Get-To-Know-Yous and Project Intros

[vintagewitch]

Hey everyone!

I know a bunch of people are interested in using this space to track our NaNo projects, so I figured it'd be nice to have some intros.

Let's do a round of posts to get to know each other.

Here are some possible questions to answer:

1. Who are you?
2. What are your fave books?
3. Have you ever done NaNo before?
4. What's your project looking like? What kind of support do you want/need?
5. Anything else you wanna share!

I'll start!

1. Who are you?

I'm a queer femme witch, living in the Twin Cities, MN. I'm a total weirdo, in love with pop culture and trying to become a professional writer.

2. What are your fave books?

It feels cliche to say this, but the Harry Potter series was incredibly formative for me. The HP Fandom fostered a sense of community for me when I was just learning about being a witch.

Otherwise, in terms of books, I love Fun Home by Alison Bechdell, The Border of Paradise by Esme Weijun Wang, The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan, and countless - COUNTLESS - books about witchcraft. I'd say The Border of Paradise and Fun Home probably have the biggest influence on my thinking about writing fiction.

3. Have you ever done NaNo before?

Yes! I won one year, and I think I've participated 2 other times.

4. What's your project looking like?

I'm writing a couple of things, and want to use NaNo to finish them. I'm working on a grimoire for a class I'm teaching, and I'm also writing a book about Norse mythology. I need to have the grimoire done by the end of the year, and I'm not quite set on a goal for a manuscript of the book, but ideally by summer. This is kind of like a jump start - I really want to do getyourwordsout next year, so this is a bit of a jump start of that.

I'm not totally sure what kind of support I want - mostly I want a chill space to talk about word counts and such. I've already got beta readers for my various projects, but sometimes I need a lil encouragement. Would also love any suggestions on the editing process, as well as pitching work if any of you have done that. Also ... encouragement on the fiction front! I love writing and reading fiction, but I write so much for work stuff that I don't have much energy at the end of the day for fiction writing.



5. Anything else?

Not totally sure! I love horror and weird fiction, and so I kind of want to jump into writing some of that in short story form. I'm also back on my bullshit with fandom, and I've got a fanfic that is on the backburner while I try to get other stuff finished. I'm constantly reading like, 5 books at a time and so my attention is a little scatterbrained.

Like I said above, I'm a professional witch and tarot reader and that is a HUGE part of my life, but I kind of want to keep Dreamwidth more anonymous. I need to do other things than chat about work all the time. 

Comments

[vintagewitch]

(Edwardian, sometime between 1906 and 1910, probably) featuring two characters who have shown up in the 1920s series, as a "arranged marriage that later becomes a love match" trope. It's going to involve art forgery, and before I get started I should brush up a bit on some pieces of what I need details for.

Can I just say I'm ALREADY obsessed? This sounds spectacular. Also I might need some romance recs, I usually get my romance fix through fandom but I'd actually really love to read a good romance that's original work. Especially if it's queer.

[jenett]

I am having so much fun with the series and the world. (And I'm really looking forward to the Edwardian one, having gotten a chance to see what Richard and Alysoun are like later on in the 1920s when they've sorted themselves out.)

My romances are M/F (because romance as a genre, you mostly have to pick what you're doing) but I'm doing my best to get queer characters into the stories as plots allow. (Current book in progress includes heroine having a conversation about Sappho with the nice academic lesbian couple in the boarding house she's staying at, one of my heroes is canonically bi and insistent about being honest about it.)

If you have not already read any KJ Charles, and want historical queer romance, start there! (for which one to start with, depends a bit on your interests, but her website will give you a sense. You might get a huge kick out of Proper English and there's another book involving those characters, Think of England, but if you want the explicit magical part, try This Spectered Isle (Other stuff also awesome.)

I also really like Cat Sebastian's Hither, Page, and have other stuff in my TBR pile.

[vintagewitch]

Awesome, thank you! I will add them to my fun reading pile.

I have nothing against reading M/F, I just loooooove a good queer romance. I've also been incredibly in the mood for some Jane Austen lately, so that tells you where my head's at in terms of romance. I've read (and loved) Pride and Prejudice but I'm thinking of reading Sense and Sensibility.