三人行，必有我师(焉)

So I actually wrote this up a few hours ago while I was waiting for the mechanic to finish routine maintenance on my car. The list has since changed (I finished Peerless vol. 4 and read a graphic novel while I waited) but... oh well. They'll go in next week. I don't feel like rewriting it, lol.

1. What are you currently reading?

• Peerless/Wushuang vol 4 by Meng Xi Shi: they are making me insane, I love them. Yall don't know the sacrifice I'm making, typing this up instead of reading more right this instant.
• 我和我对家 by Pepa: I'm over 80% now, and oh man that the mainland China print version is censored has gotten really, really obvious

2. What have you recently finished reading?

• Peerless/Wushuang vol. 2 and 3 by Meng Xi Shi
• Haikyu!! vol 44 by Haruichi Furidate: only 1 vol left, and it's in my Libby borrows...
• The Genius Puppeteer Loves the Holy Knight Fiercely by Hatoba Kogarashi: fantasy dark BL. The pacing on this was a mess.
• Senpai is an Otokonoko vol 1 and 2 by Pom: modern HS story about a cross dressing boy and the girl with a crush on him and his male bestie who also had a crush on him. There's no chance this will end in an OT3 and that's a crime.
• The Color of Love by Kiyo Ueda: utterly unremarkable collection of modern BL shorts

3. What will you read next?

Novels: Obviously, next-up for novels is Peerless vol. 5, which is the last book of the novel (it's not a series, it's just one novel, split across five English print books). I'll be starting that this afternoon/evening. After that, I'm gonna go back to Dream of the Red Chamber and hold my nose and suck it up til I'm done. And after that, I'm f.i.n.a.l.l.y. getting back to The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin, which has ostensibly been the top of my TBR for a while but has kept getting bumped for other things. Oh, and I STILL need to read Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault for book club, oops.

Physical loans: I finished the books I borrowed my friend and returned them; now I have a pile of massively overdue library books and I'm gonna try to read all of them ASAP (I read the first today while at the mechanic). The top of the pile is a Poison Ivy title (I'll read basically any graphic novel as long as it's in some way queer, and well. She's definitely queer.)

Libby loans: nothing is due in under a week, so idk, whatever I feel like of the 7 titles I currently have. Probably the last volume of Haikyu, for starters.

Thank you to everyone who has thus far signal boosted or backed our Kickstarter campaign to fund publishing our second erotica anthology Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling. We’ve got two weeks left, and we’re less than $3,000 from our goal – it’s only been a few days since we launched, and we’re already 74% funded! 

If you’ve been on the fence, or if you just want to know more about the collection, we’ll be sharing excerpts from the authors’ stories and close-ups of the merchandise in updates throughout the rest of the campaign. Monsterotica has 16 contributors, five of whom have written with Duck Prints Press before, the rest of whom have not. We look forward to sharing all their awesome work with you!

For our first author teasers today, meet Kitty Lee and MJ Kiwiana!

Author: Kitty Lee

About: Kitty Lee is a quiet woman in her 30s, living happily with her wife and cat. From the reliable stability of her day-to-day life, one would never guess the sumptuous sickness of her inner fantasies. She invites you to be joyfully depraved in your fiction choices, to feast on forbidden flesh so long as the flesh is into that, and to please support your local libraries.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Bluesky

Story Title: Nothing Ventured…

Excerpt: 

Stoic writes a large question mark on a fresh sheet of paper.

“Well.” Hunt eases into a chair, breathing quickly through his teeth, then leans back, rubbing a hand down his stomach and swallowing as the bulge presses back against his palm. “I’ve really only got two colors, y’know? Peach or pink. So I thought, if you wanted…”

Stoic lowers to his level. Not crouching, more… puddling? He’s listening, frills shivering and the gold in his eyes brighter. A few more tendrils unfurl from him, leaving him smaller, and start touching tips to the pigments.

“I can tell you what I feel,” Hunt says, watching Stoic unwind himself. “And you could make me match?”

There’s a strange sound, then, like a hissing “churr.” Stoic’s frills clatter, and his whiskers twine, making it clear they’re as mobile as his other tendrils.

An arm touches Hunt’s chin and slides up his cheek, affectionate. 

Author: MJ Kiwiana

About: MJ (he/him) has been kicking around fandom for over two decades—primarily writing fic, though he’s also been known to subject people to his accent via podfic from time to time. He’s probably best known in the fandom circles he inhabits for writing kink exploration and really fun, sometimes off-the-wall, smut, but every once in a while, he’ll drop a surprise angst bomb just to keep people on their toes. 

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr

Story Title: Disasterbird

Excerpt:

“Hāro? Hāro!”

Hāro groans as his mum’s piercing squall drags him out of sleep, his eyes blinking against the too-bright sun. Something’s digging into the sensitive skin just under his wing, and one of his talons has snagged in the night—it’s short and jagged, tugging on one of Hāro’s feathers when he scratches his face.

