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.”

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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

Director’s Commentary from Koreatown

Hope ZaneExtras

This is for a book that isn’t out yet, so it’s basically breadcrumbs for time travelers. Hello, you, from the future.

Mea culpa, I write out of order, so good luck to you. My best guess, this happens in what is currently Chapter 13, but I don’t know where it will land in the final book. It’s the scene where

(Click for spoilers)

Jisoo and Harin finally talk about the night they slept together, and Harin cries.


More spoilers below the cut:

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Book Release Party (Existential Scream)

Hope ZaneBook Release

THE NEW BOOK IS OUT. Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me.

You can look at the book, though. It’s up here.

Most insane and honest synopsis I can come up with: It’s self-indulgent and includes boys who smell like milk swathed in lace. the ML is mean as shit and also coddled by his sisters <3 the MC is a tsundere brat pining over his dad/brother/boyfriend (these are all the same person; no, they are not related). One of them is an incubus but I’m not telling you who.