This is the romance* central to my gothic fantasy book.

*It goes very badly.

#amWriting #AmWritingFantasy #fantasy #GayElves #ATTBTM #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #cartoons #cartooning #webcomic

It took Esor ages to realize Ilare might be conducting a new kind of mischief. He only spotted it when she started asking him questions with that expression—the one that she got when she was trying to find somewhere new to hide a bloodtoad. “What stellar correspondences are appropriate for use of quicksilver in alchemy as the primary ingredient?” Ilare might ask with that look. Or something like, “Are there any substances often mistakenly regarded as catalysts which are depleted by their use?”
She drifted on so quickly from Esor’s answers, he really did think she was asking for her own benefit. At first. Yet these were questions to which Ilare surely must have known the answers, even when the subject matter was nothing Esor had yet to teach.
“Are you attempting to quiz me?” Esor asked finally on one sunny summer afternoon.
Lounging sedately in off-the-shoulder robes by his office bookshelf, Ilare said, “Yes, and you’re doing marvelously.”
“What game is this?”
She licked her finger and turned a page in her book. “Well, you won’t be working for us forever. Already it has been more than a year into your contract. It won’t be long until you take the last payment and face your life after the Kovenor, won’t it?”
Jarred, Esor said, “I suppose not. But right now, we should be focusing on your entry into the College of Ralen.”
“You should apply as well.” She didn’t wait for him to list arguments. “I’ll see to it that your tuition is paid. I will whine at my family until someone masculine contacts the dean for your admission. Dokàlvar or no, you are every bit as clever as I am. You would be a benefit to the College.”
“But…” He straightened his cravat and stood taller. His cheeks took the color of dusky violets. “I’ve always thought I would work for some business adjacent to the college. A professor’s assistant, perhaps.” He couldn’t help but grin widely. “Would you really do that for me?”
“Hexes, yes. You can do my homework there too, and I won’t need to find better company when I’ve already brought the best with me.”
“Ilare,” said Samej simply.
“It’s not flirting,” Ilare said, snapping her book shut to shoot a look at Samej. “I’m allowed to have friendships!”
“The public is leery after the scandal surrounding Lady Vaseri. There are expectations for a lady of your stature.”
“Then the public better not learn how many friendships I wantonly maintain with bucks,” she said. “Can you believe, Samej, I even enjoy your company sometimes?”
Such a familiar argument gave Esor no reason to stop smiling. He loved to watch them fight. But his smile did fade as they bickered. He took Astin’s journal off of his desk and thumbed through a hundred pages exuding the scent of Àstin’s skin. Esor wrote a few notes into his last entry.
“I’ve been paid to educate you, Lady Ilare,” Esor said, closing the journal and placing it gently upon the edge of the desk once more. “I would do your Great House no favors failing to focus on my side of the contract. Please do as your brothers have asked of you—and stop trying to get Samej and me into trouble. Please.”
Even Ilare, made of sunlight, no longer seemed to shine. “This won’t last forever, will it?” she asked softly. “This time will end soon. You will move on. And—and I will move on from this, too. This is going to end.”
Chills crawled down the ridges of Esor’s spine. A cloud had taken seat in front of Namä’s shining eye in the sky, giving the shadows in the room soft edges, and his head throbbed.
“We’ll both be free of this soon,” said Esor.
Ilare gnawed at her knuckle. “Will we?”
A hard wind blew a cloud across Namä’s eye, and summer again tilted toward that autumn feeling. They could not see the rats who skittered past on the balcony. They hid just under the lip of the doors, taking the same shadowy routes as the bloodtoads, and feasting upon the fattest waxwing caterpillars growing inside bodies of rats who had died before.

#fantasy #QueerFantasy #amWriting #excerpt #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains

My first step in editing "Atop the Trees, Beneath the Mountains" needs to be a high-level pass where I address all the notes I left for myself.

You know, the sort of thing where I wrote ((future Sara will figure this out)) and then laughed to myself because I got out of puzzling something difficult.

Now I am Future Sara, and I am *real* mad at Past Sara.

A lot of these notes are simply places where I noted possible inconsistencies, though. Using a fantasy conlang means that I get pretty fluent in my own languages, but less-used terms (like names of regions) don't stick in my head as well, and I never want to stop writing to look it up. Is it the Edsa Mountains? Edsha? Edja? Which sound did I end up using for that S? Am I using lo:sa'lvaren rules or Interlingual rules?

