some updates!
Jun. 11th, 2025 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quillpunkso! some things! i'm super out of the loop on DW (haven't even checked my noticifactions in a A While, so my apologies if i've missed something. i hope you all have been doing good! <3
I hit 2 of my deadlines! And I had enough brain power to remember to request an extension a third, and managed to get that in on time, too! Still open is the
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fandom5k one, I really don't know what I'm going to do with that...I've been watching a lot of Josh Johnson's standup comedy on YouTube, and it's very fun and cozy. Highly recommend!
I've updated my wishlist with a bunch of things, because I was feeling daring. I'm most excited about finally managing to add an amazon gift card. I have no idea if it will actually work, though!
In regards to the various writing challenges I'm doing, it's going. One of them is total anon required, so I can't talk about that at all, but for the others: on the Hot Wet Queer Summer challenge, I've got a decent start, I think. I'm going kind of vintage gothic vibes? So it's faux-historical, and hopefully some cosmic horror will make it's way in there. For the Sexy Werewolf challenge, I think I need to start over. I'm A) not happy with my current version adn B) the current version should be a full-length novel, which is a bit ambitious in a single summer. I'm thinking of changing gears entirely and doing something way, way shorter. Choices, choices...
I highly recommend the Solo Leveling fic Dragon Ascending by
Aeraneth, even if you've never consumed Solo Leveling. There's so much world building! So much character development! It's a beautiful thing and I adore it, and it's making want to write SL fics, too. I haven't been around the SL corner in so long, it's kind of funny LOL. But I just really love this fic! <3
I've been feeling a bit tapped out lately writing-wise (which makes sense: I finished writing a 70k novel not that long ago and have tossed myself into More Writing for all the challenges and exchanges and whatnot) and so right now I'm writing a self-indulgent Teen Wolf (pre-steter) fic just for me. It's very soothing XD and I mean, sure, deadlines are looming closer and I'm just ignoring those things... but it's fine. Sometimes you need to write something silly without pressure to recharge the creative juices, and oh boy, is my brain delivering. Deadlines be damned.
I've barely read 10 books this year (my mental health was and contiune to be meh) but I recently read The Husband Hoax by Saxon James, which was a fun and relaxing read.
A writing challenge I've been doing on Discord for literal years now is Bookdun: it's a six month challenge where you get split into three teams, and at the end of the season, the team with the most points win. 10k words = 1 point. (I have 15 points right now, which is my highest ever!) You can join at any time, but a new season starts in July (technically I thinks like Jun 29 or 30) and runs through December, if you want to try going in when the battle's just starting. I'm quillpunk on discord, if you want to poke me about it, and I'm happy to talk it up more here, too. And it's perfectly fine to be lurker that literally just updates point for the challenge, that's basically what I've been doing the whole time. There's no need to participate in the server beyond that :)
2 of the challenges I'm doing now are on itchio, and require itch accounts. To that purpose, I now have one. Better yet, I've been exploring, and found some cool authors writing some very cool things on there. On my profile, I've collected links to them, fun porjects and collections! Becuase itchio has collection functionality, which I never knew. And I found some extra cool ones! XD
I can't remember if I've mentioned WritingHabit.app on here, but it's a writing browser app. And aomng other fun stuff, it has a leaderboard (daily, monthly, yearly) and it's very fun climbing it :D My username is roboticalshark on there <3
Okay, I can't think of anything more right now. But hopefully I'll see you soon! <333
🌙
Jun. 11th, 2025 06:36 pmadoreMy well-meaning friend, Sre, messaged me saying that she was sorry if this would bring up any negative feelings for me, but she knew mid-20th-century writers are my jam, and would help me shop for them when she was in my city. She attached a picture, and I didn't process it correctly at first, because it was a shelf full of Persephone Books. I assumed it was a picture from Persephone Books themselves, since they have a store full of shelves of just their books. I thought she was offering to buy one for me and bring it with her when she came here. I told her that she was sweet, and right about them being my jam, and also that after years of being unable to pick up a book without pain related to the bookstore that broke my heart, referred to on this journal as Spinebreaker, it was books like these–Virago green books that were out of print, and Persephone Books which are unavailable in my country, that helped me read again, specifically because I knew Spinebreaker would never be able to stock them. The owner had said that she was trying to bring Persephone Books to her store and wasn't able to get distribution here, and that was a few years ago.
Sre said she didn't know getting them here had been a challenge–and that's when I realise that the picture she had sent me was of Persephone Books stocked in Spinebreaker, and that's when I realise that she didn't know that I didn't clock it.
I've posted here before about moments when I was at risk of relapsing and didn't, and how far I've come and all that. Well... this particular moment is a struggle for me. I've been struggling with sorrow, suffocating waves of them, because... this is a bit like that moment when I visited Spinebreaker for the first time, saw Barbara Comyns on the shelves, and thought it must be A Sign because I had never seen her books here before. A whole shelf of just Persephone Books, in MY COUNTRY not to mention my city? It seems like a miracle. It was something I didn't think was realistic. Just like that whole damned bookstore, just like seeing Barbara Comyns stocked there, just like the chance to work there... it was just never realistic.
At the moment, I happen to be reading Amelia's Intrigue by Judith A. Lansdowne. It's sweet, gentle, cosy, funny and endearing. A perfect comfort reading. It's also out of print so Spinebreaker can never stock it, so there. I'm enjoying it.
When I was bringing myself back into reading I picked up books that would never be stocked at Spinebreaker, or so I thought. Books the owner couldn't get, books that were out of print, and books that were independently published or books she doesn't want to put on her shelves. I got to read some amazing indie books by friends on DW. I also bounced off quite a few books that are made for the indie market but not made for me, just not the sorts of books I enjoy.
The thing is, I imprinted so hard on Spinebreaker because of the books in it. I identified with it so hard because of how it's curated. This means that a book that is stocked there is highly likely to be a book I'll enjoy and a book that's not stocked there is not likely to be a book I'll enjoy. That sucks. But it is what it is.
I have to be okay reading books that are also stocked in Spinebreaker. I have to enjoy them without pausing for pain. I have to get to that point, and I guess I'm frustrated that I'm not there, that I've not healed completely so that there's no chance of feeling all that hurt all over again. It's also the kind of thing that very few of my friends IRL understand, because it just seems trivial to them, like they don't understand why it's been affecting me so much. So I'm glad I can journal about it here.
I'm touched that Sre thought of me when she saw the sorts of books I love, so I don't resent her bringing this up. I would have found out eventually. Because most people I know, including my closest friends, go there regularly and they have talked about the books they've gotten there without me feeling like this because those were books that were accessible otherwise as well, and available elsewhere. But I bet I would have heard about these at some point.
Sre said she could take me to Spinebreaker when she's in my city, if it would help me if she's there. I thanked her and told her I'd rather not go as I don't feel welcome there. I mean, the owner blocked me, lol. She said that instead she could go buy me a Persephone Book from there, but I really don't want to give Spinebreaker any money. Since all of the authors of Persephone Books are dead, I'll pirate them if I can't access them any other way. I love the publisher though and will buy their ebooks when possible; they don't publish most of their books as ebooks, which I think is a pity, but they do have a few in ebook format. I bought Diana Tutton's Guard Your Daughters that way, and of course they've made Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson available as an ebook, since it's their star title.
