I will be at MFM this year, solo as my partner and I had planned to travel together but with his current situation we decided to have him skip this year, although I will miss his company we might be able to swing it next year. For now, we just were glad Vegas worked out, and we know how to handle such things in the future. That being said.

I plan to fly in on Thursday, I will be there until Monday. At this time it is the last currently scheduled trip, although I may add another depending on how things go at work. They're changing our PTO system again to try and reduce the financial liability, and it means that we can't really hoard our PTO like some of us used to, although supposedly it's due to the large number of new employees PTO levels? In any case.... We'll see.

For now, I am looking into things I'd like to do, planning for next year's STLV and probably if they do a third BSG convention I may try to go to that again. It was fun the first time although much more mellow than Vegas which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it was actually kind of low key and a nice trip. Regardless, once I return then I will figure out what my plans are for the rest of the year travel and otherwise.

It's my hope to prepare Vanguard for publication next, and then continue editing either Winterfall 2 and or the Blue Moon anthology while ramping up on the next project I can put in the pipeline.

Also when I come back I will pick another short story to release, and hopefully I can start another one soon. I have a new idea that right now is in the super early stages, my protagonist doesn't even have a full name yet. But we'll see.

 laurenrivers

Hey all,

I'm back for a bit between STLV and MFM. It'll just be me this time around as it was a bit much for us to try to arrange for travel two weeks apart on top of my partner's care. Things are okay for the most part although I am still not happy with my state but it has not reached the point that I need to pull the rip cord... yet.

That being said, I am looking forward to seeing y'all in the new hotel in a couple of weeks, and then after that hopefully things will get back to normal for a little while.

I need to make some plans, but for now just wanted to send a heads up and let y'all know I'll be at MFM, likely going to bring Lexi this time. Travel light. We'll see!

 Laurenrivers

And today marks the official release date for Winterfall. The first of a planned series, this is the story of a post apocalyptic frozen wasteland and the people who struggle to survive within it.

Winterfall

I actually thought that would take longer. So it seems like it's finally ready. Release date is 7/15/25. Time to get excited.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD941LHR

Hey folks.

So I know it's been tough, I've recently got some indirect personal news that is likely to make life a bit more complicated (just what I needed, right?) but one step at a time. I may have to move some things around, figure something out, but we'll figure out what we need to do one way or the other. Anyway. Pride. I think now more than ever it's important that we remember pride and being who we are. It's important that no matter what they try to do we keep trying and we keep reaching out. Wear your pins, display pride in whatever way you feel comfortable doing. Whether it be furry art on FA or the trans socks I wear or a trans pride pin if you've got one. It doesn't have to be huge, but it is important that we stand for what we believe in and for others who can't.

I hope one day it won't be necessary, and we can all just be who we are and be celebrated for it. But until then, we just have to make sure we celebrate each other, and take the moments where we can.

 LaurenRivers

Hey everyone.

Hope everyone is doing well, as well as we can under the circumstances. From what I hear conversion therapy is no longer considered child abuse in TX, although maybe they finally outlawed underage marriage? I think it's pretty safe to say that I definitely have serious doubts about the overall sanity of the country right now.

Of course, there are bright spots, like Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and Cory Booker and AOC, who have been standing up for the people and common sense. A lot of the things that are happening now are pretty bad, and what's worse is that most of them were preventable. They did not need to happen. There is food rotting in warehouses that was meant for starving people that they don't have the money to distribute because of the USAID cuts. The new COVID vaccine that's been proven safe, is heavily restricted.

I've never felt more like I'm on my own in my life. And being in a red state hasn't made that better.

For right now, I'm staying put. But, depending on what laws pass and how things go, I am strongly considering relocating somewhere else in the US. For now, I'm holding out hope we'll outlast this. And for now, I'm staying here because I simply don't have the capability to pick up just now. But I also only want to move once, if I have to. For now, I'm just gathering info, speaking out when I can, and trying my hardest to stay level.

It is not without irony that two of the books I am reading are about the effects of a large group on a smaller one. Star Trek : SNW - Asylum talks about the larger Chionians trying to force the nomadic Euxhana into state sponsored schools, forbidding them to speak their language, and so on.... And The Time He Desires is a story about the gentrification of a neighborhood, people coming in and changing what it was to something that to them is better, bringing in people that extinguish the character of a place...

I don't know what my original intention was when writing this, I've been trying to be optimistic and do what I can, as much as I can, while I can. I have a lot of dreams, and if I have to I'll keep making them until such a time that I can share them, but for now I hold out hope that we will get through this.


As for me, I am working on some short stories for a special project, and then I am back full speed on editing and other such things. I promise my next journal will be more uplifting.

