New Year Same Me But Better
What an emotional roller coaster 2025 was. I don't want to jump on any political hate wagons but I can say with some confidence that what's going on south of the border right now has got me quite upset and unnerved to the point it feels like I can't go a day or two without being reminded of USGestappo and the Cheeto Fascist or the SSBootlickers that defend them or pretend that what's happening isn't happening. It so exhausting and makes it so hard to do much of anything when it's constantly 'there'.
No I will not discuss with you if you try to defend it. No I won't entertain your bad faith arguments. No I will not tolerate aggressive ignorance coupled with a 1-2 punch of ignoring context and applying fantasy in order to justify bigotry. I'm just so fucking done. I just want to write smut with my friends, embrace the full spectrum of love and culture, and not be so fucking toxic all the time. I really don't think that is too much to ask yet someone will inevitably argue defending fascism or denying it's a problem and I just can't anymore. I just. Fucking. Can't. Anymore.
But that wasn't all. There was a lot of other, more personal things that made 2025 suck for me. First, from November 2024, I learned my landlord wanted to sell the place. Which meant I could have been evicted with no recourse (if a family bought it they can evict without the usual processes needed to get me out.) So that hovered over me for a full year and still technically could come to pass but I've heard nothing about it since summer so I Assume either it was sold to some weird company or he changed his mind. I know he spent months trying to convince me to leave, tried to bribe me into leaving, and tried to threaten and scare me into leaving but I stood my ground and that was the last I heard of it. So no idea what's going on with that. You know, insert the meme about being too afraid to ask.
Then in April/May I learned that my roommates were leaving. Which was a good thing but it still kinda hit me hard at the time. I've managed to survive and do better but it took many months to get to a point where I was stable again since I had to pay all my bills myself again. Which they had been doing. I got behind on rent, as ya do, but then I caught up in Mid December. It's the first so I gotta find rent again but technically I'm caught up as I write this.
Which brings me to the big one that really sucked. So, I don't remember exactly when it happened but a year or two ago, my then-roommates installed a bidet in the upstairs toilet. This was EXCELLENT in and of itself...because anyone who knows me knows how much I love a clean booty hole for many reasons. WELL, it created some problems with the plumbing that...thanks to a very kind friend, only just finally got fixed days before Christmas.
So basically, as soon as the Bidet was installed, the upstairs toilet would do this thing where it'd fill the reservoir, then it'd wait like a minute or two, then it'd fill it again. Then it'd wait another couple minutes and do it again. For up to two years (This problem persisted after the bidet was removed and they moved out.) I assumed it wasn't a big deal because the bill that I THOUGHT was my water bill wasn't affected at all. I had two utility bills. One for what I thought was Gas/Water and another for Electricity. Turns out I was mistaken, and the Gas/Water Bill was the Gas/Water HEATER bill, and the other was Electricity/Water. This proved to be a VERY SIGNIFICANT ISSUE.
Because what I thought was the Gas/Water Bill wasn't going up and hadn't in a year (it had actually gone down by a small bit), I assumed within reason that the 'constantly running toilet' issue wasn't an issue. And the fact that what I thought was my Electricity bill was regularly high didn't really alert me because there were three people regularly using consoles, cooking, and using utilities and computers pretty much all hours of every day. I was also behind on that bill and had been since they moved in so I assumed within reason the extra charges were just late fees/interest.
But then they moved out, took their bidet with them, and I was alone and barely using any of the utilities. You know, as a single person living alone tends to do or not do. And the Electricity bill was still absurdly high. Again, it took me a bit to realize the problem because interest and late fees are a pretty common issue and I figured I just needed to be more mature about it. Nearly two years (maybe a year and a half) of a constantly running toilet costing me what I now estimate to be the large majority of the owed bill. It hurt a LOT, but I had to get shit fixed. But I didn't know that yet.
