rynling | 2025 Writing Log, Part 29

- After a long hiatus, I finally returned to my original wizard detective story, “The Case of the Phantom Portrait.” Amazingly enough, it’s not bad. I’ll probably be able to finish it next week.

- I posted A Green and Gentle Twilight, a Link/Zelda/Ganon novelette based on the Arthurian legend of Gawain and the Green Knight, on AO3 (here).

- I put together some paper textures and vectors based on illuminated manuscripts and used them to create story promos. (Here) is my first experiment, and (here) is a full page layout.

- I finished “The Limits of Human Perception,” the dark academia Bloodborne story I’d like to contribute to the Hunter’s Mark zine. Hopefully I’ll be accepted into the project!

- I finished an original short story called “The Girl on the Other Side,” which is vaguely inspired by Jeff Vandermeer’s novel Annihilation. The concept is: what if there was a human born in a biological exclusion zone, and she was completely infected with xenobacteria, and you were both teenage girls and in love.

- This was the last story I wanted to include in my next short fiction collection, Green Dreams: Tales of Botanical Fantasy, so I was able to finish the base formatting for the zine. Since I already had a template prepared from previous projects, this was fairly easy. I’m still working on the print version, but I went ahead and posted a free digital version on Itchio (here).

- I finished my final illustration for the zine, a drawing of a cat with some small daikon radish creatures. I posted it on Tumblr (here).

- While trying to loosen up my style a bit, I drew a bunch of cat sketches. I posted one of them on Tumblr (here).

- I love drawing animals. I love it. I’m not a furry myself, but I totally get what furries are on about. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to draw fursonas, but I’d love to be able to create pet portraits. Maybe one day! I’ll keep practicing.

- Earlier this year I started writing an essay titled “Analog Nostalgia in Comic Travelogues of Japan.” This week I finally finished it and pitched it to Anime Feminist. I think this essay is a great fit for them, but we’ll see. Fingers crossed.

This was another bad week. I tried to ask a few people for help with various obstacles; and, to my surprise, they all got really mad at me. Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s just something in the ~~political climate~~ water. I’m doing my best not to take this unkindness personally, but it can be hard sometimes. I guess, if nothing else, this is a reminder to be willing to help other people without making them feel weird or guilty about it, even when I feel like hot garbage myself. In any case, the crunch period at work is almost over.

In the meantime, I’m just taking everything one step at a time while going on lots of nice walks with my dogs. The end of July is the beginning of Philadelphia’s “this is actually kind of an attractive city” season, so I’m enjoying it as much as I can.

Also! My stonecrop flowers are blooming!! Look at them: