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.
I’m finishing up the edits on the next book in The Fox and the Rose series, and I can’t wait to show it to you. I’m excited to continue writing in the next book in the series, but also I am looking forward to taking a short break to finish off Koreatown.
I might be doing the cover art for this one myself! Here’s one sketch for the book cover. I might post the other thumbnails I did later if I can dig out my sketchbook (paper, like it’s 2004) in better lighting. <3
Sketch of Laurel and Shigeru for The Fox and the Rose, vol. 2 book cover
My art isn’t where I’d like it to be yet. I wish I could make more stunning illustrations! But I think I’m coming to realize that if I don’t start now, I’ll never get to where I’m hoping to go. So maybe we just enjoy the process.
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).