So over the course of the next few months, between June and October, I paid well over 2,000 Canadian dollars on the bill and yet the price was still going up. Over 500 dollars a month seemed absurd, but I'm an immature fool terrified of anything mature or disciplined (I haven't even gotten my health card fixed because I'm terrified of going to Service Ontario...it's a problem, I know. I just wanna live a relatively quiet life free of bureaucracy) so I still didn't figure it out. That was, until I got a notification from my Electricity company saying that if I didn't pay them just under 5,000 dollars by November 17th, they'd be cutting off my water.
I was confused. Called them, said 'you don't do my water, you do my electricity'. And that's when things sort of clicked into place. I finally panic-studied my bills and yep, the one company dealt with my gas and water heater, the other company handled water and electricity. How I didn't know that in the decade I've been here I don't know. But I sure as fuck know now.
Normally this company, when dealing with electric bills, is pretty lenient with their red notices. Usually it's like 'hey, it's been a few months, can you toss us like 500 bucks to not shut your electricity off' because by that point it might just be that I moved out or whatever. I pay them, pay a bit more to top it off, and move on for a couple months. No big deal. I survive. Also, if they give me a larger number I have to pay, they're also good about agreeing to payment plans. So when I got a 5,000 dollar bill and a strict 'pay us it all before November 17th' warning, it kinda shook me. Doubly so since I was in the midst of getting caught up on my rent arrears which also had Landlord and Tenant Boards involved.
If you go back and see my recent output you'll see that I wrote over 100,000 words in about two weeks between the beginning of November and November 17th. This is why. October 29th I'd solidified a payment plan to the Landlord and Tenant board to get my rent taken care of, so I was feeling positive and accomplished, and thus got a lot of work done. But then the Water bill came in and, well, They gave me a payment plan but I still had to pay 3,000 by the pay by date and considering November 17th was one of my agreed upon rent payment dates for 2,000 dollars. Well. I couldn't do it.
I had my water shut off. And keep in mind if it gets shut off they don't turn it back on unless the entire amount was paid. 5,000 was not the entire full amount. $6,145.34 was the full amount. So I was fucked. No running water, and a constant feel of dread. I had to take weekends to visit my family and refill 50+ Water bottles every visit, I had to shit in a bucket and collect snow to clean it out, and I got to stink like ass all the time and just...not do any laundry. I wasn't THAT put off, since I was able to make it work. Having no water sucked for about a month but I can live with that. I couldn't live without electricity so in a way that was a bit of the wake-up call I needed. It nudged me enough to get my ass in gear and learn from my mistakes without fully crippling me.
And thanks to the support network I have and the audience I've cultivated and important people in my life who saw my value when I clearly didn't deserve it, I can say that as of Mid December, I had all my bills except one small one caught up (I still owe them about 300 dollars). I can FINALLY focus on work and paying back my debts. FINALLY. Maybe too late? Not sure, but between prior rent issues covered by certain dragons and now modern bills helped by fellow birds, I have some hefty debts to pay but bill wise and rent wise it feels like I'm FINALLY in a position to move forward with my life. Over 10,000 dollars over the last two months put toward Rent arrears and catching up on bills.
I'm mega tapped out so if anyone wants to help me with January rent by getting quickies to keep my momentum going or get full commissions knowing it might be a few months before I actually get to them, that would help greatly. I know I got a lot of catching up to do but I do still need to have a home if I'm to get anything done. The difference now from before is that now I feel like I don't have that ever-present dread and fear looming over me.
And that's why I have some pretty key goals going forward. Key, attainable, realistic goals. Difficult goals to attain, but definitely possible ones. I've said it before but this time it feels like I have the best chance ever to hit one million words in the calendar year of 2026. I saw how fast I was writing with no sense of slowing in that first half of November. I did more in the first two weeks of November than I did the rest of 2025 put together. Because that was the first time I felt like I had a clear path to success. It felt nice, it felt rewarding, and I felt like I wasn't a complete waste. I feel that way again now.
So here are a few of my goals I want to accomplish in 2026. I think I can do well on them.
The first is 1,000,000 words written/posted. My record in a calendar year is 917k, but that was done while I was working a full time call center job for half of it. 2025 I only did like 217k. Kinda shameful. Second worst year since I started. But 2020 was pandemic time (So it made sense I sucked), and 2025 was fascism rising year plus all my personal issues. So yeah, when I factor in how easy it is for me to do 100k in a month and how I am capable of doing it in two weeks, 12 months at 100k a month minimum is an easy, plausible goal. I could do that AND take two months off (I Wouldn't though)
The next is that I want to publish 1-3 novels. Yes, I want to do this on top of writing commissions and submissions on the various art sites. No I don't think this is unreasonable. First of all, one of the stresses of writing commissions is and has been that weird adherence to FA's word count limit given my style of writing and posting. I have this weird dread associated with trying to make some stories stick within the 10-11k word limit, or making stories last long enough to feel worth the wait. Even if I try selling quickies as '2-3k' single scene stories, The shortest one was 4.8k words and one was over 6k. So I had to change the prices and expectations to be 5k with a 1k buffer on either side.
And if the stories went too far to fit in a single submission it created a sort of stress of having to find an alternate version of the art or making covers otherwise I can't post the full story. But then having another image means I needed to make the most of that image, and thus now it's a 20k word story instead of a 10k word story that bloomed to 12-13k words. My particular brand of OCPD had me strictly following weird self-imposed guidelines and it just made the actual act of posting and sharing my writing a nightmare if it didn't neatly slot into my pre-determined expectations.
With writing novels it's just...write. Write and do your chapters. I'm not posting ANY of it until it's done, and if that's 50k or 250k words, so be it. I don't need to make it slot into an exact multiple of 10k words. I don't need to worry about engagement or getting people to read it piecemeal. I just write it and go. And it's mostly just for me, so writing and publishing novels should actually be easier than writing commissions, it's just not as reliable a source of income. Who knows if it'll be successful. I might write a 250k word spicy fantasy romance story and nobody reads it or cares. Now, I know my writing is good enough and the world I've created is engaging enough but I've never sold my work. I've sold commissions but I have no idea if that will translate into book sales.
So there is that fear of failure, but my sister just published a pony-girl BDSM book literally today on all platforms so I know it's possible. I know my work is valuable. I just need to get over myself. It also helps that through sheer coincidence or luck, I accidentally befriended an audiobook narrator who has done work for other gryphon books and is a fan of my work. He has been cheering me on because he WANTS to narrate books for me, which means that's at least one more step in the right direction. Now I just need to actually write the books. Luckily, I know exactly what my first three books will be.
In no order of publishing, but I want to try three different stories each with slightly different styles and characters. The first is a redo of 'A Territorial Matter of Pride'. I wrote that story, which ended up at exactly 55,555 words. It was fine but really didn't feel like it hit the notes I wanted it to. Over the past year or so I've been refining the idea, reconfiguring the plot and characters, and plotting out a version of that story that is deeper, richer, longer, and worthy of publication. Only the overall basic plot points will remain the same, with the actual story changing pretty significantly.
A Territorial Matter of Pride follows Kila and Revau, two sport fighters on opposite sides of arena combat, a coliseum once a battlefield for the war between their nations. The story is about how they meet, their blossoming relationship, and how they completely change the face of feral martial arts and how their people interact. The intention is to make a cozy fantasy romance where the drama is relatively limited and the romance is the story. I was so sick of reading books where miscommunication and idiotic characters created artificial drama to see if they will or they won't. I wanted to do a romance story where there's action but no stupid tropes. So I conceptualized this as a story where two lovers meet on opposite sides of an arena and actually find common ground in a healthy, cute, sexy way.
The next book is actually more on the 'epic fantasy' side of things. It's called 'The skies Below' and is a gryphon rider book. I had read a bunch of books about dragon riders (Fourth Wing, enjoy another shout out you immature brat of a story), but never one where the fantasy mounts were involved in any kink. I'll come back to this point a bit but I was so bored of all these fantasy romance books where the spicy bits were so bland, vanilla, and inexplicably earth shattering. All of them have magic and fantasy creatures but the sex is just normal human dick in human pussy with little to no fantasy elements taking place. Plus the dragon rider academy books NEVER have them fuck the dragons. I am a gryphon, and a friend of mine inspired me to want to write a novel where there are mate bonds, fantasy elements are included in the sex, and the humanish female fucks the gryphon and can't go back to human sex.