“Up you get, chicklet. You have a date this morning, remember?”

Fuck. How could he forget? This is basically his life now—a series of first dates, none of them ever materialising a second. And for good reason.

Make sure to check out the Kickstarter campaign to learn more!

1. Why do you love writing?

Adrian Harley: Ironically, it’s hard to put into words how much fun writing is. Inventing worlds, characters, and stories—even just coming up with a fun turn of phrase—has some of that same joy as playing make-believe on a playground as a kid. There’s something so free about it.

Rascal Hartley: It’s really hard to articulate. It’s the difference between telling someone “this is how this feels” and just plucking the emotion straight from my chest and dropping it directly into theirs. I’d explode if I ever stopped, I think. I love it because it keeps me from exploding.

Anonymous #1: I love writing because I love art. I love creation. I consider myself less a “writer” and more an “artist”, and sometimes my chosen medium is words. I love how playful you can get with language (e.g. Carroll, Joyce), how you can paint beautiful scenes without using any colors, and how all of that can translate differently depending on individual perception. As an artist who works in different mediums, I hold a lot of respect for writing and story-telling in all forms.

boneturtle: Writing is how I think, how my thoughts turn from vague impressions to concrete ideas. For me it’s not so much why I love writing, but what I would do if I couldn’t write. I depend on it for connection, both to others and to my own thoughts.

Lucy K.R.: Writing provides me with a place to gain clarity on the world I’m experiencing, and to share that clarity with others. No matter how silly or serious the subject matter, putting words to experiences gives you a power over those experiences.

Puck: It’s the form of expression that comes easiest to me. I love language, both from the perspective of a linguist and from the perspective of an artist—the melody of a well-constructed sentence as much as its power to shape reality.

Sage Mooreland: The connection created by putting words on a page is the food for my soul that I’ve craved since I was little. The moment I figured out I could connect to people, that I could say things for other people to think about with the wrappings of something beautiful, I was hooked. One of my favorite professors once said, “I like writing because, if you properly back up your point, nobody can tell you that you’re wrong.” While she was referring (mostly) to the sort of academic writing one does in college and professional writing beyond that, I find that it applies across into my creative writing. That sort of freedom is what I adore.

S. J. Ralston: Writing is how I talk about the things I don’t know how to talk about. When it’s too big, too painful, too strange, too personal to say it in so many words, it goes into the writing.

Dev: I love the satisfaction in finally capturing the scene in your head on the paper (or screen) in a way that feels the same as you’d imagined. That moment when it clicks is what I live for.

Anonymous #2: Because I can make the words dance in ways that feel natural to me in a way that music or visual arts never did. We are the storytelling animals. That’s what differentiates us from everything else that communicates. Taking part in that tradition helps me feel connected to people.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of writing and why?

jumblejen: Discovering what my unconscious has been chewing on for who-knows-how-long! I found after I started writing that certain themes would show up that were clearly mental health things my brain wanted to work on but wasn’t telling me about. 2nd favorite thing is finding out what’s going to happen next! I am a discovery writer, which means I don’t plan out my works (it can all get fixed in editing as needed). Love being genuinely surprised by the twists I don’t know about until they appear on the page.

Adrian Harley: My favorite bit is that moment when I suddenly figure out a really cool connection between two previously unrelated parts of a story or think of a new idea that immediately improves the whole story. Whether it’s solving a plot problem or forcing new, worse problems on my poor protagonists, it’s always so satisfying when things go “click.”

Rascal Hartley: My faaaavorite part is when I’m drafting and a character just reveals something I had no notions of or intentions to include. So I guess characterization. I love these little guys (gn).

Anonymous #1: I’m a world-builder-holic. You can always catch me spinning off these grand universes with broad mythical strokes and teeny tiny daily minutiae, every single aspect of that is beyond fun for me. Sometimes I spend so much time thinking about the world, I forget about silly little things like “plots” and “continuity” lol.

boneturtle: My favorite aspect of writing is similar to Rascal’s description of why they love writing. The ability to create an impression that gives people an emotional experience, rather than explaining it to them. You can connect with people on a visceral level, through words. It’s sort of unbelievable.

Lucy K.R.: The Flow State is always my favorite part, though it is hard to access. When a story really takes over, and my fingers know what they’re doing seemingly without input from me—the world spinning itself into existence out of threads of thought… I think that’s the closest I’ll come in this lifetime to experiencing magic.

Puck: I love that moment in a 2nd draft or edit where I suddenly realize “No, this is where the story is going” or “here is where to place the parallel that’s going to really hit“

Sage Mooreland: I’m a world builder to the core. Like. I could happily build worlds for friends’ stories or RPGs and be endlessly happy. Being able to create the world I want to live in (as an example), where I can ease bigotry and oppression to a level that’s…well, not the world we live in. I can give voices to people who don’t have them, and I can build them in the forms that can help people either see themselves or maybe understand better what it’s like to be that person. The satisfaction of creating that kind of world is my jam.

S. J. Ralston: Favorite aspect is finding the shape of the story. When you come up out of the fog and the wander and finally you can see the whole thing at once and it’s not just a bunch of words, it’s a single solid object with a weight to it.

Dev: I love the alpha and early beta stages because I have folks I work with frequently for that, and often as not these turn into semi-roleplay types of brainstorming sessions where we get very “yes and” about the plot and characters and just follow the thoughts where they lead.

Anonymous #2: My favourite part of writing is when my characters surprise me. Sometimes I’ll be midway through writing a scene and in the flow and write a bit I didn’t plan on, which will often end up being my favourite.

3. What advice would you give to someone who fell out of writing and wants to regain that feeling?

jumblejen: Most importantly, understand that while life is short, it’s also very long. It will come around again, you just have to be patient and gentle with yourself, and be sure you’re refilling your artistic “well.” Try to let go of the constraints and musts and have-tos around your writing. Pick something silly or absurd and just write a thing that doesn’t matter at all. I’ve found that can lead you back into that magical place where the words are flowing and your mind is so alive.

Rascal Hartley: Probably start small. Write little scenes you like. Don’t worry about context; it doesn’t matter. Just write only the bits and pieces you like, even if they’re just single sentences. And then you’ve written, and you’re at least one sentence closer than you were before, but most importantly: you had fun. That is, like, what it’s all about. Just have fun.

Anonymous #1: Okay so, first of all—this was me for the better part of a decade. I spent my entire youth, from before I could read into the early years of teenagedom writing. I spent hours on it, I wrote barely literate novels and works I’m sure I would still be proud of if I had them, and some time in high school I just lost my ability to word. It can be so, so difficult to start when you feel burnt out and the idea of writing is exhausting, or just following through with ideas you start and can’t seem to finish, and honestly, what got me back in was just… not caring? I had an epiphany, specifically writing a short joke fic, where I was spending all this time leading up to and explaining why the fic was happening, getting hung up on exposition (which is beautiful and I love writing btw), and it ended up dragging me to a point where I felt like I’d never finish (again). It sucks feeling like that, and I vented to a friend, and he said: just don’t fuss with it. Just write the joke. So… I did! I’ve always been a fan of a cold open, but sometimes I struggle to let myself write one. Drop your reader, your character, and yourself right where you want to be, and everything else will follow.

boneturtle: I’m in this place now. Although I am still producing words, it’s only when I have a contract and a deadline. I haven’t written any stories just for the joy of it in years. I have so many things I want to tell people, but I’m so worried about getting the words wrong. It’s paralyzing.

Lucy K.R.: Writing is a muscle, and like any muscle it can be overworked and strained. The ONLY cure for that strain is rest and stretching. That stretching can be focusing on reading for a while to remember why you wanted to write, engaging in small exercises to re-awaken your skills, or it can be stepping away from the written word all together and gaining a few new experiences about which to tell stories! However you approach it, consider it an injury—you have to let yourself heal, and come back to it slow in order to re-build your strength.

Puck: Do some really low-stakes writing. Visual artists practice by doodling, doing hand exercises like drawing circles, etc. So for writing, to get the muscles moving again, you can try writing to prompts, or do a short verbal sketch of a setting or a character. Try writing a vignette rather than something with a plot. Or, alternately, try plotting out a narrative without getting stuck on the prose.

Sage Mooreland: Let yourself cry and scream and be frustrated… but don’t blame yourself. I’m not saying don’t accept responsibility for whatever may actually be your actions that pulled you away from writing; that’s important to acknowledge and work on. What I’m saying is don’t carry the guilt or shame of falling away. You had reasons and that guilt is misplaced. Don’t bully yourself about it or into it, either. Be gentle. When I teach writing, I tell people to set up a note pad or digital document or something, set a timer, and write about literally anything. Even if the words are, “this sucks, this is hard, this sucks, this is hard,” or even just “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” over and over, you’re writing. When that timer is done, so are you. and you never have to look at it or touch it again. If you find that you wrote something you want to pursue, AWESOME! CHASE IT AND HAVE FUN WITH IT! But let yourself be bad. let yourself write and toss. Give yourself grace to be slow and struggle. The goal is to set yourself a routine of words. Not a habit. a routine.

S. J. Ralston: Make garbage and delight in making garbage. Give zero shits whether it’s good or not. Be self-indulgent, be ham-fisted, be nonsensical, be purple, be dumb. Treat writing the way you’d treat a walk in the park; it’s not about whether you’re good at it, it’s about whether you’re enjoying it!

Dev: For me, it helps to start small. A drabble, or a challenge that gives directions so that the onus isn’t entirely on me.

Anonymous #2: Read/watch/think about something that irritates you and then write how it should have gone if it was actually satisfying. Get really self indulgent. If you’re writing to please yourself you’ll never run out of steam and you might find that you’re telling a story that’s a lot more unique than if you’re writing people pleasers.