Monthly Archives: October 2022

It’s that Time of Year Again, Folks: NaNoWriMo!

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We are reaching the end of October. It is therefore that time of year again! It’s NaNoWriMo season, my friends!

I think at this point most bookish types are at least vaguely familiar with Nano, but for the uninitiated NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. Nano takes place in November (Novel, November, get it?). It started in 1999 and is run by a nonprofit group at the website www.nanowrimo.org

It’s a challenge, essentially, to write 50,000 words (of the first draft of a novel) over the course of just 30 days in November — 50,000 was chosen as the official word count goal because it is the rough average length of a published novel. (Sort of, the technical definition of a novel is a piece of fiction writing that is 40,000 words or longer. The average length has gone up in recent years and is probably more like 70-80k words at this point, but 50k is a good goal post for the challenge.) You sign up to join the challenge on the website, and keep track of your word count, follow other writers as “buddies,” and generally try to have fun. If you succeed in writing 50k words by Nov 30th, you officially “win” and get a printable certificate, some cool discounts from various participating business partnerships, and bragging rights. 

I’ve been participating (or trying to, anyway) most years since 2010. The ONLY time I’ve “won” was in my first year in 2010, when I actually wrote 70k words towards the first draft of my novel Midnight’s Knife (currently at 160,000 words total, in the 2nd draft). That year, I was unemployed and taking a year break between the end of my MA degree and the beginning of my PhD, which was the ONLY reason I actually managed to succeed. Every other year, as I try to write while also working/studying, I have failed miserably. I have never made it past 25k words since then, and some years don’t even break 15k.

But I try most years (I’ve skipped a few), and will again this year. I am currently unemployed again, which might give me a better chance at winning. BUT I am actively looking for/interviewing for jobs, and will hopefully have a new position soon, which will no doubt kill my chances at hitting 50k. But that’s all right. I need the work. And any writing progress is good progress.

This year, I will be starting a new project I’ve had rattling around in the back of my brain for a few months now. I’ve been telling my brain to wait, to put that back where it came from, and so on, for ages. And I decided that now was the time to let my brain pick up the idea and run with it for a while. I’ve been embracing the “Pantser” method of late, so beyond the basic premise and main characters, I have very little idea of where I’m going with this, but its going to have ALL THE VIBES.

It’s a secondary world setting, loosely inspired by Victorian England, featuring period-appropriate imperialism, and an immigrant family from a conquered/“annexed” country vaguely inspired by Japan. I’m stealing from everywhere for this story (including the Victorian England setting, and the Japanese immigrant experience). This stealing also includes: 1) a main character inspired by Ann Elliott from Jane Austen’s Persuasion, 2) the MC’s immigrant mother based on my Japanese-immigrant grandmother, 3) a main Love Interest loosely based on a combination of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Julie D’Aubigny, and 4) an undead warlock I stole pretty much wholesale from a rural Ohioan legend a Ohioan friend told me about.

I don’t have a title yet so I’m just calling it the “Wesmaris Project” for the moment (Wesmaris being the name of the imperialist country that is the main setting).

Tags include:
Victorian aesthetic, imperialist bullshit, immigrant family trauma, wlw, mutual pining, femme/butch, introvert/extrovert, magical beings, shady deals with fay in creepy forests, found family, undead warlock, thread magic, stitch-witchery, downtrodden women getting power and getting revenge, soundtrack by Florence + the Machine and Amazing Devil

And here’s the mood board I spent far too much time on:

Mood board made using Canva and images from Pinterest

Quick Update, Oct 24th

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Apologies for missing my Friday post deadline last week! I’ve been working like crazy to find a new job. Filling out dozens of applications, revising and re-revising my resume, drafting bunches of cover letters… I’ve had a handful of phone interviews that haven’t gone anywhere, and I have an in-person interview tomorrow (fingers crossed, friends!).

I’ve also been doing a little bit of freelance lesson writing for a study website, AND I’ve been trying to submit a short story I wrote to some literature magazines. So… I just got very busy the week whizzed past me without my even really noticing. I’ll have a full blog post up this Friday on schedule, though!

A couple updates:
*I just finished reading a couple great novellas I will try to write up reviews for soon.
*Currently re-reading A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (for the fifth time!) in preparation for the sequel A Restless Truth releasing on Nov 1st.
*Also planning to re-read the very witchy sapphic romance Payback’s a Witch later this week in the spirit of the Halloween season!

