#vvvid tag
Note
happy birthday to valentine van velt my best friend on the fucking earth
WAIT SHIT NOT BIRTHDAY I MEANT VALENTINES DAY. SAME DIFFERENCE
"I mean, God, it might as well be, right? You know what's the only thing worse than being named Valentine van Velt? Being named Valentine van Velt when your birthday's not even on Valentine's Day. Unbelievable. But I guess that would take all the mystery out of it. I kind of like the mystery, to tell you the truth. Valentine's Day is already a holiday. But your birthday's a day that's just ordinary to everyone else. So you get it to yourself, you know? Well, you and whoever else has it, but as far as I'm concerned all those people are imposters. Uh, and thanks, I mean. I hope you had a good one. I'd give you a heart-shaped lollipop if I had one. Like we're kindergarten classmates. Yeah. That'd be nice."
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[tapping the mic] your name is valentine van velt, you’re seventeen and maladjusted, and YOU SHOULD COMMISSION @jadlz RIGHT NOW.
okay, but seriously, you should commission my friend riot over at downriotlane on instagram; i have and CLEARLY it was a fucking amazing decision because LOOK at this cover for valentine van velt is dead! pros here: their art style(s) is (are) gorgeous! they drew this incredibly fast! they will draw your OCs! they have the coolest makeup of anyone i know! that part isn’t relevant to the commission part except for the degree to which it enhances their swagger! cons here: none. commission him. and then read my mental illness book
#max.txt#vvvid tag#i've forgotten how to make serious posts. why do i have to sound professional. look at it.#i want to print it out and put it in my mouth.
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD HAS A POSTING SCHEDULE
(cover by @athenapollo my beloved)
WHAT: A story told over the course of eight weeks in a mental health program, by an anonymous, over-opinionated, self-admittedly unreliable narrator. A story about…
WHO: Valentine van Velt, a sour-faced seventeen-year-old trust fund baby who’s just been kicked out of private school… for the third time. Now they’re headed to New York City, on the trail of a seventeen-year-old family secret…
THE CATCH: In four days, Valentine van Velt is going to get murdered. But don’t worry. If you take the narrator’s word for it, they probably deserve it.
at last! The Thing! aka “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy;” aka “this isn’t actually a murder mystery / it’s about mental health / i apologize to all fans of thrillers”
the project is a little over 60k words and split into seven segments; i’ll be posting one segment per week, on fridays!
WEEK ONE // available here
WEEK TWO // available here
WEEK THREE // available here
WEEK FOUR // available here
WEEK FIVE // available here
WEEK SIX/SEVEN // available here
WEEK EIGHT // available here
i’ll be posting each chapter as a google doc, a PDF, and an epub, so you can read however you’d like! every chapter post will be linked on this masterpost; once every chapter has been posted individually, i’ll also release the full project in the same formats. any and all commentary is accepted and invited and very much welcome (even concrit, if you are so inclined).
trigger warnings will also go up with each post, but the general trigger warnings for the project are car accidents, suicide, and self harm (neither of the latter two happen on page, but both are discussed)
& of course: the playlist, because that’s integral.
fridays are officially valentinedays! mark your calendars! tell your friends and nemesi! get excited! get hype! and i’ll see you there!
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK ONE
I know what you want to know — how I got here, what brand of crazy I am, why the car hit me — but I’m not going to tell you that. What kind of person would I be if I just told you everything you wanted to hear? A sycophant. More like a psycho-phant, really. Get it? Since I’m in the mental hospital?
ladies, gentlemen, and those of us who know better: welcome to the shitshow. that is, The Book I Am Releasing For Free Which You Can Read More About Here Or Just Click On The First Chapter Without Any Prior Knowledge If You Want!
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for the first chapter: minor ableism from the narrator
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here; tune in next week (9/24/21) for therapy musings, valentine’s mission, and a rather unfortunate train ride.
#max.txt#max actually writes#vvvid tag#VALENTINEDAY NUMBER ONE! LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO [throws my laptop out the Fuckign window & deletes my identity from social media]#i am so nervous about posting this but i also think... by the time someone is done with the first chapter they will know if they want--#the rest of it. so we will see.#okay blows a kiss i am going offline.
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hi max happy valentine’s day to valentine van velt my beloved (haha. get it. bc their name is—[i am shot] but also happy valentines if u celebrate!)
stuck my head in the back (of maxbrain inc.) & let them know. they say thanks
"It's a Hallmark holiday, you know, Valentine's Day. Not that I don't appreciate it - the well wishes, I mean. And the whole day, I guess. I mean, I wouldn't throw a goddamn parade about it. I used to be pissed about the whole alliterative name, that's such suburban garbage - but if you really ask me it's sort of a nice idea, Valentine's Day. A whole day about love. And people actually being sincere for once, I mean, actually being nice and meaning it. Plus it was always the best day in elementary school. When you'd make all those little cards for the kids in your class and pass them out one by one at the desks - I miss that. We should bring that back in adulthood. Brighten up office jobs with it. What I'm saying is - I mean, thank you. I mean, I'd put a little card on your desk if I could, you know?"