In a rough draft of 322,000 words, these kinds of corrections, final decisions, and minor rewrites might be...plodding.

Another to-do in this "phase" of the project is to look at the conlang itself, and the names I chose for characters. I made the conlang of lo:sa'lvaren before I wrote almost anything else, and I designed the language in tandem with worldbuilding. Hence I was making choices about the language based upon an initial set of rules and priorities. I was thinking about things like, how does this language reflect the culture's colonialist ways? How do I use this set of "sounds" that I like from Tolkien/esque conlangs like Quenya in ways that are novel and authentic? I did a lot of generation and regeneration, changing prefixes and suffixes, and etc etc etc. And I use lo:sa'lvaren words fairly freely in the text to describe concepts without a direct obvious parallel in IRL Western culture.

But now I'm getting to the point where this is a Real Book, and Real People are going to read it. The way that the words *look* is different from how they are *pronounced*. I have a great lo:sa'lvaren accent. Nobody else possibly could.

* Do I want the names easier to sound out?
* Should names sound more like common names in my neck of America? Example (not from my book): a fantasy character named Elyja is memorable because a brain easily transposes it to Elijah. A character named I'edasve (which is in my book) is not as memorable.
* Do I want to change or limit diacritics for ease of reading?
* Are all the terms used necessary, or would it be better to use English approximates, or even compound words adequately describing the concept?

To illustrate the kind of decision I haven't yet made, I'm considering the common words xilcadis and sins'os.

Patricians in the Republic hold seats in xilcadise, each of which has a sins'os. A xilcadis is a palace complex including the palace itself, small secondary estates owned by the a'lve|lder of Houses under its purview, and a city where only manumitted Low A'lvar and High A'lvar are allowed to live. A sins'os is a village attached to a xilcadis, a slums, where bonded Low A'lvar live in order to support the xilcadis.

I have used these terms throughout the course of the book, but little is lost if refer to things specifically rather than broadly (palace OR city OR manors). Alternatively, palace-complex as a compound is clearer and easier to remember.

Even if I continue using a conlang word, xilcadis is weird for English speakers to read. It made sense to design the word that way when I was generating the language by my rules. But now do I wanna go back and spot-change it? It doesn't HAVE to follow the rules. If I want, I can do an entirely aesthetic overhaul of lo:sa'lvaren.

Then again, committing to these changes steps away from one of the *other* reasons I designed the language as-such: I wanted it to feel foreign and distancing for readers. I want them to feel very fish-out-of-water with the A'lvar, so that when readers reach other cultures, it's easy to feel a lot cozier by simply making the language *easier*. Still--from an accessibility (and marketing) standpoint, the book starts off among the A'lvar, with their lofty opaque language of strange words, and that is a tough nut to crack.

So yes, that is the phase of editing I am at right now. A 322,000-word book written over three years shouldn't take three years to edit. But. It will be a bit of work.

#AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #amWriting #amEditing #WritingCommunity #WritingFantasy #FantasyNovels #HowToWrite #HowToEdit #HowToUsePostsOnMastodonToProcrastinateRealWork

> There has always been and always shall be Chaos.

Chaos is the simultaneous existence of everything and nothing expressed in uncommitted form. Changes from one form to another are not dictated by any rules. Intervals between changes cannot be predicted.

> Order is exceptional.

Without Order, there is no sustaining individual; without Order, there is nothing to hold feet to the ground, nor is there ground, and none can starve for lack of fruit because bellies seldom exist long enough to hunger.

> Chaos can be anything.

For the majority of existence, there has been only Chaos. But Chaos will transform. At times Chaos transforms into something enduring and self-sustaining.

Once, Chaos became the Woman. We call her the All-Mother, the vessel through which all came into reality, and the only being with true mastery over Chaos, because it is the rivers of her blood, the fields of her flesh, and the hair of her grasses.

We live Upon Her Divine Body.

#writing #WritingCommunity #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #fantasy #cosmogeny

#WritingWonders Day 16
What does your main character find fun?