Stay well.

 laurenrivers

KOSA isn't about protecting children. It's censorship. Call and write your reps. We need to stop this in it's tracks.

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11140572/
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11140572/
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11140572/

A really good piece by John Oliver. All across the country people are trying to legislate against people like me, and it really is such a non issue it's ridiculous. Trans people aren't the problem. We're just trying to live our lives.

Some good news.



A couple things to mention. Starting I think tomorrow, I'm posting videos about some uncomfortable topics such as the bill mentioned in my last journal. I'm going to try to be more outspoken about these sorts of things and the person I am to try to make a difference and maybe teach some things, we'll see. Now in theory this might actually increase my video output as there will be more videos to share the writing slots so it might help in increasing the cushion I have but I dunno. For now, it'll fill some spots and hopefully add my voice to the voices for equality and compassion out there.

Also, new story dropping soon, and I plan to drop a piece of art and piece for this year's Trans Day of Visibility.

I ask that when I do, y'all boost it if you can, as it is really important now more than ever.

 laurenrivers

So apparently Texas is trying to make being transgender a felony. Because of course it does.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out.....ony-rcna195642

And while it does indicate the bill is unlikely to pass, because I hope at least that people aren't bold enough to go that far, and that there are enough good people in Texas to ensure that it doesn't, although regardless it is concerning.

Should the worst happen, it would mean I'd have to grab what I can and Thelma and Louise it somewhere else, but before I go that far, I plan to donate to pro trans and trans equality causes in my state, and I plan to spread the word about this as I can to ensure that this canary dies in the coal mine.

But if anything happens to me I want folks to know why.

And if you don't know me, I'm a transgender woman. I'm a law abiding tax paying person who works a regular job. I take care of my partner and I write stories. I help people where I can and I am always open to self examination and meeting new people.

Nice to meet you.

Okay, well, so far I'm still here. I took a few days off to try to catch up a little and while I think it helped, I am still working on getting to a place where I can feel good about things. I've been not writing while the bedroom was torn apart and now that it's back together I am trying to get my discipline and focus up to a good level.

On the downside I found some parts of the project I was working on were just gone, despite the fact that I'd saved and remembered doing more work on those chapters. The files weren't missing, they were there, just stopped at an earlier point for reasons I'm unable to determine, but in some cases I was planning on editing anyway.

There's just so much to do and a lot of the times when I read folks stuff I feel very inadequate. Now I know that's probably imposter syndrome and there's also the point that it is a finished polished work versus a WIP, but I want to release more stuff. I want to get more written, and I want to do it without stressing myself out. Finding balance has been tricky.... I let FA get a bit out of hand while trying to focus, it's one more thing for me to deal with, but I'm trying bit by bit to get caught up and find a way to stay there.

I think I may try to do a pride month story for VOD. What I would like for a minimum goal is to finish one large project and 6 small ones a year, if I can do that I'll be happy. More would be better, but one step at a time.

 laurenrivers

Hello All!

Well, after some needed home repairs and setting up my new PC plus throwing out a bunch of things that I just can't afford to keep, we are left with a neater, more efficient workspace and a hopefully good setup from here on in. It was a lot of work, but I tink that the changes have been largely for the better, and as usual my organization comes in handy. There's more to do, things to toss and organize and so on, but it's getting there.

Bear with me as I take a little while to get back up to speed. I know there's a lot more art to upload and things to do, so bear with me while I get set.

I will share more pictures and hopefully get better about posting and releasing things this year, as well as just general goings on, so please stand by. ;)

 LaurenRivers

So here we are in 2025, and while there are a lot of questions in the near future, I'd like to talk about where I am personally.

I'm not where I thought I would be, but I do plan that this year I will release at least one project, and hopefully at least one every year going forward, beyond that, we'll see. I'd planned to try to do more but I know that the more I focus on arbitrary goals rather than the steps themselves I stress out more and get less done. So I'm going to try to look at it more as getting the steps completed, and doing what I can do.

Winterfall is complete and is as edited as it is going to get. I have gone through it several times and taken notes from test readers, and I think it is in the best shape it is going to be. My plan is to prepare it for publication and go through those final steps and get it out before Winter (the season) is done. When that happens, I'm going to move straight into editing the sequel, a process I had started but put aside when it was clear the first needed more work.

I'm refining my plans for what to do on youtube and the mostly likely effect for the short term is there may be some missing weeks but that may be filled by other videos I will be making to promote Winterfall, but we'll see. While there is no shortage of things to talk about in Vlogs and books to review, I need to find a consistent way to fill the other slot.

