Author’s Note: Hello and welcome to an omegaverse AU I wrote about a book I have not yet published ^^’ Goofy business, I know, but love them, and I hope you love them too.
Chapter 1: Wolfpack
It’s another rainy day outside, not that that bothers Lynx much inside. He lolls over the bedsheets that smell like all of them, the grey comforter scratching against his nose as he rubs it into the soft nap, letting it drag against his tummy as his shirt rucks up.
He barely realizes he’s doing it and definitely doesn’t notice that he’s making soft little noises, little whimpers and grunts, until he feels a warm hand on his bottom.
Lynx jolts a little, rolling over and out of his hormone-induced haze to blink those pretty, dark eyes up at Adia.
“Whaa?”
He maybe doesn’t realize how slurred it comes out, only that Adia is here and that’s fantastic, and the bed smells really good, and it feels really good, and he’s soft and warm all over. He is maybe, probably, never getting up out of this bed.
There’s a thought I can maybe half articulate, which is that if Nice’s story is about being nothing and becoming something, then maybe Willow’s story is about being something, and eventually the right person sees just what kind of something you are.
I set out to draw Mouse (tbh I thought it would be fun to draw all the boys from Fairytale in their prince-inspired outfits…) but this looks more like Charis to me?
I’m still working out their designs, but I think this might be Charis in Mouse’s clothes 😂👀
Koreatown is done (?) but I’m having trouble figuring out the cover, so it’s a bit of a work in progress.
I’ve really committed to doing my own covers in recent days, and it’s been frustrating, exciting, and kind of hilarious. I have a perfectionism problem. I’ve made a ridiculous amount of thumbnails and sketches.
On the writing– I went back to Willow and Lira’s story, of all things. I like the chapter I’m working on today. I think I might try to finish it by the end of the day and then maybe get some art up.
I usually have at least a week of false starts after I finish writing any long project. I finished the second Fox and the Rose book and then… flailed. for like 2 weeks straight. I always have way too many WIPs in the pipleline, and whenever I finish a book, I am usually excited to get back to one of them.
Usually, the next thing I write doesn’t end up being the thing I thought I was going to write.
I was really excited to revisit Mouse and Charis in a tentative story I’m working on, set between Fairytale and First Aid.
Ah, another false start. I’m back to working on Koreatown, and maybe this will be the one I finish.
I’ve also been making a lot of art. I probably owe a longer post to this, but I’ve been increasingly… idk, disturbed by gen AI and what it’s doing to the cultural and fictional landscapes. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that I have some AI covers on my books. I don’t love it. I go back and forth on it.
Often, I think it’s what I need to do in order to make sales, in order to produce books that are pretty enough to gain an audience. I am small and fleshy and made of meat and unfortunately I need to pay rent and pay for medication and buy food. And yet I do on some level think that every piece of AI art makes the world worse.
For years now I’ve gone back and forth on the idea of illustrating my own covers. Something in the idea must appeal to me, because why do I keep ending up here, time after time, year after year? But the process is so big and daunting. I don’t know how to have time to be a “professional” artist in that way and also to be a writer. The indie output schedule is brutal. I am never really keeping up.
Anyway, I don’t say any of that to make you feel sorry for me, or to excuse myself from anything, if there is something to be excused for. Just… this is where I’ve been at. I’ve been drawing a lot lately, making a lot of frankly very bad drawings of my characters, and also a few good ones when I get lucky. I’ve been thumbnailing covers and trying my best and just… trying.
Artist: jonasgoonface on Tumblr
I spend a lot of time thinking about this comic by jonasgoonface on Tumblr. I think about this whenever I make another bad drawing. I can be worse!! Maybe in a world full of AI, every bad drawing means more, if nothing else as an act of very human mark-making.
I’ve been working hard, and I’m quite tired. Feeling kind of wrung out but also like there is so much more work to do.
Mostly, I want to lose the AI covers because I feel like they cut me off from a community that I love and care about, a community that supported me when I was in fandom and that (understandably, laudably) loves their artists deeply and wants to defend them.
I don’t know that I can change all of my existing covers—certainly not overnight, not right away, and maybe not for a long time. But I can think hard about what I’m going to do moving forward, and i can try to do some things differently.