Old Dog, New Tricks

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I’m an Old (™). This is a fact. I’m what the internet affectionately calls an “elder millennial.” I have had teens and 20-somethings treat me like I should, in fact, be crawling into my own grave of my own volition by now. And somehow, I find myself getting into tabletop gaming for the first time in my life, at my age?

I have been a nerd, or a geek, or whatever my whole life. I have at least dabbled in most nerdy pursuits at some point or another. But I never got into tabletop gaming (whether it be card games, or co-op board games, or RPGs) as a kid/teenager, when most nerds are getting into that kind of thing. It wasn’t that I avoided them on purpose. I was just never really exposed to it at any point in K-12. My mom was not a gamer of any kind. My younger brother was a gamer, but only video games and Pokémon cards (which I dabbled in a bit, for his benefit, but didn’t really play). Being a military brat, I didn’t have many friends and didn’t keep any for very long, and none of them were tabletop gamers of any kind. So, I just didn’t really know anything about them.

Even in college, when some people might get into it if they missed out on it the first time around, I managed to accidentally avoid it by virtue of not living on campus and getting the full “college experience.” My best friend did live on a college campus, and so dabbled in a few things. Through her, I played my one and only RPG campaign one summer between semesters (and it wasn’t even D&D, it was the much simpler Mage series of RPGs by White Wolf).

Now, somehow, through a twist of brain-weirdness, and because of my abominable habit of picking up new habits the way some people catch a cold, I find myself getting into several varieties of tabletop gaming for the first time ever. I have picked up a couple board games (and I don’t mean your more traditional family board games like Clue or Monopoly). I started with one that seemed accessible and easy to learn for a newbie (and also appealed to me as a Disney nerd): Villainous. Then I grabbed Azul, because it had such great reviews on gaming sites. I also bought one of the Hunt a Killer murder mystery games: Mystery at Magnolia Gardens. And now I’m considering the much more massive (and expensive) game Descent: Legends of the Dark by Fantasy Flight Games. I’ve been considering this one after doing a lot of research on games I play on solo mode. I’ve dragged my mother, and once my brother, into playing Villainous with me. And my mom really enjoyed the Mystery of Magnolia Gardens game, but mostly I’m on my own for this new stage in my nerd development, lol!

In addition, I bought a game (also by Fantasy Flight Games) called Legacy of Dragonholt. It’s a bit like a cross between a full RPG (such as D&D) and a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book on steroids. I have managed to drag my mother into doing this one with me as well, lol! We do a couple hours on the weekends. It’s not as flexible as I would like (and as I would no doubt get from a full RPG game), but it is entertaining and it’s a good stepping stone into other, bigger things.

I have ALSO started buying Magic the Gathering cards for the first time in my life! And this bad habit I can entirely blame on Twitter. Particularly, the artists I follow on Twitter. Several artists I love and follow on social media started sharing the pieces they painted for one of the new MtG expansions: Streets of New Capenna, and I was in raptures! It’s a mix of magic and 1920s Jazz Age aesthetics! I am obsessed with 1920s history/style right now! It was made specifically for ME. How could I resist?

I am trying (with middling success) to teach myself how to actually play Magic the Gathering. I even downloaded the MtG: Arena app to play that way, since I have no one to play with IRL. But so far the intricacies of the rules and the various card functions is proving rather opaque to me. So… *shrug*

This has all happened in just the last three or four months. Will it STICK long term? I don’t know. I’m ADHD. Jumping from hyperfixation to hyperfixation is just part of my mental makeup. But maybe. If I can figure out what the hell I’m actually DOING? And if I can find actual people IRL to play any of these things with? Then maybe.

If you are an expert in any of these things, and care to offer sage advice, I am all ears. If you are brand new to the world of tabletop gaming and want to muddle through these things with me in a blind-leading-the-blind sort of scenario, please also chime in! If you want to just point and laugh at The Old (™) muddling her way through all of this, feel free. I am well aware how silly I look, and I’m at peace with it.

Book Review: Imperfect Illusions

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Title: Imperfect Illusions
Author: Vanora Lawless
Release Date: 4 October 2022
How I Got It: ARC from the author
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Let me start this review with a little backstory. I follow the fantasy romance author Allie Therin on Twitter, whose work I adore and have raved about to all and sundry. A few months ago she started talking about her next project (Liar City, coming out next year) which will feature an empath. Another indie romance author, Vanora Lawless commented that she was also writing a story that featured an empath. Her story was a historical fantasy romance, about an empath drafted to fight during WW1. At that, I piped up that I was ALSO working on a story that features an empath, who was ALSO a soldier during WW1, though my story takes place in the 20s after the MC has survived the war and come home with serious PTSD. The three of us made a lot of jokes about being the empath squad (and several other writers joined in the merriment).