On a personal note I'm working on changing over the last of my documents, something I had been procrastinating on, and trying to move forward given the incoming administration. After the current ones I'm giving my attention to I will only have one left.

Convention plans are likely to be MFM and STLV, I do not think I will be doing a third convention this year, although I am delighted to hear that BSG is going to be doing another con, but it is at both a time and location that is inconvenient even if I were inclined to go. That being said, I will possibly go the year following, but we will see how things look at that time.

With Winterfall's release and hopefully more to follow, I plan to try to release more work this year and continue to build my library, and hopefully my plans for 2026 will be bolder still.

 LaurenRivers

So the tension headache I had for about a week has finally become manageable and I'm more or less back up and running, doing what I can to make progress. On the one hand recent events still concern me but they have also to some degree focused me a little. I'm still disappointed and I don't think that we made the right choice as a country, but that being said, I own my house, I've got a good job, and I'm at a supportive workplace.

Beyond that, I don't know right now.

But, I'm trying to write some new material and also I need to release some of what I've been sitting on. I just need to do some of the things I've been putting off, regardless of my fears (ones having nothing to do with the election). And that being said, today I'm going to edit some more of the final chapters of Winterfall so I can get it out the door sometime this winter. Then I've got to figure out how to prioritize my time to get maybe something I've been sitting on forever done and out, and Winterfall 2, which will need editing.

I've also concluded that I need to narrow my focus to keep on top of things, and a few artists I follow on both accounts I'll probably just follow here so that I'm not doing double work. Don't worry y'all, you're not losing a follower, I just can't have all this stuff on two accounts just for S&G's. ;)

Anyway, that's all for now.

 LaurenRivers

That is probably the understatement of the year. But it is such a far cry from where I was as a child, when I thought that we were all pulling in the same direction, we just didn't agree on how to get there. But now I wonder. I was thinking of what to say here, certain I should say something.

I'm concerned. I won't lie. I'm also in a deeply red state where I am pretty well rooted. My job is here, we own our house, and even if I were inclined to go somewhere I'm not sure if it's feasible.

My stress level has jumped pretty high this last week, I made a vlog but to my credit I also edited a video review for youtube so production continues. I've had a semi consistent tension headache and my eyes don't like a lot of movement right now so I dunno... I'm trying not to let things affect the time I have right now to make a difference, and I do intend to do what I can.

I really hope that people can get back to where they're willing to compromise. Where they'll help a neighbor or learn something new about someone they never talked to before.

Right now it's hard to be optimistic. But I'm going to do what I can.

 laurenrivers

Hey folks,

Here's a kickstarter started by a very good friend of mine  sir-talen, a furry writer whose work I really enjoy and so far have reviewed a fair number of his stories. He's gathering together some funds for an illustrated story and if it's anything like anything else he's written I'm certain I'll enjoy it, and you probably will too.

So if you're into some wholesome BDSM goodness, check it out and consider pledging. At the very least I'd love to see it meet it's base goal, and if we're lucky, hit a few of them stretch goals. So give it a look!

https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....rated-edition#

Hey everyone. Just shooting up a signal flare. I had intended to hopefully release Winterfall by the end of the month, but there are some edits I still need to make and I don't know how long that's going to take. But for now that's my immediate focus and some of the feedback I received made me reconsider a couple of scenes from the sequel. So I know I'll be editing for the next little while, but progress is being made. I have a few short stories I can release in the meantime, so I might do that in the interim, but we will see.

For now, I'm back to work. :)

 LaurenRivers

Want to see the latest submission come together?

Go here!

Youtube time-lapse vid over yonder → https://youtu.be/obtTenUlpBc

WOW, I come back to check my FA and there's been an upsurge in new watchers! Welcome all, and I hope to have some semi regular uploads for you going forward. I hope to share some writing with you soon though right now I'm heavy into editing some things, and working on a short story, so hopefully soon I'll have some things to share. Today, a new character (to you) that I've been working on for a while. ;)

Make yourself at home!

 LaurenRivers

So I'm fairly picky about my artists. I prefer more on the realistic side of things to toony, and a lot of my settings tend to be urban/post apocalyptic, meaning a fair amount of detail/technology. Now I've lately been trying to find a few artists that fit my preferences, and while I've found a few, most of them seem to not work off written descriptions, which is an initial problem as if it is the first time I am getting them drawn, this leaves most of them as non starters.

That being said, I'm sure as an artist it means you have less revisions you need to do or whatever the reason it's not that I don't understand it, but with a lot of characters that at least so far do not have any art, it makes it difficult to break through that threshold.