Esor likes spending time with other people. He likes sunlight, running, climbing in trees, and shoving his friends into very cold ponds. He's all about rough housing--an overgrown boy-child, really, which is unbecoming of any A'lvar. But hanging out with his friends is the only time he isn't wound tighter than lyre strings, honestly.

#AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains

Late entry into #WritingWonders, a meme going around for writers to talk about the projects they're working on.

There is a lot of text in the attached graphic, and I am overwhelmed trying to put it in the alt-text. Instead I will post each prompt from the image as I go along.

Day One: Introduce yourself and your WIP with a theme song

Hello, I am Sara. I've taken three years away from my urban fantasy universe to write a book that's like Anarchist Anne Rice rewriting The Lord of the Rings. #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains is about Esor an Amen, a tutor hired to teach a sickly young elf at a distant uberwald, where he is drawn into the mysteries of an ancient family by falling in love with enigmatic Lord Corvin.

A good theme song for this would be, oh gosh, I suppose anything from Evanescence, but you should listen to it while wearing elf ears.

From the #microPrompt hosted by @crtaxon

The word is RUMINATE
and here is an excerpt from #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains. A bit of a long one since this is a secondary character and her court of tertiary jerks, so context is helpful.
**

“Even without sustaining the Noldòrian soldiers, there is not enough. We face a crisis of hunger,” said Duxnus. “And never mind the disease. We have more rats than the cats can eat. Half the cats have died eating their poisoned flesh. And some of those Low Àlvar fools have been eating the cats, so the poisoning spreads.”

Lady Kitśanve ruminated on this news as the infant suckled upon her. She absently slid her pinky nail between Memen’s mouth and her breast, forcing him to separate, and handed him to a nurse. She left the robe slumped open to expose her breast as she said, “Prepare the fields as normal. The spring rains will be good this year—and we will have rain without Chaos-taint from over the Edsha Mountains.”

“Oh, and who told you that one?” asked In-Bemde. “Another one of your mystics? Some Halfling grifter traveling with the circus? Perhaps you’re guessing off the Heralds’ song?” He snarled a laugh and glanced around the alveldere for support. A few chuckled with him.

Even Kitśanve herself smiled, although the curl of her lips was tight. “Any buck who doubts the wisdom of does must be without wisdom himself. I need no one to tell me which way the winds blow.”

#excerpt #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

#WritingWonders day 3: What is something you're knowledgeable about that you include in your stories?

I have spent my entire life as an Author, primarily, having finished my first novel when I was 12 (and I already had piles of stories before that), and I spent my 20s producing books like *crazy*. I'm now almost 35. I have written many millions of words. Certainly over 10 million words by now.

So truly what I know best is the act of writing. I humbly submit I have an unusual degree of understanding of the craft of fiction and story structure, thanks to simply having spent a LOT of time doing a LOT of writing. I learn about writing from multiple angles, genres, and mediums so I can have the biggest toolbox possible as an artist. I have done so much research. Read so many books about it. Taught others about it. etc.

I also have an urban fantasy universe with like 70-80 novels in it (for reals) and this gave me a rather cool understanding of worldbuilding. Most folks don't have the privilege of writing that much in a single universe, much less have the motivation to seek out as many interesting niche corners to develop different parts of worldbuilding as I have.

And I watch *so* much by way of tv and movies. I'm a bit of a robot in terms of story. Input comes in, gets processed, books come out.

If you know me, I am pretty frank about my numerous flaws, so I hope when I say the above y'all know it's not hubristic. What I'm putting into this book is very, very deliberately crafted with a level of familiarity and skill you don't really get to see very much. It does happen because, well, there's a gazillion writers, and I am simply one of them, but even so. I have put a lot into this wip.

I'm a little embarrassed writing this toot but whatever, I'm allowed to think I'm uncommonly great at ONE thing in my darn life. Haha. I am really bad at parallel parking tho.

#AmWriting #WritingCommunity #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains

#WritingWonders day 2: If you could live in your fictional world, would you? Why or why not?

My fictional world is dying, so no. I'm basically already in that world.

One of the major themes of the book is the impact of endlessly expansionist empire upon the climate. The Elves have been abusing their world, which is literally a goddess (hence why the series is called Upon Her Divine Body), and it is manifesting in a dramatic fantasy-styled collapse of forests in something called Creep, farms to Blight, and lives to Wasting. All different manifestations of the same illness: empire.

