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Phase Three: a Preface and a Thankyou!
2 months ago
Hi everyone!
I'm super excited to announce that my debut novel will be available to buy in about one week's time. I'll be offering physical paperbacks via my Ko-fi store and eBooks via Kobo — the latter is now open for pre-orders: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/phase-three-1
This project has been a huge undertaking. The roots of the novel trace back to 2017, when I started writing a fanfiction piece that took three years (and a few hundred-thousand words) to complete. I learnt so much from long format writing and developed a story which, tied within the constraints of fanfiction, always felt like it was something more. The world changed in 2020 and I moved towards writing short-form, adult stories. Unexpectedly (though perhaps not, in hindsight) writing has since become a huge part of my life. I've become a regular poster here on FurAffinity, but I always wanted to write a book. Recently, my motivation has grown though primarily for two reasons: (1) my nostalgia for long-form writing, and; (2) now having something very special — an audience.
Writing is a form of creative expression that is meaningful to me. I've been writing consistently since around 2012, self-taught through trial and error, and primarily…well..with just me sat at a computer. Seclusion is what I dislike about creating stories. When I started writing on fanfiction.net, I found a tiny but supportive group of people to bounce ideas off, including a fantastic co-writer. Skipping ahead through tumblr and AO3, here I am on FA writing kinky smut because it's such a wholesome community. I write commissions because I really enjoy working for and with other people. By a combination of my compulsive writing output, the wholesome furry community, and dumb luck, I've ended up with one heck of an awesome following — far too many individuals to name who have been so supportive with comments/likes here on Furaffinity, chatting on Discord, and (more rarely!) in IRL too. You've been my cheerleaders, unknowingly fostering my creative drive to sink time, effort, and emotion into a book. Thank you.
The theme(s) in Phase Three changed a lot from my initial plan. I remember an old meme on Tumblr that claimed writers rarely have a grand scheme, imagining instead one or two really cool scenes before desperately wrangling a story to give them context. That's always been the case for me. However, what was meant to be 'filler' became — almost subconsciously — a canvas for expression. Gender and transition developed into key themes. Anthro transformation crucial to the storyline evolved beyond a purely logistical plotpoint into a metaphor that had me thinking about a lot of stuff. I poured more of myself into this book than I'd planned. Honestly, it felt refreshing to consider (post)transformation as a mechanism for the characters to explore hurt, comfort, and reflection; perhaps mirroring my own. Over the past few years, I've personally experienced the adventures of coming out as non-binary with a name change and the joyous chaos of exploring how to express myself. Yet somehow, I forgot what was right there under my snoot: writing as a form of self-expression. Phase Three wasn't what I initially planned but wow, it was what I needed. Writing in a longer format is both terrifying and exciting in the way only a blank piece of paper can be, but it offers the freedom to find your voice. So if you want to read a story that blends a post-apocalyptic siege with science fiction robots, meanwhile providing commentary on non-binary gender, with awkward British characters, all written by a queer furry author — I'd appreciate you giving this book a go. I promise it's more well-written than this train-of-thought journal!
Lastly, I want to finish with a statement to ensure this is noted down as a public record. Generative AI was not used to write anything in this novel. Spellcheckers were implemented, these arguably use machine learning algorithms to analyze text for grammatical errors/typos, but that application of such software is a world away from feeding prompts into ChatGPT (or similar) to poop out 'content'. All the words and the ideas within Phase Three are — painstakingly — my own.
I'd like to thank everyone one last time, whether you're interested in purchasing my book or not. This is a very exciting time for me and I'm grateful to share it with you all! : )
Zen
I'm super excited to announce that my debut novel will be available to buy in about one week's time. I'll be offering physical paperbacks via my Ko-fi store and eBooks via Kobo — the latter is now open for pre-orders: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/phase-three-1
This project has been a huge undertaking. The roots of the novel trace back to 2017, when I started writing a fanfiction piece that took three years (and a few hundred-thousand words) to complete. I learnt so much from long format writing and developed a story which, tied within the constraints of fanfiction, always felt like it was something more. The world changed in 2020 and I moved towards writing short-form, adult stories. Unexpectedly (though perhaps not, in hindsight) writing has since become a huge part of my life. I've become a regular poster here on FurAffinity, but I always wanted to write a book. Recently, my motivation has grown though primarily for two reasons: (1) my nostalgia for long-form writing, and; (2) now having something very special — an audience.
Writing is a form of creative expression that is meaningful to me. I've been writing consistently since around 2012, self-taught through trial and error, and primarily…well..with just me sat at a computer. Seclusion is what I dislike about creating stories. When I started writing on fanfiction.net, I found a tiny but supportive group of people to bounce ideas off, including a fantastic co-writer. Skipping ahead through tumblr and AO3, here I am on FA writing kinky smut because it's such a wholesome community. I write commissions because I really enjoy working for and with other people. By a combination of my compulsive writing output, the wholesome furry community, and dumb luck, I've ended up with one heck of an awesome following — far too many individuals to name who have been so supportive with comments/likes here on Furaffinity, chatting on Discord, and (more rarely!) in IRL too. You've been my cheerleaders, unknowingly fostering my creative drive to sink time, effort, and emotion into a book. Thank you.
The theme(s) in Phase Three changed a lot from my initial plan. I remember an old meme on Tumblr that claimed writers rarely have a grand scheme, imagining instead one or two really cool scenes before desperately wrangling a story to give them context. That's always been the case for me. However, what was meant to be 'filler' became — almost subconsciously — a canvas for expression. Gender and transition developed into key themes. Anthro transformation crucial to the storyline evolved beyond a purely logistical plotpoint into a metaphor that had me thinking about a lot of stuff. I poured more of myself into this book than I'd planned. Honestly, it felt refreshing to consider (post)transformation as a mechanism for the characters to explore hurt, comfort, and reflection; perhaps mirroring my own. Over the past few years, I've personally experienced the adventures of coming out as non-binary with a name change and the joyous chaos of exploring how to express myself. Yet somehow, I forgot what was right there under my snoot: writing as a form of self-expression. Phase Three wasn't what I initially planned but wow, it was what I needed. Writing in a longer format is both terrifying and exciting in the way only a blank piece of paper can be, but it offers the freedom to find your voice. So if you want to read a story that blends a post-apocalyptic siege with science fiction robots, meanwhile providing commentary on non-binary gender, with awkward British characters, all written by a queer furry author — I'd appreciate you giving this book a go. I promise it's more well-written than this train-of-thought journal!
Lastly, I want to finish with a statement to ensure this is noted down as a public record. Generative AI was not used to write anything in this novel. Spellcheckers were implemented, these arguably use machine learning algorithms to analyze text for grammatical errors/typos, but that application of such software is a world away from feeding prompts into ChatGPT (or similar) to poop out 'content'. All the words and the ideas within Phase Three are — painstakingly — my own.
I'd like to thank everyone one last time, whether you're interested in purchasing my book or not. This is a very exciting time for me and I'm grateful to share it with you all! : )
Zen
Yeah... I can't find the words to celebrate for ya so... Congrats! And have more confetti. ;3
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Many of the themes you write about (hurt, comfort, loss of self, and confiding in others) are also part of my ongoing story here on FA, although in a different setting. I know what you mean when writing this is pouring something of yourself into the story. I will surely check out your book!
Just maybe, and I was pondering whether I should ask or not, would you consider giving my story a read? I would love some criticism. I really didn't want to beg, and I still don't know whether this is the place to write this or not, but I hope you understand.