I recently finished writing the second draft of my novel. Barring a readthrough to tighten it up and possible proofreading from other people, I think it's just about ready for primetime.
When I completed the first draft, I tried shopping it around to literary agents in the hopes of getting it professionally published. Unfortunately it failed miserably. As a result, I've decided this time to go for self-publishing, which will at least get it out onto the market. This brings up a number of questions, the most prominent of which being: where do I sell it? There are numerous self-publishing options of course, but knowing what they are would be a good start. I already know about place like itch.io and Amazon*, but gathering as many options as I can would probably be wise.
It also occurs to me that I might need to sort out cover artwork, though I may need to do further research before confirming that.
If you have any other suggestions I might follow up on, I would greatly appreicate whatever advice you can offer.

*Truth be told, I'm a bit hesitant about publishing via Amazon. On the one hand it's pretty much the biggest marketplace of really any kind on the internet, but on the other hand... well, it's Amazon - possibly one of the world's most vile and most immoral megacorporations.

I asked this on Twitter a while back, but all I got was bots - none of which were even purporting to offer what I was looking for. Bah.

Anyhoo, would anyone reading this happen to know where I might find somewhere to commission cosplay armour? I have a couple of kigurumi projects in mind which would require such clothing, and it'd be good to have places to start looking.

More specifically, I'm looking for something like either this: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/m.....20120415182847 or this: https://i1.wp.com/torf.mmo-fashion......emaleFront.png

The wizard stepped carefully into the chamber. Something otherwordly was definitely occuring - the contents and furniture of the room were scattered chaotically all about. Many things were still hovering to and fro, and an ethereal moan shuddered through the air.
"So what is it, master wizard?" the chamberlain asked tremulously. "A poltergeist?"
The wizard stroked his long, greying beard thoughtfully, briefly leaning to one side as a flagon hurled itself in his direction. "Maybe..." he pondered as the dented drinking vessel rolled away.
"Then again, maybe not. This haunting doesn't quite... taste right, so to speak. It feels somehow different to a poltergeist's work."
"W-well, is there anything we can do?"
"To begin, we need to ascertain the exact nature of this entity. Luckily, I have the correct instrument..."
The wizard reached into his robe and pulled out an odd glass cuboid, bound in an ornate brass frame. The interior of the vessel was full of a purplish fog, billowing and roiling to itself.
The chamberlain stared at the gas curiously. "What's that?"
"A simple experiment. Watch..."
The wizard held the glass cuboid out before him, hanging from a thin chain. Almost immediately, the purple miasma separated into red and blue, each colour neatly sequestering itself into one half of the vessel.
"Just as I suspected - a demon."

---

Something I came up with in the bath. If you don't get it, it's a science joke.

It's not Christmas or February anymore, but I still don't have anything to say, other than previous information is no longer true, for various reasons.

It's not Christmas anymore, but I don't have anything else to say.

Merr Chrismas

I've been doing quite a bit of gender-related introspection lately, as my last journal doubtless evinces. I've come to realise that despite being assigned male at birth, I really don't have much of a connection to masculinity or any of the traditional trappings thereof. Simply put, I have never really felt like a man beyond certain facts of my biology, and all that's ultimately just meat. Why should any of it define me?

So in the end, I've come to the decision that I'm non-binary. Whether this is a final judgment on my identity or simply another step on the path remains to be seen, but at least for the time being this is who I am. I'll be using they/them pronouns from now on.

As I established at length in the previous journal, I want to become an author. That much of myself is clear, but there are many other elements of my self that are not so clear, which tie tangentially into the author thing. Bear with me as I try to assemble my thoughts...

Those of you who have been following me and my doings for any length of time will know what a kinky fellow I am, and may well have noticed that one of my predominant kinks is feminisation. Seeing myself turned into a woman or dressed as a woman is a perennial favourite thing of mine. Coupled with a vague, general sense of dissatisfaction with my physical body, this leads me to wonder about my gender identity. I was born male and haven't really question my assigned gender for most of my life, but in recent years I've come to wonder if I wouldn't be happier as a woman.

Anyway, that's the groundwork. Now onto the author connection.

I want to become a published author (a successful author ideally, but one step at a time). Naturally I'm going to need to put my name on my books, but I'm not sure if I want to use my birth name. It's not a bad name and I don't have any negative feelings attached to it, but I'm not sure how connected to it I feel beyond it being what people in real life call me. I honestly can't recall if I've ever deliberately told anyone online that name - as far as I know, to all of you people I'm just "Myuphrid", and honestly I prefer it that way. As such, I'm considering publishing my writing under a pen name, to further divorce myself from a name I don't feel really suits me.

