Author's Journal | July 2025
on my writing at of this time
I’ve been writing a lot lately. In fact, for almost a year now. But the things I’ve been working on since April have been different. They are a realization of what I’ve always known I was meant to do; storytelling.
I got here in a strange way. This place was a disaster for a long time, with bouts of recovery, and then really deep episodes of relapse. There aren’t many people left around this blog anymore, to be honest, and I don’t blame anyone. Especially those people I blocked in delusion because I thought they were somebody they weren’t. Those people definitely don’t carry any blame.
Still, I’ve always been an ends-justify the means kind of gal, and the work I’m creating now is going to lead me into a new life. It’s clear to me. It’s already happening. I’m going to do this. I’m going to sell books, or publish them myself, and grind forever. Whatever it is though, it’s going to be perfect, because I’m going to look back at what I’ve created and be happy with myself and my life.
Always and forever, my bucket list has had one thing on top. Publish a science fiction book. I just always felt so angry, out of this deepest jealousy, reading and watching any science fiction that wasn’t so impressive I knew I couldn’t make it myself.
There’s such a chance with locations and characters, races and planets, solar systems and time, to explore the deepest themes through metaphor. Spiritual stuff, political idealism, visions of better futures and powerful explorations of the evil we have around us now.
It’s just been a calling so deep inside to create works like I’m beginning to at last. Always before it had seemed impossible. I’d try and fail. Start and stop. It was a matter of it just not feeling right. I always knew the process was off.
The thing it really comes down to is being myself at last, shedding the lies, finally becoming someone who has the courage to embody radical honesty even in the most difficult situations to use my voice. Actually, my writing is what has brought me to that place. By being such a fearless psycho online, I shed all my worry of being perceived poorly by others. In my self-led journey to healing, I found more love for myself than I ever imagined I could truly feel.
The Justiceers
I’ve gotten the first two parts back from my editor and I’m so excited!
They really brought it together in a way that helps it read like any book you’d pull off the the science fiction shelf, formatting-wise, but retained my voice throughout. Nothing is different, but everything is different, its perfect. I’m going to learn a lot from giving it a final read through after we’ve gotten through the whole thing together and see what can be improved about my language.
Still, this new stuff I’ve been writing feels less in need of an editor. Wordy. But I like it, and I’m trying to chill just a bit with that on The Foundry so it can appeal to folks who aren’t into their science fiction all wackadoo intense like me.
On my pass through before getting the final parts to her, I’m really working on bringing things together still, and removing bits that pushed the meta beyond where they actually fit with the story. I often got so lost in the metaphor I was finding reflected in my writing that I lost the plot. Still, there are parts of that which will fit Miriam’s psychology as she went through it all.
Writing that book was the most healing thing I’ve ever done. At the very end some things got really clear for me about it. I was making a very major conflation the entire time — thinking I was writing about myself and one other person in all my trauma fueled sadness — when really it was about two people, and the lessons I was learning from them in my life, then projecting it all onto the one along with manifestations of my grief and longing.
Truly, beneath it all, it’s just that these people feel like a brother and sister I’ve always needed. I want to be their family.
There’s also some really cool stuff about the suppression of ‘The Goddess’ which I find truly poignant, and believe is a powerful myth which could be added to the mix for helping understand the journey folks are on with gender, compassion, and deconstructing masculine ideals culturally. Also, I find truth to their being some archetypes of diametrically opposed folks who have a unique magnetism, and that part works for me to help understand it better.
Very excited for the final version, though, it’s over 120k words right now and I am struggling as I try to shorten it. Part Five — Chrysalis — something’s gonna go in there. I’ve literally thought about nuking the whole thing. But there’s too much fun in there, and the part about Miriam loosing it when her visages come back was too real. Its a part of how my shattered self was coming back. I literally had the worst relapse into delusion when writing that part. I wrote it twice. I took whole blog down multiple times and renamed it over and over.
That was wild. I’m still really embarrassed about that. I’ll get over it though.
Of Darkness & Light is finally it by the way. It’s going to stick.
Terror From the Deep
Fuck dude. This one’s intense. Every chapter so far, except one, takes place in like the course of thirty crazy seconds. I fear the whole thing is going to be a near perpetual heart attack.
Every third chapter is going to flash back though, and some will hopefully be chill. The next one of those wont be an action sequence, but its certainly not going to be ‘chill’.
Chapter Four is funny, right? How does that make sense? It’s just like too much to take seriously, its the worst. I love it though. Especially because I knew clearly from the beginning that Darla was a metaphor for myself. That was fun.
This big door opens though… and my writing flow has it hype whatever’s gonna come through, I have no idea. Then, one word after another, I wrote, “It was the Crawlers.”
I shouted “No, fuck no. No, no, no, no.”
It went on like that for a bit while I saw these flashes of terrible ideas which will surely come to pass. The way my flow had me go into the worst detail about them. Especially, the part about their smiles. Just murders me. NO.
One of those bitches is going to get fully on Cora and like have their grill drooling in her face. I hate ittttttttttt.
I’m only writing this from now on after sad chapters of The Foundry, when I need to kill shit.
The Foundry
So, I was ‘noping out’ of chapter four of Terror From the Deep as soon as it started. I just set it down and got in the bathtub, ‘micro’ dosed some mushy pills, and listened to music.
This song came on which I ended up using at the end of my short story ‘Grip’. That whole thing just hit me in the tub. I’ve long known I was going to make the nerdiest thing ever — anti-gravity race cars — into a story that was far more cool than people would ever expect. I just have had that idea forever, even tried to write a novel about it once. I believe I wrote two whole chapters back then.
Anyways, that story really worked for me. I didn’t want it to be over. Got real sad afterwards. Tapped into a well of stuff I realized I could write a whole a book about. I’ve been called to underdog stories, and those with people hating each other until they admit its because they love each other deep down and they’re both just being stupid about it in different ways. So, I was seriously thinking about just doing a novel version of that. I will some day, and that story is almost definitely called ‘Thunderstruck’, apparently.
Over the next few days though, still not wanting to finish chapter four, I started to have The Foundry come to me in big waves. I let this cook for a while before sitting down to write it. There are things I’ve been working towards this whole time I thought would come at the end of each chapter, but don’t even show up yet, which are just leading me forward.
This is sick though. I really love it. Genuinely knew I would be trying to write a series someday that takes on the trappings of pop-writing’s affinity for action and dramatic smutty heartache. Playing back to those dark academia vibes people love, the kind of adult (ya) books.
Reading people’s shitty takes on that, even in fantasy, has always inspired that same jealousy I felt when consuming science fiction I didn’t like.
It just meant I was supposed to be making my own.
I’m hooked to The Foundry already. This is going to be a really fun ride. My favorite thing is the way it inverts the tendency in these stories to default the organizational structures to those of patriarchal hierarchy. I understand that quality fantasy/science fiction can make the choice to reflect reality instead of portraying a better future. Still, that shit’s played out. I can’t even with how refreshing it is to see the way The Foundry’s inner structures are coming through. There aren’t ranks, there is an ethos of caring for each their despite the brutality inherent in it all. It feels like a breathe of fresh air in that regard. Feminine leadership doesn’t mean we’re not fierce and decisive, it means we do things in balance with who we truly are.
Poetry
I’m just having fun! I do really like a lot of it. Most of them lately have been giving me the biggest laughs. Especially the ones that get all murderously witchy. Know that its satire, and I’m just having a laugh at myself.
Thanks for reading!
-Daphne
