sydnycvwrtes
Frog Girl Wrote a Book.
Sydney. 23. Black. She/her.
Come with me as I traverse the sticky mire of traditional publishing and talk way too much about the little guys in my head.
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I'm contemplating the design for a god-killing weapon and all I can think of is to give my magical MC with silver blood and death magic a Gun.
#yes i am American#writing#writeblr#author#writer things#writerscommunity#publishing#writers on tumblr#writing things
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Me: I wanna keep a writing blog :3
Also me: forgets to update
Anyway, I'm on sub. Scary.
And also realizing that I have began like, my actual career. Which means I... Have to write more books ...
I think I forgor
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Book two update:
I made the dragons gay :3
#writing#writeblr#author#writer things#writerscommunity#publishing#writers on tumblr#writing things#querying#fantasy writer#fantasy writers#fantasy#epic fantasy#dragon#dragons#fantasy writing
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🤷♂️publishing can’t ask us to write bestsellers for them on no money
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So what's my book even about?
Someone gave Olivia Pope shadow magic.
(no, I'm not kidding.)
My gorgeous, sexy, totally fine main character Esme has many hobbies, including but not limited to wearing expensive dresses, affectionately killing her plants, and murdering whoever King Turiel commands her to.
For the past ten decades, she’s been magically bonded to the various monarchs of Micrea. She must follow their every order to the letter, lest the magic that keeps her in this world decide to kill her instead. However, Turiel, the latest king, is a boring man with boring missions. For years, she’s been able to lead a nearly-normal double life away from the capitol and her bloody work.
That is, until someone takes King Turiel's heart out during the night.
When a magic will spells out a bloody competition for the crown, Esme decides it is her chance to give Micrea the king it, and she, deserves. She takes a young could-be king, Balthazar, under her wing in hopes of molding him into her perfect ruler. However, as they wade deeper into the competition’s twists and turns, Balthazar proves himself to be more than just the compassionate man she thought he was. And as he reveals more and more of who he is, Esme is left to wonder if she’s damned not just herself, but the entire country.
(Everyone is a mess. There's a lot of crying. There's even kissing. With blood.)
#in case you were wondering#yes#this was my query letter#it got me my agent so if you wanted a ref for a successful query letter#have this!#but uh yeah#my books i feel like os about a lot more than just this#ot explores the idea of poc having to be exceptional just to be heard#and about how privilege corrupts good people#and about kissing pretty women on the mouth#writing#writeblr#author#writer things#writerscommunity#publishing#amquerying#writers on tumblr#writing things#fantasy writer#epic fantasy#new adult#fantasy writing#high fantasy
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Ah long time no weep.
Basically, I'm almost out of the revisions process. For those of you lucky enough not to know, revisions happen a lot, especially after you get an agent. Truthfully, they just know a lot more than the average writer and revisions are them helping you make your book as perfect as it can be (if they're editorial, like my wonderful agent is :3).
But revisions are fucking hard. I didn't understand just how hard.
But they're also done today (I think) and that means moving on to a whole new step in this process. Submission scares the shit out of me sometimes, but what are ya going to do?
#like#ive reittem this book for the past 8 years or smthn#someone os going to see this shit#i should really talk about what#exactly#my book is about#uh#magical gays#and the one straight guy they know#writing#writeblr#author#writer things#writerscommunity#publishing#writers on tumblr#writing things#querying#amquerying
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Concept: A story involving two shy protagonists, who slowly but surely learn the values of friendship and trust, as they face many trials on their journey, slowly growing in power, skill, and confidence. Their goal remains unclear, but it is obvious that they are both passionate about completing it, and that they both share this goal for similar reasons.
At the end, they are shown to actually be budding villains, who now use their new found bond and skills, to carry out their original goal, with devastating success.
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all RIGHT:
Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT
(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)
This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.
If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.
By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).
Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)
So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies
FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.
What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.
Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.
Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.
So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.
SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life
When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.
For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.
So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.
Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.
I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!
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Okay this is late but I got edits back and -
Oh boy.
I'm super lucky to have such a hands on, nitty gritty agent who really wants to help me and is doing so much to really make this book the best it can be, but editing can be so very frustrating, especially when I have to cut out parts and have to figure out how to stuff the information elsewhere. It had me in tears last night for the first time in a suuuper long time because I was just so broken up over it.
#writing#writeblr#author#writer things#writerscommunity#publishing#writers on tumblr#writing things#trad pub#tradpub#traditional publishing
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fantasy is so fun until you have to name your countries and make a map someone please end my misery
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when will people understand that I don't write because I have a publishing goal? The publishing goals are incidental. I write bc I am strange and weird hope this helps
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So-
I hit an unexpected editing wall. Very hard. Ended up just sending my manuscript over to my agent for them to help me because I was just so lost. Anyway, waiting on that now... Not anxiously because... Well, they can reject me now.
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