#max.txt#HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO YOU TOO VARAN! HOPE IT'S BEEN GOOD#i have literally no plans except i've been wearing heart glasses & heart socks.#& listening to vvv's playlist actually; funnily enough.#vvvid tag#asks
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK EIGHT
Hey. So. Guess what. It’s my loony bin discharge day.
WE’VE DONE IT, EVERYONE. WE’VE REACHED THE FINAL VALENTINEDAY. today ft. art by riot @jadlz my beloved friend riot, whose redbubble you should check out here!
not sure what to say about this one, other than “hey that is a whole book that i’ve now posted. wicked” & a general sappy thank-you to anyone who’s been following along. everyone say “good job graduating exposure therapy, Narrator”
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for this chapter: some explicit discussion of suicide and self-harm
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here... and we are done!
#max.txt#vvvid tag#AGH.#i'm normal. i feel normally about this. um. jazz hands. book finished!#max actually writes
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK FOUR
It’s such a weird feeling, being alone in a city at night.
It’s so specific, I mean. There’s nothing that makes you feel exactly that way. It’s not loneliness; it’s not sadness; it’s not even depression. It’s like all the mania of the city turned cold, in this way that reminds you of all the dark winters from your childhood where the cold was so deep it made you feel lonely. You know what I’m saying? There’s a kind of loneliness that feels cold, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking the other way around. The city at night feels like that.
You feel pretty shit, Valentine.
hey, somebody’s halfway through their eight weeks of exposure therapy.
fourth installment of vvvid is out, & this one is much shorter than week three, thank god. ft. some more city misadventures! just lonelier ones.
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for the fourth chapter: would you look at that, it’s more suicidal ideation
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here; tune in next week (8/15/21) for some payoff, finally.
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK SIX/SEVEN
Yeah. I’m fine. Shut up. I just — you know when you’re a little kid at the doctor and you scream and cry because you’d rather bite through the doctor’s fingers than get your stupid flu shot — but you just have to grit your teeth and get it over with? Rip the bandaid off? This is my goddamn tetanus shot, right here, okay? Just let me…
second to last segment!!! it’s not exactly a double feature, but it’s certainly the penultimate stretch, and the truth.
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for this chapter: see above.
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here; tune in next week (8/29/21) for The End.
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK TWO
The thing about being crazy when you’re my age is that you never have the teenage rebellion phase. I mean, yeah, Valentine, you dyed your hair, and you had the whole thing with school — but when you’re my age and you’re crazy, your teenage rebellion phase is getting crazy. Obviously it’s not something you do on purpose, getting crazy, but you’re also kind of not giving yourself a lot of options here, right? Like, sure, you can still go to parties or drink or get tattoos or have screaming matches with your parents. I mean, I didn’t, but you still can. But if you’re my age and you’re crazy and you do any of those things in any combination — that’s not about being a teenager anymore. That’s about being mental.
if week one was our hook, week two is our thesis statement. the second installment of VVVID is coming at you, full of train rides, bloody noses, and a LOT of the narrator’s opinion.
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for the second chapter: valentine has a full breakdown including some non-graphic suicidal thoughts; also, very brief mentions of homo/transphobia and drugs
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here; tune in next week (8/1/21) for a fun museum escapade and our second of three major characters.
#max.txt#valentine having a breakdown in segment two right out of the gate. so on brand#vvvid tag#max actually writes
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK FIVE
The second thing Beck Dantes ever says to you is, “Hello.” This is after Ava McCallum appears behind her in the doorway, because after that everyone’s walking on eggshells like they work in a goddamn chicken coop, all awkward hellos and how-are-yous and WHO-are-yous. But the first thing Beck Dantes ever says to you is before all that, when she looks you right in the eyes, with all the exasperation of a sixty-year-old high school teacher, and goes, “Ah, shit.”
Which just about figures, looking back.
fifth installment of VVVID and i promise they actually do get shorter after this! like, for real, i am not lying this time! tune in today for some payoff, at last. alexa, play billy joel’s “she’s always a woman.”
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for the fifth chapter: references to an (implied) past suicide, one explicit reference to self-harm (page 19 of the doc/pdf), one instance of deadnaming
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here; tune in next week (8/22/21) for the penultimate chapter, ft. [car horns honking to obscure my words]
#max.txt#vvvid tag#VALENTINE FRIDAY!#trying to keep my vaguely professional persona by not shouting loudly in the tags about my favorite beloved side character#max actually writes
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reminder that VVVID is dropping on friday! that’s two days away! in celebration/anticipation i offer you the playlist! which is in roughly chronological order and does have annotations, but i can’t share them because... spoilers. so just enjoy the vibes for now.
(as a fun bonus, have our pathetic main character’s on-repeat playlist as well.)
#max.txt#vvvid tag#anyway. soothing myself about the anxiety of dropping this book w the reminder that#i've already satisfied the primary audience (me) (literally just me)#so we can only go up from here.
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VALENTINE VAN VELT IS DEAD
↳ WEEK THREE
Look, it’s like this, right: the city doesn’t care about you. At all. And that’s gorgeous. But it also means you have to care about yourself. And come on, Valentine. We both know real damn well you can’t.
third installment of vvvid, & this is a long one! ft. city (mis)adventures, with a new character accompanying our pathetic main this time; also, more of the narrator’s opinions, because we didn’t have quite enough last time!
[google docs link (commenting open, allowed, & encouraged!)]
[if you’d prefer the story in PDF or EPUB format, find those (hopefully downloadable) here!]
general story cws: car crashes, discussion of suicide and self-harm
cws for the third chapter: some explicit (non-graphic) discussion of suicidal ideation
valentine van velt is dead is entirely free and being released in weekly intervals! the masterpost is here; tune in next week (8/8/21) for Angst Hours TM.
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goose-books productions: a 2020 review
view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template
transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h
january
i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.
enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.
Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”
Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”
“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.
“Exactly,” Augustus says.
“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.
“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”
It isn’t.
february
in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”
it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL
I.
Someone was going to die on these steps.
This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.
It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.
march
in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)
INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?
[PAUSE.]
DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.
[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]
NONA: That’s right.
MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.
DEE: We’re using her stove.
NONA: To make pasta.
DEE: Do you want some?
[A TENSE PAUSE.]
INDRAJIT: No.
april
and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.
iv: control
They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.
People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.
may
in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.
ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -
HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.
ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.
HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.
[PAUSE.]
ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.
He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.
God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.
june
okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!
RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.
So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.
july
every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.
“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”
Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.
“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.
“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”
Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.
august
this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.
You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.
You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.
So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.
There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.
september
i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...
It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.
(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)
Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.
But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.
october
...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.
Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.
This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.
Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.
They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.
november
and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)
“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”
Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”
Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.
Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.
“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”
december
and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)
i kill the beast and drop down to my knees,
my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue,
and for a moment these scarred hands shake free,
and hold a world unfurled for me anew.
but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find;
fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare.
my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind;
the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there.
and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE—
O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.
i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)
a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:
(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color
thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!
#max.txt#and that's a wrap!!! what a goddamn year.#okay. breath in. tags:#quark tag#third eye tag#(i think there are like. two posts in that one?)#amt tag#darkling tag#tmr tag#vvvid tag#wow that was a lot of text. if you read all this... [blows you a kiss] thank you!#max actually writes#year in review
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hello everyone! what if i came up with a fun name for my followers. as if i have a brand instead of 5-10 friends who sort of pay attention to what i’m doing here. goslings. hello goslings. wait i have an oc with the last name gosling. oh well whatever - it’s about time around here for a little status update, isn’t it?
darkling
as of this weekend, i’ve finished the first draft of darkling (trans nd specfic king lear retelling)! only seven acts and almost 200k words. sighs in overwriting.
maybe i’m still riding the high of finishing something, but i would venture to say that this first draft is better than i expected it to be. while i have a formidable list of things to edit, i doubt i’ll have to make major structural revisions… which means i’m hoping to work on said edits and open up beta reading this summer, if not sooner! (my heart says to try for spring break, but my brain says that would be terribly ambitious of me, especially after i’ve existed facedown in this book for a good three months.)
AMT
with darkling drafted, a modern tragedy, the podcast, once again becomes my first priority! (...also a shakespeare retelling. ah, well, we have a brand over here at goose-books dot gov.) more coming about this Soon. (like, within this week soon.)
the other ones
ah, the other ones. [gesturing vaguely at the WIPs piled like sleeping kittens in the corner]
look, i’ve… i’ve learned by now that i can’t really go into any new year stating that i’m going to draft X or Y. as much as i would like to… i do not control the random bursts of inspiration that pin me to my desk and make me write 200k words about my personal reinterpretation of king lear which i have only just read due to quarantine. (just an example. just off the top of my head.) i like to keep my writing goals loose; i like to allow new projects to come and go as they might!
that said, i do have tentative thoughts about my long-running WIPs. currently, TMR (high fantasy with faeries and trans kids) is sitting as a full draft from 2018 (wow). quark (magical nyc, monsters, adhd, prophecy, capitalism bad, etc) is sitting as half a draft from 2019, which i never ended up finishing (oops). and love h (butch4butchhamlet) has yet to be drafted at all.
