2025 Writing Log, Part 33
Aug. 23rd, 2025 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynling- I finished Chapter 18 of The Demon King, an original fantasy novel, and I wrote the first bit of Chapter 19.
- I’m also editing The Demon King from the beginning. This week I tackled the first four chapters. This opening section is actually quite good. Every chapter has a few decent one-liners and a neat twist. Unlike An Unfound Door, where I tried my hand at a deliberately slower “gothic” style of writing, The Demon King is super quick and snappy.
- I posted the eighth chapter of What Dreams May Come, a Bloodborne-themed Zelda AU, on AO3 (here). In this penultimate chapter, Zelda finally comes face-to-face with Ganon. This isn’t really a love story, but I like to think these two characters have good chemistry.
- I started writing the second chapter of The Beautiful End of the World, an academic monograph about video games. This chapter is about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and this week I powered through the introduction and the literature review.
- I submitted the manuscripts for two academic articles I’ve been working on for the past year. One is about “green utopias” (environmentally-focused intentional communities) in East Asia, and the other is about the business of publishing indie comics in the United States. Both manuscripts have been copyedited, and I’m turning them in to the journal editors more than a month in advance of their respective deadlines. Hopefully they’ll make it through peer review without any monkey business, and hopefully they’ll be published... at some point in the next three years lmao.
- I submitted an illustration of a ray cat (which glows in the presence of nuclear radiation) to Coin-Operated Press’s “Cats 002” zine. Submissions are open until the end of August, and the publisher is a very cool and chill little outfit. Their website is (here), and the call for submissions is on Instagram (here).
- I made a post on my public-facing blog (here) about my newest short fiction zine, Green Dreams. I know a collection subtitled “tales of botanical fantasy” doesn’t sound like it’s engaging with the current political moment, but I tried to give a brief and accessible summary of why I think it does.
- This week’s post on my book review blog (here) is about an essay collection tangential to the political movement for same-sex marriage in Japan. It’s titled Until I Meet My Husband, and most of the essays are super-entertaining accounts of the author’s experiences of growing up gay in rural Japan (with supportive parents) and then having all sorts of messy romantic relationships in college in Tokyo. It’s a lot of fun and very optimistic about political progress, which is always nice to read.
- This week I queried An Unfound Door with three agents and one indie publisher. I know people like to gush about making spreadsheets and sending dozens of queries at a time, but I am different. I could viscerally feel a massive cut to my HP with each submission. Unfortunately I was never an HP tank to begin with, so “slow and steady” is going to have to be my strategy.
- Silksong soon!!!!!!!!! To celebrate, I finished an ongoing piece of chill and mossy fan art. In order to capitalize on the window of social media engagement, I’ll post my illustration on the morning of the game’s September 4 release date.
- I’m also working on a short comic about [redacted] the ultrawealthy with a hammer. I hope this doesn’t get me put on some sort of watchlist, but it’s very cathartic.
This week I did my best to promote my work unobnoxiously and unobtrusively while submitting things for publication and for consideration for publication. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it.
On the plus side, I think I may have accidentally discovered the alt account of someone I used to be friends with on Tumblr. This feels oddly intimate, like, “I would know you in any time, with any face.” I’m going to give them privacy and not be weird, but it makes me very happy to know they’re still out there in the world.
- I’m also editing The Demon King from the beginning. This week I tackled the first four chapters. This opening section is actually quite good. Every chapter has a few decent one-liners and a neat twist. Unlike An Unfound Door, where I tried my hand at a deliberately slower “gothic” style of writing, The Demon King is super quick and snappy.
- I posted the eighth chapter of What Dreams May Come, a Bloodborne-themed Zelda AU, on AO3 (here). In this penultimate chapter, Zelda finally comes face-to-face with Ganon. This isn’t really a love story, but I like to think these two characters have good chemistry.
- I started writing the second chapter of The Beautiful End of the World, an academic monograph about video games. This chapter is about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and this week I powered through the introduction and the literature review.
- I submitted the manuscripts for two academic articles I’ve been working on for the past year. One is about “green utopias” (environmentally-focused intentional communities) in East Asia, and the other is about the business of publishing indie comics in the United States. Both manuscripts have been copyedited, and I’m turning them in to the journal editors more than a month in advance of their respective deadlines. Hopefully they’ll make it through peer review without any monkey business, and hopefully they’ll be published... at some point in the next three years lmao.
- I submitted an illustration of a ray cat (which glows in the presence of nuclear radiation) to Coin-Operated Press’s “Cats 002” zine. Submissions are open until the end of August, and the publisher is a very cool and chill little outfit. Their website is (here), and the call for submissions is on Instagram (here).
- I made a post on my public-facing blog (here) about my newest short fiction zine, Green Dreams. I know a collection subtitled “tales of botanical fantasy” doesn’t sound like it’s engaging with the current political moment, but I tried to give a brief and accessible summary of why I think it does.
- This week’s post on my book review blog (here) is about an essay collection tangential to the political movement for same-sex marriage in Japan. It’s titled Until I Meet My Husband, and most of the essays are super-entertaining accounts of the author’s experiences of growing up gay in rural Japan (with supportive parents) and then having all sorts of messy romantic relationships in college in Tokyo. It’s a lot of fun and very optimistic about political progress, which is always nice to read.
- This week I queried An Unfound Door with three agents and one indie publisher. I know people like to gush about making spreadsheets and sending dozens of queries at a time, but I am different. I could viscerally feel a massive cut to my HP with each submission. Unfortunately I was never an HP tank to begin with, so “slow and steady” is going to have to be my strategy.
- Silksong soon!!!!!!!!! To celebrate, I finished an ongoing piece of chill and mossy fan art. In order to capitalize on the window of social media engagement, I’ll post my illustration on the morning of the game’s September 4 release date.
- I’m also working on a short comic about [redacted] the ultrawealthy with a hammer. I hope this doesn’t get me put on some sort of watchlist, but it’s very cathartic.
This week I did my best to promote my work unobnoxiously and unobtrusively while submitting things for publication and for consideration for publication. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it.
On the plus side, I think I may have accidentally discovered the alt account of someone I used to be friends with on Tumblr. This feels oddly intimate, like, “I would know you in any time, with any face.” I’m going to give them privacy and not be weird, but it makes me very happy to know they’re still out there in the world.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-28 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-30 11:49 am (UTC)It's embarrassing to have such an expansive graveyard of not-so-great drafts, but I guess it's good to make progress as a writer. I wish this progress were as visible as in the "redrawing the same piece four years later" meme that artists like to post, but still. It's good it's there.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-18 03:52 pm (UTC)