rynling | Entries tagged with writing

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I hope this isn't delusional, but I'm starting to think about the query letter. 😬

This is my one-sentence pitch for Fhiad to artists btw: "Fhiad is a traveling wizard detective investigating a series of murders at an isolated castle."

That's not who he is in this novel, but I have plans for him. The second I finish the first draft of the last chapter of An Unfound Door, I'm going to start writing my first short mystery story starring wandering wizard detective Fhiad.

I picked up a few new-to-me editions of Lovecraft in Europe earlier this summer, and I've been spending the past two months slowly reading through them. The only way I know how to explain this is to say that Lovecraft's Gothic-inspired prose has grown on me, and I enjoy reading each different set of annotations and endnotes.

Out of curiosity, I decided to reread "The Annotated Kitab al-Azif," the dark academia Lovecraftian queer romance story I wrote last summer. To my surprise, it's good. It's very good. I kind of can't believe that something this good was written by me. My writing style has changed during the past year, but every word of this story is perfect. The characters and central mystery are interesting and compelling from the very first page, and there's not a single paragraph out of place.

Still, the story was rejected by three separate magazines, as well as a micropublisher that contacted me to request an original short story to publish as a chapbook. I understand that "three magazines" isn't a lot of magazines, but the micropublisher rejection really hurt. I decided that the story was worthless; but, on reading it again after going through a great deal of "influenced by Lovecraft" short fiction during the past year, I'm starting to think that it might be something special. Also, given that there's a huge audience for "soft but weird gay horror" podcasts like Welcome to Night Vale and The Magnus Archives, there has to be a readership and a market for my story. I just have to find it.

So I hired an editor on Fivver to provide developmental feedback and help me pinpoint a few additional submission venues. Again, I know it's cringe to pay for this sort of service instead of, idk, organically finding a mentor and a supportive writing community, but I will take any help I can get. I hope I make it. No matter how each of us gets there, I hope we all make it.

About two years ago, I had a short dark fantasy story accepted into a magazine that closed before the last issue could be published. This was disheartening, and I never did anything with the story. This weekend, I gathered my courage and paid a published author and dark fantasy editor $15 on Fivver to suggest a handful of venues where the story might be able to find a good home. After two days, she returned a beautiful PDF document containing a nicely formatted list. She noticed that I like plants, so she put a few photos of plants in the unused white space. To help keep the submission process green and chill, she told me.

Another fantastic experience. And I know it's cringe to pay people for help, but please consider:

(1) Having ADHD and dyslexia sucks.
(2) Asking for help hasn't gotten me anywhere.
(3) Once I figure this out, I can help other people.
(4) It's cheaper than an MFA.

Before I start talking about this, it's important to state that my official position on machine-generated writing is that it sucks and I hate it. It's boring, it's annoying, and its environmental impact is not inconsequential.

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In conclusion, AI should stay in its lane of detecting cancer cells and predicting weather patterns and leave me and my writing in peace.

Okay yeah that was fucking fantastic. Holy shit.

The editor I hired did a marvelous job and cut to the chase without beating around the bush, and my essay is much stronger for her feedback. Pure professionalism all around.

I was worried that, for just $10, the editor would simply run the essay through AI or something. She did not do this. Also, speaking of AI, I'm happy I hired an editor instead of using an automated service myself. Writing is an art as well as a craft; and, in the end, you can't beat a human.

This past weekend, I finished my 1k-word Legend of Zelda meta essay for the Silent Princess zine. The essay is an empowering feminist reading of how the trope of the "captive princess" applies to the Zelda of the original 1986 game. My goal is to demonstrate that, while this Zelda is an action hero in her own right, her wisdom lies in patience, strategy, and the careful coordination of allies.

It's a good essay, I think. It was easy to write and easy to edit.

But I'm nervous. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to participate in this zine, and I want to submit my best work. Even for the first check-in, I'd like to share a highly polished draft.

I therefore signed up with Fiverr and hired someone with more than a hundred positive reviews to edit the essay. I pitched it as an edited first draft and said that I was looking for suggestions on style, organization, and flow.

Idk man. $10 for next-day editorial feedback seems too good to be true, but we'll see.

Read Varré’s Bouqet by Rynling
https://www.tiktok.com/@thackerythinx/video/7394229586021616938

I was scrolling through "how to explain Elden Ring to friends" memes on TikTok, and the algorithm showed me this video. On one hand, this was a weird "the app is definitely spying on me through my phone" moment. On the other hand, I'm really touched. I was actually thinking about deleting this story from AO3 because its numbers are so low, so it's nice to know that it means something to someone. Much love to this gentleman and his excellent taste in Elden Ring crackships.

I submitted my poem about Philadelphia being overgrown with vegetation to the "queer plant writing" lit journal based in Philadelphia. They rejected it immediately. Like seriously, they didn't even wait an hour. How rude. It's a good poem. I mean, maybe it's problematic to suggest that Philadelphia is filled with overgrown ruins, but in my defense:

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I'm finally writing my essay about Ender Lilies! It's happening!! Here's the lede:

In Binary Haze’s 2021 Soulslike Metroidvania Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, a young girl named Lily navigates a hostile postapocalyptic world with the help of grotesquely mutated undead monsters. As the game progresses, Lily becomes increasingly reliant on her monstrous companions as she becomes more monstrous herself. Ender Lilies functions as an intriguing model of mutual aid, especially in relation to its gradual descent into fungal horror. As the world changes around us, Ender Lilies asks, is it really so horrific to develop radical new relationships with the environment?

And here's my pitch:

I will admit that there may not be much SEO power in an essay about Ender Lilies, a Japanese game whose fandom seems to be concentrated in China and South Korea. Still, the game is a gorgeous piece of art with a sequel coming out later this year, and I think it's an interesting vehicle to highlight some of the themes common across many of the essays on Sidequest, which involve looking at mainstream games from a different perspective. Specifically, I want to use Ender Lilies to talk about disability and mutual aid, and I'd like to tie this specific discussion to broader East Asian conversations about how the accommodation of human difference is connected to environmental justice.

Please wish me luck! 🌿

I'm writing an essay about Ender Lilies (my beloved) to pitch to Sidequest, and the point I'm trying to make about the game is that it does something really interesting with fungal horror, which is to suggest that there's no normative way to be human.

This is from the opening section of my essay:

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...I mean, I'm just saying. "Weird" nonbinary people who aren't interested in wearing sharply tailored military uniforms are no less deserving of dignity and respect. And also, as the world changes around us, is it really so horrific to develop radical new relationships with the environment?

I'm working with a professional commercial artist on a traditional watercolor illustration for my upcoming Philadelphia zine. It's an amazing piece of art, and I can't wait for the artist to share it so I can brag about how cool it's been to work with them.

Once the physical paper flattens out after the final watercolor washes, the painting will be ready to scan, so the artist asked me if I have any preferences regarding the image file. I do in fact have a specific set of dimensions for the zine page, but the truth is that whatever the artist prefers is good. The way I explained it is this: "As much as I dislike AI art, the Spot Healer tool in Photoshop has gotten really useful over the past few updates, so I can seamlessly extend the borders of the unpainted watercolor paper if need be."

What I mean is that the Spot Healer brush in Photoshop uses AI to "fix" the specified area of an image to be consistent with the surrounding area. It's really useful for editing scans of old photos and book covers and such; and (along with my beloved brush smoothing setting), this tool is one of the main reasons why I keep paying for the software despite Adobe's bullshit. Seamlessly extending the borders of an image is one of the many things you can do with the tool, and honestly, it's real wizard hours.

The same applies to the AI spell/style check in Google Docs. I'm a very careful writer, but I'm also ADHD and a bit dyslexic, so this type of AI is super helpful to me. In fact, I'm in the process of editing one of my stories from 2018 in Google Docs, and it's like magic. The AI isn't doing the work for me, obviously, but it's like having a friendly crow sitting on my shoulder.

I'm not trying to make a cohesive argument here, but it's a shame that such a useful set of technologies is being used to plagiarize creative work in order to generate mindless spam for an entropy-spiraling attention economy.

The Whispers of Hyrule
https://thewhispersofhyrule.carrd.co/

The Whispers of Hyrule is a fan zine dedicated to exploring the various forest folk that reside in the lands of Hyrule and beyond throughout the Legend of Zelda franchise and their footprint on their world.

This zine is still in the interest check stage; but, given that its theme rests comfortably on a bed of moss at the perfect intersection of my niche interests, I have already written pitches.

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I'm so excited about all of these ideas that I'm not going to wait to be accepted (or rejected) to start writing the stories. In fact, I've already commissioned an illustration of the Saria story and a comic adaptation of the Ganondorf story, and I'm keeping an eye out for someone to draw the Deku Princess for me. I'd love to participate in the zine if given an opportunity; but, at the same time, I think this is what people mean when they say "embrace your strangeness and write for audience of yourself and three other sickos."

Not to sound like a boomer, but I need some people to learn how to write emails
https://enonem.tumblr.com/750113572652302336

Professional language acts as a social boundary setting to the protection of both parties. That matters because when you are dealing professionally with someone (be it within a corporate office or commissioning an artist on tumblr), there are going to be discussions. Maintaining that professional language ensures (at least in theory) that those disagreements are treated as part of the work. It also ensures that work will be done during work times and for appropriate recompense.

I'm working on a post about "how to commission an artist" for the

gywo writing community here on Dreamwidth, and this is a good resource to bookmark.

I think my post is shaping out to be a decent guide btw. What it's unfortunately missing is info on how to commission book covers for indie self-publishing. I really need to figure that out. Soon, hopefully.

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.
https://thebibliosphere.tumblr.com/749033453163610112

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They sure are, and it's painfully obvious. The take-away point of this post is something I wholly agree with:

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive,' because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

That's exactly right, I think. There's no way a single artist can compete with a corporate studio even if they wanted to... but why would you want to?

I'm not saying that writers don't deserve support, of course. Positive feedback is good, as is money. Still, I think the point of this post and its commentary, namely, that it's good (based, even) to be weird and self-indulgent and unproductive, isn't necessarily a contradiction to the goal of establishing a sustainable creative practice.

The irrepressibly brilliant Emily Cheeseman drew Fhiad from An Unfound Door, and my goodness.

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It's difficult to summarize what's going on with this character, so I settled on describing where I see him in ten years. An Unfound Door has got to be one of the most elaborate backstories ever written, but I have no regrets. And this is a bit embarrassing, but I used to write a lot of Sherlock Holmes pastiches when I was younger. I bet I could still pull it off. Murder mysteries are always more fun when magic is involved, right?

Akiya houses: why Japan has nine million empty homes
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/akyia-houses-why-japan-has-nine-million-empty-homes

More than 4.4 million of the properties surveyed are available to rent – but have been empty long-term and are mostly away from the main population centres. The status of more than 3.8 million is unknown, and only 330,000 of the 9 million were up for sale. However, there is growing interest among foreigners in this glut of empty properties, particularly kominka (traditional) houses as an option for cheap and unusual accommodation, holiday homes or to rent out to tourists.

I just did the first set of edits on my story for the 13 Days of Halloween zine, which is about a yamauba mountain demon who lures a YouTuber into her lair via Airbnb. There are a ton of abandoned houses in rural areas in Japan; and, statistically speaking, at least a few of them have to be haunted, right? I'm sure the real estate agents marketing these properties to foreigners are perfectly normal and totally not demons looking for a tasty snack.

Nostalgia is an abstract theme to think through, but I did my best to pin it down. What interests me is the point at which nostalgia becomes creepy.

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Are you going to tell me that Virginia Woolf lived here? HERE??? In my own ideal house?????

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Like I don't need a room of my own, I need a garden terrace atrium filled with plants of my own.

14 Warning Signs That You Are Living in a Society Without a Counterculture
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/14-warning-signs-that-you-are-living

This is a deep matter, and I won’t try to unlock all the nuances here. I will now simply share 14 tweets that capture the stale taste of life without a counterculture.

I'm proud, I guess, to be a contributor to whatever counterculture still exists. At the same time, I'd really like to be paid for my work. Being broke all the time sucks.

If I had money, this is what I'd do:

1. Buy a Steam Deck, which I've wanted for years
2. Take a three-day vacation at the end of the semester
3. Commission an artist to work with me on a comic project
4. Start a small press maybe

That's not even a lot of money, just $3000. But even $3k is a lot when you don't get paid for anything. I'm not delusional enough to think that I ever had the potential to become the next big thing, but I wish there were more opportunities. Even working for free is super competitive, and I hate it.

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that
https://grison-in-space.tumblr.com/post/739237414569164800/all-of-this-with-one-additional-nudge-even-the

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Twenty miles a day on foot sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I think maybe the lived experience of American and Canadian suburban sprawl makes it seem like twenty miles isn't a great distance, but it's fairly substantial. If you live in a place that retains traces of its preindustrial society, like England or Japan, it's a comfortable half-day's walk from one town to another. Unless we're talking about one of the major citystates on the Silk Road, one "domain" or "kingdom" is going to be relatively small by modern standards. Obviously nobody's going to live out in the middle of the woods or the mountains, but there are plenty of places for a traveler to eat and rest.

I mean, I love continent-spanning RPGs as much as anyone else, but a territory the size of New Jersey is plenty epic and has a good diversity of biomes. In the novel I'm currently writing, a remote ruined kingdom is maybe, like, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from where the characters start.

... ... ...damn I just got misty-eyed thinking about a world where we didn't have to own cars. It's okay. I'm fine.

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Rynling R&D

Entries tagged with writing

An Unfound Door Characters

Fun with Fiverr, Part Three

Fun with Fiverr, Part Two

Robots Don't Know Shit

Re: Fun with Fiverr

Fun with Fiverr

Made My Day

Re: The Stone's Love Song to the Moss

Ender Lilies Essay

I for one welcome our fungal overlords

As much as I dislike machine-generated art...

Forest Zelda Zine

As clear and concise as possible

Productivity is a trap

Wandering Wizard Detective

Demons Gotta Eat

Analog Horror, Part Two

I am not normal about this

A Sad Story Told Entirely in Tweets

Fantasy Distances for Horse Girls at Heart