Fast forward a couple months, and Vanora Lawless (who I have since followed on Twitter and chatted with here and there) asked if I would be interested in an e-arc of her empath book, Imperfect Illusions, which she would be releasing (self-pub) in October. Of course, I jumped at the chance! Historical romance fantasy is one of my main obsessions. And I wanted to see how she interpreted the “empath soldier” character (and feared mine, which is nowhere near ready for publication, would be too similar).

I’d meant to read Imperfect Illusions right after I finished Nona the Ninth. But then Nona the Ninth knocked me on my ass and I spent over two weeks in a total book hangover/coma (and I know I still owe you all a review of that one). So, I finally sat down to read Imperfect Illusions on Monday (a day before officially release, lol).

And, reader, I read the whole thing in one sitting on Monday night, finishing at about 1:30am. Lol.

Imperfect Illusions, as I mentioned, is a historical fantasy romance. Sully is an empath working as a private detective in Chicago, when he is forcefully recruited by the military to join a special group of “Skilled” (magical) soldiers to go fight in France during WW1. He is blackmailed into joining because the military knows he sleeps with men and has no compunction exposing him and causing scandal for his teenage cousin (that he is raising) and possible arrest. On his last night before leaving for training, he goes for a night on the town and picks up a handsome man in a club. Much to his surprise, the handsome man, Elliot, is also “skilled” and is also being blackmailed into military service.

The two men have a single beautiful, emotional night together, and then go their separate ways, believing they will never see each other again.

Fast-forward to the war: Elliot’s skill is that he can dream-walk into anyone’s mind with enough effort, but mostly with people he has an emotional connection with (such as family and lovers). He accidentally finds himself in Sully’s dreams, and ends up protecting Sully from debilitating nightmares caused by Sully’s inability to block out the pain and fear and trauma of every other soldier around him on the frontlines. The problem is, like many people, Sully doesn’t generally remember his dreams, and therefore has no conscious knowledge of the fact that he is spending months’ worth of nights keeping company with Elliot as the two fall in love.

When Elliot and Sully end up working together on a covert mission, these two incongruent versions of their relationship come head to head, and it all goes to hell from there.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. Both of the MCs are charming and complex and given lots of personality on the page. Elliot’s wealthy background made for an interesting contrast of personalities to Sully’s working-class orphan background. I was highly amused by the detail that Elliot majored in English and writes (self-professed bad) poetry. I know the feeling, Elliot. The magic system is interesting and entertaining. People with magic are called “skilled” and usually have one, or perhaps two related, magical abilities: Sully is an empath but can also create illusions to distract or deflect attention; Elliot is a dream-walker but also has the ability to push the sensation of elation or horror into a person he touches, etc. Going into the story, I wasn’t sure how much the magic would matter to the plot, outside the inciting issue of Elliot dream-walking without Sully’s knowledge. I was happy to see that, in fact, the magic (of the MCs and a number of supporting characters) was all highly important and effectively used to further the plot. Without giving too much away, let me just say: I was not prepared for the zombies!

Speaking of the plot, besides the romance plot, there is a rather intense plot centered around WW1 in general, and on a dangerous covert operation specifically. It was exciting, and creepy (see the aforementioned zombies), and well-executed.

The general setting of the war in France is painted with a light touch. Enough specificity and detail to ground the story, but not so much as to get lost in the historical weeds. Just on a subjective, personal taste level, I would appreciate a bit more attention to the historical setting. There were a few points where I was sitting there thinking: “I’m not entirely sure this is accurate…” or “this is kind of vague every-war-is-like-this stuff, rather than specific WW1 history.” But again, that is purely a matter of personal taste, because I am a history nerd, and I get caught up in my own historical research when I’m writing a lot (like, to the point of trying to find accurate tram service line maps for 1922 Cleveland, and making sure any song I mentioned was definitely already released on the radio before Sept 1922… I’m just like that). In any case, this was a very minor complaint. Not even really a complaint, actually. Just a noted difference in writing styles.

The book was highly entertaining. Both MCs were charming as fuck. The romance was beautiful and intense and entirely swoon-worthy (a handful of very steamy sex scenes). And the zombies were creepy. And I am absolutely delighted to know that a sequel is expected some time next year. Thank goodness!

As I mentioned, this book JUST released this week. I highly recommend it for any of my fellow historical romance fans. You can find links to any of your preferred book-buying locations on the Imperfect Illusions books2read page (by the by, books2read.com is my new favorite place for compiling of the book buying links).