In any event. If anyone knows anyone that fits in the subset of

Can do technology
Can do any species
More realistic than toony

Point me their way or vice versa. I can always use more potential artists, bonus points if you find one that will work off descriptions, at least to get the ball rolling on other works.

Also, still looking for room space for TFF, if anyone has some.

 LaurenRivers

Okay, folks.

So this year I am going to try my level best to be more visible, on here, social media, and other platforms. I need to if I'm going to get this thing off the ground, and with luck, maintaining will be easier than startup costs. But to do that I'll need to try to be more active overall, and that starts here.

First, I have a possible favor to ask. I failed to get a TFF room, but if there is anyone going that would have room for a zebra, I might be convinced to try my hoof at artists alley. I hope to have at least one book to sell by then, but if anyone has room space it would be extra incentive for me to get my stuff together and be there. I'm quiet, I don't take up a lot of space, and I would be spending most of my time probably at the table, if I am so fortunate. So if you're going and you're looking for someone to share room costs, maybe you'd be amenable to opening up some space for me. ;)

If not, then I will probably prepare anyway, as one way or another I have a lot of work to do. But I want to ask, just in case, since I avoided looking at TFF's hotel until after it had apparently sold out.

My immediate goal is to try to get Winterfall 1 published or ready to be published, and then to prep Winterfall 2 while I work on the next project. Then I can start announcing things formally.

 laurenrivers

There's that struggle to keep up with social media again. I used to be better at it but then I ended up getting a lot more into actually working on my stories, and the time I try to set aside for social media stuff either gets taken up by the effort of keeping up, or my cat traps me in bed making it hard to get up on time.

I have been procrastinating on publishing my book, and I need to get back on that. I let the holidays slip by without doing much in favor of trying to work on some outlines.

Now what I did accomplish is finish the outline for all five Winterfall books, so there's that. I'm halfway through act four of Winterfall 2's first draft, so there's that. So not entirely unaccomplished. But there's a lot more that I need to do, and my procrastination may have thrown some of that out of whack.

With luck, I'll get my hair redyed this week, and beyond that, we'll see.

 LaurenRivers

So keeping up with social media is always a challenge for me, especially since I've been doing pretty well lately at keeping up with producing writing and video content, but doing both always seems to be a struggle as they're all competing for the same amount of time. But I really should get better at the social media thing. I used to, but then I was doing a lot less writing then.

But on the plus side, things are going well, I am hoping to be able to put Winterfall together soon for publication though I think a 2023 release is probably off the table at this point, but that means full steam ahead for 2024. I've been making good progress with Winterfall: Cold Front, though my efforts to outline the next project have been nonexistent as I've been using most of my time/energy to work on my current project. But worse comes to worse I do have some projects done, or if need be I can take a week off to try to wrangle the project under control.

Either way, the goal is to keep moving, a little bit at a time. ;) I think once I get the process committed to memory and the bugs worked out, they'll be coming to you much faster. Hopefully new stories soon. I have a few I need to release, at least one should probably come out before the end of the year.

Back to the grindstone.

 laurenrivers

Well, Shrag and I are back from our first ACFI in San Antonio. As my first furry con in over a year, I went to it for a couple of reasons. We found that the mega conventions like AC and such are a bit too busy for us, but we tried a small convention and it was just a little too small. The hotel was a nice facility but with a fair amount of furries there was not a lot of space to loiter and move around which was not too great. I took one fursuit, Topaz, with a few outfits, and overall we had a good time, save for some traffic on the way up. But I will say that I think we may look for slightly larger cons for our target goal, and though we are considering MFM for next year.

I am also thinking that I may end up doing two furry cons a year, one to sell books and one to just have fun. Right now it's a tentative but I might like to give TFF's Artist Alley a shot. If I can get my book together.

Also I am thinking about my suit goals going forward, and what I want to keep available. There are a few I think I will offload, but it will require time for me to think about which ones and what their ultimate disposition will be. I know that Lauren, Topaz, and Lexi are staying, though Lauren may get a 2.0. I may keep up to 5, but I am fairly certain I will be parting with elephant Lauren. It doesn't fit, and while it seemed like a good idea at the time, having so many made it hard to choose and I tended to favor Lauren Prime over her variant. So all that together kind of makes me think I might sell it, but the bodysuit itself is made of a rather light material that I don't know how durable it is. Plus the identifying feature, the hair, is a bit tricky. But we'll see. It'll require me to decide what I am dumping, what I am keeping, and what I want to get, if anything.

Overall, ACFI was nice, and I like that it's close, but there wasn't a lot of folks I knew there. We might go back, but probably not until it upgrades to a larger hotel.

 laurenrivers