Herein lies the rub: part of my thinking for wanting to adopt this nom de plume connects to my earlier-mentioned gender querying. If I were to undergo transition, I've already picked out the name I'd switch to, and it's that name (initialled, at least) that I'm thinking of writing under. The main problem I have with the thought of doing this is the worry that committing in any way to such a pseudonym just to "try it out" as it were would be disrespectful to people who are genuinely transgender, who have confirmed their intent to transition or even embarked upon it. Would I just be a poser?

There's also the question of the logistics of living under two official names that daunts me, but the gender issue is the one that troubles me at present. So what do you all think? What are your thoughts on the matter? I would welcome outside input.

I've always been an inveterate lover of science-fiction and space opera, so it's no surprise that my literary ambitions would first go there, in the form of my still-incomplete novel Laszlo Hadron and the Wargod's Tomb. In all likelihood, whatever shape it ends up taking, this will probably form the foundation of my literary career, such as it may be in the fullness of time.

However, I'm not just a one-note person, and in recent years there's been something on the backburner. Inspired by such fantasy stand-bys as Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and Elder Scrolls, I've gradually been building up the bones of a sword-and-sorcery universe. At the moment it's just a few preliminary notes on a few races therein, but I may well be able to turn it into something more substantial in due course. I've been playing Oblivion and Skyrim lately and exploring a fantasy realm like Tamriel really makes me want to create one of my own. For the moment though, there's no real centre to build an actual story around - all I think I could do with it would be to make a shallow yet overwrought D&D campaign that no-one would ever play.

To be honest, I do have concerns about the originality of the whole business. Is doing the usual Tolkienian/D&D-esque elves/dwarves/orcs thing too much of a tiresome cliche to even bother with at this point? But on the other hand, am I creative enough to come up with something original, or at least non-derivative?

It's a bit of a moot point at present in any event. I think for now I should probably concentrate on getting Wargod's Tomb finished and published, so I can at least get my stake in the literary world. Maybe it'll be a first step that'll lead me to greater things, be they sci-fi or fantasy, and I can decide how I build on it when the time comes. Though part of me fears it'll be lucky to remain in single-digit readership obscurity forever. We'll see what the future brings, I suppose, if I can ever actually write the damn thing.

I've been a bit quiet around here lately - sorry about that. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it's been quite a grim year, even for someone as isolated and reclusive as me. I hope you've all been holding up okay.

Anyhoo, just dropping a line to let people know that I've found my way to another social media site, which I hope to be a bit more active on: Pillowfort! It's rather nostalgic of the old LiveJournal days, back in the mists of ancient time, so if you're on there or plan to be on there, feel free to give me a look-up there: https://www.pillowfort.social/Myuphrid

Oh, and just so we're clear on where I stand on current events: Black lives matter.

Yeah, I'm doing one too.

Anyway, new year's eve/day is not really a great time for me - it's an inherently introspective time, and I don't really do well with introspection - but I hope 2020 brings you all the happiness and prosperity you could ask for!

It's been three months or so since my last journals, and it's long past time I cleared it off my front page, given that it's not Christmas anymore. Posting my costume ideas list seems like as good an idea as any.

This list will probably grow in due course, but this is a good starting point, I think.

"Commander Shepherd"
- Commander Shepard as a German Shepherd
Apollo
- A spaceplane aeromorph/planesona
Regina the Nidoqueen
- A very thickly (thicc-ly?) padded Nidoqueen fursuit
Rubber bunny
- An inflatable latex bunnygirl suit
Velour Vaporeon
- A padded velour Vaporeon plushsuit
Kirk the Bat
- A bat fursuit with big ol' wings
Electra
- A gynoid kigu
Princess KooPeach
- A Koopa-fied version of Princess Peach, based on this: https://twitter.com/guohoho/status/.....16429980561408
Hart the Sissybuck
- A sissylicious deerboy permanently wearing a pretty frilly dress
Asari kigu
- A kigurumi of an asari from Mass Effect

Any other ideas I've forgotten?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMRBYpbAHpk

I've been sitting on this joke all day.

I'm a hopeless costume addict, as you may well already be aware. My costume list is always growing to include more creatures, characters and concepts, beyond my capacity to afford or store all of them. But sometimes I'll get particularly fixated on one. And today is no different.

Specifically, I've become quite enamoured with a certain fusion of Nintendo characters, but it's not the one you might be thinking of. It is in fact this one: https://twitter.com/guohoho/status/.....16429980561408
As you can see, she's an absolute cutie, and she's become the focus of my latest fursuit crush.