This novel is about a human(ish) Female rogue who is doing pretty basic rogue shit and sabotaging the human kingdom's attempt to gain a foothold in the canine nation of Yelfrit. While on a recon mission to a fort where she can do some damage, she comes across a trained lupogryphon (Canine avian hybrid) Who has also been retaliating against the human threat. He doesn't trust her when she helps him escape because she's human and he rightly doesn't trust that but through ACTUAL Communication and mutual respect, they find a way to trust one another. Which also has a sort of side effect of creating a gryphon and rider bond. IT's knotting. Lupogryph has to knot her for full physical contact so he can read her emotions and intentions in order to know she's sincere, and doing so bonds them. Romance ensues.
Oh look, another story where a key plot point is that they communicate and find solutions instead of having drama manufactured to create needless tension. IT's also going to have a lot of sex, violence, and action interwoven with a lot of magic and lore. It's going to be the first of a proposed trilogy as they travel to find his lost flock and bring the fight to the humans they both hate. Fun stuff.
And the third one is sort of weird because it might actually work effectively as a series of short stories, but it also works as a novel. Long story short, Fidget is one of my more interesting characters from a lore perspective because she has no magic of her own but finds out in her young adult life that she's hyper sensitive to potions and thus has a lifetime of experiences to catch up on. Since in my world everyone has some magic and thier bodies are naturally stronger and more durable, heal faster, and they have greater resistances to disease and environmental hazards, Fidget lacking that makes her essentially handicapped. Sucks for her but makes for a good story.
I've hinted at her backstory a bit explaining in other short stories that she went to university and put this skill to use as a test dummy for the alchemy department, which got her a lot of money and got her to enjoy more potion use. As a result, she decided to start up a custom courier service for people eager to trade potions, enchanted gemstones, and other small but valuable items to remote locations. She wanted to share her passion for potions (Might actually name it that), and as a result I get to introduce a series of characters I've been developing these past few months and I'm VERY excited.
Because I recently went up north to the Bruce Peninsula to enjoy some 'northern canada' styled trails with my dog, I've had a fascination with that setting. So I was gonna have Fidget explore the northern regions of Kerolioa, meeting a group of characters inspired by animals that exist in the Taiga and Canadian Shield, each one with unique skills and abilities. Each one with a fun story. Each one with plenty of opportunity for kink. Her story is gonna be about her delivering potions and other items between them all, eventually bringing them together on an adventure.
The first of these characters is Aelmiret G'lewbo, a wolf-Owl hybrid that is my take on the traditional werewolf story. He's usually bipedal but when ademane (the magic substance) forms a borealis in the northern skies or descends upon the land, he turns feral and quadruped. He's mostly nocturnal and a natural protector. The next is an unnamed Moose-Bear hybrid that I need to work out but I love the design I have in mind. Third is a queen garter snake and bee hybrid who is host and ruler of a den of snakes that live on and in her body. She controlls her snakes like a queen bee would, and she creates a sort of mead potion made of honey and ademane that's incredibly rare and sought after, which is where Fidget comes in. There are also a few others, including a squirrel-chipmunk hybrid who smuggles stuff inside her cheek pouches and the rest of her body. An otter-raccoon who scavenges and salvages from the many lakes and settlements in the region. And a Tinkerer rat-bat hybrid who assists them.
The point is, Iv'e got all these characters that have little to no art, they're all thematically linked as animals you might see up north in Canada and other northern regions, and they're all ones that can be linked to Fidget, the deer-bunny hybrid gal. I'm still working on how to make acts 2 and 3 work in that story but act 1 is solid and the pieces in play for the main romance and spicy bits are all going to be very fun to play with and I can't wait.
There are other stories I could turn into novels, but they all heavily include characters that aren't mine or are straight up long-form commissions so it complicates the novel writing and publishing process. So I want to do these three novels first. Two of which are intended as standalone novels to be enjoyed on their own from beginning to end, and another intended as a strict trilogy. One is a traditional romantasy with actual romance elements, fantasy elements, some action, and some spice. One is a bit of an epic fantasy with some heavily kinky elements. And one is admittedly just a loosly connected story as an excuse for Fidget to explore all sorts of kink. All varying levels of action and romance. All high fantasy. All in Dalon. All fun for different reasons. All buck trends for traditional books, I hope.
Which is actually a big deal for me. That bit about standalone books and the grievances I have over romantasy. Not as a core concept but for its execution. Because I started reading in late 2024 (Around the same time my landlord dropped that nothing bomb on me) and I have loved my time so far. I've loved reading Brandon Sanderson's stuff, I've loved reading on Kindle and through Audible and on actual physical media. Books. It's been an adventure, one I hope to continue.
In 2025 I read 48 books. MY 2026 goal is 100. I know it's a lot higher but that's because as time goes on I see myself reading a lot more novellas for a few reasons. Novellas and graphic novels count. And I've learned that the more mainstream a romantasy book is the less interesting or fun it will be.
When I picked up the genre in March or April of 2025, my goal was simple. If I was writing fantasy that had spice in it, I needed to read some romantasy. It was incredibly popular, incredibly successful, and I knew that 'monster fuckers' were a thing. So I know that shit like vore and plant invasions an transformation and eggplay have an audience. I joined subreddit forums, I joined facebook groups, and even made friends with readers both local and far away. And at first it was great! I've spoken before about it but my first proper introduction into the genre was Fourth Wing and at the time I loved it. Then I read Quicksilver and I liked that, too!
I went on to read some of 'From Blood and Ash' and 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' as well as a pretty wide swath of tame cozy fantasy like Legends & Lattes as well as The Spellshop. I've read probably 30 romantasy books over the course of the year, and while I enjoyed most of them, the more I read and the more perspective I gained the clearer it was that the entire genre needs better standards. Publishers need better standards. Writers need better standards. And above all else, READERS in that genre need better standards. The entire genre feels like it's second rate because the writers are mid and the readers eat it up in spite of the quality, and the publishers continue to publish because they sell. And it's a shame.
Keep in mind I say this from the fresh perspective of someone who wants to love this genre, who intends to write books in this genre, and who actually does like it but feels the need to be critical. When I first attempted to get into Romantasy years ago, I picked up the first three books in the 'a court of thorns and roses' series and while I didn't hate it, I didn't really get into it. The tropes involved were mildly problematic the characters didn't really do it for me, the world building was minimal, and the writing was fine but it wasn't eloquent or fun. It was sterile. So While I didn't hate it, it didn't grab my attention and I kinda joined in on the hate-wagon shitting on girly books.
Years passed and then Fourth Wing came along. I had more experience writing, I was more exposed to the culture, and since I was getting pretty good at writing smut I had a new perspective. Fourth Wing actually appealed to me in a lot of ways that ACOTAR (A Court of Thorns and Roses) had not. The world made little sense but the writing was easy to get into. I loved all the characters but one. It addressed informed consent in a very refreshing way, and it had a lot of positive representation for queer and disabled people in general. It felt like maybe the genre had matured. Yeah, Violet – the man character and narrator of that book series – was insufferable, but that's how character growth works. Characters are supposed to start imperfect and grow. IT made sense, she was 20 years old and still growing up so her immaturity didn't bother me. I actually really liked that book when I read it and I still think it's quite good. In a vacuum.
After Fourth wing I read dozens of other books in the genre. And the more I read the clearer it was that in spite of me thinking the genre had grown and matured, it had just shifted laterally. The more I read, the clearer it was how many of these were just needlessly drawn out for the sake of drama. How the books were all cribbing the exact same tropes and plot points from one another. How they were all sanitized and safe. Because there was this overlying fear of doing anything that 'the audience' didn't want. And not only did every book follow the same course, every sequel was doing the exact same thing in order to sell more copies or justify its own existence.
