Hello and Happy December!

It’s been a long time since I sent one of these out. Admittedly, that’s completely my fault. However, thanks to a better planning method and a more concrete schedule, I will be much better about being on top of these things.

Now, before we actually get into the updates, I want to just remind y’all that the humanitarian crisis and Genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza is still taking place. In my last newsletter I listed a few sources, but these are ever changing with the situation. At this point, we have a few things that we can do to help the situation:

• Participate in boycotts

• Urge Ceasefire

• Continue Education

• Do not forget the Palestinian People

• Now we can move on to the updates

So what was I doing in the month of November? I was of course participating in the 50k Challenge, previously known as NaNoWriMo. While I will no longer be associating myself with NaNoWriMo due to their abysmal response to the predatory actions of one of their moderators towards minors, I will continue to challenge myself this time of year. None of us need a website like NaNo to do this.

My project for that month was Ikarys. This was most certainly a passion project inspired by a D&D mini campaign a friend of mine ran in my Homebrew world. He, as well as another player, gave me their blessing to use the campaign and characters to novelize the events(with some changes to make it a cohesive story of course).

Thanks to the challenge and my best friend, fellow author Mawce Hanlin, I was able to complete the first draft of Ikarys during the month of November. It’s definitely one of the shorter pieces I’ve written, coming in at under 60k words. It’s now in the hands of an alpha reader to prepare for second draft revisions. If all goes well, I’ll be looking for Beta Readers around end of February or early March

If you want a sneak peak, you can go here for an unedited, very rough draft, version of the prologue. Of course, this is subject to change as second draft revisions come up.

I also added another 30k words to the A Corruption of Souls sequel, putting that first draft over 50k words. Currently, thanks to the head start I got in November, this draft is sitting at 60k, and I’m looking at having the first rough draft completed by the end of January.

I cannot express how excited I am for this Anthology. A Chronicle of Monsters is filled to the brim with queer stories from some incredible authors. Curated by Rita A. Rubin, author of OF KNIGHTS and edited by Mawce Hanlin, this anthology has something for everyone. You won’t be disappointed.

My story in this anthology is Lady of the Dark, focusing on the elf Ascal and her mini adventure with her friend Salthu, an orc warrior. Both of these ladies are powerful warriors in their own right, and when their playful sparring is interrupted by the news that a child was kidnapped by a monster, they work together to track down the beast and rescue the child. It’s full of sassy remarks, high tension fight scenes, and a sprinkling of romance.

If you beta read The Flowered Blade, you’ll recognize these two ladies who definitely deserved more page time. And if you want a little taste of sapphic romance before their own book is released, this will be perfect for you.

Keep your eye out for ARC opportunities for this Anthology. You truly don’t want to miss ANY of the stories.

While there’s no exact date just yet, The Flowered Blade will be coming to you soon! It’s currently in the hands of an editor and getting nice and pretty for y’all to enjoy.

The Flowered Blade is definitely a labor of love. It has some of my favorite characters I’ve written and my favorite character dynamics. My beta readers for The Flowered Blade were absolutely incredible. I wouldn’t have been able to make it as wonderful as it is without them and their honest feedback.

I cannot wait until you have this book in your hands.

Because I have no self control, you can go here to read the first chapter(unedited, but still).

I was planning on talking about this anyways, but the whole Cait Corrain situation makes this all the more important to me, especially regarding transparency in how I plan to review books moving forward.

If you follow my IG, you might have noticed that I posted a couple reviews on books I beta read. I gave them glowing reviews, which I 100% stand by. I plan to continue reviewing published and beta reads(beta reads with permission from the author), however, there are some qualifiers I need to speak on.

First, if I do not like a book and would rate it 3 stars or lower, I won’t be reviewing it on my page. Full stop. I won’t disparage the author, I won’t advise you not to read it, none of that.

Reviewing books for me is about uplifting my fellow authors and having fun talking about the books I loved. If that makes you view me as a biased reviewer, that’s totally fine. There are plenty of other reviewers who can provide reviews on books they don’t like, and I highly recommend you seek them out! Multiple reviews are always better than one anyways.

As with everything else, there is some nuance and this is my process on a case by case basis. Ultimately, it will be a judgment call and each time I will have to stand behind my decision. If I review a book that I personally didn’t like, but I think others may like, I will make that clear by using examples of the prose, the plot, the tropes, all those things that come together to create our book preferences. At the end of the day, my taste doesn’t make a book good or bad, so I will also try to keep that in mind.

Reviewing books as an author is a tricky situation. At the end of the day, I don’t want to hurt my peers with my reviews. I want to uplift them and bring more eyes to the wonderful works they’re producing. I want my reviews to reflect that.

Yes, that makes me biased towards positive reviews, but I’m okay with that.

Final Notes

December is ultimately a month of planning for the New Year. I’m taking a well deserved break after writing over 80k words in November before I kick it back into high gear for the New Year.

Before I go, just a few more things

First, support and uplift the creatives in your life(this includes YOU). We are nothing without our communities. The people making art of all kinds deserve love and support for the work they put into their craft. If you focus on uplifting, you will be uplifted as well. Give good, and get good in return. It will serve you so much better than being mean and nasty towards other creatives.

Second, as my social media tends to be fairly open, you will start seeing posts about my works, but also some personal posts regarding my HRT. I am personally very comfortable with being open about this information, HOWEVER, that does not mean other people will be. Do not use my comfort in being open to demand other people be open with their gender/identity/transition. That’s not fair to anyone. If you’re following my newsletter, I doubt you would, but I would be irresponsible not to just put it out there.

Third, I love y’all. That’s it. That’s the note. I love y’all a lot.