Hard (??) Times (???)

Hope ZaneGeneral

It’s occurred to me that I can just straight up use Tiktok et al wrong.

No I will not be elaborating at this time!


…but unrelated, man it feels kind of hard to be a person these days, doesn’t it?

I’ve been kind of happy knowing less these days. I’m barely on social media (if you’re here because you clicked a link on social media, hi!) This blog is a bit of an echo chamber, but I kind of like that. I like saying things and not necessarily hearing anyone saying anything back.

Which isn’t to say I don’t love you, but more that I want to hear myself think.

I think a lot, these days, about something Zadie Smith said in an interview:

“I have seen on Twitter, I’ve seen it at a distance, people have a feeling at 9 a.m. quite strongly, and then by 11 have been shouted out of it and can have a completely opposite feeling four hours later. That part, I find really unfortunate,” she said. “I want to have my feeling, even if it’s wrong, even if it’s inappropriate, express it to myself in the privacy of my heart and my mind. I don’t want to be bullied out of it.”

I think I’m also looking for the ability to be wrong, you know? Or at least to have my thoughts independent of validation.

It does get a bit lonely sometimes. I’ve been playing a lot of Skyrim again recently—that’s kind of new, like the fact that I’ve been cross stitching. I’m picking up hobbies that I used to love a long time ago. I put most of them down because they didn’t seem very productive, but frankly, fretting about being productive is also not very productive. Also it makes me unhappier.

Politics and the news are freaking me out these days, as I assume they’re freaking everyone out. I don’t know, I am trying to manage. I assume that you are, too. I just cooked some pork chops, and I am probably going to go and eat them while watching bad TV.

Maybe later I will write a little and be wrong about something.

Serial update: Also! We are currently up to chapter 13 in Koreatown. And I’m writing something about Chaeyong and witches (Fairytale character cameo incoming).

Ho Hum

Hope ZaneGeneral

I spare you guys the worst of it, but I swear I should add a “had an existential meltdown about their writing and/or publishing career” ticker counter to my website just so you can see how ridiculous it gets

Dog bite?! More kpop, more kdrama, and a new serial

Hope ZaneGeneral

I’ve been straight up obsessed with Devil by the Window by TXT for a couple of days now. I’m also neck deep in watching the kdrama Secret Relationships, which I clicked on purely by chance, but god I saw the twist coming, and yet it’s still so fucking good.

I got attacked by a dog the other day? So that was less than awesome. My foot hurts, and I can’t really walk on it, but it’s okay with meds and keeping off it. I’m on antibiotics and really hoping that ish doesn’t get infected. Ughhh.

I’m still not convinced this isn’t a very stupid idea, but I’ve been serializing one of my new BL books here. I’m having a really good time writing it. I hope you’ll have a good time reading it. I agonized so hard over the pricing structure because I really honest to god do not want to feel like I’m ripping anyone off!! I’d make it cheaper if I weren’t already getting murdered on the payment processing fees at $0.99.

I’m… trying things. Undoing things, trying them again. Thinking long and hard and then trying not to think because I still want to be more of a writer than a… what. Marketer? I don’t know. Trying to make it out alive, like we all are. Rising costs of living are murder, huh?

It is almost time for more pain meds, and then I think I’m going to try to write again. Wish me luck with crossed fingers, if you can.

the city lights bleed

Hope ZaneSerials

(Koreatown chapter 1)

The city lights bleed green and gold over the floor of their new loft. It had taken a fucking lot to get here.

“You’re sure they can’t find us?” Jisoo asks.

He wasn’t going to lean against Minjae—keeping that space between them; he’s not a baby. But Minjae loops his arm around Jisoo’s chest, warm and steady and perfectly heavy-strong, and pulls him closer.

“Absolutely sure,” Minjae says, pressing a kiss to the side of Jisoo’s face. “I swear on my life,” he says, kissing his way across Jisoo’s temple, fluttery across his eyelashes, and then down to his nose. “Absolutely no one is going to find us here.”

The final kiss lands on Jisoo’s mouth.

The loft inside is still dark. They haven’t called to hook up the electricity yet. Candles line the counter, melting down into warm puddles and casting everything in a warm and ghostly glow.

They would call it romantic.

“Don’t say that,” Jisoo says, twisting around in Minjae’s arms.

“That they won’t find us, or—”

“On your life,” Jisoo says, twisting his hand around Minjae’s finger. “Don’t ever say that.”

Continue reading “the city lights bleed” →

Big Fish, Little Fish: or, getting scared after posting

Hope ZaneWriting

Man, I got scared after posting that last post. Like, for real kind of nauseous scared. Which is so funny, because it’s such an innocuous little post. It’s something I really wanted to share—something I’m always trying to share, the feeling of being inside my stories, loving them, discovering things.

I thought, “I should have posted that to Patreon after all.” Not because I really wanted to monetize it, but because there’s no one there, and so it feels safer. Private, maybe? A little $5 wall to keep the whole internet out. As if there are really that many people who read my little blog!

But I think, after stepping back for a moment, that fear is critical voice saying a version of, “Who do you think you are?” Barbara Sher talks about that, about the nasty voice in the back of our heads, parroting the times people have said that to us, in those words and other words, starting from when we were children.

Who do you think you are?

Be humble.

Why do you think anyone cares?

And that’s maybe the fear, isn’t it? It’s not really that no one cares. It’s that maybe other people will judge me for caring. It says things in tones of, Oh, so you think your work is good? You think it’s serious? You think it deserves to be thought about this carefully, to be spoken about lovingly? You think you’re that serious?

And… I don’t know. Maybe?

But it’s the wrong questions going in the wrong direction, mostly made up of trauma and fear. The right direction is, I think, I love these things. I love my stories; I think they’re good. I hope other people think they’re good, too, but that’s… something else. Outside of this.

I want to be allowed to love things. If I don’t love the things I make, then who will? I want to be able to love them out loud, unapologetically. I want to talk about them in the ways I want to talk about them, and I want that to be okay.

I am reminded of something I wrote a very long time ago now.

I want to love my lover, trust my neighbor, and leave my door unlocked some nights