A Court of Thorns and Roses. From Blood and Ash. Quicksilver. Fourth Wing. The Wolf King. The Serpent and the Wings of Night. Many of these books I liked or loved but every single sequel did the exact same thing. Every sequel, despite having the enemies to lovers trope resolved and the main characters unifying by the end...walked it back and found excuses for the lovers to be fighting each other again. Each one had it be that for some magic reason the narrator/female main character is somehow a mystical magical solution to all the realm's issues and will become the one to unify the people of the world. Each one of them had the enemies to lovers become enemies again.
And I fucking hate it. Like, I get power fantasies. I would love to feel like I'm the secret key that will bring peace to the land. I get the appeal, but every one of these series fell into the exact same patterns, with only a small bit of room for variation. Each one had solved the drama in the first one, but then in the second one the two lovers were fighting again because there NEEDED To be a sequel. Some of them were clearly edited to turn a climax into a hook.
For example, I LOVED The Wolf King, The Serpent and the Wings of Night and Fourth Wing. All three of them, their respective first books, had interesting plots, pleasant characters, and a fairly well-rounded character arcs. From Blood and Ash was fine and I didn't like A Court of Thorns and roses. But my point is that at least with those three I loved, it was clear that they were going for unique takes on the tropes, trying to do something new in the genre, or telling a compelling story. But each one of them just felt like the sequels were drawn out because more book sales equal more money and they HAVE To appeal to the same people who liked the other books.
The Wolf King had the main male love interest be an absolute sweetheart of a werewolf and I loved him in book 1, but then in book 2 he became a controlling twat and the devious, morally gray antagonist from the first book became a more compelling partner for the narrator. Why? Because that's exactly what happened in A Court of Thorns and Roses and its sequel a Court of Mist and Fury. Exact same plot progression. The Serpent and The Wings of Night and Fourth Wing both had stories where the main love interests were enemies at first but came to realize that they weren't actually enemies.
In The Serpent and the Wings of Night they were opponents in a death tournament, never truly enemies; they were competing but realized pretty early on that they could work together until the end of the competition where they'd have to kill one another. And you know what? That was compelling. She kills him. He dies, but this is fantasy and comes back. IT was genuinely heart wrenching and compelling, but then the events following his resurrection makes her hate him and she spends the entire second book basically sulking about how much she hates him so much even though he was right and she knew he was right. Similar thing in Fourth Wing, she thought Xaden wanted to kill her (and to be fair he'd have good reason to) but he didn't and once she realizes why he is so distant with her and all the plot twists come to light, it makes sense why he won't tell her certain things.
But no, she spends the entire book being a petulant brat to him about how she won't give up that pussy if he won't commit even though they literally live in a world where psychics are real and he has some exceptionally strong psychic shields. Oh, and the entire second book has him training her how to use her shields. Why? Because that's exactly what happened in A Court of Thorns and Roses. Same fucking story. New morally gray guy comes in to show original love interest was kinda shitty, shields, betrayal. Oh, and The sequel to From Blood and Ash did the exact same 'their romance bloomed in the first one but in the end he did a thing and now she hates him and they spend the entire second book fighting for stupid fuckign reasons because we NEED To stretch out that length and sell more books.
All of these books are pulling from the same bullshit tropes, following the same patterns, and adhering to the same nonsense rules. All of them had original feeling first books because it was clear that the authors had passion and wanted to try something new, but each and every sequel felt the exact same. Same bullshit retreads, same bullshit drama, same bullshit tropes, all feeling the exact same.
I haven't read Brimstone but I hear it's the exact same pattern. And I won't read the sequel to dire Bound because that book is fucking trash; it feels like someone put 'Rewrite Fourth Wing but instead of dragons make it dire wolves” and the ai bot spat out a book with no heart, no soul, no understanding of why these tropes work, and how insufferable literally every character is in it. Worst book I've read aside from 50 shades. For example, they know 'enemies to lovers' is a trope so they introduce who will become the main male love interest feeding a defenseless man to a wolf, then the narrator talking about how he is the epitome of pure evil, and they never exchange a single word until two thirds of the way through the book. Makes no sense, but enemies to lovers is a thing so GOTTA get it in there.