The environmental message is partially in homage to Tolkien, but I draw inspiration heavily from Princess Mononoke in terms of vibe.

#AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #WritingCommunity

#WritingWonders day 1: Introduce the WIP or book you'll be sharing this month.

#AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains is a romantic fantasy novel. Think Kushiel's Dart meets Tim Curry's Legend meets JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Esor an Amen is a young Low Elf hired to work as tutor by a mysterious Lord Mayor in an uberwald distant from his small town home. Arriving in S'elasdur, Esor finds himself drawn into the sordid, deadly secrets of embattled Great House Kovemisi' - and falling under the sensual spell of Lord Mayor Corvinde.

This is a hefty book in length and world building. It's a passion project I've been writing for three years now!

I'm going to start on #WritingWonders a bit late. I confess I've fallen into a Fortnite hole and randomly become hyperfixated on this kids' f2p game, which is why my posting in general has been sparser. I'm writing a lot! But then I jump from my writing into the game and do nothing else. Like shower. Anyway.

All answers will be coming from #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains.

#Promptodon hosted by @Michaelvaliant

The word: Inimical

I have this word in my book, so I'm going to c+p a description where it appears to share my #wip. :)

***

Wind and waves had sent Esor and Corvin so far down the bay that they approached the Edsha Mountains from their most southerly point: a view of the wind-softened points that Esor had yet to have seen. Approached from its tail, the range was inimical to the distant safety of Śelasdur, and it curved away from them like a mouse-fattened serpent with a kinked spine. Trees grew on the face turned from Dolikën Bay—tall black trees, thick in trunk, naked from winter, leaning away from the ocean and Chaos. The ghost forest carried on to the western side, stark white in opposition to the living trees to the east.

“What is that cavern called?” asked Esor, indicating a remarkable hole bored into the stark mountain slope before them.

Corvin, focused on their route, spotted the hole for the first time. He stopped in his tracks and gripped Esor’s shoulder. “There is no cavern there.” The Lord Mayor had summered in Śelasdur as a child, so many centuries past, and his memory for the land had not faded; he knew the slopes and forests better than the curves of his concubines.

This borehole was entirely new. So new that its mouth had yet to be worn smooth, as they found when they approached after another hour trudging against the wind. The outer lips of the cavern were chewed as if by enormous claws. It was too dark to see if the inside was the same. Esor felt diminished standing before it, small as a bloodtoad under his desk.

***

#writingCommunity #writingPrompt #fantasy #excerpt #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains

@clhellisen carried this over from birdsite. Pitch your book's relationships starting with "Nothing says I love you like..." https://mastodon.world/@clhellisen/109472397435997771

Esor to Corvin: Nothing says I love you like trembling with awe every time you enter a room.

Corvin to Esor: Nothing says I love you like painting your portrait a thousand times, convinced I can exorcise your eyes from my soul if only I keep painting.

Esor to Mishun: Nothing says I love you like following you everywhere you go and hanging on your every word.

Mishun to Esor: Nothing says I you like letting you destroy yourself even though it means my destruction too.

#AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #fantasy #writing #WritingCommunity #AmWriting

Today's #microPrompt hosted by @crtaxon is GRAVITY

The scene in my wip where it shows up is only 300 words long, so I pasted the whole thing here.

***

Ralen’s hospital had large, open windows for the purposes of permitting air to flow into patient rooms. This also served the function of permitting Doka’lvar of the sinsos to see inside, even when they remained respectfully just off the grounds. The Interim Magistrate and his Lord Consort were said to be visiting, and the gravity of rumors had drawn half the sinsos to that hospital at the base of the xilcadis. It was incorporated into the roots of the world tree’s sturdiest offshoot. There was enough diameter for a most everyone to have an excellent view when a carriage finally arrived with their famous visitors.

“Will we know him when we see him?” wondered an onlooker aloud.

“The barkeep last Night said the Consort fell in love with dwarves. Esoramen even looks like one of the dwarves.” This came spitting from the lips of a dirty old mudraker, leaning hard on a cane. “He’s short and stout.”

Everyone close enough to hear laughed with disbelief at such an idea.

