This month in writing, revisions, and carpal tunnel surgery
But first…my reading! I had a great time with Hammajang Luck, by Makana Yamamoto: a sapphic science fiction heist story on a space station. It was just what I needed as a break from my usual high-angst stories, with its quick energy, multiplicity of queernesses, Hawai’ian cultural ground, found family tropes, untrustworthy ex, multigenerational family relationships, fascinating scene setting – the whole deal. It made me think I should probably do a future post on sapphic science fiction, and highlight a couple of my favorites. If you have sapphic science fiction you recommend, please guide me in the comments! I’m planning to look around in a promo coming up for sapphic speculative fiction as well, April 4-6. You can subscribe here to a special alert to tell you when things go live – it will be different subgenres each day!
Meanwhile, can you help me out as a reader? I’m on the hunt for sapphic fantasy (or any queer fantasy) that’s serialized. I enjoy Chinese webnovels so much and there’s so much queerness in them (and eagerly awaiting the licensed English translation of Clear and Muddy Loss of Love, first volume out in May!). Do we English language speakers have anything similar? I’ve been on Royal Road but it seems mostly…not queer. I’m not as familiar with Wattpad and I know Amazon’s Vella is dead; I’ve heard about Ream which seems more for romance, and, um, I guess there’s Substack? I’m asking partly because I would love to read some queer serial fantasy webnovels, and especially sapphic, and partly because I’m considering writing a serial if there’s a community that supports them. So please let me know if you’ve got suggestions along those lines!
Writing scars of various sorts
I’ve been mean to my wrists. I play piano and a bunch of wind instruments, I play tennis, I ride bikes, and I write. A lot. For the past few years I couldn’t handwrite for more than a few pages in my journal (I handwrote the entire first draft of my dissertation, so you know I love handwriting) and I would often have to stop typing in the middle of a scene, or if I had an early morning writing session I’d be smashing my clumsy tingle fingers around for a while until I could feel properly. In the fall my doctor said, wait, you’ve had pain for how long? I had to go get my nerves tested electrically, which hurt, and discovered that, yes, I’m overdue for surgery.
As of the last week of February, I’ve got a still-healing Frankenstein scar on the heel of my right palm, which I am a little afraid to leave uncovered (and at the same time keep wanting to show it to people, who are not at all interested in seeing it). Although the surgery meant I can’t wash dishes for a while (sorry my love, it’s all you for a few weeks) or lift “heavy things” (“heavy things” turned out to be a 2-liter soda, OUCH) or open jars (this is going to be a major family issue if I can’t start doing it soon), I was able to type almost immediately, and it’s amazing to do that without pain. (Handwriting is still a little painful, and I hope so much that will improve as well over time.) But as a result of successful typing, I finished another revision of my sapphic math and mapmaking book, now out with its first full readers!
While that book is out for feedback, I’m diving into another revision round with my long-suffering third Crane Moon book. After I finished the two books of the original Crane Moon Cycle duology, which did a bunch of things that were structurally complicated (dual timelines, changing character identities, and multiple settings), I intended to do something very straightforward and simple for my next book.
HAHAHAHA this did not happen.
Have you ever heard that writing a novel is 20% drafting time, 80% revision time? This one has been 97% revision. First draft was 100,000 words of fight scenes, followed by the discovery that 100,000 words of fight scenes is incredibly boring. (On the plus side, I can now pull fight scenes out of any hat on any table). It took me a while to fight back through all those action sequences to the emotional heart of the story, my beloved lesbian couple Liu Chenguang and Aili Fallon, and their adult children.
Moving into revision again, which I hope will be the real, true, final round, also gives me the opportunity to switch playlists. I listen to character or relationship playlists while I’m working on something, and I’ve been with Kumarten and Vineya, my musician and mathematician, for a while. It’s nice to switch to the playlist for Liu Chenguang, which has a very different feel.
I’m hoping that this round of revisions might be the final one, and I have a few beta readers lined up that I trust to tell me so. Wish us luck so I can schedule publishing this year!
Kobo Plus
If you’ve been looking for an alternative to Amazon, Kobo Plus is the subscription program of Kobo, another ereader and ebook platform. Like Kindle Unlimited, you can read as much as you want if you are a Kobo Plus member, although the book choices will be different than KU, which requires exclusivity for authors (if your book is in KU it can’t be available anywhere else). My books are there along with lots of others! There’s an app you can use for Kobo if you don’t have the Kobo reader (although they are great, I have one! and it integrates libraries too). The one thing is that sometimes it’s hard to find new books in Kobo, so check out Jae’s List: Kobo Plus Sapphic Books: Jae is a well-known sapphic romance author and her blog is a great resource for readers and writers alike. She’s gathered a list of sapphic authors of all genres whose books are in Kobo Plus.