With record speed, I got CFTM set up for publication. I pushed back the release for seemingly no reason, but the way that I look at it, this gives me more bandwidth to focus on promoting a highly successful book launch.
I think there has to be something I’m doing wrong with social media still as I just don’t get a lot of traction, but I’m going to focus on paying attention to what sort of posts DO work and how people build momentum for stories people don’t yet know.
When I was stuck in the mud finishing up with Quinton’s edits and decided to push out the release by a month, I spontaneously decided to follow the vague vision I had to make a new book cover.
I had just been feeling that the Lux-only cover didn’t have enough oomph, and felt lifeless. I really wanted Leigh and Nico on the cover.
I was fortunate to be able to get a lot of design help from CJ and Al to help all the elements come together. With this cover, I also designed it with ease of measurements in mind, with generous margins and a contained design.
The most exciting part is that I handwrote the title! Wtf? Yep, I said, I want to take credit for all the bits and bobs this time around.
I’m also really pleased with Ackerleigh’s shirt haha. It’s so pretty and flowy and detailed.
Here’s this year’s holiday picture. It’s so soft and delicate.
And the year in review! You can tell when all my energy shifted from Heartwood to gryphonwip lol.
Things have been crazy busy around here lately but I’ve been chipping away at the third draft of gryphonwip really focusing on world-building and characterization as well as cleaning up prose. You can really tell that this is my first project since Unface written in first person POV because I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I’m getting there!
I had this fun breakthrough last week that Ackerleigh (fka Alister) is genderqueer. I knew he was a tiny delicate twink type but I’m shifting that to really nestle into my own relationship with gender. Ackerleigh doesn’t want to be treated like he’s delicate or feminine even if he loves embroidering his own billowy blouses and is a 5’6 academic type. It really helped his character light up for me.
After a long struggle with Nico I also feel like I figured him out! The key was curls.
And then bam! He stopped being Micah lite.
Look how cute!
Ackerleigh’s design didn’t really change at all when I overhauled Nico. I tried to make him dark haired for like an hour and hated it. But I still did some cute art of him when I was nailing down his adorable fashion sense.
I actually have a height reference in Milanote so I was able to establish that before I did a ton of couple photos of Leigh and Nico.
Their faces are mid but this was the image that made me realize just how much Wolfgang and Shin influenced these guys’ aesthetics. Nico is nothing like Wolfgang though; Nico is a shy sad baby. And Ackerleigh is much punchier than Shin. But Nico’s colors are yellow and brown (and red) and Leigh wears a lot of grays and blues like Wolfgang and Shin.
Let’s see, I also did this cute one of Leigh and Pax and I think it’s the only Pax art I love from this round.
Honestly Pax is a huge bitch to draw. I’ve made minimal progress it feels and every second effort to draw it looks like ass. I think the problem I ran into is how derpy eagle faces look. Their beaks and eyes almost precisely line up, which I guess makes sense for how eagles hunt but come on
Mister Arrow much?
It also doesn’t help that Pax’s head is black so any time I want to draw elaborate feathers I’m like “ok but it’s a voidcat so why am I doing this”
So I usually end up compromising by shading it gray. Didn’t these wings turn out nice?
The face is rrk. The face asldkfjalf
Ok so in true Mary fashion though I ended up wanting to do this blog post because I made up some character profile pictures today to get ready to launch this project to the public (Al and Vic and my dad still have to read it) and I don’t know what made me think of it but I ended up looking at the profile pics I made for Redefining Evil a bajillion years ago so NOW IT’S TIME FOR A GLOW-UP EHE
Dr. Ackerleigh SebringNico De FalcoStella De Falco (I’m literally obsessed with her)Camden Zane
I’m having an identity crisis with Claire right now because I’m wondering if she needs to be Asian but I don’t love then that my token minorities are a couple so I’m wondering if I just need to turn her back to brunette. But my hand was also cramping when I was trying to work on her today so I think I just need to come back to her with more energy, because I love the previous picture I did of her when she was blonde.
Well, considering I came on to literally just compare my shitty profile pics from RE with my new ones, I certainly ended up with a whole dump!
I also want to go slow with gryphonwip because I want to enjoy some privacy haha. Pride is coming up this weekend and I have over a thousand dollars of books I’m hoping to sell so that’s…yeah not private.
Oh my gosh I forgot about my first official couple pic from this round of revisions!
The last time I felt this positively about the new year was in 2020 which turned out to be the worst year in American history in my lifetime. So at the risk of jinxing it, it feels like Team Glasses has put a lot of bad shit and stress behind us and we’re enjoying our hard times paying off.
Without further ado, some art!
I absolutely adore how this turned out, from Ingrid’s crushed velvet to the silliness of the pile of champagne bottles to Chami’s sparkles to how pretty the champagne looks. Feels like a triumph.
Vic and my dad have gryphonWIP which rounded out at 88k now so that’s depressing because I don’t have anything to do except edit Promise Me and I don’t wanna do that haha.
Nico and his baby sister have very Myoku/Shani vibes and might be their spiritual successors especially since Nico is like a cousin/spiritual successor to Micah even if I was able to uncleave Alister from being Andrew, Nico still feels stuck.
I have been complaining about un-M/Aing their character design for weeks but I think I’ve mostly done it! Nico took a bit more work after this but I think I got him there.
I did a REALLY GOOD first kiss drawing of them though at least in terms of the color
Next I want to make an Outfits page for Alister cuz he a Q-T
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO I guess I had just started Sun-Walking, so I guess even without participating in NaNoWriMo (recently exposed as harboring a moderator who was grooming teen writers so I’m fucking out), November has always been a productive writing month.
I’m 40,000 words55,000 words! into my latest project which is a huge departure from the type of storytelling I’ve done before. It’s first person with three distinct POVs, and I’m 40k in but not even at the third act yet. I’m pretty excited, it’s looking like a great great story with some of the tightest and best writing I’ve ever done. It certainly shows the effects of being actively engaged in the writing community for the last nine months, and this is just a first draft. I’m feeling a bit frustrated that I set out with the intention to tell another Andrew/Micah story because the MCs are not ENTIRELY like that but they’re certainly somewhat parallel and related, which makes me just feel like I wasn’t able to write new characters. Even though that’s not true, because the gryphon in said gryphonWIP is nothing like Solveig (or Fionna), the little sister is brand new, as are all of the characters in the city. It’s really just Alister and Nico who have some overlap with Andrew and Micah’s dynamics, but not a lot. I’m working really hard to uncleave them from any other characters which ended up meaning Alister’s ash blond haha.
I made it to 50k WITHIN November (I did 5k before the start of the month) and I’m so proud. I’m about to tie up Act II and the slow burning shitheads FINALLY kissed.
This ended up being a bit of a thesis statement which unsurprisingly means this whole fucking world I created is an analogy for the threat to gay rights happening rn bahaBlond Alister gives Jaime Lannister and Draco Malfoy vibes but Im going to chalk that up to a skill deficit atmStella is a 17 year old firecracker and I’m obsessed with her