And I don't even want to get into the dumpster fire that is the 'From Blood and Ash' series. It started off fine enough, but it did ALL The tropes by book 2, and from there it just gets progressively worse to the point it's currently 6 books into a 6 book series with another on the way because the sixth book was somehow 1,100 pages and nothing happened so they had to split it into two. Oh, and one of the books was just the first book again from the love interest's point of view. I don't think you can be more brazen with the greedy need to just pump out quantity over quality. I'm so angry about it. I already bought the whole set in paperback and audible because I kinda liked the first book. I regret it.
Wrapping this back to that book goal of mine, I think I'm going to be able to hit 100 books as a goal this year, more than doubling my last goal, for two reasons. First, I'm listening to audio books at 2x speed now. Most audiobook narrators speak so damn slowly and it annoys me. That, and I'm trying to avoid the more mainstream books and instead focus on smaller, more original but less successful books. Those ones I complained about, specifically A Court of Thorns and Roses, From blood and Ash, Fourth Wing, and Quicksilver, are all some of the most successful books in the history of the genre and they all follow the same pattern.
But you know what doesn't follow the same pattern and I had a whole lot more fun with despite them not being on the same level of quality as Brandon Sanderson or Robin Hobb or George RR Martin? Monster fucking novellas with goblin energy. I had more fun with “That Time I got Drunk and Saved a Demon” or “Bull Moon Rising” or “Morning Glory Milking Farm” Than I did with any of those more popular books. Because those books were actually fun and leaned into their fun elements. They were unabashedly horny, actually had fun with the material, and were shameless about shoving knots and tentacles in your face. It was so much more fun than vanilla missionary human on human sex 402.
Like, Bull Moon Rising had an actual plot and characters I loved but also wasn't shy about saying 'this guy's a bull about to go into rutting season and he's gonna fuck you inside out when that happens' and the main character going 'awesome, I need to get laid and this can be mutually beneficial!' She was plus sized, knew what she was on about, AND there was kinky minotaur porn. The Mead Mishaps books ('that time I got drunk and...' series) is silly and has an explicitly 'sassy black lady' charm, including modern slang and vernacular but I loved them. They were fun, didn't follow the same template, and actually felt like they were being told by a voice I'd never heard before.
They weren't GREAT books but they were refreshing and fun. SO refreshing and SO fun. And right now I want that more than threequels to books I feel like I've already read. And Since those books tend to be shorter (with double time on most of these books on audible come to under 5 hours a piece), I can get through one a day some days. And every time I read them, ESPECIALLY Mead Mishaps, I get so much creative energy! It reminds me that I don't have to adhere to that same boring template that ACOTAR set out more than a decade ago.
I can be a unique voice. I can tell my stories. People actually will read them. And I don't need to be ashamed of being a horny ace goblin with monster fucking credentials. I can write a serious yet sexy gryphon riding story where she gets that gryphon knot. I can write a standalone romantasy where the romance IS The plot and not the goal, the story is self contained, and I don't need to make it a 76 book series to reach an audience. There's still so many concepts that don't appear to have been explored yet and I have so many stories I want to tell.
So my goal this year is to read a lot more, and to not only write a lot more, but also to publish something I can be proud of. Ideally three times.
One Million Words
One Hundred Books
Three Published Novels
And I want to get as caught up as I can on my backlog of owed commissions. With my bills almost entirely up to date, the fresh perspective of a new year, and everything except my debts to friends and clients in order and actually pretty awesome, I actually believe whole heartedly that I can do it. It will be hard but none of these goals are beyond reach as long as I put these headphones on and just do it.
Now I post this and wait to get some phone call or email that will immediately take me down from this euphoric, creative high. Happens every fucking time. Let's see how things go. In the mean time, CHEER ME ON! I got this!
