[pulls up Substack front page for the first time in ... a while] When did Substack start doing short reels and reposts??
#writingcommunity

Daylight savings be like: "The sun is still up, but the stores are closing, and you live in a place with zero night life. Lol sun still up at 8pm for no reason."

I’m not usually prone to jealousy, but I’m scrolling through @dannyboywildlife.bsky.social’s account and dying of envy.

Canada lynx “kitten”. (Kitten?!)

All of this. YES. 😭😭😭

My best description of my experience with #anxiety is "hypervigilance," and it's exhausting! 🫠 Anxiety tribe, you are not alone. 🥰

#WritingCommunity #overthinking #neurodiverse #writers #authors

a collection of mock covers made in photoshop from manipulated stock photos. book titles shown are alliance, shadow, and nightmare

very old (outdated) unfinished drawing of a very large 4 winged maniraptoran dinosaur in flight from above. intended as a means to visualize realistic proportions for one of my Ryozakkan warrior types. originally based on dakotaraptor, which is defunct, and I don't remember right now what I changed the base animal to in my lore.

bookmarks with alien motifs on a blue starry background. reads "a tale of fellowship, dinosaurs, aliens, and war"

polymer clay model of a figure with spiky black hair, feathered tail, and a glittery blue coat

Against AI. Forever.
alysataladay.substack.com

#writingcommunity #amwriting #noaislop #scifi #fantasy #paleoart

ever say**

I joined a workshop group several years ago and had it read through by a handful of people. More recently I hired an editor, which was immensely helpful. And quite a feat, since it was 180K words.

...I've had difficulty getting people to help me. 😅 And not for lack of trying.

*webnovel...

What sucks the most? I was planning to take more time off to write after I lost my last job, **but I can't just not have health insurance at my age in this fucking country.** And they wanted an exorbitant amount to put me on hubby's ins. It was cheaper for me to get my own +paycheck.

It pisses me off as much as it breaks my heart that my life is so dominated by the need to work, but feeling like I can't share my work and worrying that I'll never finish the series at this pace hurts more./

I'm glad it's evolved to where it's at right now, but it's high time someone else was reading it. With enough support, I'll eventually be able to publish actual books, but I really need to be realistic about aspects of my current situation./

I have multiple other books waiting in the sidelines, and if I do it as a web serial, you get to experience it more or less in the same way I did. The original project was (is still) like a serial that played out in my head and had me scrambling to write it all down ASAP./

Part of me still insists that I could just power through the rest of my chapter edits. The rest of me knows that the project is frankly bigger than I can manage as a second job. I'm so sick of burning out to try and get it done. /
#booksky #amwriting #amediting

Publishing:
You know how authors are introverts who translate their emotions/experiences into written words instead of having face-to-face conversations? Here's an idea.
What if they have to market themselves and a comprehensive list of their life's work to the public?

Authors: 🫠

#WritingCommunity

oh this is so sad

All of my funny memes are political, and I don't want to go there right now. So have the Mike I built at 1 am, exclusively to amuse my bestie with. 😂

Stupid as hell, but I still think it's also hilarious. 😅 I put a mustache on a Hero Forge model of my second book series main character, Mike, and got instant "dorky 90s Dad stuck in the 70s" vibes.

(He's 100% X-er, complete with dysfunctional parents, unresolved trauma, and anger issues.)

In an ideal world, Bernard dreams of retreating to a woodland cabin and minding his own business, never to be bothered again. No space monsters, no dino politics, and no alien experiments. Just him and his bow and a trusty hunting dog (he hates the sound of gunfire). ...Ideally. ;)

The Ryozae Alliance Project | Alysa Taladay | Substack A science-fantasy novel series about 90s-era teenagers and alien dinosaurs, uploading in serial format. Click to read The Ryozae Alliance Project, by Alysa Taladay, a Substack publication. Launched 2 ...

So if raw, real fiction is your thing,

if #dinosaurs and #scifi magic are up your alley,

if you love the 80s & 90s and yearn for a world before social media:

Check out my Substack and stay tuned: alysataladay.substack.com

#writingcommunity #amediting #noaislop

My banners and book art have always been either hand drawn or photomanipulations from royalty free stock sources. I do my own work or I commission real artists, full stop.

I have never touched my manuscript with AI and I never will. All of my book art has been my own work.

I can't ever I've never touched the stuff, but I stopped once we knew what it was, and what it would become. It is poison, and I am staunchly against it.

I've always said this has never been about getting rich. It's about getting a story out there that's burning in my skull, day and night. A story that deserves more time and energy than I'm frankly able to give it.

So I'm going to post it as I work. Raw.

The thing is: I chose the hard path. I chose epic fiction, and I just do not have the time and energy to give it the love it deserves. I want to share my work, and I could really use some support. Creating in a void is a lonely place when thrive on audience feedback.

I'm already reading aloud when I edit, and I've had some experience doing public readings (LONG time ago, though). Substack will let me upload recordings.

Also, Patreon canceled my account ... no warning, just gone, so that's out. I also need to be able to write freely without censorship.

I'm thinking of trying the webnovek route, again, but this time on Substack, at the urging of a close friend. I also intend to narrate my own chapters, not because I'm particularly good at it (I am NOT), but because it's good for accessibility and a good practice for me to keep. #writingcommunity

Also guilty of imagining/projecting scenarios that haven't/won't happen, or suddenly tensing up because I got too relaxed and my damaged nervous system thinks it needs to stay prepared, just in case.

I've found that I'm better at handling day-to-day stuff, and fewer things trigger me, but as I get older the physical symptoms are worse when they do trigger. Like, even if I know I'm fine, my body will kick into defensive overdrive anyway.

Yup, plus some therapy, which only does so much. I had an incident roughly a month ago that took me back to stuff that happened 30 years ago. I held it together for the rest of the day, then woke up in the middle of the night with a panic attack. Elevated heart rate, nausea, temperature swings, etc.

I watched these back-to-back, because I had nothing better to do apparently than deep-dive How We Got Here and How Bad Is It Really. I'm pretty sure this is how you end up on a list or something. 😅 youtu.be/sWucl8ZRiK8

A lot of stuff makes sense now, though. A lot.