I briefly toyed with the idea of making her head a kigu mask, like Sumire, but a fursuit-style head would probably be a better fit. Besides, I'm also thinking of getting a standard human Peach mask in that style, so I might as well switch things up. My main issue at this point is how to tackle the dress and the Koopa bits. Currently I'm faced with two opitons:
1. Make the Koopa pieces fully integrated with the dress so it's an all-in-one costume - or at least that the dress is specifically designed to include the tail/shell/paws/etc.
2. Make the dress a perfectly normal Peach dress that can be worn alone with no problems, and make the Koopa bits fully separate pieces.
I'm leaning towards option 2 for the sake of vanilla humanoid Peach cosplay, but option 1 may be significantly easier to make, so I'll not rule it out entirely just yet.

In any case, if you happen to have any input on commissioning such a suit or any other relevant suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them! Please, offer your feedback!

Twenty-eight years, My goodness, how time flies. Why, it seems it was only a year ago that I was turning twenty-seven years old!

... oh, wait. It was. So that's how that works.

But yeah, it's my 28th birthday. Huzzah!

So my purple dragoness character is now named Amethyst. Perhaps a slightly more prosaic and unoriginal name, but at least it's not a slur. As nice as MAT3K references are, I'm no longer comfortable enough with that aspect of the name to keep it.

So you'll no doubt be aware that I have a purple dragoness character whom everyone seems to like. You may also be aware that her name, while originally given as an innocent MST3K reference, carries some rather unfortunate connotations. I've often thought of renaming her something less questionable, but I've finally decided to go through with it.

Thus far, the top two (and indeed only) candidates are "Amethyst" and "Veronica". I'm leaning towards Amethyst, but if any of you have any other suggestions, then I'd be happy to hear them! Let's have 'em!

Deleted the previous journal. It came from a rather bad place emotionally, and the situation is moving on.

So how are you?

For a long while Telegram refused to play any notification sound, which needless to say didn't help with keeping up with contacts. Someone suggested reinstalling it to get it to work again, so I did... and now I can't seem to actually use it at all anymore. No activation code is forthcoming, not via SMS and definitely not via the previous app. Becuase I just uninstalled it.

So I guess I won't be using Telegram anymore in future. Discord details available on request.

I don't really have anything to say right now, but I think perhaps it's about time I cleared the Christmas journal off my page. No idea whether such journals should be taken down at the same time as the tree and other paraphernalia, but nigh-on Valentine's Day is probably pushing it a bit.

But enough seasonal rambling. How are you?

To everyone east of the Greenwich Meridian, I wish you all a merry Christmas, and a happy new year!

Everyone to the west, similar wishes to be dispatched at your respective midnights.

Yeah, I thought it was probably about time I cleared that eight-month-old journal off my page. Not only is it gathering dust, but that question's already been answered anyway.

I'm tempted to apologise for going a bit quiet, but between Petra and my usual stream of commissions I guess I haven't really. So it goes. Just a heads-up though, art from me may dry up a bit over the course of 2018, since I'll be trying to save up for another costume. I do love them.

As for something to actually say right now, why not leave this as an open forum for whatever questions you may have of me? It's not Tuesday here in the UK anymore, but we can consider this a semi-formal TMI Tuesday. Ask away!

You ever have that feeling when you're so tkaen with a certain costume that you want your own? Well, it happened to me again.

Anyhoo, I'm thinking of getting a costume of Argaila, the character depicted here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/23095078/
My plan was for her to be an animegao kigurumi costume - however, my resources when it comes to getting costume pieces is limited. To that end, I'm putting it to you to provide whatever advice you might have.

So I'm looking for either a kigurumi mask maker who might be able to make a Twi'lek mask - either that or a set of wearable lekku that would work with a mask like that.
I'm also looking for someone who'd be able to create her outfit. I daresay this might be easier, but as I said, I don't know for sure.

Any help you might be able to offer would be appreciated!

I'm fresh from Pinewood having seen this movie, and... wow.

Rogue One is incredible - if your opinion of Star Wars is even remotely positive, you need to see this film. It may not be part of the mainline series, but nonehteless it's a worthy entry in the canon of the saga. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was on the verge of tears at the climax.

Hell, I might even go so far as to place it higher in my estimation than The Force Awakens. It's practically a love letter to the original trilogy.

See it. Seeeeee iiiiit.

Just a quick one here - I'm a bit proud of this thing.

Lego Vic Viper!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwizXUeXgAAdKe-.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwizWu0XUAAXhcb.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwizYLbWEAEKoZw.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwizWHvXEAELFBL.jpg