the trick is to keep breathing

Hey yall:

So on 01 September, I’ll be opening up this Patreon to try something a little fun: if you subscribe for only $5/month, you get to vote EVERY WEEK on which of my WIPs I work on and post! It’s a fun little way to get involved with what I’m writing, and it’ll help push me to get more fanfic content out for everyone.

Here’s how it will work. On Fridays I’ll post a poll. It’ll include maybe 3-4 of my WIPs, and it’ll shuffle every week, so that everything has a chance eventually and nothing gets left behind. Voting will be open all weekend, until Monday (at whatever time I crawl out of bed), and I’ll announce it on all my platforms to remind everyone, because I like attention. Then I’ll start working on that particular story from Monday until Friday; ideally I’ll be able to post on Fridays, but if not, you’ll get snippets in the Patreon that nobody else can see. Then we continue with another poll!

I’ve listed out some of my current WIPs on Tumblr, or you can check my AO3 to see what’s going on over there.

This is intended to be FUN. I need a little boost, I need a little cash, and it’ll help me get works out AND tide me over until I can open another round of commissions. (Target date for that is 01 October.) So if you like my writing, and you can spare $5/month, please help me out!

Currently unfilled commissions WILL be worked on regardless, and will be part of this as well!, but my brain needs to be working on multiple things at once and as such the polling should help direct all of it.

<3 <3

--Rosigo being the first short story/novel in my Ausrine universe/series. The entire premise of Rosigo was that it wasn't really going to be its own story; rather, it would be an event in my characters' pasts, a big defining event, that they would refer back to during the forward-moving stories as a common-knowledge thing. Writing it out would have been a great NaNo project because, even unfinished or with gaps, it could have been that framework for when I wanted to refer back to it.

The feel I'm going for with this universe is a weird combination of the world-based, awesome "high fantasy" + the fun of "urban fantasy" but in space, so I guess a little bit of "scifi"* -- but for me the focus is on the magic in this world - the magic of space, I guess - and how the tales and concepts of magic that people believe in forges actual magical boundaries, and how a "perfect world" guided by all-knowing magic compares to a stand-in for our world now.

I'm looking for some thoughts from fellow authors and readers here.

I've realized that, while Rosigo has a plot, it isn't really a plot. Or like - it is a plot, but it doesn't resolve itself. Basically, the cast of characters is sent on a searchquest, and in the end they find something important. We have some culture clashing and some character development, and much of the conflict of the story ties in to what happens to all of them when they find this thing, but... the point of Rosigo is that what they find is a gigantic complex mystery, which then sets the undertones for what was gonna be the first story (and now may be second). The thing they find makes no sense. It's weird. It's mysterious, it's unexplained, and there is no resolution to what it could be in this book. They make it home and say goodbye for now, the end.

Question 1 is: I am assuming that this is not a very satisfactory ending for a reader?

So then, I consider what kind of plot I would add to this story. Problem is, Rosigo is a very neat standalone little thing - this is what happened - and I think I would have to bring in an external conflict to add a plotline that could be resolved. I have some that would fit! And on one hand, this could turn it from a "short story" into a "novel", right? But on the other hand, am I adding conflict for the sake of conflict...?

Question 2: go with the original flow, or add to the complexity?

As it turns out, what I may have here in Ausrine is a wonderful worldbuilding success and a few key great characters, and all I want to do is squirrel around in it, rather than considering what actually happens.

Question 3: does anyone else do this? like does anyone else just want to write about like what their characters do on the weekends and how vampires survive in space and what exactly is so great about this one place and slice-of-life stuff?? just play in the world without a clear idea of where it's going?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

• question the Nth is why do these boundaries do this? Like, if I have fantasy but it's in space, does that make it scifi or does that make it fantasy? Or a crossover? If I have magic is it automatically fantasy? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa