So as of late my FA page has not been getting as updated as often, largely because I've been working on some larger projects that I am not posting here. Here's the rough status of those projects for those interested.

The Modern Pleasuremage - a sequel to The Eternal Party, currently about half complete and being posted to my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=7280553).

Blue Zenith - A stand-alone sci-fi novel. Outline is finished. Probably will be the next big project after The Modern Pleasuremage.

Mortal Deceptions - A novella set in Scappo's Keepers Universe. Will be debuting on his Subscribestar page soon-ish.

Hyla Brokenfang - I haven't forgotten about this! I have a lot of parts written, but got stalled out on the most recent chapter for... far too long now. I do hope to make a return to this project at some point. I'd love to finish telling her story.

I pumped. Earlier this week I sent off a final draft of my novel, "The Eternal Party," to FurPlanet and it looks like it will be coming out at AnthroCon this year.

The muse bit me hard in December. I've spent much of the last month writing up a draft of a novel, ending up with 71k words when I was done.

The novel is called "The Eternal Party" and here is a little synopsis of it:


"The Eternal Party, an unending festivity that caters to the wildest sexual fantasies. It is held in secret at a magical manor house whose enchantments enforce two ironclad rules: 'Canines command and felines obey' and 'You can only enter if you want to be here.'

Except sometimes the rules are broken.

Calico cat Mila only wanted to get out of the rain, but once she entered the Eternal Party, the house would not let her leave. Now she is trapped and forced to obey the commands of any canine at the party, caught between newly awakened desires and the need to return home."


The novel will include a variety of BDSM and MC themes. While the primary pairing will be M/F, there will be some F/F and M/M content.

The first chapter can be found here on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/77549441), and the rest will be added here, at a rate of roughly one chapter a month.

I enjoyed sharing a first draft/second draft comparison on Twitter a while back, so here's a quick look at the first draft and final draft of the opening to my recent story "The Upgrade," followed by some commentary on it.


* * *


First draft:


"Rabia, are you ready?" Dr. Holmgren asked. She looked down at the short fennec android who stood by her side. They were in a narrow alleyway filled to the brim with odd shops with little to distinguish them besides a sign over the door. There was no window-shopping in this part of the district.

The android chewed her lip nervously. Like all androids, she had once been human, and in the transition from fresh-and-blood to metal-and-wire, most habits remained. It did not matter that her lips now fit a contour of a different face: the action was the same.

"We can come back another time, if you prefer."

"But you spent all your time driving out here." The fennec looked up at her sadly.

"Your health and safety is more important than the mileage on my car."

The fennec took a deep breath, another irrelevant habit. She had no lungs. "But I need to do this, sooner or later. So let's do it!" Rabia sprung forward and pushed open the door.

Dr. Holmgren chuckled to herself for a moment, and followed her into the shop.

The front of the shop was almost bare outside of two model: both androids who stood in dynamic poses and shifted between them every few seconds. The back of their heads were open to show that there was no brain inside. These were blanks, just robots.

The fennec stepped up to the counter and rang the bell there.



* * *


Final draft:



"Rabia, are you ready?" Dr. Holmgren asked.

Beside her was a short fennec android. As the android bounced from foot to foot, her eyes flitted from side to side. They were in a narrow alleyway filled to the brim with odd shops with little to distinguish them besides a sign over the door and maybe a sandwich board outside. These shops were eclectic specialty stores that needed little traffic. The alley was empty besides the one human and the one android; there was no one to see how anxious the latter was.

When she didn't receive an answer, Dr. Holmgren went on. "It's all right to not be ready yet. Transition takes time, and you've made such good progress already."

"But you took the day off to drive me out here," Rabia said, ignoring the point of Dr. Holmgren's words. Her voice sounded off in her ears. It always sounded off though. They had tried to simulate the way her old human voice had sounded, before the accident, before her brain got shoved into a chrome and titanium shell; but for all their work, they never got the tone quite right.

Dr. Holmgren laid a hand on Rabia's shoulder, thumb stroking over the thin artificial fur. "Your health and safety are far more important than the mileage on my car."

The fennec took a deep breath, an irrelevant habit. She had no lungs. But it calmed her all the same. Habits like those, Dr. Holmgren liked to say, were important to remind Rabia that underneath the faux fur and metal and wires, she was ultimately still human, she was still alive. There had been times, in the months of transitional therapy with Dr. Holmgren, where she hadn't been sure. She had had to relearn how to walk and talk and smile, and even see and hear.

But now she was walking and talking and smiling with ease. For all the struggles of going from human to android, there were starting to be some payouts too. Behind her, Rabia's tail started to wag. She liked that tail. And being a fennec! She'd always loved the little sand foxes; her mama always said she had the energy of one. If Rabia played her cards right, there might be some extra payouts today as well.

"I need to do this sooner or later," she said. "And I want to do it now. For me."

Dr. Holmgren gave Rabia's shoulder a squeeze and followed the fennec marching into the shop.

The front of the shop was almost a disappointment to Rabia after her fist-pumping eagerness to get in. There was a front desk with a bell and a shoddy computer, a calendar on the wall, and two android models. That was it. The two androids stood in dynamic poses and shifted between them every few seconds. The back of their heads were open to show that there was no brain inside. These were blanks, just robots. Like all androids, they were modeled after canines. There were too many ethical dilemmas with an android chassis potentially looking like a famous human, but you didn't want androids to look too alien either. So canines were the compromise.


* * *


So why did I make these changes?

In the first draft, I had initially conceived of the opening scene as being from the perspective of Dr. Holmgren, but as I wrote it, I quickly realized that Rabia needed to be the focus. So in the final version, I spend a lot more time getting into Rabia's mental space and seeing the world as she sees it.

Also I was unsatisfied with Rabia's personality. She was just generically unsure of herself, and I wanted there to be more nuance and depth to her character. So I spent a lot of time in the final draft emphasizing different aspects of her character, the way she bounces on her feet, the way that the world feels slightly off to her, her anxiety but also her desire to move past it. Each of these was also dramatized in some way.


And that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the writing curtain.

Hello everyone!

At the request of several people wanting to help support my work, I've set up a Patreon. You can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7280553

There will be a story every month, with some possible additional perks, like voting on things to appear in the next story.

On Twitter the other day, I had a brief rant about the following article:

The Milo Story, Nazi Prevention, and A Simple Hope – by David Lillie of Dreamkeepers http://dogpatch.press/2018/05/21/th.....zi-prevention/

At the request of @Dreamkeepers, I'm hosting a more readable form of the rant here as well. I've made some edits but the gist is the same.

---

Okay, so, possibly against my better judgment, I want to talk about this... stultifying mess of an article. #politics ahead, you have been warned.

It's a pity that FA can't easily toss in GIFs the way Twitter can, because there were several facepalm GIFs used to express my immediate reaction to the article.

A lot of people have already torn into this with several good points:
1) FA isn't the government and as such is largely free to choose who they do and do not wish to host. This isn't anyone's free speech issue.
2) "Exluding the speech of people will only turn them into nazis" is the abuser's "Look what you made me do!"
Those are valid points, but not what I'm going into now.

My biggest issue is that the article is a weird fetishization of "free speech rights."

The article treats rights as their own end goal: there is, outside of the "look what you made me do" exception, no concern with causes or consequences. Rights, according to the article, are their own justification. They don't exist to actually do anything, just to be. They weren't caused by anything and they don't cause anything; they just are. And this brings me to one of the central arguments of the article that I haven't seen people discuss much: the idea that if you exclude the speech of people in any way, you make them look like the defenders of free speech.

This only makes sense if your sole motivating force is the maximization of "free speech rights," to the exclusion of all other rights and to the exclusion of any consequences. If that's your one goal, then yes, you would see the banning of hate groups from FA as a sign that the hate groups are the defenders of free speech.

...

You would also have to see even more egregious forms of speech as defending free speech too.

Libel and slander? Defenders of free speech.
Doxxing? Bigger defenders of free speech.
Harassment? Even bigger defenders of free speech.
Incitement to riot? HUGE defenders of free speech.
Communicating intent to commit significant criminal acts? MASSIVE defenders of free speech.

We treat political actions as free speech issues, but if someone ran for office and stabbed their opponent in the throat and killed them, we aren't going to be having a discussion about how by criticizing the murderer we were actually making them be the ultimate defender of the first amendment.

And I think if we asked David Lillie his opinion on this, he'd say that of course there are limits to free speech. He'd write off the stabbing example as a clear and egregious jump-off-the-cliff.

Except it's not. Not if your goal is to maximize free speech to the exclusion of all other rights and consequences.

But that is exactly what is so infuriating about the article. When you take the maximization of free speech as a given and consider the right as an end unto itself, how do you define where it should stop? It becomes a wishy-washy point in the distance that can constantly be pushed further and further back as people test edge cases more and more. (And they do. They always do.)

So no, not a good article, not a good defense of the concepts.

And there are issues around free speech to be concerned with and debate. Restrictions on speech are only ever as good as their executor and loosely defined laws restricting speech are almost always turned into tools to oppress minorities.

Hey look! Consequences!

But that view of consequences just isn't present in the article.

So yeah, grumble grumble, rant concluded.

(Because if I get started on the both-sides-ism of "causing a division in the fandom" I'll be here all night.)

---

Since I'm back on the topic, one more thing to add. The purpose of some forms of speech, specifically harassment and intimidation, are designed to suppress the speech of others. It's a way to say, "If you speak up, you'll be next." So it's always weird for me to see people who advocate for the maximization of free speech be fully behind things like this that stop others from speaking up.

And best wishes in the new year.

Recently, a documentary called “Fursonas” was released. You may have heard about it; it’s even been advertised on FA. There’s been a lot of talk about the film, and I too want to say some things.

The first thing I want to say is this: I HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE! Nor at this point do I intend to.

This is because I have been following some of the news surrounding the movie for a while and the director’s comments about his own film have been very off-putting. In an interview published on Flayrah, the director – whose name is Dominic Rodriguez – said, “I made a movie for smart people, not dumb people,” which I cannot help but see as a way of preemptively dismissing any criticism. “Oh, you disagree with my film? It must be because you were too dumb to understand it.”

I’ve been reacting to this comment and others the same way I react to similar comments in cover letters in the Sofawolf slushpile: by going into surly editor mode. I’m already in a mood where I want to nitpick this documentary, not enjoy it. I’m not in a place where I could give the movie a fair shake.

But I’m not interested in the movie on its own, but also how the movie impacts the furry community. It has been hyped up for a while within the community, and Dominic has been going on a media blitz, talking about the film. That impact I can see. That impact I can discuss.

So are people enjoying “Fursonas”? So far as I can tell, yes. The reaction, both within and without the furry fandom, is generally positive. The portrayals of Boomer the Dog and Varka (the owner of Bad Dragon) get the most positive attention. People talk about how humanizing and lovable it makes furries. And a lot of furries are talking about what an honest portrayal of furries it is. So that’s good.

It’s not all good, however. There are two main criticisms I see frequently tossed at the film.

The first is that the movie is over-reliant on furry lifestylers and fursuiters. One non-furry reviewer even seemed perplexed that one of the furries portrayed never got into a suit even once in the entire film. (That furry was Uncle Kage.) This seems like a bad mistake on the part of the documentary because failing to acknowledge the artists and writers in the community is a common criticism of media stories about the fandom. It’s even worse because Dominic himself is a furry and should have known better. While Dominic defended this choice in his Flayrah interview as wanting to show “furry as an identity and as a community” and that he couldn’t portray everything, this still seems at odds with his media blitz. Non-furries are going to look at this film and are likely to think that furry equals fursuits.

The second criticism is the treatment of Uncle Kage. Dominic’s philosophy in the documentary is that all furries should be free to be themselves, and he treats Kage’s advice on how to deal with the media as the antithesis of this philosophy, a sanitizing of the fandom that only serves to hurt furry self-expression. This is by far the most divisive part about the movie and the source of its controversy. It seems to split people on whether or not they agree with Kage and think the treatment is unfair, or disagree with Kage and think he is finally getting his comeuppance. (For my part, I see Dominic's standpoint as strange: being who I am is not at odds with taking care of how I present myself to the media.) Regardless, I see comments form people who both agree and disagree with the treatment of Kage that this part of the film is the weakest. The most frequent comment is that Dominic comes off as too biased.