depending on… what ends up Happening in my life in the next couple of months (this is a cryptic allusion to college application results, which affect my writing plans somewhat), i would like to pick one of these to draft this year! in the event that any of you [gestures at my mostly-nonexistent readership] have opinions / a favorite of those WIPs… [slaps the askbox invitingly]
valentine van velt (holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy) is, as always, my odd WIP out. (”i’m weird,” it says. “have you ever seen me without this stupid second person narration? that’s weird.”) i wrote a full draft of it last year and i don’t really intend to write another; for better or worse it’s a story quite embedded in a specific period in my life. that said, i am also terrified to post it publicly anywhere because of its painfully clear parallels to my real actual irl mental health journey. scream. i’ll also take opinions about this one, for the record [slaps the askbox again]
in other news, by hook or by crook* i will put that short story into the world within the next few months. i refuse to let that thing turn an entire year old rotting in its google doc.
*by acceptance to some kind of magazine/contest or by me just throwing it at this blog with confetti
in conclusion: plans! i heard of em. they’re vague, but i have them! i’m very excited to finally put some stuff into the world this year instead of just promising that i will! i hope you’re all doing well; my dms and askbox are always open! now if you will excuse me i am off to go put on hand cream.
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so what’s the deal with valentine van velt?
great question. their parents and teachers ask this also. anyway this post is to explain why i have a project that i never made a fancy intro post for. also to make you look at my art
what is it?
it’s a book! well, a book in progress. by yours truly max gooseboy.
there’s a little blurb over here, but in short: it’s about four days in the life of a very annoying, very unhappy teenager named valentine. (that’s the little bastard you see above.) the story’s told in a mixture of first and second person - it’s narrated by a self-admittedly unreliable patient in an OCD program, talking to a “you” that is valentine themself.
...i will admit in my head i’ve taken to calling it “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy”
why are you so vague about it all the time?
primarily because the target audience is, and always has been, me.
my other projects are much easier to talk about, because they have fun taglines and they are fundamentally what they claim to be on the tin. plus i do genuinely think other people will like them! i am excited to share them with the world! so VVVID is my weird baby in that it’s rather unorthodox and written for an ideal audience of Me.
i hate to call it slice-of-life, because that term tends to have a peaceful fluffy connotation and this is… definitely not that. but it is a winding and strange little story. the unreliability of the narrator is a plot point. i have held off on making some kind of Flashy Cool Please-Reblog-This Intro Post™ for this project because i don’t want to promise something i am not going to deliver on! i don’t want people thinking i’m going to offer a stunning murder mystery (did valentine even get murdered? god knows) or a tearjerking found family story when what am i really offering is… a twisty little thing about mental health, mostly.
plus there are substantial bits that are… very overtly based off of my experiences with mental health. and i do not want people seeing a post about it and thinking that i have come to write Groundbreaking Ownvoices Fiction About Mental Illness when i am writing about me and my experience specifically, if that makes sense. and like... i dunno man i genuinely don’t know if other people on the planet will enjoy this thing! i don’t know if it is going to be objectively “good”! but i sure am going to create it anyway! it is a gift to myself!
but if you don’t want people to see it, why are you posting about it?
i don’t not want people to see it! i’m not saying, “too bad if you want to see it someday, you can’t, it is locked in a box at the bottom of a trench and only i have the key.” i just don’t want to misadvertize :> but i do like to talk about the things i am working on and i definitely want to be able to open the text post creator and complain about / dunk on valentine for being incredibly annoying and difficult to write. so. here we are
what is your plan for it, if not to lock it in a box and throw it down a trench?
this is a great question! i do not know! i’m in the home stretch here (if i actually sit down and Do It i’ll have it finished in a week, knock on wood) and after i finish the first draft i’m switching focus to nanowrimo prep lmao. and after that... perhaps i will write a second valentine draft. perhaps i will stick it back into the files to come back to in the distant future. perhaps i will polish it up and put it on the internet for the, like, two people who have expressed interest. who’s to say. who’s to say.
“max i would like to hear more about this”
my askbox is open!
“max i think literally all of your other projects sound more interesting never talk about this again”
my askbox is open for you to say this to me also!
“max i want that twink (valentine) obliterated”
[revving my car engine] don’t worry it’s happening
#max.txt#hello hello here is this week's post... not going to tag anyone because. it is not a very formal post hdfbdbfsd. but it is okay to reblog!#should you be so inclined.#vvvid tag#thinking about... how i put them on my artfight page and got some very nice art of the little bastard ;__;
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valentine van velt might not have a plot but it does have an opener that, in my humble opinion, slaps
[transcript: I know what you want to know - how I got here, what brand of crazy I am, why the car hit me - but I’m not going to tell you that. What kind of person would I be if I just told you everything you wanted to hear? A sycophant. More like a psycho-phant, really. Get it? Since I’m in a mental hospital?]
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