🌚Sam (SK Kelley)🌝

tBaC is set in the same universe as Something Familiar (my YA contemporary fantasy WIP feat. magic users & familiars), so I might reference things in the world-building that never come up in tBaC or talk about that story & its characters a bit as well, but I’m gonna try to focus mainly on tBaC

I’m Sam, writing as SK Kelley.
🏳️‍🌈 📝📚👩‍🎨 🐱🐁☕️🫖🌲

My current WIP is To Break A Curse (tBaC), a sapphic YA paranormal romcom about a lesbian r/NoSleep writer, a popular girl who turned into a creepypasta monster, and the goth witch who accidentally cursed her
👩‍💻👗✨🏚️💀😔🔪🩸🧿🕵️‍♀️‼️💋😳📖🫡🏫💞👱‍♀️👭👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩
#FantasyIndiesMarch

maybe I’ll just let To Break A Curse be a silly little novella

maybe it’s fine that way

unedited snippet from To Break A Curse
#WIPSnips

gonna play Civilization VI instead of doing anything productive today (I’ll still write at least 200 words at some point)

I thought it would be funny to give Rachel, who is not at all afraid of the monster girl she met in the woods, a spider phobia
#WIPSnips

accidentally remembered that the hurdy-gurdy is an instrument that exists, so now I’m stuck watching a ton of YouTube videos about it

probably didn’t help that she’s transgender & was likely mistaken for being homeless

my wife told a cop “please get your hand off me” after he put a firm hand on her shoulder for no reason, and he responded by forcing her to the ground while she had a PTSD anxiety attack

she was stuck in jail 24 hours, not allowed to make a phone call, & had 3 doses of necessary meds withheld 🥴

awkward, unedited snippet from To Break A Curse
#WIPSnips

should say “the FMC is a total fluke”… autocorrect got me lol

Usually not!! The FMC is a trap fluke, and another character (who should be immortal) dies in the process of reviving her.

Familiars can “die” & come back in the sense that their magical essence is separate from their physical body, so their physical body can die but they’re usually fine otherwise.

No one dies in To Break A Curse, though a bunch of characters spend much of the book thinking that one of the FMCs was murdered. 😅

Impactful deaths feature in several character backstories as well, most notably Ice & James (ST), Daniel (SF), & Rachel (tBaC). They all lost someone(s).

Depends.

No deaths in Sidetracked, though 3 MCs come close. lol

Many characters die in Something Familiar, named & unnamed. The FMC dies & comes back wrongish. The MMC & all familiars are functionally immortal & can recover from bodily death. But several good guys & many bad guys die 4 realz.

post a tree (or trees) you photographed

two scenes left to write

this draft is only 25k words long right now, so I’ve got my work cut out for me with draft 2 lmao

the main benefit of setting To Break A Curse in the same universe as Something Familiar is the ability to add a few vague Daniel Browning references to entertain myself

I am going offline as much as I can today. Existing while trans right now is exhausting. I hurt so much.

Please consider checking out my books/stickers/etc. I love my writing and want to do more of it.

ko-fi.com/anotherindie...

I forgot the #Febchantment tag
rip 😔

There are also a handful of unnamed minor antagonists around 3-4; most weaker than Kathrynne simply because she is a familiar but none nearly as weak as Crystal (a young, notably low-level conjurer). Any mid-level conjurer with a familiar diamond would be at least as powerful as Michael.

strongest to weakest in Something Familiar (book 1)

1. Amun & Daniel (familiars)
2. Gottfried (main antag; familiar diamond user/maleficarum)
3. Kathrynne (young familiar) & Lucia (secondary antag; maleficarum)
4. Olivia (23yo conjurer) & Michael (18yo conjurer)
5. Crystal (16yo FMC 😅)

no instances of “highlight” in To Break A Curse or Sunrise, so Daniel’s highlighter blue eyes saved the day
#WIPSnips

Jayde and James go to an amusement park (Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk) in the Sidetracked epilogue novella. They ride a handful of rides and eat churros, but they might have had the most fun in the arcade. lol

Jayde would love it. She likes being out doing something different & fun. Doubt there’s anything she would hate.

James is a dark ride guy. Not big on thrill rides. Would spend hours in an arcade.

Ice would find it too loud & too crowded & have no fun, but Night would take him to one anyway.

Ice POV Sidetracked

No one asked for that guy’s opinion on anything, but I want to write it because I think it would be fun

No idea how I’d release such a thing, though;;; wattpad, maybe lol

I’m hanging on by a thread, and that thread is me forcing myself to write at least 200 words every day no matter what so I don’t lose my daily streak & end up feeling like I’ve completely lost control of my life

ughhh getting sick so many times back to back is catching up to me;;; I haven’t felt so close to burning out in years 😭

from Sunrise (the final Jayde POV dream sequence of the series 🥲)
#WIPSnips

I guess I’ve just watched enough sci-fi horror from the 90s & 2000s to understand the direction it went.

Halfway through my first viewing, I thought “ohhhhh it’s giving Event Horizon”, and I was not disappointed.

I’m convinced that everyone who said Iron Lung was confusing or incomprehensible simply weren’t paying attention to the movie at all.

Though, I guess there were actual audio issues with some earlier showings, so maybe that made it significantly harder to follow? idk