My Brain Is Scrambled Eggs

How am I doing another monthly update already, and how am I doing it late again?!

Between running a publisher, running a household, parenting a toddler, and trying to get an author career off the ground, my brain is just made of scrambled eggs lately. 😭

Writing

Through the first part of March—before the calendar sprinted away from me—I did a bunch of outlining and background work for my WIP novel. I tend to be more of a plotter than a pantser (yes, there’s probably also some procrastination going on there) but I’m doing two things differently on this project:

• I’m doing a lot of this longhand, on paper, in a physical notebook. I used to buck against this, thinking I was so much faster typing on a keyboard, but it turns out slowing down is actually good for me?!
• I’m working backward through the outline. This introduces meaningful creative constraints as I go—each chapter needs to lead into whatever I wrote just before—which narrows the otherwise-infinite possibility space and greatly reduces analysis paralysis.

That said I’m definitely struggling to prioritize my writing right now, what with the Shiraki Press work actually getting results, while nobody is asking me to write a book… but that’s the work, right?

Publishing

Our second publication, Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu, is out today!

I really love this quiet, queer little romance. Em’s prose is so lyrical, and her narrative lens so empathetic, that it’s impossible not to feel a little calmer about the world after reading this utterly lovely debut.

Get your copy in ebook or paperback at https://shirakipress.com/wfr

In other publishing news:

• I’m working on the cover and layout for Ian Patterson’s upcoming near-future political drama Fruits of Our Labor. This will be my first cover done entirely in-house!
• I’ve also taken on my first Shiraki Press book as editor! We haven’t announced this one yet, and I’m really excited for when we get to do that, because this one is near and dear to my little leftist heart.

Reading

• In Brightness and in Darkness, We Sit is a lovely, melancholic piece of flash by Christopher Blake. It’s got an old folklore vibe, and does a great job telling a story through elision.
• Our Daughters / In Rainbows by Ian Patterson is a powerful and lyrical response to the US bombing of a girl’s school in Iran at the outset of the war. (And yes, this is the very same Ian Patterson we’re publishing through Shiraki Press later this year.)
• Brianne spotted—and insta-ordered—the gorgeous Folio Society edition of one of my favorite fantasy stories: The Last Unicorn. The animated film is a classic, but the book is so much richer and deeper, and this presentation is a stunner.

Things that have brought me joy recently:

• Beach kitten!
• Wolf pups!
• This drawing puppet broke my brain. There are so many different kinds of talent in this world!
• Wikipedia has banned AI content, which is a good and necessary move for preserving its critical cultural value.
• Washington state has finally banned non-compete agreements, which were a hated plague on the games industry, among others.
• A Lost Maya settlement was found at the bottom of a lake. This kind of thing is so my jam!
• The Artemis II mission photographs are stunning and inspiring, and the difference in vibes between this mission and all the tech-bro SpaceX nonsense couldn’t be clearer.

Things that have brought me angst:

• These people actually want to end humanity, and the sooner we reckon with that, the sooner we can get our society back on track.
• Anti-ICE protestors convicted of supporting terrorism is exactly the kind of NSPM-7 driven authoritarianism I worried about in my story We Are All Terrorists Now and I hate, hate, hate being right about it.
• Instagram is dropping end-to-end encrypted chats. If you haven’t already, it’s time to consider alternatives like Signal.
• Washington state has declared its fourth drought emergency in a row. But climate change is a liberal hoax, right? 🙄

And this month’s closing thought: