Making it impossible for an author to sell their next book doesn’t just kill that book. It makes it far less likely the author will continue writing at all. They have to make a living somehow and they were already earning pennies an hour for their bonkers fragile and emotionally demanding work.

Most publishers (there are always exceptions) decide whether or not to buy a second book (or a third etc) based on how the previous book did. So when you pirate a book in most cases it’s less about the money you just stole from both author and publisher it’s about the future book you just killed.

Related: I feel like a lot of the piracy vs buying discourse (🤢 that this is even a thing) gets framed as stealing money from individual authors vs. stealing from faceless corporate publishers when for most authors it’s about whether or not they’ll get to publish another book.

"Fuck" as terrible, sublime & intimate encapsulates an underlying attitude I have towards this story.

People who had to survive Clay & the damage he caused deserve all the happiness & pleasure they can find, including physically. They had the lows. I won't stint them - or the reader - on the highs.

but this? shut the fuck up. guess what, my man, gorgeous young 22 year olds like to fuck. And queer people deserve love stories that are sexy and horny. a "chaste kiss" please be for real.

It does require a specific match up. But so does writing, in the sense that I'm not trying to write for everyone. I'm writing the things I'd like to read myself, in the way that I enjoy reading them. So as usual I'll take a leaf from the characters - it's always made me happier to do that anyway. 🥰

Word count is still on my mind a lot. But then I also realised that I'm running parallel with Hal in the book (again), who feels like he's going to be too much. And it's not like he doesn't contain... A lot. But with the right partner (ie: Gabe), a lot also has the potential to be... A lot of fun. 🥰

Art is an act of hope. Writing is an act of rebellion. The world will always need more stories--from real human beings, not bullshit plagiarism machines. Every book is a love story from the author, and every reader is fighting the war against cruelty, ignorance, and hopelessness. We are fighting.

My overall point here is that if you are attempting to sell books to traditional publishers right now, you may be feeling pretty down. Submission periods are stretching longer than I've ever seen. Editors are ghosting. Agents have lists of genres they can't sell. Authors are seeing lower advances.