A smaller criticism I’ve seen one or two people bring up (and that I’ve had myself) is that a few of the people being interviewed for the documentary have a reputation in the fandom for... well... being rude or inconsiderate to other members of the fandom. It rather undercuts Dominic’s message that all furries should be free to be who they are, when, for some of them, who they are is a selfish boor. In the interest of not being a gossip,* no I don’t want to say who gives this impression. I will say that it seems they are the vast minority among interviewees.

With these positives and criticisms of the documentary, what do I think the impact of the movie will ultimately be? Will it be good or bad?

At this point, it’s hard to say. The documentary has only been out a few days. At a guess, I would say the impact will be good, but not extremely good. Outside the fandom, I’m already seeing a lot of articles that spend more time focusing on Kage than spend talking about how awesome the fandom itself is: I’m worried that the media narrative for the next year or two might be that furries aren’t weird, we’re just easily misled by a charismatic leader. And within the fandom, rather than starting a conversation about identity, which Dominic implied he wanted, it seems to have made people talk at one another, not with one another. But all that being said, there are a lot of good things in the film that a lot of people are liking and it appears to be good enough to beat out the bad parts of the film.


* No, really, I hate that part of the internet that wants to name names and turn people into objects of ridicule. I don't want to start a dogpile. I'm not saying who it was.

On Twitter, Pyrostinger asked whether the furry fandom is facing an editing crisis like the one described in this article: http://www.poynter.org/2016/journal.....out-it/407143/

My answer is no. Furry is facing a small editing crisis, but it’s not this one.

While more editors (and more time for the editors already present) would likely benefit furry publishing, we aren’t facing a shortage. We already have a lot of editors: Alopex, Jeff Eddy, Tim Susman, Jakebe, Ianus J. Wolf, Ashe Valisca, Ocean Tigrox, Tarl Hoch, Rechan, Fuzzwolf, Teiran, and many, many others have all been active in editing in the last few years. This doesn’t count the many writers who have acted as beta-readers, slush readers, proofreaders, and so on. More and more writers seem eager to try out the editing side of the publication business.

A lot of the skills required to edit writing are also skills required for writing in the first place. It requires a critical eye and attention to detail, knowledge of grammar and punctuation, as well as a feel for the highs and lows of a story. As writers, we can get lots of practice with the nitty-gritty of editing either by working as a beta-reader for other writers or by having our own work raked over by another editor (which tells us some things about what is important and what is not). The writing and editing communities in the furry fandom are gregarious. Everyone knows everyone else. So if ever we have a question, we know there is someone out there who can answer it for us.
That’s the ways in which the problems facing furry writers are different from those facing the radio business in the article.

Where I see a concern in the furry editing community is the potential for burnout. Comparing my experiences writing in the fandom with editing in the fandom, I find editing to be far more demanding and stressful and can leave me feeling underappreciated. Working with a writer and turning their story into something amazing is always a great feeling, but the reader doesn’t see all that hard work. Sometimes the writer doesn’t see all that hard work. The editor’s impact, if done right, should be invisible. Many editors don’t get paid very well to compensate for the work and stress either.

A lot of editors, simply put, do what we do because we feel the community needs us to do it. Writers—many of whom are our friends—need a place to share their voices, and so we edit. Readers want more and different stories (and they want it now!), and so we edit.

Because of that, editors can often overwork ourselves and take on more than we should. It’s easy for an editor to rush into a project, complete it in a hurry, and then come out the other side not wanting to touch a slush pile for months.

It's been a very busy time for me recently, so I thought I'd give an update on some things.


This past year I've been working hard as an editor of Sofawolf's HEAT magazine. The 11th issue is currently set to debut at AnthroCon this year. I can't divulge all the details of what's inside it, but there's lots of neat things this year.

I've also been working on a spy novel set in the Hotel at the End of the Road universe, called "Pandemonium." I completed the first draft for last year's NaNoWriMo and am currently about a fifth of the way through editing it for beta readers.

I've still been working on other projects with Sofawolf, most recently copy editing one of Kyell Gold's upcoming novels (and it was tremendously enjoyable as usual).

https://www.sofawolf.com/news/blog/.....zz-buster-sale

There are great deals at Sofawolf Press ending tonight. You can get 40% off Hot Dish (which I'm in!) and 50% off the beautiful Nordguard hardcovers, as well as other deals on Heat and the just released Digger Omnibus addition.



Furplanet and Bad Dog Books are also having a sale ending today as well: 15% off everything with the coupon code turkey15.

If you're interested in writing for these publications (or any of Sofawolf's other fine products), take a look at our new submission webpage here: https://sofawolfpress.submittable.com/submit

If you are interested in following my (mis)adventures, I can be found on Twitter at DarkEndWrites.

Several of the artists and writers who have worked on Heat #10 will be at Anthrocon. If you want to get them to sign your copy (or just thank them for being awesome and contributing their talents), you can find them at the following locations:

Flight Path illustrator Anyare will be in Artists' Alley on Friday and Sunday.

Isis illustrator Keovi will be at table O06 (That's column O, row 06) in the Dealers' Room.

Isis writer Kyell Gold will be around a lot. Visit his website for more info.

The Fangs of Love illustrator Stigmata and Repaid in Silver illustrator Toulouse will be at table N03 in the Dealers' Room together!

The Delicate Game illustrator Dark Natasha will be at table E18 in the Dealers' Room.

In Season writer Tempe O'Kun will be at the Sofawolf Table (I01) in the Dealers' Room.

Best of the Best illustrator Shinigamigirl will be at table D16 in the Dealers' Room.

Mail Bonding illustrator (and writer!) Blotch will be at table E05 in the Dealers' Room.

Heat #10 (https://www.sofawolf.com/products/heat-10) will be on sale at AnthroCon in just a few weeks. Be sure to pick up a copy!

Lots of updates!

"Hot Dish" (http://swp.im/p/hd) has been published and contains my short-story "The Moment at Eternity" and a bunch of other great stories. (My personal favorite is "Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre" by Huskyteer.) I, along with Fred Patten, worked as a copy editor for this book. If you've given "Hot Dish" a read and enjoyed it, please put up a review on Goodreads or sofawolf.com.

Anthrocon is happening in a month and will also be the release of "Heat" volume 10 (https://www.sofawolf.com/coming-soon#heat10). I have a Downton Abbey--inspired story titled "The Delicate Game" appearing in Heat, which has been illustrated by Dark Natasha (Alopex has said that he did not choose her to illustrate my story based on the alliterative names, but I still have my suspicions), and I also served as an assistant story editor and copy editor. I'm really excited for this. Although I've seen all the stories, and they're great, I haven't yet seen any of the comics or almost any of the illustrations. Teagan Gavet (of Blotch fame) is helping with the art direction, and I can't wait to see what it will look like when its finished.

And recently, Alopex has asked me to take up story editing on a much larger project. I'm not going to say what. I'll let Alopex announce that when he chooses. But it is rather amazing to think of how far I've come just in the past year, from being a virtually unknown writer to being trusted with editing a major project by one of the premier furry publishers. It's making me feel very honored.

In my last journal, I mentioned that I was submitting my first story for publication.

Well, it was accepted!

The story is called "The Moment at Eternity" and is a part of the Hotel at the End of the Road series I have been writing. (If you liked Laika from "Necessary Monsters," she makes a mild reappearance here.) It will appear in Sofawolf's upcoming anthology, "Hot Dish," which should hopefully - fingers crossed - be making its debut at this years' Furry Weekend Atlanta in mid-March.

You can see more information, including the list of stories,  kamui's cover art, and snippits of  keovi's illustrations, over at Sofawolf's page here: https://www.sofawolf.com/coming-soon#hotdish

I've submitted my first erotic story for publication; it's from the tales from the Hotel at the End of the Road series.

Crossing my fingers.