When the husband of the Interim Magistrate emerged from the carriage, the onlookers witnessed an ethereally pretty buck with open features and a quick smile. He was just as quick to dart up the stairs into the hospital, vanishing through the doors to become one more shadowy figure through the windows.

Nobody was entirely sure they had seen Lord Esoramen until he was followed at a more leisurely pace by the recognizable silhouette of Lord Corvinde, Marked by Tosvodos as he was. The Interim Magistrate wore somber colors and offered only the gravest nods of acknowledgment to the crowd.
Everyone was quiet for a time after those two disappeared into the hospital.

“Well,” said the old mudraker, spitting onto the street and lumbering away without another word.

Where a hundred rumors were silenced, a hundred new ones grew.

#amWriting #fantasy #writingFantasy #queerFantasy #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #excerpt

#microPrompt hosted by @crtaxon

The word is FASCINATE

***
“You’ve been invited to luncheon at every House in the city. You can acquaint yourself with Low and High alike,” said Corvindë. “You’ve promptly befriended the unbonded Dokàlvar of Śelasdur, the wives of the àlvēldere are fascinated by you, and I see you hold brew well enough to coax them with drink. Get them to talk. Tell me who lacks in loyalty.”

“What happens when I highlight someone? Are they arrested?”

“Does it matter?” asked Corvindë.

“I am at your service in any way, as we both well know, but I can only disappoint you in matters of espionage.” Esor took another drink from his goblet. “I am a teacher, Lord Mayor. That’s for good reason. My mother failed to teach me weaving. My father despaired at how poorly I took to the manners of a steward. I’m useless outside of books.”

“We’ve sent soldiers to war with less training,” said Corvindë.

#amWriting #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompt #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains

Just realized I'm actually scared to finish #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains. I've been working on it for about three years now. I took brief breaks off to write two other shorter books, and I've written a lot of short stories and partial manuscripts in the intervening time, but mostly ATTBTM has consumed me these last three years and I am SCARED to STOP.

I see a clear route to the end, which is a recent development. I've always known how it's going to end, but actually getting there was murky. I had so much to figure out before that could happen. Now I've got almost everything figured out, besides the little details that will come together as I do the actual writing, and...I am scared.

For one thing: What if I reach the end and I'm like, this is it? That's what I did all this work for? What if it's this big anticlimax of a book, and it turns out the whole thing for me was the experience, but the final product isn't impactful upon my life in any way? (Find no traditional publisher, self-publish, find no readers, book fades into my past)

But also, once it's done, I have to start writing other books again. I have to actually look at my standing urban fantasy universe and either commit to returning or...commit to NOT. I have to start marketing books again. I have to treat this like a JOB again.

I also don't really want to leave this universe. It's beautiful and there's still so much more in it that I haven't gotten my fill of writing/mentally living inside. :(

OTOH, what if I finish the book and I feel amazing for having committed to this uniquely MASSIVE project, and people like it? And I do publish it and readers end up enjoying it? What if I find a small but loyal audience that gives my life sustained meaning again, like I did with the Descentverse?

There's no decision to be made here. I'm gonna finish the book. The itch to keep working is going to FAR overrule the itch to turn stagnant so I don't have to change my exact current situation. I might even finish the book soonish, though I'm still looking at another 50,000 words of material maybe. I don't have to worry about this, regardless. Not yet.

#AmWriting #WritingCommunity #WritingFantasy #Scribbledons #SFF #LGBTQwriters #Writing #MastoWriters #UrbanFantasy #EpicFantasy

It amused Mishun that Esor was so impatient during their lovemaking. Mishun was quick to pull Esor into privacy so they might enjoy one another, but once privacy was gained, Mishun seemed in no hurry to progress their lovemaking toward a climax, and Esor’s eagerness only made him slower. Purposefully, he would search Esor’s body with his hands as if the first time, murmuring husky questions, seeking permission, and uttering the dirtiest promises Esor could imagine. And Esor had become capable of imagining quite a few dirty things.
An unhurried hand drove Esor to madness, and this made Mishun chuckle in that particular way which only made Esor madder. No matter how Esor strained for satisfaction, Mishun would deny it, casually, as if it simply never occurred to him that Esor might be arching his back and begging for release because he actually wanted it.
Eventually Mishun did supply release. Several, if time permitted, and unselfishly, if Esor permitted. But Esor was just as eager to make Mishun unravel and he wouldn’t be distracted until he got exactly what he wanted.

