2025 Writing Log, Part 45
Nov. 15th, 2025 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynling- My queer Lovecraftian romance story “The Annotated Kitab al-Azif” was published in Black Sheep, an honest-to-god weird fiction pulp magazine. Nice! The new issue with my story is (here) on Amazon.
- This story was actually accepted by a fairly well-respected and free-to-read online magazine, but then they just... never published it. These things happen. Between one thing and another, it took fifteen months between my first submission of this story and its publication. Never give up, I guess.
- This week I wrote the second chapter of The Darkness of the Archives, a Modern AU based on Tears of the Kingdom. In this chapter, Ganon strongarms Zelda into joining him on an expedition into the basement storage area of a large museum. This chapter is partially based on my own expeditions into the underground stacks of my university library.
- I posted the fourth and final chapter of An Esoteric Training in the Art of Power, a Tears of the Kingdom ancient era smutfic, on AO3 (here). Thus concludes my graduate seminar paper on getting fingerblasted by Ganondorf. Good game.
- I’m working on my story for Yuletide and really enjoying myself. This week I discovered the antagonist, and thereby the emotional core of the character conflict.
- I’m also working on a comic for an art exchange, and I’m having a marvelous time. I love making art for other people. I should do this more often.
- I wrote the next story for my Ruins zine. It’s called “Pride and Joy,” and it’s an interview with an elderly woman who lives in a neighborhood of North Philadelphia called Strawberry Mansion. In the future, the neighborhood becomes a historic preservation district after the woman’s grandson pioneers low-gravity robotics technology that greatly facilitates space travel.
- This week’s post on my book review blog (here) is about Natsuo Kirino’s newest novel in translation, Swallows. I feel like this book is more of a think piece than an actual novel, and it would probably function better as a work of fiction if it were a hundred pages shorter. Still, Kirino isn’t wrong about the political and economic issues underlying pregnancy in Japan, and you might be surprised by how much suspense the author generates with the question of whether or not the protagonist decides to carry her pregnancy to term.
The projects I’m currently working on are all fantastic, but I haven’t been feeling the flow with anything this week. I’m literally like: if I can just work on this thing for three minutes today, that’s enough. If I put enough “three minutes” together, they will eventually add up. And they do, but having to work at such a slow pace is frustrating.
I hate November. When will the sun come back. Asking for myself.
- This story was actually accepted by a fairly well-respected and free-to-read online magazine, but then they just... never published it. These things happen. Between one thing and another, it took fifteen months between my first submission of this story and its publication. Never give up, I guess.
- This week I wrote the second chapter of The Darkness of the Archives, a Modern AU based on Tears of the Kingdom. In this chapter, Ganon strongarms Zelda into joining him on an expedition into the basement storage area of a large museum. This chapter is partially based on my own expeditions into the underground stacks of my university library.
- I posted the fourth and final chapter of An Esoteric Training in the Art of Power, a Tears of the Kingdom ancient era smutfic, on AO3 (here). Thus concludes my graduate seminar paper on getting fingerblasted by Ganondorf. Good game.
- I’m working on my story for Yuletide and really enjoying myself. This week I discovered the antagonist, and thereby the emotional core of the character conflict.
- I’m also working on a comic for an art exchange, and I’m having a marvelous time. I love making art for other people. I should do this more often.
- I wrote the next story for my Ruins zine. It’s called “Pride and Joy,” and it’s an interview with an elderly woman who lives in a neighborhood of North Philadelphia called Strawberry Mansion. In the future, the neighborhood becomes a historic preservation district after the woman’s grandson pioneers low-gravity robotics technology that greatly facilitates space travel.
- This week’s post on my book review blog (here) is about Natsuo Kirino’s newest novel in translation, Swallows. I feel like this book is more of a think piece than an actual novel, and it would probably function better as a work of fiction if it were a hundred pages shorter. Still, Kirino isn’t wrong about the political and economic issues underlying pregnancy in Japan, and you might be surprised by how much suspense the author generates with the question of whether or not the protagonist decides to carry her pregnancy to term.
The projects I’m currently working on are all fantastic, but I haven’t been feeling the flow with anything this week. I’m literally like: if I can just work on this thing for three minutes today, that’s enough. If I put enough “three minutes” together, they will eventually add up. And they do, but having to work at such a slow pace is frustrating.
I hate November. When will the sun come back. Asking for myself.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-19 08:03 pm (UTC)Congrats on publication!!
no subject
Date: 2025-11-22 09:59 am (UTC)AYYYYYY!!! Congrats on the publishing! Huzzah!!!! Much needed and much deserved <3
As someone currently in a creative rut due to Life Circumstances™, very glad and inspired to see you've got a great rotation of interesting projects going. Great stuff 🤌
The leaves are all-but off the trees where I live and I already want them to grow back. We're lucky to get a good frost, let alone a proper snow, so we don't even really have a fun change in weather to shake up the vibes. It's just Autumn But Worse™ over here. pain.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-23 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-24 01:30 pm (UTC)When I first moved to Philadelphia about fifteen years ago, it snowed in the winter. And now it's noteworthy if we get frost on the ground in the morning. Apparently it almost never snows in New York either. I hate snow and cold, so I'm not complaining, but it's wild that the climate has changed so quickly.
But I'm sending you sunlight for "autumn but worse," along with lots of wishes that circumstances improve. It's wild what a difference it can make for life to just calm down for a bit, and I hope you get to enjoy that peace and good energy soon.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-25 06:20 pm (UTC)