeling a little better today, I finished uploading the last few chapters of Fairytale, bringing the Patreon up to date and the total chapter count up to 30. The first four chapters are free for anyone who’d like to check them out.

This story started as a little whim that grew and grew. I didn’t have any intention of turning it into a full-length book when I started, but before I knew it, I’d looked up and 3 months had passed, and I’d written almost 100k words. Charis and Mouse now have a special place in my heart next to all my other characters. I hope you’ll grow to love them, too.


Signing up for $5/month will give you access to extras and WIPs where you can read along with stories in The Witchblood Heir verse and more as I write them.