Rauni Reivonen - swords and mages and gays, oh my!

Left side: (Circled, highlighted: 62) He wondered how much he should tell Ari himself, eventually decided to come at it from the opposite direction-to find out how much Ari knew. He dressed and went to Ari's rooms. (Finds Ari looking at the paintings, which have been shuffled around) (And with Astra, Since Astra seems to know "everything," he decides to be blunt and try to break through Astra's façade) (Circled: 65) Nov 30: (circled: 1039) November total: (Circled: 51,029) YATTTAAA!! Right side: the slightest touch set his nerves alight. "Are you all right?" Kiran looked up at him with something more than concen in his face. "Just fine," Anders lied. "Why, is there some reason I would not be all right?" Kiran just shook his head and continued dressing him in silence. Once he was dressed, Anders said, unable to meet Kiran's eye, "I'm going to see Ari. You can wait here." He didn’t see how kiran responded, because he couldn't look at him, and Kiran didn't say anything.

I’ve reached the end of November in last year’s draft of #DarkDreams 😲
Left is last year’s notebook, right is this year’s.
A lot of Anders and Kiran’s interactions seem to revolve around getting dressed & undressed, which.. heh 😈
#amwriting #NovemberWriting #writesky #queerbooksky 🏳️‍🌈💘😈

Plus I'm glad the top comment pointed out the scream at the end so I knew to listen for it 😱🤘

YouTube video by Slow Fall - Topic Crown Of Dead Leaves

Having melancholy clean vocals in Finnish is pretty much an automatic like from me 😄🤘
www.youtube.com/watch?v=upYx...
#melodeath #melodicdeathmetal #finland

I have kind of gotten into the headspace for Ch 2 now. Partly bc I realized I can spend the first half of the book playing with Anders & Kiran subtext 😈😈😈 It gets so heavy sometimes it’s practically main text. Oh well, that’s me 😁😁😇
#amwriting #DarkDreams #romance #LGBTQ #queerbooksky 🏳️‍🌈💘🤴🏼🧜🏻‍♂️👨🏽‍❤️‍👨🏽

One Beautiful Blue Banyan, c.1740 (even Lord Honeybadger approves!) Susan reporting: No 18th c. gentleman worth his fashionable salt would be without a silk banyan or wrapping gown for at-home wear.  Nor, i...

However, I saw this, & I was like, yoink. Anders has this, this exact thing.
Which I guess pins the basis for my fantasy world as the 1740s- which coincidentally aligns perfectly with the works that provided some of the inspiration for #DarkDreams 😀
twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2011/11/one-...

I’m probably going to get something wrong with clothes in #DarkDreams, like mixing styles from different decades.. but I just don’t care. I’m very meticulous with researching geography, weather, food, travel times & methods.. but when it comes to clothing, 🤷
#amwriting #NovemberWriting #writesky

Huh! So Kiran is the other girl that the prince marries. No wonder the mermaid is jealous. And in this version, she does want to kill him.
#amwriting #DarkDreams

Kiran has actually envisaged a realistic way forward for them, while Astra is just like, DESTROY EVERYTHING. And would quite literally have dragged Anders down into the deep. (Little spoiler about the old ending, hehe 😉 )

But Kiran really is so much better for Anders. Astra is not a good person. And unfortunately he’s dragging Ari and Hans down with him 🙁

(and/or how to save them, since Astra seems about to go for the nuclear option)
#amwriting #NovemberWriting #queerbooksky

To top it all off, all this is happening in Ch 7 or thereabouts, but I’m supposed to be working on Ch 2 😖 So I have to somehow get myself in the headspace for the beginning of the book, when I just want to think about cute Anders & Kiran things later on

Oh MAN, I don’t know WHAT to do with #DarkDreams 😫 The whole point of this rewrite is to do more with Anders’s valet (Kiran). Well, he is def more involved now, as Anders decided to hook up with him! Which completely changed the trajectory of the story, & caused Astra to turn outright evil.

Overall progress Current state: 30,250 words My overall progress word count graph, which roughly follows the S curve I described, although the part for last week is very uneven

My actual overall progress graph isn’t too bad either, just a little bumpy 😆

Then again I *should* be ahead of par. If I was on par on the 17th, that would be bad. And I’m only about a day ahead of par, which may not be enough.
My overall wc graph should be a gentle S curve, now rising above par, tho at a decreasing rate, and converging with it at 50k.

Describing the graph in alt text did make me aware that it was trending upward overall until the 16th, which is as it should be.
And I’m over 30k! 🥳
I’m also ahead of par (which was 28,333 yesterday) 😀

Nomads, and hopefully rewriting Dark Dreams Daily work My daily word count graph, which has turned into a series of jagged spikes that do trend upward overall, until an extremely high peak in the 4000s on Nov. 16. Overall progress Current state: 30,250 words

My word count graph is all over the place 😫🤪 I did so well over the weekend but crashed again yesterday.
It is really hard to make almost 3k words on #DarkDreams if I have to do anything other than writing. And Mondays suck to begin with 😣
#amwriting #NovemberWriting #writesky

I really want to steal more writing time- but THAT IS WHY IM SUPPOSED TO GET UP AT 5. Now I don’t have time ☹️

Of course, I still hate myself, because if I had gotten up earlier I could have had an hour for writing, instead of just 15 minutes 😣

When you motivate yourself to get up early and write by telling yourself, “you’ll hate yourself much less if you get up and do this” 😖😫
#amwriting #NovemberWriting #writingcommunity

And then continued to write what happens the morning after, as if there actually would be a morning after, as if this actually happened! Which it can’t, it would mess up things later in the book- not to mention change THE WHOLE REST OF THE BOOK 😣
#amwriting #DarkDreams #NovemberWriting #writesky

The last thing he remembered before he fell asleep was Kiran tenderly kissing his nose and saying, “I’ve got you, Your Highness.”

I may or may not have written a 1200 word scene that doesn’t actually happen 😙😈😁 But it was fun and it helped me make a lot of words quickly! 😄
#amwriting #DarkDreams #NovemberWriting #writingcommunity

(And poor Kiran goes back to his room and curls up thinking, what am I doing, I almost made a move on His Highness, what an idiot I am)

You know your minor characters are coming to life when you start thinking about what they’re doing/thinking/feeling after they leave the scene 😄
#amwriting #DarkDreams #NovemberWriting #writesky

Thank you!

Same! I almost exclusively handwrite my drafts now, bc it's so much easier to get the words flowing.

I think my handwriting speed is only a little slower than typing.. but then I have to count the words, which can take 30+ min for high wc days 😩 (Yes, I'm obsessive & want to know the exact count)

Same! I almost exclusively worldbuild as I go. "Uh, how should this work? Time to do a bunch of research!"

It is a good time of year! Esp when you've got November novel writing to keep you busy between the holidays 😆

Aww that sounds so cute!

All the pies! You're absolutely right, this is pie season, and I love them all! 😁

. #Nomads is now completely drafted, and I will be looking for betareaders eventually 😉😁 Queer fantasy romance, enby love interest, lots of wilderness survival & a little fighting, several smutty scenes + bonus content 😈 Two broken people trying to find their way in a broken world. ~30k.

I'm so behind on my "Patreon post every day in November" challenge, but I did post a few free snips since the last chat. These are from #Nomads:
Making up from the fight www.patreon.com/posts/30-day...
The turning point (NSFW!) www.patreon.com/posts/novemb...
#QueerWritersChat #amwriting #LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈⚔️💘