#Fantasy #QueerFantasy #Excerpt #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains #writing

It took me 250,000 words to get characters openly discussing the actual thesis of my romantic fantasy book, #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains, which is that the eternal growth mindset of capitalist empire is going to kill everything. But they say it in a fancy fantasy way. "eternally feasting wolves" etc etc

I'm using wolves as a metaphor for evil. I always have mixed feelings about this.

In history and myth, wolves are regarded as BAD. Humans are DEEPLY scared of wolves. I'm using a lot of North American mammal analogues in this series, and wolves would fit well.

But actual wolves are no threat and don't deserve the bad rap.

It is more consistent with my values to represent wolves subversively: that is to say, acknowledge the myth of wolves as evil, but engage with and deconstruct the idea. Not just to avoid reduce myth perpetuation, but as a metaphor for acceptance of other things that scare humans irrationally. Humans are easily scared by disfigurement, for instance; that's a reason we often see disfigurement as a visual shorthand for villains in movies even though it is absolutely meaningless in terms of real-life personality.

I do have long-term plans for the deconstruction of the myth in this series, but even with an ultimate word count around 300,000 for the current project, I'm not actually getting to that point in the story in THIS book. Like, deconstructing the evil wolf metaphor is sequel material.

(a sequel, oh my god)

Regardless. I've been trying to think of this book as a standalone as much as possible to be sure I'm very clear in my messages without needing context from future books. It could be a long time, if I ever write another. I want to make sure I'm saying what I mean, precisely.

I may need something besides wolves. I'll keep noodling.

#Writing #AmWriting #WorldBuilding #Fantasy #WritingFantasy #SFF #LGBTQwriters

Today's #microPrompt hosted by @crtaxon -

WOOD
out of #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains, my #RomanticFantasy wip :)

The lord owned the kirēak mines: pits dug deeply enough to siphon Chaos-tainted waters, from which the metallic sludge of kirēak was refined. It was an essential ingredient in alchemy. The navy also needed kirēak on every swoop under Maiur Admiral control. And thus it was the only export of value in Śelasdur, making House Anrire the plushest of them all. Crystalline minerals were displayed on sung shelves, caught within the grip of wood urged to cage stone, and the husks of monstrous insects hunted by miners adorned their walls.

#amWriting #writingCommunity #Writestodon

Most of my urban fantasy books were fairly uniform in format, despite variation in word count, sometimes subgenre, POV, and rarely even tense. I mean to say they all used similar vocabulary. Same-ish chapter structures. Different character voices, but same particular expression of authorial voice. Perhaps most interestingly, they all used similar tempo and timescale: indeed, most of the stories took place in a condensed time frame (a few days, a few weeks) and anything outside that were done in a particular style of flashback.

It makes sense to remain uniform in this fashion for branding, reader experience, and because, quite simply, when you're the same person writing the same universe, there's not a lot of reason or opportunity to switch things up. It started to feel restrictive after howevermany books I wrote.

I stripped things down to the foundations and started over on all of these things when beginning #AtopTheTreesBeneathTheMountains. I write in varying timescale, a waltz, a 3-4 where one scene might be showing events so closely to real-time that you can watch a whole conversation unfold with gestures, but the next scene swirling around through the weeks, skipping over all but the essentials. The tempo is slower than my urban fantasy books - but not *slow*; things are clipped. Scenes are entered late and exited early. Instead of ending sequences with punchlines, I end with lingering thoughts that draw readers from one chapter into the next. It's a series of dreamy vignettes.

The most pronounced difference in attbtm vs my UF is just the formality of vocabulary and complexity of sentences. It's gonna be weird going back to the utilitarian prose of my UF universe. I consciously chose to write in the most accessible way possible so that anyone could understand me, beginning at an age where the idea of sincerely putting effort into something overtly artful was offensive, and I mostly stuck with that throughout my 20s. But I super enjoy the ability to let my weird vocabulary out for a run nowadays. Being wired the way I am, I've always loved archaic words, long words, uncommon words, and I spent most of my youth trying to talk plainly so I wouldn't get teased. I stopped talking plain for attbtm and what a RELIEF.

#AmWriting #WritingCommunity #WritingFantasy